Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Recommended Movies

The wife and I went out on the town this afternoon to see the new Batman (The Dark Knight) at a matinee (both of us being self employed has its advantages ). The previous Chris Nolan/Chris Bale Batman had pretty much set the bar for comic book super-hero adaptations for me. This new movie has set the benchmark way the hell higher. What an extraordinary film. Riveting throughout and everything being bandied about over the Oscar-worthiness of Heath Ledger's final role IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE! Ledger's punk-anarchist Joker stole the film. Who knew he had it in him? It'll be tough for Chris Nolan to follow this one up! Even if you have a great HT, this one is definitely worth seeing at a great theater.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com

I totaly agree. We saw it at an IMAX theater and it was outstanding if a little long. I strongly suggest anyone seeing it do so at a theater with a very good sound system and the largest screen you can find or better yet, at an IMAX. I read that a lot of it was shot using IMAX cameras which I think is the first commercial film to do that. Heath Ledger was terrific.

Ken

I enjoyed ' The Bank Job ' with Jason Statham :

http://www.axelmusic.com/productDetails/031398236146

Its not exactly demo material , but the fact that the story is based on fact makes it a bit of a page turner . Nice to see the old 'Sweeney' style clobber of the 70s once again too

Review here :

http://Bluray.highdefdigest.com/1453/bankjob2008.html


Best

~M~

What about a category for Music DVDs?

'Faithless - Live At Alexandra Palace' would be my highly recommended disc. I had a personal demo' of this in Meridian's theatre after a tour of the factory, but that's a story for another thread...

"Burn After Reading" - a laff riot.

Iron Man on blu-ray is an excellent demo disk, especially for its audio track. The movie was also pretty good, especially if you like action and superhero movies.

Although not the greatest of movies, the blu-ray of Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull is technically stunning, both for audio and video. I believe this movie was "filmed" digitally, which helps.

Check out August Rush if you get a chance (available on BD).

The sound track is great.

Live and Let Die on Blu-Ray.

A so-so soundtrack but the visual detail makes up for it - one can see the metalflake in the gel-coat of the Gastron GT-150!

It was shot on 35mm, with anamorphic lenses, just like the other three. Spielberg refuses to shoot digitally. The one rule of his that he did break with Indy 4 however was to do a digital intermediate (where the negative is scanned, graded in the digital realm at 2k or 4k resolution [in this case 2k], then sent back out to film again).

Some uselss trivia: He`d only done a digital intermediate once before, on The Terminal, and neither he nor Janus Kaminski were pleased with the final result so I was surprised - and disappointed - that Indy4 got one... but then Spielberg did break every promise he'd initially made that he'd be adopting traditional techniques on the fourth Indiana Jones film.


I might as well recommend a disc whilst posting. How the West was Won on Blu-ray is magnificent.

Considering Baraka was scanned at 8K, and has gotten OUTASTANDING reviews, I'm surprised he did not at least opt for 4K scanning. Why only 2K? He is not short on money...

In any case, BARAKA has gotten outstanding reviews, and is visually stunning with 8K scanning of the 70mm negative. Make Baraka your next purchase as it will also be your video demo of choice. The audio is outstanding as well.

The number of films getting a 4k digital intermediate is growing, but the numbers still pale in comparison to the majority which settle on 2k due to factors of time and cost.

It`s no secret that few filmmakers or producers care about ensuring film prints are of the highest standards, and where there`s no 35mm projection 2k digital projection dominates so they adopt a “why bother?” attitude when it comes to doing post above 2k. It`ll all come back to bite them in the arse eventually as new films are not striving to protect themselves for the future like archival restorations of classics are (where the work is typically being done at 4k+ resolutions). With Indy4 I don`t know. Lucas controlled the purse strings and the abundance of CG work is likely to have made a 2k workflow more practical.

I`m looking forward to Baraka. I find Reggio`s ‘Qatsi` trilogy more challenging and thrilling but that`s not to dismiss Baraka as the lush masterpiece it is in its own right.