A Star Is Born (1937)
Drama, Romance • 1h 51m
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, Owen Moore, Peggy Wood, Elizabeth Jenns, Edgar Kennedy, J. C. Nugent, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Irving Bacon, Jane Barnes, Clara Blandick, Wade Boteler, Sidney Bracey, Harry C. Bradley, George Chandler, Pat Flaherty, Francis Ford, Joe Gray, Jonathan Hale, Chuck Hamilton, Lillian Harmer, Edward Hearn, I. Stanford Jolley, Carole Landis, Chris-Pin Martin, Edwin Maxwell, Marshall Neilan, Robert Emmett O'Connor, Dennis O'Keefe, Franklin Pangborn, Jed Prouty, Tom Ricketts, Paul Stanton, Fred 'Snowflake' Toones, Clarence Wilson, A.W. Sweatt
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 11 months ago
Overview
Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.
Director: William A. Wellman
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber Blu-ray suffers from the Quicktime Gamma Bug see caps
Kino Lorber Blu-ray from blah-ray:
Both the Plaion and Arrow audio tracks sound like they received little/any high- or low- frequency attenuation, but the audio on the new Kino Lorber restoration is much more detailed. It's likely that it was transferred from different (superior) analogue elements. It sounds excellent.
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Film Masters Blu-ray not a good encoding, but at least it's from a 4K scan of Original Camera Negative see caps
Director: William A. Wellman
2018 Kino Lorber Remastered Blu-ray
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
New 2k scan with very different color http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_reviews55/nothing_sacred_blu-ray.htm but overall much better compared to the older Kino Lorber Blu-ray
MoMA has just scanned from the original separations, and it's the only version of this classic with accurate Technicolor. This new restoration is now streaming on Criterion Channel
Kino Lorber Barbara Stanwyck Collection Blu-ray
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: Joel Coen
Director's Cut: Disappointing UK StudioCanal/US Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: LaserDisc or 2001 UK Universal DVD
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=21782879#post21782879 - comparison. StudioCanal is a massive improvement to the Criterion but still flawed in some areas (chroma noise)
Director: Liliana Cavani
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Iain Softley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both 88 Films and Germany Capelight are superior to the Shout! Factory in HDR10 but their FEL layer may even things out. Objectively, the Capelight looks best as they avoided the chroma blocking that’s visible in 88’s disc but they in turn included an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Shout! Factory has the exclusive The Beauty of the Baud and the You Can't Stop Us All featurettes.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
review: Disk Kino
Both have better encoding than Disk Kino, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow
Shout Factory still has the best video while Arrow did a questionable regrade. Arrow definitely has less grain in most shots, has a worse encode and is cm v2.9 compared to Shout’s cm v4.0.
Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono
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