Update Megaweek, Day 13: Controversial Blus: The Informant!

I haven't really considered myself a fan of Steven Soderbergh in a long time. I remember liking Sex, Lies & Videotape (I need to go back to and revisit that one), Kafka was at least an interesting effort and Schizopolis was quite good. But after that, his films seem to range from the decent (Out of Sight, Erin Brokovich) to the poor (The Girlfriend Experience, anyone?) fairly adrift in a sea of unwanted remakes (Ocean's 11, Solaris, Traffic). So The Informant! really took me by surprise. It's brilliant, like all of the strengths he showed in his past work combined with none of the flaws to make this movie. Unfortunately, the DVD for it was a little disappointing.

Update 4/20/15 - 5/14/26: Update Megaweek is nearing its close, and today I've got two UHDs (and a BD) I've had burning up my to-do list.  Here we've got Warner's 2025 4k Informant! upgrade, which hopefully resolves the issues previous releases had.  And I've also gone and updated the Quick & the Dead page with the French BD and UHD, which are currently the only way to watch the full, uncut version in 4k.  Big updatin' day, but I'm not done yet!

Matt Damon stars as Mark Whatacre, the real life informant of an international price-fixing conspiracy of lysine that happened in the mid 90s. It's a true story, an involving human drama, and a comedy. It's a constant neck-and-neck race between the writing and the performances, including Scott Bakula as Damon's FBI contact who's connection is more crooked and crazy than the people he's investigating. There's actually lots of great comic actors in the supporting roles, including Rick Overton, Patton Oswalt and even The Smothers Brothers. But it's way of staying right on the edge of being a straight-forward depiction of actual events vs. an out and out comedy that makes it so effective on multiple levels at once.

So now, what I've got here is the single disc version of the US blu-ray from Warner Bros. Initial pressings of The Informant were a blu-ray/ DVD combo pack; but this is one of the later copies, where it's just the blu-ray by itself.  Confusingly, they have the same UPC and outer-packaging, except the combo had a sticker on the front.  So anyway, then I've got the stand-alone DVD release - rather than the other half of the combo pack - to compare it to. And of course now I'm adding the 2025 UHD.

I remember this blu-ray getting a lot of flack when it came out, and I can see why. But I'm not sure I agree with all of it. Certainly the fact that this is a single layer disc is a red flag. This film was shot digitally, and Soderbergh has definitely made some choices to make the film look less than perfectly beautiful. So reviewing this disc can be a frustrating game of 'But Is It Supposed To Look Like That?'  This film tends to blow out the contrast, for example, which is surely a deliberate part of the film's look, as opposed to an instance like Sony's recent rash of discs with black crush. For this review, I've gone back and read all of the Informant reviews I could find online, and I have to say I can't locate all the flaws I've seen referenced. A couple of reviews mention aliasing or macroblocking that, stepping through this frame by frame, I just can't pinpoint.

But that said, it's not like I don't see anything to criticize. There's some light juttering when Damon makes his initial walk through the office, on both the DVD and blu. Something is definitely going on there. One review I read refers to it as aliasing, but I don't see any actual aliasing. The scene is full of little lines - horizontal blinds, cubicles, squares in the ceiling - and they never split. There's some standard motion blur since it's a tracking shot of a character walking swiftly through, but the issue can't really be captured in a screenshot because it's about the relation of one frame to the next. It's not constant - Damon makes a similar walk through the same location later in the film and no juttering. But the first one at 3:30 has it.

...Or at least it did.  The UHD fixes it, so bam!  Issue put to bed.  Let's see how else the discs stack up.

1) 2010 WB DVD; 2) 2010 WB BD; 3) 2025 WB UHD.

Comparing the original 2010 discs, since they were concurrent releases of a brand new release, you can expect them to look pretty much the same, and they do. The 1.78:1 framing, colors, brightness, etc are of course all the same. And the UHD, too, keeps it at 1.78:1.  The colors aren't exactly the same, but they're pretty close.  And while this film was shot in 4k, it seems to have been finished in 2k, leaving fans to wonder if this was a "fake 4k" side-grade.  I'm happy to report it's a genuine upgrade.  While some highlights and shadows appear to be intentionally blown out, and so not benefiting as much from HDR as you'd normally look for.  A quick test looking at the fine detail makes the boost in resolution across each generation pretty evident.  Look at that "FOR LEASE" sign in the window in the second set of shots.  Don/t start with the DVD, because you can't even read the words to tell which sign I'm talking about.  It's quite fuzzy but legible on the blu, and clearer and easier to read on the UHD.  This was shot digitally, so you can't use film grain to judge like we usually can, but you can switch over to the license plates on the cars or throughout the movie.  It's definitely a clearer, better defined image, to a degree that's more than just a nice encode.  I'm not saying they went back and started from scratch with the original footage, but there is substantial resolution gain here regardless.

All three disc feature the original 5.1 audio track, in TrueHD on the Blu and DTS-HD on the UHD.  They all also include optional English subtitles.  But only the BD and DVD also include French and Spanish dubs (lossy even on the BD) and subs.

Also controversial about these releases, specifically the disparity between them, are the extras. The blu-ray opens with two stupid, forced ads: one for blu-rays, one for digital copies. The DVD opens with the same ad for blu-rays, but then has forced trailers for Invictus, The Book of Eli, Sherlock Holmes, The Invention of Lying and The Box. But that's not what's controversial - those are just annoying. The controversy lies in the real extras for the film. While both versions feature four deleted scenes (which are good and worth watching if you enjoyed the movie), only the blu-ray has the audio commentary with Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns. Now there's no disc space issue as to why the commentary isn't on the DVD; it was just part of Warner Bros' push to compel consumers to switch to blu-ray. It's not the first time they did that - Soderbergh's previous film, Ocean's 13, pulled the same trick. Even as a blu-ray supporter, I feel that move was pretty shady. People should make the change because they want the upgrade to HD, not because the studios are sabotaging their DVD releases. The newer move from physical media to streaming has probably killed this practice off, it's not exactly restoring discs that are already out there in the wild. So yeah, if you want the commentary, you've gotta go blu. And it's a rather good - fun and informative, getting into the book the film is based and the filmmaking - commentary, too. And since this film is based on a true story, there's a lot to take away from the discussion.

This has become another dead issue, though, since the UHD has the commentary, too.  So you're only missing out if you're picking up the DVD as a bargain.  The UHD has the deleted scenes and trailer, too; this time without any ads.  So there's nothing new, but I think we can still call that a slim improvement.

So I absolutely recommend this film, even for people who don't generally consider themselves very big fans of Soderbergh.  And if you're going to get it, the UHD is the clear winner, closing the book on the controversies.

Update Megaweek, Day 12: ALL the Salem's Lots!

I've never owned Salem's Lot before.  I always appreciated it.  I even saw a few scenes as a little kid when it aired on TV and they were some of the few really scary horror moments for me.  But the fact that it was made for TV did put me off a little in the prime days of DVD.  Couple that with the fact that it never got a special edition, or even could quite decide whether it should be the shorter theatrical cut or widescreen or the TV version or what, and I just never felt compelled to pull the trigger.  But now that Warner Bros has released a killer new HD restoration blu with an all-new audio commentary by Tobe Hooper at a sell-through price, and who could pass that up?  Especially since I've already got the sequel.

Update 12/3/16 - 1/27/17: I figured instead of just having a little, throw-away paragraph about the remake, I'd give that one proper DVD coverage, too, and make this a definitive Salem's Lot post - enjoy!

Update 8/23/21:  I originally ended my post by hoping Scream Factory would give us A Return To Salem's Lot on blu, and now they have.  Ergo, full credit goes to me. 😎  You're welcome, world!

Update 5/12/26: Well, Arrow has issued us now a fairly definitive super edition of the original in 4k.  And in the interest of being thorough, I've added the King of Horror Collection blu-ray, too.  Plus there's been a whole new Salem's Lot movie since the last update, so I added a bit about that as well.  I titled this entry "ALL the Salem's Lots," so now I've gotta live up to it, right?  Also, since this is Update Megaweek, I've also gone ahead and added the Criterion DVD to the Antichrist page.

Stephen King novels don't exactly have a spotless track record for being adapted to film, especially not on television (remember The Langoliers?).  But this one nails it pretty hard, being genuinely creepy and atmospheric with some great, inspired vampire scenes.  If you want an idea of how influential this was, watch Salem's Lot and Fright Night back to back and count all the times they cribbed from it.  James Mason is one cool customer of a villain and David Soul (Hutch of Starsky and Hutch) is surprisingly good as the leading man.  Except for airing in fullscreen with a little extra reliance on close-ups, Hooper does a great job of making this feel like a big-budget film, with a sweeping score and some great effects.  In its full 3+ hour version, Salem's Lot takes it's time building a whole little world of characters to then revel in ransacking.

Is it perfect? Well, no.  As much as I enjoyed seeing Fred Willard perform (well) in a rare, serious part, we do spend the first ninety minutes or so following a sub-plot of him having an affair with Julie Cobb behind George (Law & Order) Dzundza's back, only to have it make absolutely no difference to the overall story (spoilers, I guess? lol).  King likes his over-the-top Norman Rockwell meets broad satire style ensembles, and while Hooper thankfully plays that down and keeps most of the characters real, there are definitely hints poking through.  Plus, the story's Mexican wrap-around does come from the novel, but it's fairly anticlimactic.  And even with Hopoer at the helm, a lot of camera set-ups still have a cheaper, flatter feel than we probably would've gotten from an actual movie.  ...But for all of that, it's still pretty great.

thanks to Arrow for finally giving us this shot.

It can also feel a little less "TV safe" if you watch one of the racier versions.  Not that there's a version with nudity or anything weird in it, but there are different cuts, which I'll break down for us now.  There's the original broadcast version, split into two parts (as it aired, one episode per week) a little over 90 minutes each.  Then there's a theatrical version, made for the European market, which cuts the whole thing down to one feature-length film, under two hours long.  Third, there's an "extended movie" version, which is basically the two episodes edited into one long, 3+ hour piece, which is what was included on the laserdisc, DVD and initial blu-ray.

But it gets a little more complicated than just that, as some extra violent bits were shot exclusively for the foreign theatrical version.  Willard puts the shotgun in his mouth, not just on his forehead, and Ed Flanders gets gruesomely impaled.  Confusingly, the DVD and initial blu released a kind of hybrid cut, with the censored Willard shots, but the uncensored Flanders shot.  Arrow does the same thing, except they add an option to watch the broadcast episode with your choice of the censored or uncensored Flanders death.  And they include all three cuts (broadcast, theatrical and extended), so fans should really be satisfied now.

Like I said, I've never owned it, but Salem's Lot has been available on DVD since 1999, and I've managed to get my hands on a copy for this piece.  It's in one of those crappy snapper cases and everything.  It was full-screen, but in this case that's acceptable.  But as you'll see, for a 2016 blu-ray, the master was too old to just slap onto an HD disc like the major studios do with a lot of their catalog titles.  So we get a very welcome, updated transfer.  In 2017, Salem's Lot was included in the 2017 King of Horror Collection blu-ray set, alongside The Shining, Cat's Eye and It.  All of these include the extended hybrid cut.  And now, in 2026, it's been restored in a fancy, limited 2 UHD set from Arrow, which restores the film in 4k and gives us multiple cuts: the theatrical, the extended hybrid, the original broadcast, and a bit of a broadcast hybrid (it includes the gorier antler kill), plus a bunch of new special features.

1) 1999 WB DVD; 2) 2016 WB BD; 3) 2017 WB BD;
4) 2026 Arrow UHD (theatrical); 5) 2026 Arrow UHD (broadcast).

[This shot does not appear in the theatrical cut.]

So, let me just start out by saying that the King of Fear BD is exactly the same disc as the 2016 BD (what I expected; but it was good to check and be sure), and all three cuts on the Arrow discs utilize the same master.  So there are basically three transfers to compare: the DVD,. the BDs and the UHDs.  Warner Bros didn't put out much information on what they've done that I've seen, but it looks like they made taken a fresh scan of the original negatives in 2016.  I hadn't been expecting it to look that good.  There has clearly been some color-timing work done, or undone, as you can see in the blue tint removed from the nighttime shot above.  The aspect shifted from 1.32:1 to 1.37:1 on the BDs and UHDs (I'm really surprised, and a little disappointed, Arrow didn't matte the theatrical cut to 1.85 or so).  And, in fact, they're actually a little zoomed in compared to the DVD.  But before you bemoan any lost slivers of picture, you can briefly catch glimpses of boom mics on the DVD, so the slightly tighter framing is surely more correct.  The biggest gain in resolution comes from the jump to BD, where the DVD just looks soft, smudgy and washed in comparison.  There's certainly another jump to UHD (which we do know was scanned from the OCN, with the interpositive used for some exclusive footage in the theatrical cut; and you really don't notice the seams), you can see grain is more consistent, but it's not as dramatic a step forward in that regard.   The Dolby Vision HDR is a nice gain, too; but again, Warner really did a nice job with their blu, so there's nothing that needed correcting; they're just taking us up a generation.

The DVD has the original mono with optional English and French subtitles.  The blu-rays upgrade the audio to DTS-HD audio and have also included optional English subtitles, plus subs in 13(!) other languages and five audio dubs.  They really went all-out.  Arrow dials it back down, but sticks to what's important.  They have DTS-HD on the broadcast and extended cuts, and LPCM on the theatrical, with optional English subs on every cut.

But is this a special edition?  Ehh... it's right on the edge.  It's main extra, and the first substantial extra this film's ever gotten, is a brand new audio commentary by Tobe Hooper.  And it's pretty good.  On one hand, it's actually great, with Hooper answering a lot of questions that come up as a viewer, plus some interesting anecdotes you never would've thought to wonder about.  But on the other hand, presumably to pace himself for a commentary that's over three hours long with no moderator, he pauses.  Like all the time.  He basically says a paragraph's worth of stuff, pauses, then another paragraph's worth, and so on.  So when he does talk, he's not stretching for things to say or low on energy, but that leaves a lot of dead air interspersed throughout.  It's definitely worth the listen, but also takes patience.  But unlike some other slow commentaries, that patience is rewarded.  That and the theatrical trailer are all that's here, but that's still a big step forward.

the trailer at least gives us a glimpse of what the widescreen framing looks like

And Arrow takes another big step forward.  Besides adding the multiple versions, they've added a bunch of new extras.  The Hooper commentary and the trailer are still here, and honestly, they're still the best and most important stuff.  We also get two new audio commentaries, both by experts.  One is Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes, which is a little clumsy but very informed and worth checking out.  And the other is by Chris Alexander and sucks.  It's basically just him casually carrying on about whatever pops into his head for the entire run of the film.  Then there's a bunch of video essays and on-camera interviews by/ with experts, and most of these are skippable, too (though they're all better than the self-indulgent Alexander commentary).  Specifically, there are five: an interview with King biographer Douglas Winter, a video essay by critic Grady Hendrix, an interview with Mick Garris, a video essay by film critic Heather Wixson and a video essay by podcast hosts Joe Lipsett & Trace Thurman.  The problem with all of these is that they all basically just repeat info already delivered by Ackerman and Reyes' commentary.  For example, the podcast guys give a smart interpretation of the film's theme of gay panic, but Ackerman already went into all that in the commentary, so they don't wind up saying anything we didn't already just here.  So I'd recommend listening to that one commentary (and Hooper's, of course), but skipping the rest unless you enjoy being bored to tears.

One neat treat Arrow came up with is a video tour of the original shooting locations, though.  That one definitely is worth your time.  They also throw in two stills gallery (including the entire original shooting script), commercial bumpers, the edited antler scene as a separate clip, and a trailer for the sequel.  And if you're a fan of swag, Arrow's limited edition comes equipped.  There's a double-sided, fold-out poster, a slipbox which itself comes in  slipcover, reversible artwork for the amary case, a cute sticker, an Arrow card (mine was for Red Sonja), and a bound booklet with multiple essays and a couple vintage interviews.

And why yes, there was a 2004 remake starring Rob Lowe, as well.  To its credit, it's also a two-part TV series, meaning it didn't have to compress the characters and details into 90 minutes.  It updates the story to 2004, forsaking the scary atmosphere for internet references, lame quips and rapping, but it's got an interesting supporting cast, including Donald Sutherland, Andre Braugher and Rutger Hauer.  Some scenes are new, while others are direct re-stagings of the 1979 film.  The scene where the two men wait in the morgue for the dead wife to rise from under her sheet while the one tapes together a cross out of tongue depressors is a beat-for-beat reproduction of the original scene, right up until the end, where some awful CGI takes over, covering up the actress's face and then she flies up into the ceiling and turns into sparkly computer dust.  But then, there's a whole new subplot about a hunchback who works at a garbage dump and has a crush on a high school girl, which to be fair does actually come right from the book.

So I guess the idea is that this is a more faithful "return to the book," which I appreciate.  It at least justifies this version's existence and gives serious King devotees something to pour through.  But like The Shining and its 1997 remake, it really just shows that talented filmmakers tend to know better than literary purists what works best on screen.  And it doesn't help that a lot of the acting and staging is awfully stilted, sometimes to the point of being downright embarrassing.  You've never seen so many over-the-shoulder dialogue shots in your life, Lowe's narration is downright painful, and the CGI looks like cartoonish garbage, unlike the effects from the 1970s that still pack quite a punch.  So give it a pass unless you're a serious fan who just wants to see what's been changed or kept faithful between this, the original film, and the novel.  The most notable being that the vampire Barlowe is back to being a speaking part instead of a snarling blue monster, some major scenes take place in a different order, the priest plays more of a role and there's no Mexico material.  And as I said, that Mexico stuff was in the book.  Plus with the film's need to modernize, I'm not really sure it can be called more faithful.  It's just... differently faithful.

2004 WB DVD.

But if you are determined to see for yourself, Warner Bros did at least put it out as a no frills, widescreen DVD in late 2004.  And I mean really no frills.  No trailer, no nuffin'.  The film looks fine, though, presented in 1.78:1, which is presumably just how it originally aired on the TNT network.  It's alright for a TV show on an older DVD, suffering a bit in the compression department but otherwise fine.  It's anamorphic, has a 5.1 mix and optional English, Spanish and French subtitles.  Apparently though, this was shot on 35mm, so in theory a fresh HD scan of the negatives could yield a nice improvement.  But that would require people taking an interest in 2004's Salem's Lot, which doesn't seem to be in its future.  And I'm fine with that; I wouldn't buy a blu-ray special edition of this anyway.  Update 2026: Actually, as of December 2024, there is a barebones Spanish greymarket blu-ray out now from Llamentol; that probably is at least a slim upgrade, if anyone cares enough.

In 2024, we got one more Salem's Lot, this one made as a streaming exclusive for HBO Max.  It's feature-length, and therefore very abridged; but it's also the least faithful adaptation because of the wild liberties it takes.  Like, it ends with a crazy shotgun wielding lady chasing our heroes through a drive-in movie theater surrounded by dozens of flaming vampires.  Given that director Gary Dauberman's only other movie has been an Annabelle sequel, though, this is less awful than I was expecting - it's actually kinda fun!  Every time it replicates a scene from the actual Salem's Lot story, it does it much worse, but whenever he starts doing his own thing, it's an energetic, entertaining vampire flick that's surprisingly well shot.  There's no physical release of this film, which I find a little surprising.  Given the recognition value of King's name and the title alone, I'm sure a cheap, barebones blu-ray would sell well better than a lot of titles that are currently sitting on Walmart and Target shelves across the country.  Or you'd think some label in Germany would license it.  But no, as of this writing, it remains a streaming-only title in every region.

A Return To Salem's Lot cannot be said to be a true sequel to Salem's Lot.  Not only do none of the characters return or get a mention, but the history of the Salem's Lot vampires as told in Return directly contradicts what we saw in the original.  This cannot be the same town after the vampires took over in the first one.  But, having watched them back to back for the first time after previously only having seen them years apart, there are enough similarities that I'm sure Cohen was at least making intentional nods back besides placing more vamps in the same town.  Both have a middle-aged man and a teenage boy for protagonists.  Both films' opening scenes are in Mexico, which is an odd choice each time.  There's a scene in Return of a child vampire hovering outside a window beckoning the teenage boy to let them in, a clear reprisal of one of the original's most iconic scenes.  Of course, in both films, the vampires mostly look like typical humans with fangs, but the biggest baddest one is a blue, monstrous one.  And there are plenty more I could list, including this fun fact: because they couldn't afford to burn a whole house down, Hooper took B-roll footage that wasn't used in Eli Kazan's 1969 film, The Arrangement. And when a completely different house burns down in A Return To Salem's Lot, Cohen clearly used the same Kazan footage.

1) 2016 WB BD of Salem's Lot; 2) 2006 WB DVD of A Return to Salem's Lot.

Salem's Lot fans looking for more of the same are surely disappointed by this film.  Scary vampires really aren't what's for sale this time around.  But if you're a Larry Cohen fan, you should be happy.  There are his usual clever moments, there's Michael Moriarity giving another great and quirky lead performance, and just as you think maybe you're getting a little bored with his character and he's becoming too much of a generic, straight leading man... in comes Samuel Fuller as one of the most entertaining characters in any vampire movie ever.  Also look for Tara Reid looking lovely in her first acting role, Andrew Duggan in his final role and Cohen regular James Dixon, who this time also gets a co-writing credit.  This isn't a terribly ambitious picture; and Cohen's let it be known that he only made the film as part of a contract so Warner Bros would fund It's Alive 3.  It's no passion project.  But if you want a low-key enjoyable watch, hey, here ya go.

For ages, A Return To Salem's Lot was unavailable on DVD, which was awfully frustrating for a Cohen fan like myself.  But in 2006, Warner Bros released it in Germany under the title Salem II: Die Ruckkehr, as an anamorphic widescreen disc to boot!  More recently, in 2010, Warner Archives finally released it, and that's anamorphic widescreen, too.  It's an MOD DV-R, though, so I'd still stick with the import.  But none of that matters now, because this week, Scream Factory is releasing the film on blu for the first time, with an all new 4k scan of the OCN!

1) 2006 WB DVD; 2) 2021 SF BD.

Yeah, it's a little soft and obviously standard def, but I just fired the DVD up on my 65" television and it still looks surprisingly good.  Solid darks, no interlacing.  It's basically 16x9 exactly, but with a little bit of blank space in what would've been the over-scan area, giving us a 1.79:1 aspect ratio.  For a plain old DVD, you couldn't really ask for much more.  But for a blu-ray, of course you can.  And Scream Factory delivers.  Now framed in a proper 1.85:1, it's actually surprisingly tighter not just along the bottom, but on the left.  So, I'll call that just a slim improvement.  But otherwise, the new scan is a strong improvement, with the new scan bringing fine detail grain to fresh, authentic life.  The encode could be a little more natural, with grain getting a little pixelated, especially for a barebones disc (more on that in a sec), but this ain't a UHD.  For a BD, this is quite satisfying and we've clearly come a long way.  Colors are more vibrant and restored to authentic tones (the DVD was a bit on the purple side).  Honestly, I would've taken the old master slapped onto a BD disc, just for the extra clarity.  So this new 4k transfer is a treat.

Yes, the German DVD is English friendly.  It has optional German subtitles, but they're removable directly from the menu or the remote, and it gives you the choice of the original English audio (mono in 2.0) or a German dub.  Unfortunately, it has no extras, not even the trailer (neither does the Warner Archives disc), except for a slightly amusing commercial that plays on start-up.  But it does come in a cool, red case.

Scream Factory boosts the 2.0 track to DTS-HD (though it's still a bit hissy) and adds optional English subtitles, making this the definitive presentation of the film by every count.  The sole disappointment is the extras.  There basically aren't any, apart from the trailer ...though even just that does technically put it ahead of the previous discs.  I felt sure we'd at least get a commentary from the King Cohen guy, but oh well.

So at this point, I really can't ask for anything more for Salem's Lot on home video.  I guess somebody will probably release the 2024 version on disc someday, and maybe another region will come out with another edition of one or more of the others some day.  At this point, I'm fine either way.  Salem's Lot has been thoroughly handled, and we can rest peacefully in our coffins.

Kenneth Branagh's A Midwinter's Tale for Christmas

Happy holidays, everybody! After the last couple horror and cult titles, I thought we could lighten our spirits with a gentle faux-Shakespearian comedy by Kenneth Branagh: 1995's A Midwinter's Tale. This is a film that fans had been pestering to get on DVD for ages, Apparently, the fullscreen VHS was fairly abysmal. But it took until 2010 for Warner Bros to finally release it as part of their Archives MOD collection. I was a little less fussed about the whole thing, since I owned the old 1997 laserdisc from Columbia Tri-Star, which was nice and widescreen. But I'm also always happy to upgrade my old laserdiscs to a more convenient format when I can. So I think this would be the perfect time to compare our two viewing options of this quiet Christmas film.

Update 12/24/25 - 12/24/25: It's Christmastime once again, ten years to the day from when I first made this post, and we're updating this post with Warner Archives' 2023 blu-ray edition.

I used the term "faux-Shakespearian" because this isn't actually another of Branagh's impeccable Shakespeare adaptions along the lines of Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, or Love's Labour's Lost. There is no Shakespeare play called "A Midwinter's Tale." Instead, this is a small, cheerful comedy about an eccentric but mostly determined group of actors who assemble to stage a production of Hamlet on Christmas Eve. Of course things go wrong, people fly in all directions, and of course everybody learns to work together and pull it off in the end.

Originally titled In the Bleak Midwinter, it's a small, privately financed black and white comedy made partially as a break from the studio system after 1994's Frankenstein, feeling sort of like Branagh's Clerks, with simple stagey shots (the stills look impressive here, but you'll find the camera never moves, just settling on a set-up and staying there for minutes at a time), campy jokes and an ensemble of colorful characters played largely by the supporting actors from his previous films. Besides his alumni, though, there are also fun turns by Joan Collins and Absolutely Fabulous's Jennifer Saunders and Julia Sawalha. It's not a masterwork like some of Branagh's grander accomplishments, but it's an agreeable little comedy I can't imagine many people disliking, and one you can easily forget and return to again and again.

1) Columbia Tri-Star 1997 LD; 2) Warner Bros 2010 DVDR; 3) Warner Archives BD.

So, I wasn't as excited as most fans about Warner Bros putting this out in widescreen since I already had it that way on the laserdisc; but I have to say their DVD does look better. The AR is roughly the same on both discs - the laserdisc claims 1.85:1 on the back, but is more like 1.80:1, and the DVD is 1.78:1. But Warner Bros manages to find more picture on all four sides. The grain looks fairly grainy for standard def and detail is definitely more refined than on the laser. Edges look artificially enhanced on occasion; but for an MOD DVDR, it's pretty good.

But of course, the new HD master is better.  The aspect ratio has been adjusted to 1.66:1, which mostly uncovers more vertical information, but trims the sides a little bit.  Gone, thankfully, is that edge enhancement, which looks more obvious to me now that I'm comparing it to the blu without any of it.  It's a brighter image, which brings out a little more detail from the previously murky shadows.  Grain is surprisingly light, even less evident than the DVD.  It's probably worth noting that almost every other Warner Archive that was released the same month as this was from a new 4k scan; they were probably sitting on this master for a while before they put this out.  But it's certainly a strong improvement on everything that came before it.  And that includes the original mono audio which has been bumped up to lossless DTS-HD.

The laserdisc had nothing by way of extras, so I wasn't too surprised by all the online reports of Warner Bros' DVD being entirely barebones as well. Being a DVDR, it doesn't even have smart chapter stops; they're just every 10 or 15 minutes, and the menu's completely generic. It's not entirely a wasteland, though, as neither the case nor posts I've read about this disc mention it, but it does have the film's trailer on it, which even the laserdisc didn't have. So that's nice. On the other hand, the laser had closed captioning, while this DVD has no subs or anything. And it's got better cover art, because whose ever idea it was color everybody's glasses yellow on the laserdisc cover really ought to take some vacation time. And now the BD is still essentially barebones, but it's the best of the three with the trailer, proper menus, optional subtitles and even less colorized artwork.

So sometimes Kenneth Branagh makes great films, and sometimes he makes fun things to catch on cable one night. This falls into the latter category, but it's one of his best out of that secondary tier.  Plus it's a Christmas film, and we certainly need more of those that aren't schmaltzy and terrible (this is only moderately schmaltzy), so it could be a good one for your collection.