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 July 1, 2008Blu-ray Wins: Buy a PS3 and Watch These Films That Blu-ray has beaten HD DVD is old news. But if you were one of the smart folks who sat on the sidelines while the formats fought it out, there’s no longer any reason to wait. The only thing that will usurp Blu-ray is high-definition downloading, and the Internet is going to need much wider pipes before everyone can start doing that. I’ve already talked about the benefits of using a Sony PlayStation 3 for playing Blu-ray Discs, but I want to repeat the most important one: that sleek black box contains massive computing power, and when Sony wants to upgrade the way a PS3 works, they send the new software down the digital highway. Voilŕ! You have an up-to-date Blu-ray player.
Let’s start with the already iconic Blade Runner (1982). For a film that has been tortured into four or five versions, that was made before computer graphics, when miniatures and models ruled, and with purposely rough graphics, the beauty of this Blu-ray release is stunning. I’ve seen every version of Blade Runner in a big-screen movie house, and it has never looked or sounded this good. There are two reasons for the improved picture. First, they transferred the film to digital using 4000 lines of resolution, carefully cleaning it up frame by frame, digitally repairing any problems. Second, director Ridley Scott supervised some new effects that would make the miniatures look crisper: look at the building sides with the advertisements running, and the approach to the Tyrell Corporation’s Mayan temple of an office building. The sound gets a nice polishing, too: Vangelis’s music never sounded so moody.
I’m cheating with my last choice, the "0.5" recommendation, but I can’t help myself. Once (2006) -- available only on DVD, not Blu-ray -- is the other romance, besides Juno, that has seized my soul. A musical in which there is hardly any dialogue, Once is a small, independent Irish film (total cost $150,000) about the tentative first steps toward love taken by a street musician playing for tips and a Czech immigrant who loves to play the piano. Glen Hansard, of the Irish band The Frames, plays the busker, and 18-year-old Markéta Irglová plays the immigrant. While there are laughs and hopefulness, this is a drama that keeps the viewer guessing right to the end. Hansard is a major star in the making -- his emotions ring true, showing in small moments as well as big -- and anyone who doesn’t immediately fall in love with Irglová needs a heart transplant. Their music -- the two actors wrote most of it themselves -- is powerful and gorgeous. Working with so little financial backing, writer-director John Carney has kept Once simple and direct, letting the actors and the story carry the weight. I hadn’t seen anything in years that grabbed my heart harder. Don’t miss it. And even though it’s an SD DVD, you can still watch it on your new Sony PS3. . . . Wes Marshall
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But enough about the player.
Let’s talk about some things to watch. I offer 6.5 recommendations here, ranging from
gritty sci-fi to historic fiction to romantic musicals. They all look gorgeous, sound
incredible, and are good enough that you’ll want to watch them more than once.
Batman Begins (2005) is
the best film of the series. All the backstory about Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale)
expands his character into a living human being instead of a cartoon (ŕ la Michael
Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney), and the early battle sequences, in which Wayne
learns the martial arts, are some of director Christopher Nolan’s best work. Even
more important, if more subtle, is how Nolan gets everyone to play his or her role as if
filming a historical biography. There are no ironic winks or silliness to indicate that no
one is taking the movie very seriously. Instead, we meet three-dimensional people who
respond to each other with genuine human emotions. Sonically, the Blu-ray has everything
from shattering sounds to delicate tinkles; and the picture, which Nolan frequently
chooses to make obtuse and translucent, still comes out with superb detail. 
If you haven’t yet
joined the ranks of Patrick O’Brian fans, I recommend you read all 21 (yikes!) of his
Aubrey and Maturin novels before watching Master and Commander: The Far Side of the
World (2003). Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany do such a splendid job of
playing, respectively, Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, that if you read the
books after watching this film, you’ll always visualize these actors. Given
the film’s title, you’d think it was based on the first and tenth books of the
series, but its story is assembled from incidents found in four of the novels.
Writer-director Peter Weir and screenwriter John Collee had to make a few changes to make
it all fit, including leaving out Maturin’s dueling skills and most of his
death-defying work as a spy; and while Crowe could pass for Aubrey, Bettany looks nothing
like Maturin as O’Brian describes him. The film captures only a small portion of the
books’ excitement, but that’s still plenty. The quality of the picture is
superb, whether in the ship’s dark sleeping quarters or atop a mast on the sunny open
sea, and the sound is a system tester, especially the scene in which the French ship Acheron
attacks Aubrey’s HMS Surprise. But read O’Brian’s novels first. They
constitute a towering achievement of English literature that should be taught in every
school in English-speaking countries.
When I pick up my Fender
Stratocaster, I don’t dream of being Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, or
even Jeff Beck. I dream of being David Gilmour. The reason is Gilmour’s melodic
invention, his singing tone, and his absolute refusal to play too many notes. Listen to
him create his solos on Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2007):
he can rip off cascades of 64th notes if he wants to, but instead he chooses to keep it
melodic. This is Gilmour’s best-sounding, best-looking DVD yet, and that
includes both his solo videos and those he’s made with his band, Pink Floyd. Listen,
too, to his introduction to "On an Island," or his lap-steel solo on "The
Blue," my vote for his most beautiful composition. You can play many of those notes
using a similar guitar and similar effects, and it will sound completely different --
it’s all in the fingers. Anyone who plays guitar, or who even wants to play guitar,
will get a master class by watching Gilmour.
I love romances. I sit and cry
through Garden State or Zelary (a highly recommended Czech film), or chuckle
through Almost Famous or Moulin Rouge. But I was as captivated by Juno
(2007) as I’ve been by only one other romantic film I’ve seen in the last
six years. Twenty-year-old actress Ellen Page burns the character of Juno MacGuff into
your mind, and does so with humanity, humor, and grace. Page was in the running for the
Best Actress Oscar, but faced the superhuman performance of the eventual winner, Marion
Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. However, I find myself spending
a lot more time contemplating Juno than I do Edith. Juno contains no big effects
and no CG, but the film’s look and its delicate sound work perfectly together.
Across the Universe (2007),
another romance, couldn’t be more different. First, its musical soundtrack consists
entirely of Beatles songs, and director Julie Taymor and her writers have pulled off the
seemingly impossible in making us completely rethink the meanings of their lyrics. They
twist Lennon-McCartney’s and Harrison’s structures of verse and chorus, and
change the songs’ rhythms and dynamics, to accomplish something that has eluded 90%
of other artists who have covered Beatles songs: they make you forget the originals.
Taymor has achieved acclaim on Broadway and in opera for her phantasmagorical production
designs, most famously for her staging of the Broadway version of Disney’s The
Lion King -- but that show was only a sampling of her talents. If all Taymor
had done was the section with Selma Hayek set to "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," and
the ending "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," I would call Across the Universe
a masterpiece -- and there’s so much more. This is also the best-looking and
-sounding Blu-ray I’ve yet seen. 
It’s
true demo material, and I predict that, in January, we’ll be seeing clips from it in
half the rooms at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. Sharp colors, great soundstaging,
accurate sounds -- Across the Universe has got everything. Watch for funny cameos
by Joe Cocker, Bono, and Eddie Izzard. And for those who love big, soulful voices, Dana
Fuchs, who plays Sadie, is major star material. Look out, Joss and Amy. 