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Blu-ray Review Round-up: Films by Serge Gainsbourg, Kelly Reichardt, Jim Jarmusch & more!

GaudiAntonio Gaudí (1984)
The Criterion Collection

The buildings of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí don’t look constructed. They look evolved. Organically asymmetrical protrusions, supple curving lines, scaly exteriors — all challenging the notion that the human mind and human hands were involved at all in bringing these creations about.

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s reverent documentary about Gaudí’s architecture knows its imagery is bracing enough to stand alone sans context or history, and it does for the most part. When Teshigahara does bring in a historian for some detail in the film’s final moments, the interruption of the mostly wordless reverie for this explication feels like the psychiatrist epilogue in Psycho.

Teshigahara’s camera, which alternates between regal wide shots and insatiably curious handheld work, drinks in the strange beauty of Gaudí’s work, whether in residential buildings or in his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família basilica, sitting unfinished in the midst of Barcelona like an alien being, its spires stretching above the urban landscape. The film’s narration mentions Gaudí knew his work would have to be completed by another architect. He may not have expected it wouldn’t be finished until 100 years after his death, as current estimates expect completion in 2026.

Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade of its 2008 DVD release is one of the more left-field choices in recent memory, and there’s no new restoration to explain it. The 1080p, 1.33:1 disc uses the same high-def transfer as the DVD release. Still, this is an enjoyable presentation, despite some density and color fluctuations due to the condition of the source materials. Teshigahara’s edits have a way of taking your breath away in this film, and this transfer helps accentuate that in sudden cuts to vibrant tile work — reds, blues and greens looking especially beautiful in this transfer. The uncompressed mono audio is a little thin, but presents a decent presentation of Tôru Takemitsu’s score and its sudden dips into the avant-garde.

All extras are carried over from the DVD. An interview features architect and friend of the director Arata Isozaki, 16mm footage from 1959 shows Teshigahara’s longstanding interest in Gaudí, and a 1963 short film by Teshigahara shows the sculptures of his artist father, Sofu. Further information on Gaudí is featured in the 2003 documentary God’s Architect: Antoni Gaudí and in Ken Russell’s 1961 BBC program, one of his many short documentaries. A trailer and an expansive booklet with an essay by Dore Ashton and thoughts from the filmmaker are also included.

Je t'aimeJe t’aime moi non plus (1976)
Kino Lorber

In the first of several films he directed, Serge Gainsbourg is quick to dispense with the notion that this is some dilettante-ish dabbling.

To be sure, Je t’aime moi non plus, which shares a name with the far more popular song he wrote and performed with Jane Birkin, isn’t on the surest stylistic footing. Its early moments contain some faintly Godardian smash cuts alongside some goofy camera stunts (an early scene where the camera loopily veers to match the wild driving of a group of miscreants gave me a sinking feeling). Eventually, the film settles into a more staid mode, with some elegant crane shots providing a veneer of respectability.

Dubious style aside, this is a singular film, as Gainsbourg is seemingly determined to create the most upsetting juxtapositions possible between the beauty of his stars and the ugliness of their situations.

Set in some godforsaken corner of France, the film features Warhol star Joe Dallesandro as gay garbage collector Krassky and Birkin as Johnny, the truckstop waitress who’s just androgynous enough for him to maybe fall for, much to the ire of Krassky’s boyfriend Padovan (Hugues Quester). Johnny explains she got that moniker because she has “no tits or ass,” and Krassky’s attention perks up.

The trash dump is among the more romantic places where their lopsided relationship blossoms. It’s not the diner, where her boss is constantly spewing invective. It’s not the local dancehall, where a cadre of leering men curdles the film’s sense of eroticism.

It’s certainly not the series of hotels the couple stays in, thrown out of each one because the proprietors assume rape when they hear Johnny’s cries of pain during anal sex. That Gainsbourg’s camera can so lovingly gaze at the otherworldly beauty of his two stars before cutting to that is jarring, to say the least. The film deploys its cruelty casually, particularly in its conclusion, and it can be difficult to reconcile that tone with the film’s more banal platitudes about love and its jaunty piano theme, also by Gainsbourg.

Kino’s Blu-ray presents the film in a 1080p, 1.66:1 transfer, sourced from a new 4K restoration. This is a beautiful transfer, showing off a rarely seen film in almost perfect form. Images are clean and detailed and colors rich and vibrant among the dusty landscapes. Damage is minimal and the presentation is quite film-like. 2.0 LPCM mono audio is also quite clean.

Extras include a new interview with the rakishly charming Dallesandro, who mentions he was disappointed the film didn’t receive a US release, so all his friends stateside would know he wasn’t dead. Dallesandro also shows up for a Q&A with Birkin, moderated by Dennis Lim after a Lincoln Center screening. A Samm Deighan audio commentary and the theatrical trailer are also included.

TrappedTrapped (1949)
Flicker Alley

Another welcome rescue job by the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Trapped has the pedigree to get a deluxe home video release: long-thought-lost status, big-name director, early performances from a popular actor and a cult favorite actress. That the film ends up being somewhat less than the sum of its parts isn’t particularly surprising — a formulaic, stolid script like the one for Trapped is part of the B-noir model.

Still, there are many pleasures to be had. Director Richard Fleischer, who made plenty of noirs before becoming a big-budget studio helmer, gives the film a distinct sense of polish despite its obvious budgetary limitations. (An elegant camera-tilt-and-cut move to show our antiheroes being bugged by the Feds is just one of the smart flourishes he offers.) Lloyd Bridges, who stars as a counterfeiter freed from jail to help assist a sting operation, is an ideal avatar for the L.A. noir: sunny-looking, but vicious. Barbara Payton makes her sexpot girlfriend substantial with an undercurrent of knowing menace of her own as she seduces John Hoyt’s undercover cop.

The telegraphed double-crosses and the dearth of interesting supporting characters aren’t a dealbreaker by any means, but the film can’t help but fizzle when it sidelines Bridges for its climax, an otherwise reasonably exciting train yard chase. In the extras, noir expert Eddie Muller mentions that Bridges was rumored to have fallen ill near the end of production and speculates that producer Bryan Foy would’ve never waited around for him to finish the film. That shoestring approach can lend to a lot of charm of these B-noirs, but it’s a nearly fatal blow here.

Of course, Flicker Alley’s package will inevitably contribute to one’s appreciation for the film, and the 1080p, 1.37:1 transfer, sourced from a private collector’s 35mm acetate print, is impressive in its consistency and a massive upgrade over whatever PD garbage was out there. Naturally, the image has inherent softness, but image stability and clarity is good. Damage is mostly limited to stray marks. The uncompressed mono soundtrack is pretty clean as well. The combo set also includes a DVD copy.

Extras include a featurette on the film’s history and of its stars, including Payton’s tragic life that was frequent tabloid fodder in those days. Also included: a piece on Fleischer’s career, featuring an interview with his son, Mark, and a commentary track with Alan K. Rode and Julie Kirgo. A booklet includes production and promotional art and notes by Muller.

Old JoyOld Joy (2006)
The Criterion Collection

I’ll take any chance to proclaim Kelly Reichardt as the greatest living American filmmaker, and here, in a review of her breakout film, the sentiment must be repeated.

More than a decade after her debut feature, River of Grass (1994), Reichardt followed it up with something you might be tempted to label as a template for her subsequent films, at least on the surface. All of Reichardt’s films from this point on have an ineffable quality; once you think you’ve gotten the parameters defined with a description, they’ve long since wriggled free, unconstrained by their seemingly simple particularities.

That’s especially the case with Old Joy, which like many of her other films, features the Pacific Northwest setting, the feelings of displacement and isolation, and the serenity/terror inherent in man’s relationship with nature. It’s a film that can be summed up in a sentence — two old friends reconnect on a spontaneous camping trip — and its 73 minutes elapse like a blip, dewdrops on morning grass that are suddenly gone. Once its over, the preciousness of every one of those minutes comes into striking view.

Based on Jonathan Raymond’s short story, Old Joy is about Mark (Daniel London) and Kurt (Will Oldham), now two opposites who at some point in their past, weren’t. Mark, played with the barest hint of permanent unease by London, has hit the ostensible milestones of accomplishment — wife, house, baby on the way — while Kurt, played by Oldham with a charisma you know is accompanied by pitfalls, has drifted back into Portland.

An impromptu invitation from Kurt sends them into the woods in search of hot springs, with Mark’s dog Lucy (Reichardt’s dog plays herself) in the back seat of the Volvo. It’s a road trip that’s alternately soothing and tension-filled, just like the contours of the friends’ relationship, at once comfortably informed by a long history and full of terrifying unknowns.

Old Joy thrives on these paradoxes, though none of them are obvious or overindulged. It’s a road movie defined by its stillness, a movie about friendship defined by its silences. It’s the first masterpiece in a career full of subsequent ones, and hopefully, many more to come.

Criterion’s 1080p, 1.78:1 transfer, sourced from a new 2K restoration of a 35mm digital negative, is a gorgeous showcase for the film’s 16mm photography, with perfectly rendered grain, rich and natural colors (the film’s evergreens seem realer than real) and excellent clarity. This is an exceptionally film-like transfer, and a massive upgrade over the previous Kino DVD release. The lossless PCM 2.0 stereo soundtrack reveals plenty of subtle natural sound, while Yo La Tengo’s judiciously applied score sounds great.

Extras are mostly of the interview variety, but all are worth a watch. Reichardt details her interest in the story and the small crew that made the production happen. Cinematographer Peter Sillen offers a more technically focused interview, while Raymond, who’s since gone on to co-write or write most of Reichardt’s films, offers thoughts on their collaboration. London and Oldham reunite for the first time in a while, and their conversation has some of the same hesitant but vulnerable energy that the film does.

Also included: a booklet with an essay by Ed Halter and Raymond’s short story.

LimitsThe Limits of Control (2009)
Arrow Academy

The back half of Jim Jarmusch’s career has seen him take on numerous genre deconstructions, from the western (Dead Man, 1995) to the vampire film (Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013) to the zombie apocalypse (last year’s unfairly dismissed The Dead Don’t Die). In molding the hit man thriller to his own peculiarities in The Limits of Control, Jarmusch offers perhaps his most sublimated take of his career, stripping the mood piece down to the genre’s barest essentials, and then stripping some more.

This is an opaque film, as an unnamed operative known as The Lone Man, played by Isaach De Bankolé, traverses Spain, meeting a series of contacts as he puts together the pieces of his assignment. Alex Descas gets the journey started. John Hurt and Gael García Bernal offer oblique guidance. Paz de la Huerta wonders why The Lone Man won’t fuck her. There will be no fucking or killing in this film. Not on screen anyway. Tilda Swinton shows up in a cowboy hat and exults about Tarkovsky in a scene that explains how to watch this film if you haven’t caught on yet.

With the droning guitars of Japanese band Boris as a guide, the film invites you into a trance. With its dramatic landscapes and persistent air of intrigue, the film suggests there’s an action movie in here somewhere — if only in your imagination. Like any individual plot point, trying to reach out and grasp it will only result in its disintegration.

Arrow’s 1080p, 1.85:1 transfer was provided by Universal, and it’s a pleasing experience, if slightly flatter and less crisp than one might hope for. Color reproduction is excellent, fine detail is adequate and grain structure is well supported. It’s an easy upgrade over the previous DVD release. 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks are provided, offering a strong showcase for the Boris score and clean dialogue throughout.

Arrow provides two new scholarly extras: Geoff Andrews’ interview and Amy Simmons video essay. Both look at Jarmusch’s career as a whole, and there are some interesting points, but both have a tendency to repeatedly note Jarmusch’s unconventionality without digging deeper. Carried over from the previous DVD are a lengthy making-of and a short featurette on the film’s locations. A trailer is also included.

Elvis

Blu-ray and DVD Review Round-Up: Films by Les Blank, Chris Marker, Terry Gilliam and more!

Les Blank: Always for Pleasure
The Criterion Collection

Les Blank: Always for PleasureI’m not sure I can think of a more apt descriptor of Les Blank’s films than “humanist.” The 14 short- to medium-length documentaries included in Criterion’s new box set are vivacious, warm and fascinating looks at some of life’s most sensual pleasures. Not to be trite, but these are works that make you feel grateful to be alive and able to experience the world around you.

Over and over, Blank shows himself to be a master of distilling down the essence of a subculture into a brief but substantial package. Blank resists explanation — his films are defiantly free form, roaming from moment to moment — in favor of immersion, and one can’t help but feel edified after living in one of his cinematic worlds.

Food and music are Blank’s two constants in this collection of work. Even films that have a broader focus tend to incorporate these elements as part of the basic building blocks of culture, whether he’s documenting Cajuns (Spend it All, 1971), a black Creole community (Dry Wood, 1973) or Los Angeles hippies (God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance, 1968).

The music films explore blues guitarists (Lightnin’ Hopkins in The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, 1968, and Mance Lipscomb in A Well Spent Life, 1971), Creole Zydeco (Clifton Chenier in Hot Pepper, 1973), polka culture (In Heaven There Is No Beer?, 1984) and African-Cuban rhythms (Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella, 1995), among others. The sheer joy of the performances captured on film would be enough to justify these films, but each one feels like meaningful time spent with the artist in his environment.

As for food, well, it’s rarely looked this good on screen before. Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980) and Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking (1990) aren’t merely food porn (still, prepare to salivate); they’re contextualizing tributes to the surrounding cultures.

All 14 films in the three-disc Blu-ray set have been granted 2K digital restorations, and the 1080p, 1.33:1 transfers are beautifully film-like, superb reproductions of the 16mm photography. All of the films feature uncompressed mono soundtracks, save for Sworn to the Drum, which has a lossless stereo track. Clean-up work has left these soundtracks crisp and clean.

As if collecting all these films in one place wasn’t enough, Criterion has supplied at least one extra to accompany each film, including five additional short films, outtakes, an excerpt from forthcoming documentary Les Blank: A Quiet Revelation and extensive interviews with family and collaborators, including sons Harrod and Beau, editor Maureen Gosling and friend Werner Herzog. An extensive booklet contains film notes and an essay by Andrew Horton.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Criterion’s Les Blank: Always for Pleasure Blu-ray rates:

The Films (out of ****): ****
Film Elements Sourced: ***1/2
Video Transfer: ****
Audio: ***
New Extra Features: ****
Extra Features Overall: ****
The Criterion Collection/ 1968-1995 / Color / 1.33:1 / 563 min total / $124.95

Level Five (1996)
Icarus Films

Level FiveChris Marker returns to many of his favorite themes in Level Five, a characteristically dense and beautiful essay film that touches on the pain of loss and the role of memory in dealing with that loss. Can the past be changed if memories — both the intangible human memories and the tangible technological ones — are changed? In some ways, Level Five plays like a sequel to Sans Soleil (1983), with Marker again focusing on his beloved Japanese culture, this time looking closely at the tragedy of World War II’s Battle of Okinawa, a precursor to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Marker adds a technological wrinkle, as a woman called Laura (Catherine Belkhodja) seeks to carry on her late lover’s work by completing a video game about the conflict. She addresses him directly, peering into the camera in a series of monologues that dovetail with Marker’s own observations about technology and history. Images of primitive computer graphics mingle with newsreel footage, and Marker’s deft editing constantly creates fascinating juxtapositions between the future and the past that these images represent.

Though the film’s philosophical underpinnings aren’t easy to pin down, the dizzying imagery and the film’s elegiac tone ensure Level Five is anything but dry, academic pondering. Marker again returns to referencing Vertigo (1958) at one point, and it’s no stretch to say that his investigations into the ability to recreate, restructure and re-contextualize memories are every bit as moving and cinematically wondrous as Hitchcock’s film.

Fresh off a theatrical run in 2014 that saw Level Five finally receiving a release in the U.S., Icarus Films brings Marker’s masterpiece to home video in an essential DVD release. The variety of sources all look good in this nice transfer, and the DVD comes with a booklet with an extensive essay from Christophe Chazalon.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Icarus Films’ Level Five DVD rates:

The Film (out of ****): ****
Film Elements Sourced: ***
Video Transfer: ***
Audio: **1/2
New Extra Features: *
Extra Features Overall: *
Icarus Films/ 1996 / Color and black & white / 1.33:1 / 106 min / $29.98

Kinetta (2005)
Second Run DVD

KinettaGreek director Yorgos Lanthimos has established himself as a filmmaker with an eerily alienating style with his most recent works Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011). His debut feature as a solo director, Kinetta, now getting its worldwide home video debut from intrepid UK label Second Run, is clearly those films’ progenitor, examining similar themes in a less formally assured manner.

Like its successors, Kinetta deals with a close-knit community of people that’s developed a series of odd rituals in order to relate to one another. Here, a hotel maid (Evangelia Randou), a plainclothes detective (Costas Xikominos) and a photo clerk (Aris Servetalis) pass the time by filming awkward recreations of murder scenes. This uncomfortable role-playing fills the void in what seems to be mostly colorless existences for these people, playing out in a vacation town during the off-season that might as well be an actual ghost town.

Unlike Lanthimos’ later films, especially Dogtooth, which displays a Michael Haneke-like formal precision, Kinetta features mostly queasy handheld camerawork, fraying the nerves even more than the off-putting but inscrutable actions of the people on-screen, who are more types than actual characters. On its own, Kinetta might feel like a filmmaker valuing obliqueness for its own sake, but take in conjunction with his subsequent films, it fits into a discomfiting oeuvre of estrangement from reality.

Second Run’s 1.85:1 transfer is quite strong considering its standard-def limitations, with a crisp image and a detailed reproduction of Lanthimos’ almost colorless palette. Extras include a newly filmed conversation with the director and a booklet with an essay by critic Michael Ewins.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Second Run’s Kinetta DVD rates:

The Film (out of ****): **1/2
Film Elements Sourced: ***1/2
Video Transfer: ***1/2
Audio: **1/2
New Extra Features: **
Extra Features Overall: **
Second Run DVD / 2005 / Color / 1.85:1 / 94 min / £12.99 / Region 2 (PAL)

Slaughter Hotel (1971)
Raro Video

Slaughter HotelFernando Di Leo is better known for his gritty, violent crime dramas, but with Slaughter Hotel (La bestia uccide a sangue freddo), he serves up a thick slice of giallo-sleaze. Veering between jarringly disjointed and laughably languid, hardly anything here makes a lick of goddamn sense, even by standards of the genre. Still, there’s something admirable about Di Leo’s willingness to abandon sense and style from scene to scene. Frenetic barrages of canted angles will give way to elegant, gliding takes, while scenes juggle varying combinations of sex and death.

Klaus Kinski nominally stars as Dr. Francis Clay, the head of a mental institution that caters to rich women, most of whom are being treated for having a sex drive. But Kinski’s presence is mostly a red herring, as he’s not even in the top 10 of weirdest things in the film. Like most of the performances, Kinski’s borders on medicated, as a series of brutal murders can barely arouse much of a reaction in anyone besides those being murdered (and sometimes, not even them).

The nudity, which approaches gynecological levels, is far more graphic than the violence — beheadings, impalements and slashes are more stolid than your average giallo. It’s hardly an exemplary entry in either the genre’s canon or Di Leo’s filmography, but worth a look for enthusiasts of either.

Raro Video presents the film in a 1080p, 2.35:1 transfer that will do little to dissuade critics of the company’s highly variable technical output. There are some things to like about this transfer, including the consistent color reproduction and strong levels of image clarity. Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of digital manipulation visible, from over-sharpening to heavy-handed edge enhancement. One scene features significant telecine wobble. Elements seem to be in good shape, but the transfer is merely watchable rather than anything commendable.

Two audio options are included, both in 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. This disc defaults to an English dub, while an Italian dub is also offered. The original Italian track is far preferable, featuring sound that is much less tinny and harsh than the English track.

Extras include an interview with actress Rosalba Neri, a fairly in-depth archival making-of and a couple minutes of deleted scenes. The set also includes a booklet with film notes and essays.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Raro Video’s Slaughter Hotel Blu-ray rates:

The Film (out of ****): **
Film Elements Sourced: ***
Video Transfer: **
Audio: **1/2
New Extra Features: N/A
Extra Features Overall: ***
Raro Video/ 1971 / Color / 2.35:1 / 94 min / $29.95

Flaming Star (1960)
Twilight Time

Flaming StarMovies starring Elvis Presley don’t typically cause much excitement among cinephiles, but he proves himself to be a capably understated performer in Don Siegel’s lean western Flaming Star, which opens with a couple of songs before turning into something considerably more sober.

Tensions are rising between white settlers and a Kiowa tribe in post-Civil War Texas, and Presley’s Pacer Burton, a half-white, half-Indian man, finds himself torn as he’s forced to consider loyalties to heritage, family and community. While his white father, Sam (John McIntire), and his Kiowa mother, Neddy (Dolores del Rio), just want to live peacefully, spates of violence on both sides threaten to ignite all-out war.

Siegel’s film has a hair-trigger capability of turning suddenly violent, and he sustains that tension throughout. The film also manages a reasonably fair-minded portrayal of Native Americans, emphasizing the similar community aspects of both cultures while recognizing the vast gulf between them.

Presley communicates a sense of being rent in two with his sensitive, introverted performance. Any of his persona’s braggadocio has been replaced with the wandering, unsure eyes of a young man forced to make a decision he’s not sure he’s equipped to make.

Siegel shoots the action sequences with a tough-minded precision, while he allows more room for the complex interpersonal relationships to play out on screen. That means less of a perfunctory sort-of love interest in Barbara Eden and more of the alternating clashing and bonding between Pacer and white half-brother Clint (Steve Forrest).

Twilight Time presents Fox’s 1080p, 2.35:1 transfer of the film, which is an exceptionally clean and sometimes stunningly vivid high-def presentation. The image possesses excellent clarity and sharpness and the somewhat muted color scheme is still capable of displaying vibrant beauty. Audio options include a mostly useless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track, which shunts some of the score to the surrounds and an uncompressed 2.0 track, which gets the job done fine in original mono.

Extras include Twilight Time’s signature isolated score track, a commentary by Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman and the theatrical trailer.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Twilight Time’s Flaming Star Blu-ray rates:

The Film (out of ****): ***
Film Elements Sourced: ***1/2
Video Transfer: ***1/2
Audio: ***
New Extra Features: *1/2
Extra Features Overall: *1/2
Twilight Time / 1960 / Color / 2.35:1 / 92 min / $29.95

The Zero Theorem (2014)
Well Go USA

The Zero TheoremTerry Gilliam is a filmmaker of boundless imagination, which can sometimes result in overstuffed cinematic worlds in his lesser works. There’s a fair amount of frenetically detailed production design in his latest film, The Zero Theorem, but it somehow feels cheap and insubstantial — a thinly realized knock-off of a Gilliam film instead of the real thing. The same goes for the ideas in Pat Rushin’s script, which shamelessly borrows from Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985), reshaping story and character elements into a discount version that sort of gets the broad strokes right but haplessly botches the details.

Christoph Waltz stars as Qohen Leth, an office drone in a futuristic society tasked with unlocking the meaning of life. Qohen toils under the watchful eye of superiors both nosy (David Thewlis) and aloof (Matt Damon), but his work is merely a distraction in his obsessive patience for a phone call that he believes will unlock the key to his own destiny.

Miserable and neurotic, Qohen gets glimpses of a happy life courtesy of Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry), a prostitute whose idyllic virtual reality experiences become a source of comfort. The artificial beach in these sequences brings to mind the fractured mental state of Jonathan Pryce’s Sam Lowry in the bitterly ironic conclusion of Brazil, but with a half-hearted effort at incisive commentary. Similar broadsides on pervasive advertising and Big Brother surveillance just don’t muster up much energy. Even the normally vibrant Waltz delivers a somnambulant performance that rarely brings any specificity to the character.

On the other hand, Tilda Swinton does appear as a rapping virtual psychiatrist, so it’s not like the film has nothing going for it.

Well Go’s Blu-ray presentation of the film features a roughly 1.75:1 transfer in 1080p. The image features rounded corners in an ostensible attempt to replicate vintage photography. Color reproduction of both garish and muted palettes is nice, and there are solid levels of fine detail to be seen throughout. The image is rarely super-sharp, but this seems to replicate the theatrical look. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack isn’t tested too often, but it offers a reasonably immersive experience when the material calls for it.

Extras include one big EPK chopped up into smaller chunks on the costuming, sets, visual effects and a general behind-the-scenes piece. The theatrical trailer is also included.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor, Well Go’s The Zero Theorem Blu-ray rates:

The Film (out of ****): *1/2
Film Elements Sourced: ***
Video Transfer: ***
Audio: ***
New Extra Features: *1/2
Extra Features Overall: *1/2
Well Go USA / 2014 / Color / 1.75:1 / 111 min / $29.98

 

Dusty Somers is a Seattle-based writer and editor who splits his critical ambitions between writing Blu-ray & DVD reviews and theater criticism. He’s a member of the Online Film Critics Society and Seattle Theater Writers.