Altered States (1980) - July 10,2012 Review

[BluPat]

Originally Posted by Monroville

I would like to know how your GF reacted to this. This is one of those "test the girlfriend for marriage material" movies. If you can find one that likes this and/or THE ROAD WARRIOR, then you have a keeper.

Actually my boyfriend....I'm gay. And we both laughed at her hairy armpits. We've been together almost 12 years now.

[HanaBi]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Anyone notice any sound sync issues? The argument when Wiliiam Hurt is talking about 57 ish mins in seems out of sync unless that is how it has always been.

I just watched it, and some scenes seemed off, while others were OK. Not sure if it's the film or the disc, especially since a lot of the dialogue seems looped. (But knocks on a door should be in sync. )

The color looked good to me, but I was only 11 when I saw it in the theater. And it kind of freaked me out...in a good way.

[nagysaudio]

THIS is how you release a God awful Blu-ray. In 2012! And using a new scan, no less! Absolutely pathetic.

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleich...D=1502#auswahl

[KrugerIndustrial]

Originally Posted by nagysaudio

THIS is how you release a God awful Blu-ray. In 2012! And using a new scan, no less! Absolutely pathetic.

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleich...D=1502#auswahl

Why? It is supposed to be this dark. You're assuming the DVD has the correct color scheme/contrast, which is not true.

[PowellPressburger]

I watched my Altered States BLU again tonite the first time since It was released.

I just always LOVE hot the film starts, but I feel like it detoriates as it progresses. The tite sequence IMO is legendary yet flawed (staring could have been removed instead of static as the cast was listed.)

The cinematography is great and the audio it really good. But the acting goes into overdrive in a bad way and feels redic. I love Charles Haid on Hill Street Blues but I feel like he was miscast for this film.

As much as I feel like the movie becomes bad, I still love revisiting it because it had so much promise at the start.

Now if someone here or in the UK should release The Mind Benders then that would be great.

[HeavyHitter]

Having been meaning to watch this movie for years, I finally did last night. All things considered, I thought it was 'okay' but it certainly had more potential. I think the basic premise and some of the ideas of the movie were interesting.

On any rate, Warner attempted to make this disc look pretty. Pure and simple. It looks nothing like film. The grain has been wiped away leaving some light DNR artifacts in the process and there was an obvious revisionist attempt to give a stark 'contrasted' look to the movie manipulating shadow detail and contrast with deep blacks. It kind of reminded me of what Universal did with The Sting. It's definitely unnatural, but adds to the 'pretty' artificial look they were evidently aiming for. Being this disc is five years old, perhaps today they would take a different approach to it. Now I realize trailers are not by any means the way movies were exactly intended to look, but if you watch the trailer you can see without a doubt how a movie from this era more closely typically looked.

[dullboy]

Yeah, I'm surprised the review on this site gave it a 4 on video quality.

[yellowcakeuf6]

I saw it in a 70mm blowup during its original run, and there was definitely more grain in that showing, but Blu-ray is obviously video and goes for a best-of situation that sometimes is revisionist. I get a kick out of a lot of trailers on these discs because they can look very like the theatrical presentations, complete with bad cuts, missing frames and sound pops. That's how I remember many film projections from those days, especially if it was deep in its run.
The sound on the Blu-ray gave me flashbacks. I thought they did that well. The "Megasound" soundtrack during the "hallucinogenic" scenes are very close to my recollection.

[HeavyHitter]

Agreed, I thought the audio was solid.

[yellowcakeuf6]

Note the Megasound logo.

[GasmaskAvenger]

if this gets a 4K UHD (either through Criterion as rumored, WB themselves or by chance...another boutique label), I can see it looking massively better than the current blu-ray.

[DaylightsEnd]

Thinking a lot about this film recently.

What do we have to do to convince WB to drop it in 4k uhd? The 13-year-old blu is pretty meh, and seriously in need of an update at this point....