‘Old Men’ Plays Beautifully on New Blu-Ray

By Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald

Mar. 14–If you’ve been on the fence about buying one of those newfangled Blu-ray machines or skeptical about whether the picture is that much better than your trusty old DVD player, just take a gander at the No Country For Old Men Blu-ray (Walt Disney, $35, also available on DVD) and watch all your hesitations shatter into tiny pieces of high-definition goodness.

To put it simply, this is the best home video image I have ever seen, with such perfectly calibrated colors and sharp details that you can practically see every grain of sand on the patch of Texas desert where a hunter (Josh Brolin) stumbles on the grisly aftermath of a botched drug deal and comes away with a satchel stuffed with cash.

The movie, which deserved each of the four Oscars it won last month (including Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem, playing evil incarnate as the killer on Brolin’s trail), makes for ideal home viewing, especially since its subtle, muted ending takes a couple of viewings to fully appreciate for those who have not read Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

The Blu-ray disc includes all of the extras found on the regular DVD, including a 25-minute making-of featurette that includes interviews with the normally camera-shy Joel and Ethan Coen and two briefer interview segments, including one that juxtaposes Bardem’s killer with co-star Tommy Lee Jones’ ineffectual sheriff. It’s not a lavish supplementary package, but the film doesn’t need all that much elaboration. If you’re left craving more, read the book. It will only make you love the movie more.

‘… AND JUSTICE FOR ALL’

Long before “You can’t handle the truth!” there was “You’re out of order! They’re out of order! This whole court is out of order!” The oft-quoted line is from 1979′s . . . And Justice For All, a satire of the U.S. legal system that is strangely entertaining, even though it feels more TV-movie-of-the-week-ish today than it did 25 years ago.

But Al Pacino’s performance as the set-upon lawyer trying to do right by his clients is terrific, and he’s matched by Jeffrey Tambor (in his feature film debut) as a fellow lawyer who gradually loses his mind, which is initially played for laughs, until it’s not. The supporting cast also includes the great Lee Strasberg as Pacino’s grandfather, which is a nice bookend to The Godfather Part II, in which Pacino had Strasberg whacked at the Miami International Airport.

Previously available on a crummy, full-screen DVD . . . And Justice For All has been given the special edition treatment (Sony, $20). The new disc features a nicely cleaned-up widescreen transfer, as well as 11 minutes of deleted scenes, an audio commentary by director Norman Jewison and a featurette on screenwriter Barry Levinson, who would later direct Rain Man and Diner. In an example of the growing trend to use DVDs as cross-marketing tools, the disc includes a “sneak peek” of Pacino’s upcoming thriller 88 minutes, as well as the pilot episode of the excellent FX legal drama Damages, which, conveniently enough, is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.

—–

To see more of The Miami Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Miami Herald

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:DIS, NYSE:SNE,