Blu Saturday: Perhaps the best Blu-ray I've seen so far
(Blu Monday Saturday is our roundup of what's new in Blu-ray...)
It may be the best-looking Blu-ray disc I've seen yet, and it's not a major theatrical blockbuster. It's called Baraka, a 1993 experiential film by Ron Fricke, who also worked on Chronos and Koyaanisqatsi. There's no dialogue and no plot--the filmmakers traveled to 24 countries and filmed nature scenes, factories, monasteries, and big cities, sometimes juxtaposing images such as baby chicks being rushed down an assembly line intercut with a sped-up Tokyo subway scene. So it's primarily a sensual experience, and for presentation this disc is tough to beat. Shot in 70mm and scanned in 8K UltraResolution (8,192 pixels across the frame, the highest resolution available), the film looks incredibly gorgeous and detailed, and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (@96k/24bits) is also impressive. Also on the disc (both in high definition) are a seven-minute restoration featurette and a 76-minute (!) piece on the making of the film. Intrigued? You can get a look at the making of Baraka below. (I did have some intermittent playback problems from the scene-selection menu, which probably means it's time to update my PS3 firmware.) --David
New Blu-ray pre-orders that have recently hit the catalog:
- Tropic Thunder
- The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
- Pinocchio
- Wedding Crashers
- Any Given Sunday
- Being There
- The Mask
- Dumb and Dumber
- Becket
- Election
Flap Jackson on October 25, 2008 at 08:24 AM
It not only looks like it uses the Heroes logo, but it sounds like a documentery on that one famous Barak.
mockmook on October 25, 2008 at 05:22 PM
"Shot in 70mm and scanned in 8K UltraResolution (8,192 pixels across the frame, the highest resolution available)"
This is gibberish. The UltraDigital was a process to get it into standard HD format (much less than 8k horizontal). Some other method with less pixels could have yielded the same result.