Speed Racer (The Wachowskis, 2008)

[DRW.mov]

Honestly, Bound and Speed Racer come down to a similar, very simple issue. They have large fan bases, are embraced by the trans community as nearly personal texts, but more importantly, have both been out of print on blu ray for a bit now. Despite the Arrow and Olive releases in the past, Bound was unavailable on disc below a $80 ebay price point, and Speed Racer, as it develops a cult status, is in a similar boat. A more robust transfer on disc - whether it be blu or uhd - makes sense for the growing market and is overall a very good thing.


If anyone here is interested in buying a "Genre Film Sycophant" t-shirt to proudly self identify hit me up, I'll start selling them on my web site.

[Never Cursed]

Well now I really regret my choice of words. If you are on this website, you are most likely not who I was thinking of when I wrote out "genre film sycophant:" I meant the same type of people who celebrate the release of Z-grade shlock like The Nail Gun Massacre on 4K* and who would never touch an icky subtitled movie, not anyone who likes any genre film. I saw a bunch of those accounts freaking out about this movie getting a UHD release, which made me feel a little bit annoyed about them, but mostly irritated on their behalf.

*Did you know that The Nail Gun Massacre has a 4K UHD release absolutely loaded with extras?

[TechnicolorAcid]

The funny thing is that I vividly remember that those same people then decided to try and boycott that release because one guy showed a photo of it on his TV with HDR settings that exaggerated the colors to make it look blue to which the guy behind the release specifically had to state was how the negative looked.
Also quick shoutout to Terror Vision (the ones behind the release) for their excellent releases like their Dante’s Inferno Blu-Ray.

[yoloswegmaster]

Well now I really regret my choice of words. If you are on this website, you are most likely not who I was thinking of when I wrote out "genre film sycophant:" I meant the same type of people who celebrate the release of Z-grade shlock like The Nail Gun Massacre on 4K* and who would never touch an icky subtitled movie, not anyone who likes any genre film. I saw a bunch of those accounts freaking out about this movie getting a UHD release, which made me feel a little bit annoyed about them, but mostly irritated on their behalf.

*Did you know that The Nail Gun Massacre has a 4K UHD release absolutely loaded with extras?

Oh, I get who you're talking about now. I just refer to those types of filmgoers as "film bros" or someone who is adjacent to one. I'm also not shocked that a schlocky film like that got a 4K release since those types of films are very popular in the home video market, as seen by the numerous amounts of labels that consistently release them.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

As someone who loved Bound, Sense8, and finally watched the Matrix trilogy three years ago, I thought Speed Racer was a great evolution in the Wachowskis' styles. (My love of the Redline and Alita films also helped there.) Plus its got John Goodman whom I adore so I'm really looking forward to watching this again.

[Matt]

I wonder if some of the judicious upscaling that was used for Lynch’s Inland Empire restoration could be used on this. I’m quite a fan of the visual style of the film, but I haven’t seen it since it first hit home video. (I think I rented the Blu-ray from RedBox!)

As long as it doesn’t venture into James Cameron-style waxy revisionism, it could be good.

[Never Cursed]

I wonder if some of the judicious upscaling that was used for Lynch’s Inland Empire restoration could be used on this.

Well, for that movie further digital processing makes sense (it never will, or should, look "nice") given how heavily upscaled the original film release was.

[Farley Flavors]

I had no idea (or had forgotten) that this was digitally captured. I caught it on release in IMAX 70mm and it looked perfectly fine. Whatever secret sauce was involved in their 70mm DMR remastering in those days was rather effective.

With all those bright colours and rapid-fire editing on a huge screen, it remains the only film to actually give me a headache. The kids in the audience lapped it up though.

[yoloswegmaster]

Looks lile Emile Hirsch confirmed that a 4K release was forthcoming back in March. Wonder if WB will release it themselves or if they will give it to Arrow.

[The Narrator Returns]

Saw the premiere of the new 4K remaster (disc coming in May, theatrical rerelease later this month) last night, maybe the pixel-watchers will feel different but it looked stunning with no upscaling artifacts, just the most vivid candy colors I’ve ever seen. The movie’s amazing as ever and it was great seeing Lilly talk honestly about how late reappraisal can only do so much to make up for massively wounding failure. For how receptive the sold-out crowd was, I still think people aren’t ready for the total unfailing sincerity of her and Lana’s vision. This isn’t a subtle movie and it tells you when you’re seeing kid-friendly cartoon silliness and when it wants you to take it seriously, but there were plenty (particularly some sitting right behind me) who were laughing off every little thing, with an actually disrespectful chorus of cackles at the most moving part of the movie. The Wachowskis saw the perfect future of pop cinema and it still takes a lot to get others to see it too.