The Interpreter (2005) coming from Kino

[Akijama]

Coming Soon on Blu-ray!
Sydney Pollack's Final Film!

The Interpreter (2005) Starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen, Yvan Attal, Earl Cameron, George Harris, Michael Wright and Clyde Kusatsu - Shot by Darius Khondji (Se7en, Delicatessen) - Screenplay by Charles Randolph (The Big Short), Scott Frank (Out of Sight) and Steven Zaillian (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) - Directed by Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor, The Yakuza).

[SeanJoyce]

If you looked up words like "frivolous", "tepid" and "forgettable" in the dictionary, a review of The Interpreter would be provided.

[laidbacklarkin]

will pick up during a Kino sale for $8, no more. Very forgettable but one of those that has replay value once every few years to realize that. I am aware of the irony here

[Monterey Jack]

I thought this was a fine thriller, a nice return to form for Pollack after a handful of turkeys in the mid-to-late 90's.

[dommie]

I liked this film enough to purchase the UK import a couple of years ago. I am just wondering if this Kino release will contain a new transfer.

[MovieHermit]

Will this have a brand new 4k transfer like Deep Rising?

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by MovieHermit

Will this have a brand new 4k transfer like Deep Rising?

haha

[laidbacklarkin]

Originally Posted by MovieHermit

Will this have a brand new 4k transfer like Deep Rising?

1. Universal will go dumpster diving to find a DVD era scan slathered with DNR and hand it over to Kino
2. Kino will then strip it off the subtitle track
3. Kino will then encode it with incorrect gamma settings.
4. Kino will release on a BD-25 calling it 'Studio Classics' (whatever that means), with about 10 GB space to spare and a $29.99 MSRP
5. Four months after release, it will feature in a $8.99 sale

This is typically the interaction b/w Kino/Studio and Kino/Consumers

[MovieHermit]

Originally Posted by laidbacklarkin

1. Universal will go dumpster diving to find a DVD era scan slathered with DNR and hand it over to Kino
2. Kino will then strip it off the subtitle track
3. Kino will then encode it with incorrect gamma settings.
4. Kino will release on a BD-25 calling it 'Studio Classics' (whatever that means), with about 10 GB space to spare and a $29.99 MSRP
5. Four months after release, it will feature in a $8.99 sale

This is typically the interaction b/w Kino/Studio and Kino/Consumers

I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time lol

[James Luckard]

Kino confirmed on Facebook that it will include all the DVD extras, which have been left off all the overseas Universal BDs. (I have the UK BD)
- Sydney Pollack commentary
- alternate ending
- deleted scenes
- 4 featurettes:
"Sydney Pollack At Work: From Concept to Cutting Room"
"Interpreting Pan & Scan Vs. Widescreen"
"The Ultimate Movie Set: The United Nations"
"A Day In The Life of Real Interpreters"

It also may include a new historian commentary.

I can't wait to pick this up.

[MifuneFan]

I'm surprised this wasn't on BD in the US before, been out for ages overseas. Pretty good movie.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I'm surprised this wasn't on BD in the US before, been out for ages overseas. Pretty good movie.

I agree. The kind of movie we used to get all the time, a 2hr+, dialogue-driven suspense thriller for adults. Even when this came out, in 2005, I remember reading articles about how it was a dinosaur. Now I can't even imagine a studio making a movie like this. So sad.

[Monterey Jack]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I agree. The kind of movie we used to get all the time, a 2hr+, dialogue-driven suspense thriller for adults. Even when this came out, in 2005, I remember reading articles about how it was a dinosaur. Now I can't even imagine a studio making a movie like this. So sad.

Yeah...the 90's were really the last gasp of adult-oriented mainstream thrillers. Nowadays it's all comic-book escapism and kiddie kartoons all summer long.

[James Luckard]

I love that this film is a classy, old-fashioned Hitchcockian throwback. The miraculous fact that much of it was allowed to be shot inside the United Nations gives it an authentic scale and mid-century modern look that no sets could ever have achieved.

It's just a shame the film chose to fictionalize Zimbabwe, but only slightly. The elderly leader who led the freedom fighters, but has now become a racist, nationalist despot, was clearly Mugabe. SO much of the story is obviously about Zimbabwe, but there was no way to film a movie like this in the UN HQ while openly condemning a member state, so they invented "Matobo." Frankly, I'm astonished the UN let them film this there. It's as surprising as the Soviets allowing The Russia House to shoot there.

The other problem, to my mind, with the film's fictional country of Matobo is that, in order to not make it clearly Zimbabwe (which it still was) they added in things like landmines everywhere, referencing Mozambique (where they actually filmed), and other elements from other African countries too. They ended up creating a composite failed African state that was worse than any one country and felt unintentionally racist.

Still, I respect what the film was trying to say, and I enjoy the big-budget glossy suspense setpieces.

[cheez avenger]

I watched it once on DVD back in the day and remember it being mediocre.

[Zodokai]

I really enjoyed this one, so I'm happy to finally be able to upgrade my DVD.

[technohobby]

Upgraded this back in 2015. I had to pull this off the shelf just now after reading about the planned release. Apparently, I bought the UK version from Amazon(USA). Fortunately, not region restricted.

Which raises the point, isn't it time to drop the region codes? With so many older titles not reaching the level of sufficient interest to incentivize studios to update or simply re-release them, can we drop this foolish hurdle? I could easily imagine far more titles would have international demand, perhaps overcoming studio reluctance to invest the money.

Just me being practical, and naive.

[doctor_who]

This title was available on HD-DVD and if I recall correctly it looked solid. I imagine it will be similar if not the same.

[Daytripper]

This is streaming now on Hulu. The PQ is fantastic. Hope Kino doesn't **** it up. Saw this in the theater and thought it was a terrific thriller. 8.5/10 rating from me. Kidman and Penn have great chemistry. Catherine Keener turns in a great performance too.

[James Luckard]

I watched the Kino disc tonight. Unfortunately it has a serious flaw.

From about 1:50:00 on (the last ten mins or so of the movie, before the credits roll), the video is incorrectly mastered somehow, so that there's very bad ghosting. It's almost like a PAL-NTSC conversion. It's especially noticable in the scene of

[Show spoiler]Kidman and Penn in the safe room with Zuwanie

and the scene of

[Show spoiler]Kidman and Penn by the river

at the end.

Every single hard cut from shot to shot looks weird, like video. When you go slo-mo, you can see each cut is now a fade, with the previous shot ghosted on the new shot. Every bit of even vaguely fast motion, like Sean Penn putting his hands in the air at 1:55:24, is stuttery. When you go frame by frame, you can see that each frame has two frames ghosted together.

I checked my British BD, and the ghosting issue is not present there.

In addition, there's an audio pop at 1:31:01 on the American disc, just as the film cuts to a new location. That pop also isn't present on the UK BD.

It's a shame, the UK disc is barebones, and this one ports over all the bonus features from the US DVD, but I'll be hanging onto my UK disc.