The Fox Blu-ray War Bash 2008
"The perfect gift for Dad this Father's Day" - so says Fox for their
long-awaited series of five – count them – big budget war films from
their vast catalog:
Battle of Britain (1969),
A Bridge Too Far (1977),
The Longest Day
(1962),
Patton
(1970), and
The Sand Pebbles
(1966). Except for
The Sand Pebbles,
these are all WWII films. Three of them show off a huge cast of
luminaries, but only one (A Bridge Too Far) does it without undue
posturing. All of them have outstanding photography: even the least
successful as a script (Battle
of Britain)
has some terrific aerial photography.
Between the five, they scored nine Academy Awards, which is less
impressive when you consider that seven of them were for one picture
alone (Patton).
A Bridge Too Far,
which had zero nominations, has become, for me, one of the more
rewatchable WWII movies, and has one of the most engaging film scores
composed for the genre. Jerry Goldsmith's score for
Patton
was rightfully nominated, but lost to – are you sitting down for this –
Love Story!
The Longest Day
is remarkable for two reasons: it is one of the first films shot in Black &
White to be released on Blu-ray! (Bergman's
The Seventh Seal jumps to mind as another - there may be a few
more) and it is also one of the older films on the new format... and best
looking image – all the more surprising considering how bloody awful the
SD 2-disc Collector's Edition was. (The previous letterboxed image was
sharper, even after zoomed out to full size.) The sound tracks for all
of these movies are very good-to-excellent. They may not have the same
level of crunch we have come to expect since
Saving Private Ryan, but they are convincing all the same,
regardless of age. The music tracks for these films are especially
clear, invigorating and supportive of the mood.
All of the titles have seen SD-DVD incarnations previously, some very
good ones, some with extensive supplements. My comparison of the
supplements from the latest SD editions and the respective Blu-ray
reveals that all of the extra features – with the exception of
A Bridge Too Far
- are ported over to High Def. Except for the occasional trailer, there
are NO high-def extra features to be found on any of these new releases.
Two of them (A
Bridge Too Far and
Battle of Britain)
have no extra features at all, unless you count trailers (which I
don't.)
Battle of Britain
SD edition, by the way, is the sole movie of this quintet not too have
received the 2-disc treatment in 480i. The BRDs of
Patton
and
The Longest Day
are 2-disc affairs, but Fox opted for a single 50 GB disc to accommodate
all but "Road Show" version of the 2-disc material from their most
recent SD of
The Sand Pebbles.
Battle of Britain [Blu-ray]
(Guy Hamilton, 1969)
Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical: MGM Blu-ray: 20th Century Fox Pictures Home Entertainment
Disc: Region: A Runtime: 132 min Chapters: 28 Size: 25 GB Case: Standard Blu-ray case: 1 disc Release date: June 3rd, 2008
Video: Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 Resolution: 1080p Video codec: MPEG2 @ 18 MBPS
Audio: English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless, English DD 5.1 (With the Complete Sir William Walton), English Mono, French DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese and Korean
Extras: • NONE
The Film:
6
Image:
8 (7-8.5/8)
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
Audio & Music:
7/9
Extras:
0
Bottom line:
6
Leonard Norwitz
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