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Che – Collector's Edition Blu-ray Disc Review

Brenden — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:22:05 +0000

CHE – COLLECTOR’S EDITION (2008, Blu-ray released January 19, 2010 – MSRP $49.99 CAN)

I wasn’t prepared for the sheer awesomeness that is Che. I honestly didn’t think Steven Soderbergh had it in him. But by the time I had finished viewing Part One of the film, I was convinced. This is some of his best work and some of the best cinema of 2009!

This isn’t a perfect film. In fact, I’m not sure that I should be referring to this as a single film in two parts or as two individual films. The first part, also known as The Argentine, focuses on the Cuban revolution and sees a relatively young Ernesto Guevara, played brilliantly throughout by Benicio Del Toro, transitioning from an Argentinian doctor and intellectual to the Cuban guerrilla leader, affectionately called ‘Che’. This is an incredible couple of hours of filmmaking that flashes forward and back through time, using colour and film-stock to indicate transitions. It can be tough to piece things together during the first few minutes of the film but as the narrative begins to play out, as the action moves to Cuba, the film becomes clearer and all the puzzle pieces fall into place.

Che Part Two, also known as Guerrilla, chronicles Guevara’s final years struggling to light the fire under his great Latin American Revolution in Bolivia. I’m not sure if it was film fatigue or if the narrative of this half of the film doesn’t compare but I found it scattered and not as compelling. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still wonderful to behold but it just seemed to meander through the countless petty struggles Guevara and his small band of revolutionaries were up against living in the wilds of Bolivia, evading the authorities. It simply doesn’t have the satisfying structure or the triumphant conclusion of the first part. I was sad to see the film end though. After spending nearly five hours with Che, seeing the credits roll was like losing a friend. Shot in a verité style using handheld RED cameras, Che is a remarkable, nuanced feat that few other filmmakers would have tackled and nobody but Soderbergh could have delivered.

This Blu-ray Collector’s edition of Che seems to be exclusive to the Canadian market and is produced by E1 Films. I haven’t had a chance to A/B this two-disc set with the Criterion Collection edition but I suspect both are derived from the same film master. The differences would then be in the encodes of the films. E1′s discs are high-bitrate encodes and look pretty great overall, despite the uneven quality of the source. Shot digitally on RED camera, Che also features a ton of vintage footage integrated into the film. So, you can expect a lot of grain in parts and some digital noise popping up throughout. The audio is DTS HD Master Audio in Spanish, with a compressed French language track included alongside with English and French subs.

The set advertises around 75-minutes of special features and doesn’t duplicate the Criterion set at all. Fans may want to pick this one up to have a complete collection of extras! Part One has a 10-minute “Making Of…” featurette that has the feel of glossy EPK material. There’s also a decent 13-minute Steven Soderbergh interview and a couple of trailers on the disc. The Part Two disc features a 6-minute interview with Benicio Del Toro, a 12-minute interview with composer Alberto Iglesias and a more lengthy, informative 31-minute conversation with consultant Jon Lee Anderson, author of ‘Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life‘. This disc is also rounded out by offering a couple of trailers.

New Criterion Blu-ray Announcements: Che, 8 1/2 and Paris, Texas

Brenden — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:56:46 +0000

Holy crap! I think Christmas just came early. This new batch of Criterion titles, just announced for release in January 2010, includes one of the finest films ever made and is the first title from my list of Top 10 Criterion DVDs that deserve a Blu-ray upgrade to graduate to high-def! And that film is Fellini‘s brilliant 8 1/2 (clocking in at #6 on my list!) On any other day, the announcement of Soderbergh‘s epic Che and Wenders‘ Paris, Texas on Blu-ray would, alone be great cause for celebration. But 8 1/2 coming to Blu eclipses just about any other news you’re going to hear this month!

8 1/2
(January 12, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack

Special Features:
• High-definition digital transfer of restored film elements (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on Blu-ray edition)
• Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
• Audio commentary featuring film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and NYU film professor Antonio Monda
• High-definition digital transfer of a new restoration of Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
• The Last Sequence, a new 52-minute documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for 8 1/2 (available on Blu-ray edition)
• Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a compelling 48-minute documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
• Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
• Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
• Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
• U.S. theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by Fellini and essays by critics Tullio Kezich and Alexander Sesonske

CHE
(January 19, 2009 – MSRP $49.95)
Video: Che: Part One appears in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Che: Part Two appears in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• High-definition digital transfers of Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, supervised and approved by director Steven Soderbergh, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentaries on both films, featuring Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
• Making “Che,” a new documentary about the film’s production, featuring interviews with Soderbergh, producer Laura Bickford, actor-producer Benicio del Toro, and writers Peter Buchman and Ben van der Veen
• New interviews with Cuban historians as well as participants in the 1958 Cuban Revolution and Che’s 1967 Bolivian campaign
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical trailers
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin
• More!

PARIS, TEXAS
(January 26, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Wenders
• Interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen
• Excerpts from the 1990 film Motion and Emotion: The Road to “Paris, Texas,” featuring interviews with Wenders, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Hanns Zischler, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Falk, composer Ry Cooder, cinematographer Robby Müller, novelist Patricia Highsmith, and filmmaker Samuel Fuller
• New interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis
• Cinéma cinémas: “Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” with Wenders and Cooder working on the score
• Deleted scenes and Super 8 home movies
• Gallery of Wenders’s location-scouting photos, from his book Written in the West
• Behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick and interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell

Criterion signs deal with IFC, Brings CHE to Blu-ray in December, also A Christmas Tale, Gimme Shelter

Brenden — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:21:56 +0000

This is amazing news! According to Screen Daily, Criterion has recently inked a deal with IFC to bring a whole whack of films to Blu-ray. The first in the deal was the already announced Gomorrah, hitting shelves on November 24th (full details on Criterion’s Gomorrah Blu-ray release here). This will be followed by Arnaud Desplechin‘s A Christmas Tale and, rumour has it, Steven Soderbergh‘s two-part biopic Che in December. And from the sounds of it, this is just the beginning! 2010 will see the following titles hit Blu-ray through Criterion:

Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, Jan Troell, Sweden, 2008)
Summer Hours (L’heure d’été, Olivier Assayas, France, 2008)
The Secret of the Grain (La graine et le mulet, Abdellatif Kechiche, France, 2007)
Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK, 2007)
Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Japan, 2008)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, Mexico, 2001)
Following (Christopher Nolan, UK, 1998)

But so far, none of these titles (outside of Gomorrah and A Christmas Tale) have been officially announced by either studio. Full details of the A Christmas Tale Blu-ray along with the recently announced (and completely unrelated to the IFC deal) Rolling Stones doc, Gimme Shelter follow:

A CHRISTMAS TALE
(December 1, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

GIMME SHELTER
(December 1, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.33:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

The Blu-ray Blog » Che

Che – Collector's Edition Blu-ray Disc Review

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