National Lampoon's Animal House - August 9, 2011

[Strevlac]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

To each his own. I think of myself as someone who doesn't like the usual trash (no "Transformers" or "Jackass" or "Bad Teacher" for me), but I loved this movie when it was first released. I thought it was brilliantly cast, it had a great script and even with all the silliness, it made many comments about the culture of the time. The movie is worth seeing just for Karen Allen's beautiful smile and Donald Sutherland's small but funny role. The stars were all great as was Otis Day, even though his singing was actually done by a Lloyd Williams.

It might not work as well today because of everything that has come after, but you have to look at any movie within the context of its time. This movie will seem quite tame today, so many probably won't like it, but the "food fight" alone has become part of the culture and it has a great rendition of "Shout".

I hope they were able to find the mag tracks to master the mono track.

No no no no no!! I love this movie

I meant the HD transfer.

[Grand Bob]

I have the HD DVD version and was hoping Universal would clean it up for the Blu-ray release; apparently, that didn't happen. Disappointing.

[notops]

So can we all agree now that Universal is hands-down the WORST studio for Blu-ray quality control?

Its one failure after another with them and I officially have no hope for the upcoming Big Lebowski disc to be anything other than a port of that awful HD DVD transfer. I just pray that Spielberg won't let them f@ck up Jaws like they did with their other crown-jewel, Back To The Future

[retablo]

Originally Posted by notops

So can we all agree now that Universal is hands-down the WORST studio for Blu-ray quality control?

Its one failure after another with them and I officially have no hope for the upcoming Big Lebowski disc to be anything other than a port of that awful HD DVD transfer. I just pray that Spielberg won't let them f@ck up Jaws like they did with their other crown-jewel, Back To The Future

It'll probably also be in terrible packaging like BTTF but Universal will replace it yet not offer a free upgrade for screwing up the first time.

[The Krouser]

Rut Ro! This really scares me now about The Blues Brothers! Not really a big Animal House fan, but I DID want The Blues Brothers. I'm sure that I will buy it but I was hoping it would get the first class treatment it deserves! The music is still awesome! I DON'T worry about Jaws cause Spielberg would not let Universal do a crappy job! John Landis, where for art thou?

[BMM]

Originally Posted by zombeaner

I put little stock in a review that grades the movie as 3.5/5 stars.

Gotta agree with you there. I saw that rating and thought "WTF, is he serious"?

[tylergfoster]

I Tweeted some news I read on this forum about Three Amigos! that was sourced to Trailers From Hell, and whoever runs their Twitter started talking to me about Landis' Blus. He says Landis has a comment about the PQ reviews for Animal House, when I get a link to it or hear what it is, then I'll come back and post it.

[MarkWM]

Day 1 for me. This and Blues Bros.

[El_Burro]

maybe bluray.com can contact Universal and ask direct to them if they ever release a real version of these masterpiece.

I hope so of course

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by notops

So can we all agree now that Universal is hands-down the WORST studio for Blu-ray quality control?

No argument from me.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by notops

So can we all agree now that Universal is hands-down the WORST studio for Blu-ray quality control?

They are definitely the worst when it comes to films needing new masters or restorations and they are by far the worst offenders with DNR/EE and Fox is right there with them. It also still irks me that Warner and Paramount have released so many titles with lossy audio, but they seem to slowly be correcting that.

[Lyle_JP]

I remember when the awful "Double Secret Probation" DVD was released. Landis actually said that Universal had initially created a transfer that looked "too good", and the film no longer had the "60's look" he wanted, so he ordered Universal to intentionally degrade the picture by desaturating the color and introducing artificial noise.

Sounds like this HD version fares no better. The so-called "grain" we see in the screen caps is artificial noise layered over a heavily DNR'ed and edge-enhanced picture. Just awful. This is one of the greatest classic comedies of all time. But I won't pick this up for more than $9. That's my line-in-the-sand for crap like this.

And yes, Universal is the worst at HD. People forget that the first, awful Gladiator disc was actually Universal's work (Paramount just recycled it). I fear for what we will get with The Big Lebowski.

[HD Goofnut]

Yeah, I think I'll wait until this hits the $10 mark as well.

[tama]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6lWN...ature=youtu.be

John Landis on the American Werewolf Blu-Ray and Animal House HD-DVD transfers.....he says in the video when they showed him the first Animal House transfer he asked "where's the grain"? Tech said they removed it.

[Strevlac]

Originally Posted by tama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6lWN...ature=youtu.be

John Landis on the American Werewolf Blu-Ray and Animal House HD-DVD transfers.....he says in the video when they showed him the first Animal House transfer he asked "where's the grain"? Tech said they removed it.

I'm afraid this is going to be repeated ad infinitum as some kind of justification for this POS bluray.

The problem with the bluray is that it is an ancient telecine with video noise and edge enhancement out the wazoo. These are video artifacts. If Universal would have given it a modern 4K scan and left it alone we would see plenty of film grain.

[RuttedCatfish]

I'll be picking this up for 10 bucks at Best Buy after the 5 dollar coupon. Listed in next weeks ad as 14.99 as is Blues Brothers

[tylergfoster]

The other problem with the the video linked is that he specifically says "not high-def" because he's talking about the transfer they did for the Double Secret Probation DVD, as Lyle mentioned.

Also to what Lyle said: the 1080p Blu-Ray trailer for Lebowski on YouTube is visibly DNR and EE heavy even in the compressed trailer. Perhaps they sourced it all from the HD-DVD, someone said it was like that, but yeah...not holding my breath.

[ScottDS]

Originally Posted by droidguy1119

I Tweeted some news I read on this forum about Three Amigos! that was sourced to Trailers From Hell, and whoever runs their Twitter started talking to me about Landis' Blus. He says Landis has a comment about the PQ reviews for Animal House, when I get a link to it or hear what it is, then I'll come back and post it.

Maybe someone can ask Landis about this little error on The Blues Brothers:

I mentioned to the reviewer on the Home Theater Forum the following:

On the HDNet broadcast, there is an error. After the church scene, there's a shot of the Bluesmobile, followed by a close-up of the 8-track player. Two shots later, the 8-track player close-up repeats - this shouldn't be there. When I saw the film on HDNet, I replayed that because I knew something was off (the audio stays the same).

His reply:

That error remains in the theatrical version:

It is on the theatrical cut, not the extended cut. The same error exists on the theatrical cut as found on the 25th Anniversary SD DVD but does not exist on the extended cut there. And I'm seeing here that it exists on the theatrical version shown on HDNet. Just to check, I looked at an old videotape I made from an airing on the Z channel back in 1985. While the picture and sound quality are nowhere near that found on the Blu-ray, the mistake doesn't exist on that version.

The error is easily spotted once you see the sequence correctly. After the brothers leave the church where the James Brown number plays, there's a dissolve to a night highway shot of the Bluesmobile. While in this exterior shot, we hear the beginning of a Sam & Dave song and see the Bluesmobile get passed on its left by an 18 wheel truck. We then cut inside to a close-up of the 8-track Sam & Dave tape. We cut back outside to a shot of the Bluesmobile exiting the highway, and so on. In the remastered theatrical cut at least as recent as the 2005 DVD, there is a premature cut inside to the 8-track tape, then a cut back outside to the 18 wheeler in the middle of passing the Bluesmobile and a cut back inside to the 8-track at the proper point in the soundtrack. I'm not sure how this error happened, but I would not have noticed if you hadn't asked, or if I had only watched the extended version.

It seems pretty clear that the same HD master has likely been used for the 2005 DVD, the HDNet broadcasts and for the new Blu-ray. I wouldn't be surprised if this holds true both for the theatrical and extended cuts. If John Landis approved the new Blu-ray transfer, it's likely he just watched the extended cut - or perhaps just isolated sequences.

The mistake isn't a dealbreaker for me, but it's strange to see. Since the soundtrack isn't affected, it's just an odd visual hiccup.

[toodeepuntilnow]

Originally Posted by tama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6lWN...ature=youtu.be

John Landis on the American Werewolf Blu-Ray and Animal House HD-DVD transfers.....he says in the video when they showed him the first Animal House transfer he asked "where's the grain"? Tech said they removed it.

I love when he talks about the tech writing "image degraded per director request..."

[ApolloOne]

A&E aired a two hour documentary a couple of years ago about Animal House. I believe it was in HD. I never got to see the whole thing, so when I heard Animal House was coming out on Blu-ray, I was really hoping this show would be included. It's disappointing to see that it was not.