For a 2013 movie, I expected this to look better. My guess is an inadequate camera. Look at that aliasing!
Clipped directly from the BD.
The running time is 141 minutes, not the 134 stated on the box.
Invasion (2017)
The first movie in the set that looks good.
Clipped directly from the BD.
However, the subtitles are horrible. There are typos throughout the set, but those for Invasion are the worst.
Later spelled “Daniel.”Plus inconsistent placement of quotation marks.
Careless Crime (2020)
Another nice transfer.
Clipped directly from the BD.
These are probably fascinating in Farsi, but I was bored, and not having any of it by the time I got to Careless Crime. All the walking, monotonous dialog, and reading was just too taxing. I would be very interested to see Invasion, maybe even Fish & Cat, dubbed in English.
Eureka’s BD of The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände, 1924) has one of the most aggressive and inept restorations I’ve seen. Nearly every shot has restoration artifacts.
Be sure to click on the GIFs to see them full size.
Interpolation
The first and last frames of most shots are interpolated. Sometimes it looks like a duplicate pulldown frame. Other times, it introduces some serious distortions. Nearly every example in this section has frames that are completely computer-generated. Faked.
Conrad Veidt’s head stretches, Alexandra Sorina’s fingers split, grain and background warp, plus frozen temporal cloning at the top edge:
The pen is broken up and the rest of the frame is nearly frozen:
Stuck grain and warping throughout:
Hideous computer-generated teeth:
Not a freeze-frame, but interpolation:
Interpolation makes scratches stick to the image:
Here, interpolation is combined with spot removal. At first glance, it’s impressive. Look closer, and you can see that it leaves smudges in place of damage AND it leaves remnants behind:
Notice how the sheets of paper distort:
Here it’s combined with frame blending and frozen temporal cloning:
Interpolation utterly fails when it’s called upon to generate background, such as behind Veidt’s head. And check out his smashed head and hand:
Veidt’s hand becomes putty and merges with the sleeve. The sofa pulsates:
You can see magnetic scratches on the wall behind the now-breathing sofa:
I admit that it’s not always immediately apparent recognizing restoration artifacts on a small screen, but look how obvious it is here when displayed at a fraction of its full size! The man gets smashed. And that background…
Interpolation is combined with temporal cloning on the ceiling lamp and chairs on the left. They now bob up and down:
His body compresses and arm stretches, creating a second wrist. Yikes!
Veidt’s head smashes into an invisible curved ceiling:
Our villain’s fingertips disappear. The disembodied hand on the left is completely frozen:
Interpolation destroys the head:
An example of interpolation that is nearly a freeze-frame, plus some negligible spot removal:
Like The Valley of Silent Men on the first disc of the set, Back Pay (1922) looks like an as-is presentation. Natural grain, no obvious restoration processing, nice encoding. It looks wonderful.
Clipped directly from the M2TS.
Back Pay is transferred at 21fps and encoded at 24fps. Too stuttery, but as good as it’s gonna get in our 24fps-or-nothing world.
Good grain, natural stabilization, nice grading, few noticeable processing artifacts. Overall good presentation of The Spanish Dancer (1923).
Clipped directly from the M2TS.
Alas, it has some errors.
Quick-reverse:
Quick-reverse on the left, fixed on the right. Both sides corrected to 60fps.
Mindless spot repair:
The full shot also combines frozen temporal cloning and quick-reversing, mostly on the left side. There’s still so much damage. They should’ve left it alone.
Quick-reversing, frozen temporal cloning, and workflow errors. Clipped directly from the M2TS.
Editing error at 47m43s, where eight frames repeat:
Editing error, followed by fixed version. Corrected to 60fps.
Bill Ware’s music is wonderful. It includes a light touch of sound effects, too, but…does every door have to squeak?
The Spanish Dancer is transferred at 18fps and encoded at 24fps with an uneven pulldown. Frequently, a frame gets repeated twice.
Yesterday, the Academy Museum ran an original print of The Little Mermaid (1989). A very rare treat. I think the last time it ran in 35mm in Los Angeles was about 20 years ago at LACMA.
A few things struck me. It is VERY grainy and much of the movie has a haze over it, sometimes quite strong. Even the end credits—the blue lettering bloomed into the black.
Most surprising to me was that Ariel’s hair is red-orange, not red. It had been so long since I last saw the movie that I had come to think it was red.
There’s a nice comparison here, comparing the new UHD to the previous BD. In every instance, the UHD color is too saturated and seriously goosed. The BD more closely looks like the print I just saw. The colors were vibrant for the time, but duller than we’re used to seeing nowadays.
