FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is tied with CASINO ROYALE as my favorite James Bond movie. Both lack the silliness and over the top gadgets that crept into the series as it wore on. (THUNDERBALL is where the gadget creep started, with the jet pack. Then YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE started down the improbability road with Bond posing as a Japanese ninja. C'mon, Sean Connery pretending to be Japanese is a stretch and a half. I still can't decide if it's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE or DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER as the point when the campy elements that permeated the movies throughout most of Roger Moore's time in the role started.)
I'm not going to do a review of the movie itself, since one of these days I plan on doing a series of Bond reviews in chronological release order, re-watching each film as I do it. Again, the short review is that this is one of the best Bonds and it's got Connery in it. Definitely worth a buy.
I'm not going to do a review of the movie itself, since one of these days I plan on doing a series of Bond reviews in chronological release order, re-watching each film as I do it. Again, the short review is that this is one of the best Bonds and it's got Connery in it. Definitely worth a buy.
I've got FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE on DVD, the nice remastered version from a few years back. Then I downloaded a ripped from cable 720p HD version of the movie because it wasn't commercially available in HD. Now, FRWL is the first Blu-Ray of my own that I've added to my collection. (The rest of the BDs and the Playstation 3 player for them that I have now are inherited.)
I can't believe how amazing this movie, which came out in 1963, looks in high def. The Blu-Ray smokes the HDTV rip in picture quality. The picture is loads sharper and the colors are far more vibrant. The digitally remastered DVDs are great looking DVDs. The BD of this movie makes the DVD's picture quality seem like something that was recorded underwater. I'm a bit surprised by this, but I should be. After all, I've seen older movies look great when transferred to Blu-Ray. For instance, the original '78 DAWN OF THE DEAD is another flick that looks shockingly great on BD. (It's also usually dirt cheap!)
I also like how, unlike some other titles, a lot of the special features on this disc are also in HD. They seem to be the same extras from the special box set DVD edition, but since I bought my copies of those movies individually, I didn't get the second disc. This means that the extras are new to me.
If you've made the jump to Blu, and dig the Bond flicks, definitely add FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE on Blu-Ray to your collection if you haven't already. You won't regret it.
I can't believe how amazing this movie, which came out in 1963, looks in high def. The Blu-Ray smokes the HDTV rip in picture quality. The picture is loads sharper and the colors are far more vibrant. The digitally remastered DVDs are great looking DVDs. The BD of this movie makes the DVD's picture quality seem like something that was recorded underwater. I'm a bit surprised by this, but I should be. After all, I've seen older movies look great when transferred to Blu-Ray. For instance, the original '78 DAWN OF THE DEAD is another flick that looks shockingly great on BD. (It's also usually dirt cheap!)
I also like how, unlike some other titles, a lot of the special features on this disc are also in HD. They seem to be the same extras from the special box set DVD edition, but since I bought my copies of those movies individually, I didn't get the second disc. This means that the extras are new to me.
If you've made the jump to Blu, and dig the Bond flicks, definitely add FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE on Blu-Ray to your collection if you haven't already. You won't regret it.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment