The Narrator's Blu-Ray Awards for 2013

[The Narrator]

Best Label: Shout! Factory

Shout! Factory has long been one of the good guys in home video, if only because of their excellent Roger Corman releases and their devotion to Mystery Science Theater 3000. But this year, they truly took things into overdrive. Technically, their Renaissance began last year with the release of John Carpenter’s They Live, but this year was an embarrassment of riches from them. Want to see Tobe Hooper’s batshit sci-fi epic Lifeforce in glorious HD? You have Shout! to thank for the opportunity to do so. Waiting for a decent release of Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness? They’ve got it under control. Want to see what Universal left on the cutting room floor for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie? They have you covered.

RUNNER-UP: Arrow Video (the UK answer to Shout! Factory, releasing just as many cult goodies and genuine classics)


Best New Label: (tied) Drafthouse Films and Cohen Film Collection

This year, two new labels entered the scene, and in a year’s time, released some truly amazing movies. Drafthouse resurrected the lost Australian classic Wake in Fright, acted as a distributor for one of the year’s most talked-about movies, The Act of Killing, and restored Abel Ferrara’s grindhouse masterpiece, Ms. 45 (not to mention giving us the soon-to-be classic Miami Connection). Cohen Film Collection released two of home video’s biggest blind spots up to now, Luis Buñuel’s Tristana and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Two Men in Manhattan, as well as D.W. Griffith’s classic Intolerance. Most labels couldn’t equal the triple-punch in several years, let alone a few months. Bravo, I say, bravo.


Worst Label: Universal

Normally, this would be Echo Bridge’s category to lose, but they actually marginally improved this year, with shockingly decent Blu-Rays of Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal and Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl (not that many of you would want to own either of those). So, I’m going with a more irritating kind of bad, this time coming from Universal. If there’s a more frustrating studio than Universal, I don’t know it. They’ve shown that they clearly can do good (and they have this year, namely their release of Schindler’s List), but most of the time, they’re content to treat their catalog titles like crap. They’ve clearly come from masters created for DVD, back when grain-removal and edge enhancement were the norm. They more often than not look like video instead of film. And they’re worlds away from Universal’s excellent treatment of their newer titles. I’ll discuss their practices a little more thoroughly below, but just know that they don’t really care.


Best Transfer (Digital): Skyfall

It’s ****ing Skyfall, of course it’s going to look amazing.

RUNNERS-UP: Upstream Color, Only God Forgives


Best Transfer (Film): The Master

Even if you don’t like The Master, this movie looks ****ing gorgeous, and of course it’s the best goddamn transfer of the year.

RUNNER-UP: Mud, The World's End


Worst Transfer: Weird Science

This is what I’m talking about when I say that Universal doesn’t care. The film isn’t a great one, but it deserves a hell of a lot better treatment than what Universal gave it. Even if you like your movies without grain (*growls in your direction*), this is downright unpleasant to look at. Fine detail? What fine detail? There’s no sharpness to be found here. Instead, there’s waxy faces, some awful edge-enhancement halos, and bland colors. More like Bad Transfer, amirite? Yeah, I am right.

RUNNERS-UP: Desk Set and Black Swan (for Fox’s inexplicable decision to replace all their colors with teal and orange)


Least Unnecessary Double-Dip: Day of the Dead (Shout! Factory)

Anchor Bay’s early Blu-Ray releases left a lot to be desired. Their crummy Evil Dead 2 Blu-Ray was thankfully rendered obsolete when Lionsgate released it in 2011, and now, Scream Factory, the horror division of Shout! Factory, has given George Romero’s third movie in the Dead series the treatment it deserves. The big selling point is the brand-spanking-new transfer, with more noticeable film grain and stronger colors than the bland AB Blu-Ray, but there’s also a new, exhaustive documentary about the making of the film. All hail our Shout! Factory overlords.

RUNNER-UP: Halloween: 35th Anniversary Edition (for featuring improved color timing over, again, the old Anchor Bay Blu-Ray)


Most Unnecessary Double-Dip: Pain & Gain: Special Collector’s Edition

Warner Bros. is probably the most notable studio when it comes to double-dips, but Paramount is probably the most nefarious about it. It takes true balls to do something like promote the special edition of Zodiac with a trailer on the featureless edition of Zodiac, and those balls came into great use with the release of Pain & Gain. First released in August with no special features, Paramount waited a sum total of three months before unveiling the edition you should have bought in the first place. But the best part is that the “Collector’s Edition” has one, count ‘em, one, special feature, which is more than zero, but still depressingly bare for the special edition. Paramount not only half-assed it the first time, they even half-assed the correction of previous half-assedness.

RUNNERS-UP: The Wizard of Oz: 75th Anniversary Edition, JFK: 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Extended Edition, Argo: The Declassified Extended Edition, All the President’s Men: 2-Disc Special Edition, The Exorcist: 40th Anniversary Edition, pretty much everything Warner Bros. released this year


Worst New Trend: The easter egg hunt for bonus features

Do you want the comprehensive releases of Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness? Well, you better have deep pockets, because there are bonus features spread across many different stores for both movies. The Target-exclusive edition has one featurette, while the Best Buy-exclusive one has another. You’re going to have to buy each and every release at every store you can find before you can truly have a complete edition, and then you have to go on iTunes to buy the director’s commentary. Oh, and the Steelbook edition too. God forbid you don’t buy the Steelbook edition.