Dean Stockwell

16 films on Best Blurays7 in 4K8 in HD1 in SD

Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American film, television and stage actor with a career spanning over 70 years. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Green Years (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Boy with Green Hair (1948), and Kim (1950). As a young adult, he had a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and 1959 screen adaptation of Compulsion; and in 1962 he played Edmund Tyrone in the film version of Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won two Best Actor Awards at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his starring role in the 1960 film version of D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. He appeared in supporting roles in such films as Dune (1984), Paris, Texas (1984), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Blue Velvet (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). He received further critical acclaim for his performance in Married to the Mob (1988), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently had roles in The Player (1992), Air Force One (1997), The Rainmaker (1997) and The Manchurian Candidate (2004). His television roles include Rear Admiral Albert "Al" Calavicci in Quantum Leap (1989–1993), Navy Secretary Edward Sheffield on JAG (2002–2004), and Brother Cavil on Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009). Following his roles on Quantum Leap and Battlestar Galactica, he appeared at numerous science fiction conventions. He retired from acting in 2015 following health issues and focused his later life on sculpture and other visual art. Description above from the Wikipedia article Dean Stockwell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Biography from Wikipedia via TMDB

By format

List

7 in 4K

UHD Blu-ray or 4K streaming

Paris, Texas (1984)

Leading role · Director: Wim Wenders

4K · Excellent

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Curzon 4K Blu-ray/Carlotta 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Criterion 4K Blu-ray/StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray have worse encodes.

Best Audio:

R5 Carmen Video DVD

4.4

Married to the Mob (1988)

Leading role · Director: Jonathan Demme

4K · Solid

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Cinématographe 4K Blu-ray

3.5

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

Supporting role · Director: William Friedkin

4K · Excellent

Best English-Friendly:

Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray (damage removed, improved color/HDR, and best audio) or Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray (best compression but no damage removal and LaserDisc audio from Arrow)

Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)

Best Video:

Arrow UK /Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray

Video Notes:

Arrow UK /Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber US 4K Blu-ray, see caps

Arrow has done additional cleanup work removing nearly all the damage in the transfer. They have massaged the color timing and HDR to try and improve what they could. The Capelight may have better encoding but it does not have these improvements. The Arrow encoding is solid and in motion there are no issues whatsoever. The Kino Lorber release has the damage and other issues plus frequent noise due to the lesser encoding.

Some scenes in the Arrow transfer are better, some are better in the Capelight.

Best Audio:

Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Image Entertainment LaserDisc

Audio Notes:

(Arrow is a port of the LaserDisc track, see spectrograms) This track has the best fidelity of any release but does have some channel bleeding baked in. The 2017 2.0 on the Arrow and Shout! Factory Blu-rays was the Dolby Stereo original mix without channel bleeding but that had heavy noise reduction resulting in a very flat and underwhelming presentation. The surround winds up being lessened as well due to the processing. It's a tough choice between the two but the Image LaserDisc audio wins out because it hasn't been messed with and the impact is so unrestrained that no other version hits in the same way.

Capelight and old Arrow Blu-ray included the original stereo mix, but with excessive noise reduction rendering it much less detailed. Kino Lorber only included a painfully defective 2.0 track sourced from somewhere with limited fidelity, volume spikes and screechy high end which frequently ruins the music. The 5.1 remix on most modern release is a processed version that does not sound as good as it once did.

The best and most accurate of the 5.1 mixes is the original version from the 2003 Special Edition DVD in lossy AC3 form.

The best source for the commentaries are from the 2003 Special Edition DVD.

Blue Velvet (1986)

Supporting role · Director: David Lynch

4K · Solid

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Criterion 4K Blu-ray or Germany Plaion 4K Blu-ray

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

Upcoming Release:

UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray in December

Video Notes:

Subtle difference in encoding to the Criterion in encoding, trading blows in different shots, with Plaion taking a slight edge with less highlight blocking

Best Audio:

1993 MGM LaserDisc/2000 Region 1 MGM DVD

Audio Notes:

Criterion's 2.0 sounds muffled due to noise reduction and EQ.
Plaion's 2.0 lacks bass and has a very bright EQ, more resembling the 5.1 remix. Plaion’s 2.0 doesn't have any filtering unlike the Criterion, see https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23831289&postcount=110