therewillbeblus wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2026 7:44 pm
Any indication of whether Little Big Man will be upgraded/reissued by Paramount? The blu-ray is OOP
Haven’t heard anything about the film since Plaion released a Blu-ray in Germany in 2017. It has better PQ than the US disc and some bonus features too. Here are caps and here’s a buying link.
Is it still available for purchase digitally? If so, you can check the rights holder. If it’s still Paramount, I could see them licensing the film to Kino.
Meet the Fockers - caps. Good PQ upgrade but only Atmos audio. Point Blank (Criterion) - caps. Criterion states in the booklet:
“A 35 mm archival print provided by Warner Bros. was used as a color reference.”
BR.com user teddyballgame also found a comment from the DP about the look of the film:
"It had an entirely different look," he says. "He made a color chart for every scene. They were never garish. In one scene the colors were desaturated. There was no color anywhere. It was like black-and-white film. There was a very warm sequence and another which made strong use of green."
Point Blank looks great, and the grading looks like something that could have been accomplished during development, not digital. And it's not a blanket grade, either. So of course, a certain someone will definitely be complaining about it.
I'm very rarely 'that guy', but the teal looks frustrating on some of those caps.. I'm sure it'll be fine in motion and I won't notice, but I've always appreciated the warmer look on this film
therewillbeblus wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2026 6:01 pm
I'm very rarely 'that guy', but the teal looks frustrating on some of those caps.. I'm sure it'll be fine in motion and I won't notice, but I've always appreciated the warmer look on this film
In case it's any help, some BR posters saw the film on 35mm and they mentioned that the prints resemble the Criterion grade more than all the past home video masters and that the greens caught them off guard too. As you said, it'll have to be a matter of your eyes having to adjust to the "new" look when you watch it.
Beaver has screencaps up, too. I'm persuaded that this version is closer to the original prints. WB was overly saturated, now the images look much more intentional, the color balance is better, contrasts are more striking, and seem better aligned with the shot compositions and editing.
I got new Suspiria from UK and it looks very different from Synapse. Hard to describe it but I think it looks nicer but what did they do to make it look so different and is it more accurate? Skin tones look better and they can be pink or washed out pale on Synapse I did not expect such differences.
These are two entirely different masters on the basis of the same negative scan. Synapse made their own master and Shameless used the TLE restoration but with more refined and film-like grading + HDR.
Is it fair to say the Shameless release of Suspiria is red tier while the Synapse is blue tier given the latter is still
presumably well-encoded as it’s FiM?
I already have the Synapse and am reluctant to double dip as I’ve recently gone to town ordering some other stuff, although I wouldn’t be opposed to picking up a standard edition of the Shameless release provided we get one down the line at some point.
They’re both so different and accomplished on their own that ranking one of them as the better one doesn’t seem entirely fair to me. The Synapse was a stunning release when it came out and still is very impressive. Now that we’re all older, wiser and with grading philosophies having evolved, you’ve got to decide what you like the most - Synapse with its more aggressive “pop” grading that’s more an interpretation of the film’s look rather than a presentation that adheres closer to how the film might’ve looked in theaters when projected.
Synapse's grade was approved by the cinematographer. The look of the film was highly influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, so it wouldn't surprise me if the pinker/paler skin tones were what was intended.
Last edited by dwk on Wed Apr 08, 2026 3:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I saw it twice in 35mm in 1983-84, when the prints weren't that old, and the Synapse version is far, far closer to my extremely vivid memories. It's also closer to what I've always understood was the aesthetic philosophy behind the film, which Tovoli has articulated in detail.
David Hare posted a rave for this disc on his Facebook timeline.
Criterion's new 4K disc of Trouble in Paradise is a giant step up from the screening of a "new" restoration from Universal which I saw back in 2017 at Bologna. It was good, certainly better than the older UK and US Bluray discs. But it had quite a few work-in-progress problems . All the opticals - and they are very many - tanked the grain and density. The new print (I recall it was screened on 35) had tramline emulsion scratches throguh 80% of the picture, and there were sundry other problems. But it was good enough to bring the very youthful house that day to its feet in what must have been for them the first discovery of a total, seamless masterpiece, a perfect movie, and for me, a joyous reunion after first seeing it in a lovely 16mm print at the Trinity Church Wall Street Sunday cine club Screening Nites way WAY back in December 1971.
When Criterion announced this I wondered how much further they might go with restoration. In the interim they did a superb 4K restoration of Leisen's 1939 Midnight (another perfect film) which played to a knocked out full house at Sydney Cinema Reborn back in 2023. That superb 4K was curated from a previously wrongly identified dupe nitrate safety fine grain and other elements which had been lying around mislabelled as safety 35 copies at the Library of Congress until Universal dug it out and dsicovered to their surprise near-pristine material.
Unfortunately Criterion released a Blu only back last year which was hugely underwhelming displaying massive grain reduction to near zero grain, lowered black shadow detail, softer edges and overall a really shitty encode. I had hoped Criterion would release Midnight as a 4K but given such a mediocre master like this what was the point. Maybe someday another label will risk the budget and coax a reliable 4K master for disc encoding out of Universal.
The story for Trouble is the total reverse of MidInight's. Universal appears to have gone full hog on this and Criterion has stepped up to what looks like a perfect 4K encode with a flawless 4K disc AND Bluray/2K disc. Evrerything sings. It's unbelievable, especially for a pre 1935 slower-speed-neg-film and faster lenses era.
The softness now is totally supported without a hiccup through the grain which while always visible is a part of the images' "lifeblood." One of the biggest surprises is not a whisper of density bumps in the opticals all of which flow seamlessly. Grayscale is total, whites and deep black perfect, silver and reflective jewellery and glass shimmer with nitrate sparkle.
A perfect rescue of a perfect movie. Essential to life.
Uncommon Valor (Kino) - color space error on the 4K Danger: Diabolik (Eureka) - FiM encode, more audio and subtitle options. It is probably the exact same Kino master without additional clean-up but that'll surely be confirmed when more people receive their copies and comparisons emerge. In the meantime, BD caps and audio graphs here.
Perhaps Blu-Ray.com or DVDBeaver review will be totally different but for what is worth I watched the UHD with my video-projecteur yesterday and the transfer/restoration is really great : great HD details on close-ups, clothes (Mariam's dress for instance), great grain film-texture which adds to the "home-cinéma chez soi" experience and a kind of softness (a "certain softness" would sung Paul McCartney).
Really pleased with this Criterion edition (my last Criterion were Eyes Wide Shut and Birth)
I watched all the bonus (not that long : 20 minutes for the video essay) and Peter Bogdanovich is 10 minutes; it seems to me like when they got Peter Bogdanovich "under their hands" they recorded several film intro/presentation for several movies because this interview looks like it was cut. I'm almost sure that I've seen another introduction from Boganovich on another Criterion but I just can't put my finger on it so far.
I Wish "Sérénade à trois" with Miriam Hopkins (which is one of my other Lubitsch movie) would one day be re-release in UHD (but that means the Blu-Ray will be the same than the first Criterion release (it is not a bad transfert that said). I really love Miriam Hopkins, I even enjoy a lot The Story Of Temple Drake.
