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A view on Blu-ray by Gary W. Tooze

All the Right Moves [Blu-ray]

 

(Michael Chapman, 1983)

 

 

Review by Gary Tooze

 

Production:

Theatrical: 20th Century Fox

Video: Twentieth Century Fox

 

Disc:

Region: 'A' (as verified by the Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)

Runtime: 1:30:25.920

Disc Size: 22,939,287,888 bytes

Feature Size: 22,250,256,384 bytes

Video Bitrate: 26.64 Mbps

Chapters: 26

Case: Standard Blu-ray case

Release date: May 3rd, 2011

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Audio:

DTS-HD Master Audio English 3683 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3683 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio English 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps

 

Subtitles:

English (SDH), French, Spanish, none

 

Extras:

• US (2:24) and Spanish Trailers (2:24)

 

Bitrate:

 

 

Description: The only way football star Stefan Djordjevic (Tom Cruise) will avoid a life in the blast furnaces of his bleak Pennsylvania hometown is by winning a college scholarship. Even his coach (Craig T. Nelson) dreams of parlaying a winning team into a college job far away from this graveyard of the American Dream. But it's not long before the two virtually ruin each other's chances for escape and their door to the future starts to close. Lea Thompson and Christopher Penn co-star.

 

 

The Film:

The movie plays this conflict against an interesting background. This isn't another high-school movie with pompom girls and funny principals and weirdo chem teachers. The movie gets into the dynamics of the high-school student body and into the tender, complicated relationship between the Cruise character and his girlfriend (Lea Thompson). After all the junk high-school movies in which kids chop each other up, seduce the French teacher and visit whorehouses in Mexico, it is so wonderful to see a movie again that remembers that most teenagers are vulnerable, unsure, sincere and fundamentally decent. The kid, his girlfriend and all of their friends have feelings we can recognize as real.

The plot feels real, too, because it centers around those kinds of horrible misunderstandings. and mistakes that we all remember from high school. A lot of teenagers walk around all day feeling guilty, even if they're totally innocent. Get them into a situation that gives them the appearance of guilt and they're in trouble.

Excerpt from Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times located HERE

As directed by Michael Chapman, the superb cinematographer whose credits include ''Raging Bull'' and ''Taxi Driver,'' ''All the Right Moves'' is by no means a bad film or a disingenuous one. Its sense of place is distinct, its acting convincing and its sentiments feel sincere. But for all its air of realism and grit, the film has a fairy-tale quality. It's also full of racial and sexual stereotypes, from the black football players who are better dancers than their white teammates to the coach's wife whose woman-to- woman chat with Lisa is rich with feminine intuition.

Tom Cruise, who starred in ''Risky Business,'' makes Stef honest and believable, though in Stef's hotter-tempered scenes Mr. Cruise seems overly mild. He's better at suggesting Stef's worried, tentative side and his boyish bravado than at conveying the discipline and determination through which Stef hopes to succeed. As the coach who becomes Stef's antagonist, and who has his own ambitions of bidding Ampipe adieu, Craig T. Nelson is a daunting and effectively mysterious figure here, someone whose motives are only partially explained by Michael Kane's screenplay.

Excerpt from Janet Maslin at the New York Times located HERE

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

All the Right Moves had me scratching my head in the first few minutes as the image quality was inordinately weak but it soon settled down and appeared to continue to improve as it ran along. Fox are generally VERY competent in their transfers and this Blu-ray doesn't appear to have any manipulation and the source, aside from the opening credits, is immaculate.  The image quality shows some grit and minor grain. It probably looked quite similar to this theatrically over 28 years ago (can that be?).  This is only single-layered but colors seem brighter and truer than SD could relate notable in the yellow uniforms or Lea Thompson's red sweater. Contrast is likewise at a competent level for 1080P. Daylight scenes are more impressive but the darkness produces no undo noise. This Blu-ray gave me a decent presentation without much fanfare - still impressing in a few scenes hinting at depth.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

We are offered a solid uncompressed DTS-HD 5.1 at 3683 kbps. Separation and depth are not abundant but that is more about the film than any fault of the transfer. Jennifer Warnes and Chris Thompson's "All The Right Moves" main title song sounds fabulous and everything is clean and crisp. I suspect that it sounded exactly like this theatrically - or maybe even better here. There are optional subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

 

Extras :

Nothing but two trailers in 480i. This is a film without hidden subtexts or depth and there isn't much to discuss. Any superfluous 'Making of..' would ruin the film's gritty demeanor, methinks.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
I had a bunch of stuff to review but I chose All the Right Moves because I like the film. This stands out amongst a crowd of teen 'nowhere' sports movies and toilet humor sex prank wastes of celluloid. It doesn't overextend to lean too heavily the vérité elements but retains a grassroots realistic charm - even if only perceived. Cruise shows a bit of what made him a superstar and Craig T. Nelson is always excellent support. This is a very good high school football movie. The Blu-ray is modest overall with no real supplement value - but the image and audio can surprise with adeptness. Best thing is that the price is very reasonable and for that we recommend. 

Gary Tooze

April 28th, 2011

 


 

About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 3500 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.

Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction.

Gary's Home Theatre:

60-Inch Class (59.58” Diagonal) 1080p Pioneer KURO Plasma Flat Panel HDTV PDP6020-FD

Oppo Digital BDP-83 Universal Region FREE Blu-ray/SACD Player
Momitsu - BDP-899 Region FREE Blu-ray player
Marantz SA8001 Super Audio CD Player
Marantz SR7002 THX Select2 Surround Receiver
Tannoy DC6-T (fronts) + Energy (centre, rear, subwoofer) speakers (5.1)

APC AV 1.5 kVA H Type Power Conditioner 120V

Gary W. Tooze

 

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