Comments

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Enjoy the Ride Blu-ray (October 2021): Firstly, this limited edition Blu-ray of Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny is limited to 250 copies (mine is #96) and is hand signed and numbered by Vincent Gallo. It comes in a brown paper envelope (see below) with this statement:

"The cover art I used is part of a high concept and not meant to offend or shock. When I made The Brown Bunny, the film and all the materials related to it were treated by me with heartfelt sincerity, sensitivity, and insight, and with as much intellect as my little brain could muster. Yet my intentions, my personal character, and the film itself were all maligned, misrepresented, and dismissed by journalists who were motivated by personal agendas that really had nothing to do with the movie I made.

Any insights into male sexuality or heartbreak expressed in the film were trivialized. My motivation for making the film was questioned with uncommon severity. My use of sexual imagery was repudiated in a way that is completely alien to the world of modern art.

That is why I have made new cover art for this limited edition Blu-ray Disc release. After seventeen years the ugly comments about me and my film have manifested into what the public now views as truth and historical fact. I believe this release should embody a culmination of all that ugliness. It should reflect all the false accusations and fictitious ideas about me and my motivations, and speak to those rampant allegations of narcissism.

The cover I have created achieves exactly that. It is the ultimate expression of the journalistic consensus on the film, the public's resulting reaction to that consensus, and the feelings they then formed about me personally. Most surprising to me is that the finished product still represents the film's aesthetic sensibilities while simultaneously codifying the public's most misguided views about the content.

I have never worked so hard as I did on this film. I have never dug so deep into my own vulnerability to make something of which I remain immensely proud of to this day." - Vincent Gallo

The Brown Bunny was shot on 16mm, so it translates to 1080P as very textured. Is it better than SD? Yes, but not by a significant margin unless you are like me and love heavy grain. The Blu-ray is bare-bones - barely a menu, no chapter stops (possibly intentional), no subtitles, lossy Dolby 2.0 audio - that I found decidedly weak - you really have to crank the volume to hear the limited dialogue - but the motorcycle sounds are intense and loud. Both these audio authoring decisions may have also been intentional. The one thing I regret about the Blu-ray is not including the essential commentary, found on the Japanese DVD. This commentary has surfaced as a .wav file on the Internet but I don't have a link to it at present.

NOTE: We have added a few large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

This Blu-ray sold out very quickly. I still think very highly of The Brown Bunny. We can only hope a stacked Blu-ray, with commentary, will surface one day for this highly misunderstood film. Vincent Gallo is the epitome of the tortured artist. He has only written and directed the feature "Promises Written in Water" in 2010, and some music videos and shorts since The Brown Bunny with a few acting gigs - but nothing past 2013. He apparently is still a musician and dabbles in real estate. I still rate as Buffalo 66 as a masterpiece (I use a still from that film on my Twitter Profile), and he is sadly missed by this reviewer and many others. He is now 60 and I hope he returns to film as he was a unique, inspired and daring artist. We could use more of his presence in cinema, but I hope he has found contentment, regardless. This Blu-ray will be sought after for its rarity but I wouldn't feel that you have 'missed out' if you didn't get it. Perhaps I will put it in a DVDBeaver Silent auction in the future. 

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ADDITION: Kinétique (Japanese - 2004) release - Region 2- NTSC. While also the uncut version this does have optical censoring in the oral sex sequence (see large capture below). Other than that image quality I about the same as the Sony - with the yellow tinge - its is stacked with extras and has the much-sought-after Gallo commentary. 

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I see other reviews claiming this is 'Super Bit" but I can only tell you that my box says nothing about that on it and I don't know of another way to identify that it is SB, unless it is those robotic menus with no extras (which this does not have). If it is Super Bit then... it is.

Image quality is negligibly different - nothing really to get upset over. Both are exhibiting the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The region 1 release looks a little more yellow but that is about all I can see except perhaps the region 1 shows some cropping on the top edge. The Sony has removable yellow English and French subtitles and the PAL edition optional white Dutch ones. Trailers are the extras on both - would love to hear a Gallo commentary one day.