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Frank Ferrara Sr.

Frank Ferrara Sr.

8 films on Best Blurays7 in 4K1 in HD

Small role · Director: John Irvin

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly & Video:

StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray

Sources: fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

(not the 4K Blu-ray, previous LaserDisc could be better)

Small role · Director: Brian De Palma

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

1993 Universal LaserDisc

Additional Info:

Carlito’s Way was released theatrically in both Dolby Stereo and DTS. The 2.0 on the Arrow UHD is the original stereo mix, unknown if the 5.1 mix on the  Arrow disc is the original DTS mix.

Small role · Director: John Waters

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Umbrella Blu-ray

Small role · Director: Jonathan Demme

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Cinématographe 4K Blu-ray

Small role · Director: Andrew Davis

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray  see caps

Geoff D impressions 

It's weird. Brightly lit scenes have zero grain. They look plenty detailed and not at all waxy and lifeless, but there's no grain. Darker scenes have a fine layer of it as befits the general rule of thumb with film. Either they shot this on the 50-speed EXR stock of the day - virtually grainless in the right conditions - or it's been expertly 'grain managed'. I say 'expertly' becuz there's no trailing artefacts, no sticky grain that I can see, it's some of the best such treatment I've ever seen. And IF it has been I can only think the edict came down from the director himself.

Best Audio:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray omitted the original 5.1 track for a 2.0 and Atmos.
US DVD has the DD5.1
For Stereo track: Warner Home Video JPN LaserDisc [NJWL-12420]

Small role · Director: Walter Hill

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Small role · Director: Tony Scott

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly, Video & Audio:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Small role · Director: Francis Ford Coppola

4K · Worse Than BD
Best English-Friendly & Video:

1991 Home Video Cut: Paramount 2008 Blu-ray

Theatrical Cut: Paramount 4K Blu-ray, but it has problems described below in the additional info section, and worse encoding than the Coda cut.

Coda Cut: Paramount 4K Blu-ray, but it has problems described below in the additional info section, and also has slightly better encoding than the Theatrical/1991 Home Video cuts on 4K.

Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

LaserDisc for original mix

Additional Info:

The Paramount 4K "restoration" is a desecration. It has completely revisionist color timing, harsh HDR, treatment of stock footage, bad encoding, selective DNR and grain management so bad that the entire screen frequently freezes up with only characters moving around in grain soup. It is so bad that the film's restorer Robert Harris publicly washed his hands of it saying essentially the 2007 restoration (with Willis and Coppola supervising) is how the film was intended and made. This is Paramount's modern version done their way. The new 1080p SDR Blu-rays in print are the crap 4K desecration master with the same problems still there just harder to spot and with crap encodes. Part III fares best of the three and these issues are at their most minimal-but they're still there. The new Coda version is given prominence with lesser encodes for the other two versions. The original mix was remixed into 5.1 decades ago and we have yet another version of this instead of the original Dolby Stereo SR as heard on the LaserDisc release.
The 2008 Blu-ray of the 2007 restoration, while an imperfect outdated disc, is LIGHT YEARS better than this 4K desecration. The only truly major issue is that it is very slightly redder than the 2007 finished master as seen on DCPs.
DFIC review of the hideous crap 4K Blu-rays: https://youtu.be/0uw6-Kcy_UA?si=ob1nDg0wTCvemjH0

Despite being restored alongside the Coppola Restorations of The Godfather: Parts I and II, the Part III restoration is not officially labelled a Coppola Restoration.

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