Review by Gary Tooze

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• Trailer (3:17 in 480i)

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Description: Research scientists Louise Fletcher ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and Christopher Walken ("The Deer Hunter") invent a machine that can record sensory experiences only to have devastating results when Fletcher records her own death.

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Natalie Wood made her last screen appearance in Brainstorm; in fact, she died before the film was completed, necessitating extensive rewrites. Wood's character is secondary to the one played by Christopher Walken. A research scientist, Walken has been experimenting with a revolutionary brain-reading device. This wondrous machine is able to read a person's thought processes and translate these to videotape. When Walken wants to study the brainwaves of his late partner Louise Fletcher, he finds himself seriously at odds with his superiors-not to mention several ominous-looking government types, headed by Cliff Robertson.

 

 

The Film:

Excerpt from TCM located HERE

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

I'm not positive but this may be a blunder. Brainstorm utilizes a 2.35:1 or 2.2:1 aspect ratio (often fish-eye or spherical) for the brain-reading machine sequences and, about, a 1.66:1 AR for the majority of the film (representing 'reality'.) This is listed as being 1.85:1 on IMDb. Unfortunately the reality scenes are heavy picture-boxed to about 1325 X 800 on the Warner Blu-ray transfer as shown by the screen captures below. This severely reduces the resolution and I highly doubt it appeared this way theatrically. Otherwise the image quality, colors and detail seem adept on the single-layered transfer.

NOTE: Bill tells us on FB: "Gary, the pictureboxing of the 'reality' scenes is EXACTLY how the film was shown theatrically and is not a mistake. I remember how thrilling this looked in 70mm back in '83." (Thanks Bill!)

NOTE: Sent in from James (via Wikipedia - interview with Trumbull) ""The film was conceived as an introduction to Trumbull's Showscan 60 frame/s 70mm process. 'In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled, "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than "reality".' However, MGM backed out of plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frame/s Super Panavision 70 with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.""

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DTS-HD Master 5.1 at 3350 kbps easily handles the films effects and dialogue. There are some instances where separation is noted and depth creeps in but these are definitely the exception. James Horner's score benefits from the lossless upgrade sounding tight and clean. The is a Spanish DUB and optional subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

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BOTTOM LINE:
Interesting concept and solid star performers although there seemed to be an element missing to give the overall story some cohesiveness. Whether the picture-boxing effect was intentional or not I founds it distracting.  There is still plenty to appreciate here and the Blu-ray is well-priced for those keen to indulge. 

Gary Tooze

June 23rd, 2012