criterionforum.org

MongooseCmr wrote:Half those shots look like Election directed by David Fincher

Yeah, this looks very digital. It's an impressive transfer that's very sharp, but it totally feels like some amount of filtering or reduction or something was done to it because it's just totally grain-free. Still happy it was done but feel like this transfer was very close to exceptional and just ends up being looking good.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Blu-ray.com

I do not understand how they compute the overall score.
The movie is 3.5, video 5.0 audio 5.0 and extras 4.0.
How can the overall score be 3.5?

They suck at reviewing movies

kekid wrote:

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Blu-ray.com

I do not understand how they compute the overall score.
The movie is 3.5, video 5.0 audio 5.0 and extras 4.0.
How can the overall score be 3.5?

Because they think people actually care about what they have to say about the movie and not just the Blu-Ray quality.

Yeah well, Svet'll have the last laugh when his prediction of the collapse of the American education system comes true

It’s kind of astonishing how he so utterly misses the point of a film titled ELECTION. Is it about politics? Nah, it’s about public education!

A world class moron.

kcota17 wrote:

kekid wrote:

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Blu-ray.com

I do not understand how they compute the overall score.
The movie is 3.5, video 5.0 audio 5.0 and extras 4.0.
How can the overall score be 3.5?

Because they think people actually care about what they have to say about the movie and not just the Blu-Ray quality.

.
I understand that. But the overall score implies that they give 100% weight to the movie and none to video, audio or extras. By that scheme the best DVD of the movie and the worst one will have the same score.

swo17 wrote:Yeah well, Svet'll have the last laugh when his prediction of the collapse of the American education system comes true

Playing his bassoon while America burns.

The condescension towards Svet in this forum sometimes staggers me. I know he's kind of an stubborn idiot, but all these people attacking the man to make themselves feel better while he can't even defend himself is basically high school level of bullying.

He is a member here and is not banned. He's welcome to defend himself here, but won't because he's intimidated by a forum that doesn't kowtow to him

When he goes to defend himself or his points he inevitably says something beyond stupid and everyone jumps on him. See Dekalog, Thieves' Highway, an innumerable amount of other releases. MichaelB seems to be one of the few who resist going to the jugular (not that it's hard to do) on every occasion, and that doesn't apply only to Svet's dumb comments either.

Pro-B is a public figure, which grants certain leeway in allowing for open criticism against him while still holding to our forum decorum-- we wouldn't let anyone here call him names, but we can certainly point out and lampoon his warped viewpoints

Ribs wrote:

MongooseCmr wrote:Half those shots look like Election directed by David Fincher

Yeah, this looks very digital. It's an impressive transfer that's very sharp, but it totally feels like some amount of filtering or reduction or something was done to it because it's just totally grain-free. Still happy it was done but feel like this transfer was very close to exceptional and just ends up being looking good.

Beyond the boost in sharpness and lack of grain, the real Fincheresque aspect of the transfer to me (just based on the Beaver comparisons) is how much more drab and green the Criterion is. The skintones on the Paramount blu seem more appropriate to my eye, though I guess the Criterion is how Payne wants it now, for whatever reason. The more saturated & bold color palette feels like a better fit over the drab, first-20-minutes-of-Fight-Club look it now enjoys.

Robespierre wrote:The condescension towards Svet in this forum sometimes staggers me. I know he's kind of an stubborn idiot, but all these people attacking the man to make themselves feel better while he can't even defend himself is basically high school level of bullying.

I didn't feel any better afterward.

I didn't either. I usually end up being sad by how such an important reviewing website wastes its credibility by accepting such a warped viewpoint having free rein there (and protecting it), and that those pointing it out there all ended up being banned altogether. I however wish Svet would stop using so often "painfully obvious".

This point aside, the aggregation of the grades always seemed weird to me. Putting 0 weight to the release technical and editorial merits seems a bit weird for, well, a reviewing website.
It's pretty much the opposite of what we do on Retro HD, where only the technical scores are used for the end score, and the extras and movie scores are only "for information".

Ribs wrote: Yeah, this looks very digital. It's an impressive transfer that's very sharp, but it totally feels like some amount of filtering or reduction or something was done to it because it's just totally grain-free.

It's not, though. I can't speak for Beaver's caps but grain is there. It's incredibly fine but you can see it dancing around in the film. The film looks darker in some scenes (though I didn't do side by sides) but I thought it looked pretty damn good in the end.

I was speaking after having watched the disk. It just left me very... whelmed. Not exceptional, but still a clear improvement from what I can see from the other release.

It's interesting how the complaints here are about how too slick it is considering how Alexander Payne commented on how "good" Kodak film stock is and if you wanted something more gritty, "you have to fight it". (Maybe this warranted Fuji film stock back in 1998/1999 =] )

Special feature as listed -
ON DISC: Audio commentary from 1999 featuring Payne
ON SITE: Audio commentary from 2008 featuring Payne

Which is correct?

It was recorded for the DVD back in 1999

The first Blu-ray Paramount put out was in January '09, which would explain Criterion getting it wrong perhaps?

Probably. They could have assumed the DVD had nothing on it. Most early Paramount DVDs were featureless (maybe a trailer at least).

Wow, what a depressing film filled with such broken people that need so much help. Flick is such a broken person and it is insane that the school wouldn't do a million things after it's revealed what that creep did to her. The tone helps to make this not utterly depressing, but there's not a single event that didn't make me want to crawl out of my skin. On multiple occasions I was reminded of Solondz though I think in terms of the psychology of the characters the film is even harder to experience.

It's odd how I agree with you on most everything you said yet still, when I need a laugh, it's one of my go to films.