The Essential Blu-Rays - Page 2

Avatar. That is all. This movie looks absolutely STUNNING on bluray, so much so that I wouldnt ever want to see it on regular dvd.

Sin City. I know not everybody's still hot on that flick, but dear lord, it's just drop dead gorgeous on Blu Ray. Every damn frame's a work of art, and the the color representation when it happens is just milked to perfection.

Same goes for 300, but I also know the intentional grain rubbed some people the wrong way, and even less people seem to like that flick around these parts. But for my money, stick any random frame from there on a big enough screen next to a Rubens painting, aside from the fact that more people are screaming, it'd be hard to tell the difference.

I don't know, I definitely prefer 300 to Sin City. Not sure I'd watch either of them with any frequency though.

Funny you should mention that, because the blu comes with the DVD and my father put in the wrong disc once. I wasn't in the room when he did this, but when I realized he put the wrong disc in, it was a revelation the second the blu ray was put in.

Back to the Future was on TV today, watched some of it and can't wait to grab that blu-ray, but this makes me jealous.

(OT: I re-read the 1st page of this thread, oh the memories)

Agreed.

I bought the combo pack with the Blu-Ray disc and the DVD. I put in the DVD, and it looked good. Then I put in the Blu-Ray, and holy balls, I could not believe the difference. It really is night-and-day. Watching the DVD was like watching the movie with Vaseline smeared all over the TV screen. On top of rampant color desaturation with those blue Na'vi, compared to the BD.

If you ever want to convert someone over to Blu-Ray, all you have to do is play those two discs head-to-head on a 1080p HDTV.

I had that experience with the Hellboy II blu-ray (which deserves to be on this list). I remember watching the blu and thinking 'meh, this doesn't look that much better than the DVD, does it?' So I popped the DVD in and was all 'Fuck me!' The amount of intricate detail in the costumes and sets in that film is pretty fucking astonishing. For the best comparison look at the throne room scene. Especially look at Balor's chest plate.

No Country for Old Men. A brilliant transfer. Even though there are next to zero extras, the Blu-Ray is worth it for the transfer alone.

Oh and 2001 is not too shabby as well.

The First Blood and Rambo: FB Pt2 blu's are completely bare-bones (well, they are over here, anyway), but holy balls! The transfers! THE TRANSFERS!!!

I was sitting there thinking to myself "I saw this movie 25 years ago on a brand new VHS when it first came out. Is it completely wrong that quarter of a century later I'm seeing it 100x clearer than I ever have in my life?".

Obviously, from a technical standpoint, it's common sense. But the reality of it still kinda blows me away a little bit everytime. Same with the 50th anniversary disc of Psycho.

I completely agree. Although it's kind of a shame the first Rambo didn't get high def audio. Whenever I see a movie from the 80s am pretty amazed. Hell I was even impressed with the Puppet Master transfer. I mean it's horrible but compare to what came before it's amazing.

I will needlessly third the Thing and Big Trouble in Little China. The Thing is the best blu ray I own.

I was struck recently that for the first time I can remember, watching Terminator 1 on blu ray felt classic, and T2, for the first time ever, felt like it was in an awkward state of aging.

Best TV series, Firefly. It looks awesome, sounds good, and the extras are actually enjoyable.

Evidently you haven't seen Lost or Battlestar Galactica on blu.

I'm sure the filmed sections look great, but I'd wait until Firefly's CGI is actually rendered in HD before calling it essential.

Uh... have you seen the Special Edition (previously mentioned)? It has a pretty good heap of extras.


Also: Let's throw the Criterion Edition The Thin Red Line on there. Oh my. My, my, my, my, my.

It may not be the cream of the crop, but Carpenter's original Assault on Precinct 13 looks so much better on blu-ray than you would ever expect.

Fight Club does indeed sound phenomenal. Much richer than the DVD mix or what I remember from my theater experience, but that was a long time ago. (God, has it really been 10 years??) I am almost suspicious that this is a new audio mix of the film, as it feels much more dynamic and impressionistic. Anyways, the improved video (plus all the extras from the DVD release) along with the ear-opening audio qualifies this as essential, I think.

OH.MY.GOD...I hope this gets a US release.

Been on a bit of a tear buying up blu-rays whenever they're on sale for cheap and finally got both Blade Runner and Fight Club. (Also picked up Dr. Strangelove and The Dark Knight. Also both essential.)

Watching Blade Runner right now and it is an absolutely beautiful transfer. I'm compelled to make a joke about how my eyeballs are getting their fuck on but that's just depressing. Anyways.... the colors are rich and natural. The grain is tight and focused without a hint of DNR. The image is perfectly detailed without much in the way of oversharpening. I'm assuming the audio is up to snuff as it's late and I can't crank the sound up.

It'd be essential without all the supplemental materials. With all the extras, it's almost overkill. Almost.

Fight Club's new audio transfer is a thing of aural beauty. Definitely the selling point for me. I almost want to say they sweetened it expressly for this release. That said, for a film as dark and grimy as this the video transfer actually is pretty great. I originally saw this under not the best conditions and a lot of the nuance was lost on me. On blu-ray, I picked up on a lot more of the visual details (like the splices and such) than I ever did on DVD or in the theater.

I keep an eye out for used blu rays - when it comes to Gladiator, what packaging should I look for to get the better one you're describing?

I second the love for The Adventures of Robin Hood, Avatar, Blade Runner, The Godfather, Hellboy II, BBC's Life (Attenborough, I can't stand Oprah's narration), LOST, Mad Men, Star Trek '09, and The Wizard of Oz.  All fantastic discs in terms of picture quality.  My audio system is not much to speak of, a mere 2.0 with good receiver and a pretty nice set of speakers, but what comes out is very nice and crystal clear.

 

I'll go just ahead and throw a few of my favorites that haven't been mentioned in the mix.

 

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was one that blew me away when I got it home.  I had purchased the previous 5 films on DVD and watched Order of the Phoenix right before I popped my Blu-ray in.  It really made my night.  Almost better than in the theater.  (Also, marrying into the first 5 films on Blu-ray a bit later didn't suck either.)

 

Pan's Labyrinth I bought blind after reading about a dozen great reviews and having no real experience with Guillermo Del Toro besides having seen Hellboy.  I was stunned at the visuals and thrilled with the practical effects the man uses so successfully.  I could see the detail on all the creatures and in the sets.  In general, practical effects > CGI for me, and the Blu-ray lets them shine.

 

Wall-E is probably a given since it's a Pixar film, but I have the disadvantage of only having seen about half of their films, most of them being Toy Story and its sequels.  (I shamefully haven't gotten around to seeing Up.)  The opening half hour or so is beautifully rendered and the sound design is so wonderful, I'm sure my sound system can't do it justice.  This is when I like CGI.

 

A personal favorite of mine is the Criterion of Paris, Texas.  I saw the film sometime last year on the standard DVD release that's been out a few years.  Then I bought the Blu-ray in November.  No contest.  Wim Wenders knows how to compose his visuals; the colors in the film are amazing and the Blu-ray shows them all.  There are a few shots where the foreground is green from fluorescent lighting, while the background is nothing but gorgeous blues and reds in the sunset.  It's some of the prettiest shot-on-location stuff I've seen.  I need to see the American Southwest before I die because of this movie.

 

Finally, I have the first season of the original Star Trek TV series.  I never saw it in anything but bits and piece before I got it, but Blu-ray is definitely the way to go on that one, especially with the feature to switch between the original and updated special effects.  It looks like they shot the show yesterday.

 

I've also got a good stack of Blu-rays built up I've yet had opportunity to watch, including Close Encounters (also a blind buy, but I trust chewers and Spielberg), The Fountain, and the LOTR and Back to the Future trilogies.  Some of the comments in this thread have me pretty excited.

 

Regarding the No Country for Old Men Blu-ray, I have a simple question for those who are knowledgeable.  I have the "Jumped the Gun" Un-Special Edition of No Country for Old Men.  Is the transfer on both the same, with the special features being the only difference, or am I missing out on something?

 

[Nice handle. It's exceptionally adequate.]

The Paris, Texas blu... holy hell yes! An un-flipping-believable transfer. You can see the desert go on for miles, clear as day.

I don't have the best eye for the technicals, but I recently picked up Leone's The Man With No Name Trilogy, and these things look amazing!  The red paint almost looks like real blood!  

It's my understanding that the video transfer is the same, but the audio transfer is different.  So with a 2.0 receiver you probably aren't missing anything. 

Thanks for the info Wydren.  My receiver is actually 7.1, but I've only got two speakers as of right now, so a surround mix doesn't much matter.

After a new round of purchases I must say that Alien, by far, is the best Blu-ray I have. I have never seen anything look so gorgeous and detailed in my life.

Sometimes, the upscaled DVD displayed on an HDTV actually looks worse than if you just presented it on a SD CRT. Anything like that might be automatically considered "essential" just because of the reveal in flaws that HD brings out. With a lot of the longer, visually complex films I think the studios are purposefully mastering the DVD version to cram as much info as they can onto a single disc. So stuff like Speed Racer, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, those single-disc LOTR releases (thankfully, the EEs still look pretty great) all look like poop on your nice new home theater system.

For a Few Dollars More gets the most praise out of those by the tech crowd, with the 1st and 3rd films getting criticized for various shortcomings. But I agree, they all look pretty good all things considered. For A Few Dollars More is the standout though,  no question.

 

Even the EE LOTR DVDs look like rubbish on my system. But I have a projector/106" screen which I think highlights the flaws even more. Because say, Deadwood looks pretty fucking good upconverted on my parents 60" flat screen, but looks like weak-sauce on my set up.

I think Fistful of Dollars looks pretty good, but they really DNRd the shit outta The Good the Bad and the Ugly. I got used to it myself, but some folks can't stand that smoothing effect. At least it isn't a monstrosity like the Predator release.

 

One of the best looking discs in my collection when upscaled is Save the Green Planet. I have no idea why this happens, and agree that the LotR discs look pretty crappy. Lots of edge enhancement.

Psycho looks great on Blu-Ray. They kept a lot of the grain, but the picture just looks miles better than any version of it I have seen before. Great sound too (doesn't hurt that Psycho has such a wonderful score).

Taxi Driver and A.I. coming out of the gate at $13 and $15 means God loves film geeks. Long time.

Surprised that Hot Fuzz hasn't cropped up here yet. Gorgeous transfer, sounds great and the extras are extensive and great fun (In fact, 'Hot Funk' may just be my favourite extra of all time) Even better, you can pick it up for next to nothing these days. An essential grab for the blu-ray initiate.

The Criterion Blu of "Blow Out" and the Alien Anthology set arrived on my doorstep yesterday. WOOHOO! Blow Out looks terrific, and I look forward to wading through the features, which includes DePalma's early film, Murder A La Mod. Also, it looks like Barry Lyndon comes out on May 31 for $14. Can't wait.

I recently got the Blade Runner and Close Encounters sets, and both look fantastic.  And both were really cheap, considering how much material is included.

 

Ghost in the Shell 2 is always a fun showcase disc.

 

I'm looking forward to Criterion's Solaris and Kiss Me Deadly BRs.

Bump

 

The Barry Lyndon Blu looks incredible. Skimpy on the extras, but the images are unparalleled.

 

The Apocalypse Now Full Disclosure edition, featuring the original cut, Redux and Heart of Darkness, is a must-own. The Ride of the Valkryies sequence will shake your walls.

 

Master and Commander's sound mix is mind-blowing. I actually had to step out of my house during the final battle sequence in order to take a phone call. It was that overwhelming.

 

Finally, the Criterion House looks stunning, with the insane visuals popping like never before.

Like I need another reason to buy Master and Commander again! :D

 

Though I have had a Blu player for a while, my Blue collection is rather small. I had a very small TV for some time, so, it was hard to tell. But with a newer, 46" Sony Bravia, I can see a ton of difference. I have to add to the love for the Aliens Anthology. It was given to me by a Chewer two Christmas's ago, and it blows you away every time. I have the Patriot, Coraline, Star Trek, Gone with the Wind, Blazing Saddles, BBC's Planet Earth, Children of Men, District 9, and the Town.  I have not bought myself a new Bluray in some time. I thought long and hard about the Blu of Battlestar when it was on sale at Christmas.
 

 

My collection has increased pretty rapidly over the last year, thanks to various eBay/Amazon deals and birthday/Christmas gifts. Some other recommendations from my shelf:

 

Speed - Surprisingly good for a budget title

Breaking Bad - The tech quality seems to get better each season. Looking forward to seeing Season 4.

The Aviator - Okay, not a great film, but worth borrowing just to see Scorcese's use of color that corresponded with the prevailing film stocks of the era. I think it looks much stronger than my Blus of Goodfellas and The Departed, which both have strong audio but occasionally muddy visuals.

 

EDIT: Also, if you're a fan of the recent Galactica, the box set is well worth saving up for. I may be somewhat biased since I didn't get HD until after the show ended, but I felt like I was watching the show for the first time.

I have Seasons 1 and 2 of Breaking Bad on DVD, but decided to go Amazon Downloads for Season 3 and 4 since I dropped my satellite dish. I download both in HD, and stream to my TV.

I picked up the Patton bluray at a closing Blockbuster on a lark (2 bucks!), and Jesus, it looks fantastic.  The nighttime and snow battles are fucking gorgeous.

 

And as far as an upgrade, the Band of Brothers set obliterates the fantastic DVD release.  It is most definitely the best sounding and looking TV bluray that I own.

Pretty much every one on this list I would describe with: Great picture! Great sound! Great movie! My master list

 

Movies:

Anything Disney/Pixar

Anything Criterion

 

2001: A Space Odyssey

Zodiac

Blade Runner

Dark City

Iron Man

Dr. Strangelove

The Fall

Alien

Aliens

The Godfather Trilogy

Apocalypse Now

The Thing

Citizen Kane

Young Frankenstein

Grindhouse

Fight Club

Hugo

Shutter Island

Cloverfield

The Shawshank Redemption

Batman Begins/The Dark Knight

Hot Fuzz

JFK

Tree of Life

Drive

Psycho

To Kill A Mockingbird

A Clockwork Orange

Drag Me To Hell

Inception

Inglourious Basterds

Pulp Fiction

The Mist

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Gone Baby Gone

The American

Where The Wild Things Are

No Country For Old Men

Starship Troopers

Bonnie & Clyde

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

There Will Be Blood

Face/Off

Wizard of Oz

Casablanca

The Terminator

T2

Back To The Future trilogy

Spider-Man 1 & 2

The Exorcist

Raging Bull

The Social Network

Pan's Labyrinth

Rambo

The Descent

The Matrix

Star Trek '09

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Jackss trilogy

Monster House

Seven

King Kong '33

How To Train Your Dragon

Moon

Pirates of the Caribbean: CotBP

Black Dynamite

Easy Rider

Harry Potter series

A Nightmare On Elm Street '84

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Apollo 13

Saving Private Ryan

Minority Report

Amadeus

Pitch Black

X-Men 1, 2, First Class

Sin City

An American Werewolf in London

Away We Go

Night of the Creeps

Trick 'r' Treat

My Bloody Valentine 3D

The Wrestler

The Fountain

Children of Men

The Bourne trilogy

300

The Host

TMNT

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

L.A. Confidential

Casino Royale

Avatar

Superbad

Pineapple Express

District 9

Black Swan

Coraline

 

 

TV:

Mad Men

Twilight Zone

Band of Brothers/The Pacific

Breaking Bad

Deadwood

Battlestar Galactica

Lost

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection

Sale at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

 

For television picks I can wholeheartedly recommend this little beauty, which i picked up the other day. This is the UK version but it was released in the States as well:

 

 

 

Now, as anyone who remembers my Number 6 avatar would surmise, I'm a huge Prisoner geek, but this set went way above and beyond my expectations.

 

The picture quality is absolutely stunning. Colours pop like never before, the frame's constantly rife with detail and texture... Now this was always an impressive-looking series, shot on 35mm and with production values of a quality you only saw in cinema at the time (In fact, Patrick McGoohan instilled in the crew an attitude that they were shooting an extended feature that just happened to be shown on TV, kind of a predecessor of what your HBOs have been doing in recent years). However, I'd call this thing reference quality just to show what blu ray can do with older material. Throw in a 5.1 remastered soundtrack and you get a transfer that soundly kicks the shit out of any past release of the series.

 

On top of that, you get a shitload of extras - commentaries, original trailers, a 90m documentary, alternate edits, featurettes (Some of which I believe don't show up on the American version, but everything else is there). And then on top of that, by putting the second extras DVD into your computer you can get something like 80 PDFs of archive material - shooting scripts, drafts, production documents, magazine covers, even unproduced scripts.

 

Basically this set is a thing of beauty, and totally worth it a) If you want to get your hands on a seminal piece of television sci-fi, and b) If you want to show off your blu ray player by showing just how awesome it can make 40 year old material look.