Gangs of New York (Blu-ray)

[Pirate]

Street Date: 7/1/08

Distributor: Buena Vista

Format:
• BD-50

Video:
• 1080p Widescreen
• TBA

Audio:
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Features:
• TBA

[Pirate]

Yay!

[ganthc]

I never saw this. It looked kind of stupid.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by ganthc

It looked kind of stupid.

It Tweren't. It's one of Scorsese's best and most passionate works, in my opinion. And, it's got Daniel Day-Lewis doin' what he do.

[jbat31]

i thought it sucked, watched my dvd once since its purchase

[Pirate]

Who ya gonna believe? Me, or that guy with no avatar?!

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Pirate

Who ya gonna believe? Me, or that guy with no avatar?!

Well, since your avatar changes every 5 days, I might just believe the guy who has none.

[supercutz]

Originally Posted by ganthc

I never saw this. It looked kind of stupid.

Bill the Butcher single handedly saves this entire movie. Daniel De Luis' performance is bar none one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen on screen. Very powerful.

[cherno]

I felt the movie was horrible. Saw it Christmas day and it was bloated, self-important and boring. DDL was so over the top that it took you out of the movie watching him "perform". Oh and it had DiCaprio which is another automatic strike against it.

[plissken99]

This is definitly a love it or hate it kinda movie, I myself loved it. Already bought the region coded version from the UK. So this'll be nice.

[zepplongfellow]

Damn it, Damn it , Damn it, Must--- still---- wait for the Sony 350 or cave for a ps3

[billnye97]

Originally Posted by plissken99

This is definitly a love it or hate it kinda movie, I myself loved it.

I agree. Mark me down for loved it. DDL is awesome. When I saw it I really didn't know much going in but the movie is utterly brilliant.

[dugpa]

Not Scorsese at his best, but still a pretty good film. DiCaprio haters need to get over it. He's come a long way from actor he was in Titanic. Scorsese seems to be able to bring out the best in him.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by supercutz

Bill the Butcher single handedly saves this entire movie.

Yep... it's mostly crap when he's not on screen, which makes it sort of a good bad movie, or something.

[plissken99]

Originally Posted by dugpa

Not Scorsese at his best, but still a pretty good film. DiCaprio haters need to get over it. He's come a long way from actor he was in Titanic. Scorsese seems to be able to bring out the best in him.

Indeed, i couldn't stand him for the longest time, but around the time when GONY came out I started changing my tune. He even gives a solid performance in Man in the Iron Mask... though still outclassed by Byrne, and Malkovich.

[MooglePorn]

I don't have a problem with DiCaprio, he was amazing in The Departed, but GoNY is just not an interesting film when Lewis is not on screen.

[esc]

Originally Posted by supercutz

Bill the Butcher single handedly saves this entire movie. Daniel De Luis' performance is bar none one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen on screen. Very powerful.

The man was robbed of an Oscar for his performance. I thought for sure he finally was going to win one.

Originally Posted by cherno

I felt the movie was horrible. Saw it Christmas day and it was bloated, self-important and boring.

EXACTLY! you got the point. I think the whole thing was a commentary on the US and New York city, but I could have totally missed the boat on that one.

Originally Posted by cherno

DDL was so over the top that it took you out of the movie watching him "perform"

Or were you so taken out of the movie that you were put right back into it? huh? think about it.

[Derb]

Yeah the film was pure crap. Overrated "score.say.go.see" junk!

That said, I'll still buy it.

[esc]

Originally Posted by Derb

That said, I'll still buy it.

Blu Ray hor.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by esc

Blu Ray hor.

Indeed.

I might just buy 2 copies for the heck of buying 2 copies.

[Sehnzeleid]

Appears to look like shit like the DVD, thanks Buena Vista.

Robert Harris on it:

A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Gangs of New York, a masterful film by Martin Scorsese, was my Best Picture of 2002.

I was thrilled to add the Miramax DVD to my library until I viewed it, and found that, much like their Cold Mountain, it was one of the worst looking standard definition DVDs of a recent important production.

I have not viewed it since.

With knowledge there comes a higher level of home theater software.

And so it was a thrill when Gangs of New York in Blu-ray finally arrived, replacing something that to my eyes was all but unviewable.

Gangs of New York on Blu is something that looks quite different from anything else that I've seen, and I admit to being a bit confused by what my eyes are telling me.

As a Super 35 production, the original prints had a visible layer of beautiful grain, and a full range of color, from black to white with all shades in between. 35mm prints were just gorgeous.

Gangs on Blu has some things in common with its standard definition counterpart.

It appears that there is an attempt to reduce the grain, and then sharpen the resultant image, creating a soft, occasionally disturbingly grainy image fully textured with the sharpening of electronic enhancement, and with high contrast lines around virtually everything.

White fade to nothingness, and there is no apparent shadow detail.

Make no mistake. This is a Blu-ray that yields an image that is fully electronic.

Like Patton, Gangs of New York is the new poster child for precisely what NOT to do with the Blu-ray software system.

An extraordinary film in every way.

I assure you that it gives me no pleasure to report that it is Extremely Highly NOT Recommended.

I would suggest a re-call, starting out fresh with a new piece of film for scanning in order to give Mr. Ballhaus' cinematography another chance.

I am appending to this post, after having taken another look at the disc.

I must believe that there were old and new masters, with something going horribly wrong, and an incorrect and unapproved master being shipped in error.

RAH

[dugpa]

Damnit, why can't they do this to crappy films like those Adam Sandler ones and stop mucking around with good films. I still haven't been able to bring myself to buy Patton, even though it's a great film, knowing what they did to the image. Sounds like one of the authoring houses has an engineer who's fallen asleep on the DNR button again. Though you people who complain about a disc not having that "3d pop" are also to blame. Ass kickings all around, get in line.

[Derb]

"Like Patton, Gangs of New York is the new poster child for precisely what NOT to do with the Blu-ray software system."

Uhh.. I thought Patton got massive praise from other reviewers from HDD & Blu-ray.com. Also I read a review of Gangs from another site which gave it high marks so I'll judge with my own two eyes thank you.

[Sehnzeleid]

Originally Posted by dugpa

Damnit, why can't they do this to crappy films like those Adam Sandler ones and stop mucking around with good films. I still haven't been able to bring myself to buy Patton, even though it's a great film, knowing what they did to the image. Sounds like one of the authoring houses has an engineer who's fallen asleep on the DNR button again. Though you people who complain about a disc not having that "3d pop" are also to blame. Ass kickings all around, get in line.

The U.S. BD transfer is probably like the awful U.S. DVD:

DVDActive: Gangs of New York R1 vs R2

Whiggles: Gangs of New York - DVD Image Comparisons

Incredibly edge enhanced and processed. Here's two captures from the U.K. Blu-ray:

http://www.image-load.eu/out.php/i9374_gangs2.png
http://www.image-load.eu/out.php/i9375_gangs3.png

The U.S. Blu-ray probably looks worse than that.

Uhh.. I thought Patton got massive praise from other reviewers from HDD & Blu-ray.com. Also I read a review of Gangs from another site which gave it high marks...

Just because someone creates a site and decides to review Blu-rays doesn't automatically makes them "professional" or knowledgeable. Most of the people that I trust with judging PQ don't have review websites let alone post that much on forums since there's always people who jump on them like their insulting their mothers. I'm pretty much convinced many with "trusted" review sites couldn't tell horse shit from sunflowers.

...so I'll judge with my own two eyes thank you.

No offense man but this is what gets me in that you'll probably buy it to see for yourself. This just feeds the studio's contempt since if such unnecessarily poor transfers on BD sell well, why the hell should they ever care to do it right eventually, or even do it right to begin with?

We're at such a high performance level now that this garbage just doesn't cut it anymore.

[plissken99]

I tend to agree we'll all have to judge this for ourselves. I would imagine the task of remastering Gangs isn't an easy one, tons of odd shooting methods, and weird shit in every frame. Viewing it and judging it there isn't easy either.

[dugpa]

Robert Harris knows film better that most anyone out there, having supervised the restoration of Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo and several other films (real full film restorations, not simple cleaned up video transfers). If he says something is true I'll tend to believe him over some fanboy wanker at blu-ray.com that I've never heard of (gee, someone at the official blu-ray flack site not saying anything bad about a blu-ray disc - what a shock!). In fact, when I first read the review of Patton here at dvdfile where the reviewer was going on about how great it was there there was so much less grain on the blu-ray disc than the dvd had, I knew there was trouble. Sadly, this all seems to just prove that Fox and Disney are right in their DNR reign of terror - filter out all the grain and fine detail and the masses will eat it up for looking so "clear." Next up maybe they can get rid of those pesky black bars on the top and bottom of the screen on 2.35:1 films.

Originally Posted by Sehnzeleid

The U.S. BD transfer is probably like the awful U.S. DVD:

Well, pretty much all Miramax titles from that period look horrible with tons of EE and other issues. Bad dvds from Disney was the norm in the early and mid-2000's, not the exception. But they've been doing a pretty good job of putting out great transfers when it comes to blu-ray - probably the most consistant of any company. So it's a shame to hear that they've fallen prey to the DNR monster.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by dugpa

Next up maybe they can get rid of those pesky black bars on the top and bottom of the screen on 2.35:1 films.

Thats probably not too far off mind you. I'd also wager Universal will be the first studio to offer up a modified widescreen version to fit your HDTV screen.

I don't buy into every reviewers take on a film, I don't care who's doing it or what film background they have. I've seen low marks at BD.com which I've disagreed with so Blu-ray.com doesn't give every film a 5 star rating. Removing grain by noise filter probably can & will take some fine detail out of the picture. Question is, how much & how noticeable is it?

This grain thang is getting silly imo. Do you remember Gangs of New York looking very similar to 300 in theaters? lol