The Good German
 

just what are warners doing to their new releases?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...ood_german.htm

This one looks like another dodgy transfer.

this is from the press release so i'm not sure if imdb and dvdbeaver have their info straight:

"In fact, the director shot the film as if it had been made in 1945, when the screen aspect ratio was 1:33:1—the same as a traditional television screen. Following Soderbergh's original intent, the DVD version has been released in that same 1:33:1 ratio."

the 1:33:1 ratio (I assumed that was soderbergh's intent) does not bother me as much as the quality as shown in the screenshots which looks as bad as some of their other new release dvd releases (eg The Fountain, The Departed and Blood Diamond). the 3rd screenshot almost looks out of focus.

Someone posted in another thread that they have a new group of compressionists working on their newer release titles, and so far they've been producing some rather clumsy work.

To quote Gary:

"I can find no reason to recommend this un-entertaining film or incompetent, bare-bones DVD."

I guess Gary wasn't impressed with Warner's transfer at all. This looks like a rental for me.

It was blurry, grainy, and out of focus when I saw it in the theater. I think this was intentional. The movie wasn't too bad. Tobey shouldn't have been in the picture. He is typecast as Spiderman.

All of the image problems were intentional from what I understand.

When people cite blurry or grainy images, are they referring to the 1940s stock war footage Soderbergh used or the scenes he actually shot for the film? Obviously the stock footage is going to look this way.

souvenir,

I'm just going by the screenshots, look at screenshot 3 which is not sotck footage but looks out of focus.

I was rather looking forward to this release. Now, I'll just wait and see.

I watched this tonight. I did not see it in theaters, but the image quality seemed good to me. Soderbergh worked very, very hard to mimic some of the style of Hollywood movies made over fifty years ago and it seems that most of the image quality stuff was intentional. I thought this movie was incredibly entertaining and unique with good performances, it just sucks there were no extras. Very underrated.

from the recent dvdtalk review:

"In a bizarre reversal of fortune for the DVD era, The Good German has been put on disc as a fullscreen movie, despite being shown in theatres at a wider aspect ratio. This represents Soderbergh's original vision for the picture, emulating the 1.33:1 framing of the older films he's borrowing from. This actually works in the movie's favor, by my estimation. The newsreel footage is integrated better at this size, and the rear projection is no longer as obvious. The image never feels cramped, nor is there the sense that we are missing anything.

Further stylistic conceits have also been cited as unintentional flaws in some early reviews. The slight surface grain on the film as well as the overexposed lighting--the whites are very bright, and the blacks are very black--are not errors in the DVD authoring but part of Soderbergh's technique for matching the look of 1940s films. Really, the only picture flaws I could see came in the occasional soft edges, usually apparent on the actors."

i feel much better now.

I thought I read he had shot this in the European aspect ratio of 1.66:1, cause the framing in the theaters was not 1.33

Re: The Good German
 

I found the film entertaining. I was, however, disappointed by the DVD. I would have loved a commentary track, or a feature of some kind. I pulled this out of the $5 bin at Walmart recently, and found it worthwhile at that price point. We have a 4:3 TV in the bedroom, so it was nice to watch something at night that was actually in that format for a change.

Also, for those who thought Tobey Maguire shouldn't have been in this film, I entirely disagree. The edginess he brought to this role was heightened, not diminished, by his performances as Spider-Man. Seeing him be so ruthless was great, and showed me some of his range as an actor that I had previously not suspected.