"She's terrible!"
...well, not very good, at any rate.
In the UK, last week, ITV released its first batch of Blu-ray titles, among them classics like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Black Narcissus and David Lean's Great Expectations - something of a departure, as I'm sure you'll agree, from the usual slew of third-rate action spectacles that invariably end up being released in high definition. Eager to see what ITV was capable of, I picked up a copy of their release of Baz Luhrmann's first film Strictly Ballroom.
It arrived this morning, and I'm disappointed to have to tell you that the results are considerably less than stellar. It appears that an old master has been used - a rather grimy one, and one that has been subjected to an alarming amount of grain reduction, sucking most of the fine detail out in the process. While it constitutes a noticeable improvement on the frankly pretty shocking American DVD from Miramax, that's hardly the greatest advertisement for the Blu-ray format, and ultimately I can only really recommend this release to absolute die-hard fans, or at least those with less than discerning tastes.
Strictly Ballroom
(ITV, UK, VC-1, 18.2 GB)
        
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