Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Armageddon Time Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson February 1, 2023

The Jewish-American familial experience is lensed in an alternately rueful and nostalgic fashion in James Gray's most autobiographical feature to date. All but two of the films Gray has directed are set in New York and this is possibly the most personal in his oeuvre. It recreates his suburban childhood in Queens. Early in the picture, the Graff family gathers around the television to watch an interview with California Governor Ronald Reagan as part of the 1980 presidential campaign. Reagan mentions the phrase "Armageddon time" to refer to the nuclear option that's still on the table with the "Evil Empire" ever lurking in the northern hemisphere. (The title also connects indirectly with the apocalyptic TV movie, The Day After, which caused Reagan to fear nuclear weapons more than ever.) These possible doomsday implications may not be felt by 12-year-old Paul Graff (Banks Repetta), but the youngest son of Esther (Anne Hathaway) and Irving Graff (Jeremy Strong) faces an uncertain present and future. He isn't yet as bright as his obnoxious older brother, Ted (Ryan Sell), but he's a talented lad and aspiring artist. Paul still lacks the creativity to paint his own pictures like when he copies a Kandinsky that he observed at the Guggenheim Museum. But Aaron (Anthony Hopkins), Paul's warm maternal grandfather, recognizes the sixth grader's potential and buys him a set of paints, which thrills the boy.

Paul has difficulty fitting in at school as there few Jews in his class. It's there that he meets a new friend, Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), a Black student who like Paul is a rebellious non-conformist. Johnny can relate to Paul's status as a minority because there are hardly any people of color in the school. Paul and Johnny bond through arcade games while partially playing hooky on a field trip. Johnny also introduces Paul to hip-hop music which he didn't know was on the horizon after disco.

Paul finds a new friend.

Gray effectively critiques issues of race and class in the boroughs of Queens. Johnny and his grandmother (Marjorie Johnson) apparently aren't given any subsidized housing since they live in a tenement where a basic telephone can't be installed. Johnny frequents the "clubhouse" on the side of the Graffs' house which becomes a secondary abode for him. His grandma can't afford decent shoes and socks for him, which causes his feet to have bad blisters and sores. Paul offers to grab him another pair of shoes but Johnny brushes off his discomfort as already feeling better. After Paul is transferred to Forest Manor, a prep school, he's surrounded by the sons and daughters of yuppies. It's in the play yard of this private school where Gray offers a commentary on trenchant, class-based racism. Johnny walks the sidewalk and spots Paul from behind. Gray frames Johnny across a chain-linked fence which is in essence a dividing line between the offspring (i.e., Paul's classmates but not him) belonging to a group Marx calls the haute bourgeoisie and the most underprivileged class, which Johnny is a part of. After Paul and Johnny finish chatting, one of the kids uses the "n" word and asks Paul if he's ever hung out with any African Americans at his house. Paul feels out of place, to say the least.

From all I've read and heard about Gray (as well as directly from him), the New York filmmaker studied critical theory and continental philosophy at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Gray surely examined French philosopher Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish and his work on power relations. Paul and Johnny are victims of both institutional and societal discipline and punishment. Gray uses subjective, tight shots to reify how authority figures are closing in on Paul and his friends. Gray and his sound design team ingeniously use a muffled echo that's ringing inside Paul's ears to reinforce how the barking orders of these authoritative forces (both male and female) practically envelop them. Armageddon Time is a knowing study of adolescence's tribulations and an unsentimental slice-of-life drama mixed with some welcome acerbic humor.

Armageddon Time Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Univeral/Focus Features' "triple play" release of Armageddon Time from last month comes with a slipcover on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 41.37 GB). I saw this eighth feature by Gray in a theater less than two months ago so I can comment on how the 2.39:1 image compares on this Blu-ray and Prime's UHD stream. Production designer Happy Massee noted in Focus Feature's press kit that he intended for all the tones "to be very earthy—greens, browns, and ochres." The saturation on the brown tiles in the Graff's bathroom, for example, is as well-pronounced on the 1080p and 2160p transfers as it was on the DCP I saw. All three prints have a golden-brown hue.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji shot the picture on an Arri Alexa 65, using Super Baltar lenses that he and Gray borrowed from DP Ed Lachman. Khondji explained their choice to François Reumont of British Cinematographer Magazine: "We chose a Super Baltar series from Bausch & Lomb, adapted to the Alexa 65; wonderful vintage fast lenses with remarkable close focus capability. With James, we shot almost the whole film with two or three focal lengths – no need for a particularly full set of lenses. And these ones really allow me to break the ultra-high definition of the camera sensor." The lighting and grip equipment derive from Arri 
Digital. (You should pay attention to how light emanates from other rooms in the Graff household across the wide frame in my screen captures and while you watch the film.) Compared to the Blu-ray, the 4K stream shows noticeable upticks in detail and sharpness. Clarity is outstanding even in distantly framed background settings.

Another important variable to consider when evaluating the image is that Gray wanted Armageddon Time to appear as if you're watching a movie printed on Kodak film from over three decades ago. But Gray couldn't find a vintage Panavision camera that could give him the desired look he sought. In an interview on the ReelBlend Podcast, Gray stated that he applied a very old 35mm grain app to a digital file. He describes this process as "electronically created simulacrum of 35 millimeter film from 1980." The Blu-ray does a better job of replicating the faux film grain than the UHD does. (This isn't to imply that the Prime Video 4K stream is DNRed. I didn't see much de-noising.) I'm thinking of a medium shot of Paul in his home that really brings out the grain.

For nighttime exteriors, both the BD and UHD do an excellent job of handling Khondji's light sources. In either another or the same interview he conducted with François Reumont for the French Society of Cinematographers (AFC), which was translated from French by A. Baron-Raiffe, Khondhi addressed color and light levels: "...I wanted to use tungsten a little more on night exterior scenes, to get as close as possible to the color of the streets at that time. Here again, it was a simple lighting, with few sources and a general nocturnal brightness well below what we now know in today's cities lit by LEDs. Also, very vertical effects, like the scene at the end of the film when the father brings his son home from the police station. I turned off most of the streetlights, leaving only a few bright spots here and there. When you're in the car, the main effect comes from tungsten sources placed very high up, at a height similar to real streetlamps, mixed with a few ¾ counter lights coming from the lamps on entrance porches or neighboring gardens." See especially the scene that comprises Screenshot # 6. Universal has encoded the feature on the Blu-ray at a mean video bitrate of 34798 kbps.

Twenty chapters accompany the 114-minute feature.

Armageddon Time Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal has supplied an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround mix (3313 kbps, 24-bit) as the default audio track. Spoken words are clear and audible throughout the presentation (especially those by Anthony Hopkins). While much of the dialogue and some of the f/x are primarily relegated to the fronts, there's a lot of deep bass I heard along the surrounds and subwoofer. This occurs during the screeching of train tracks and recordings of The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and The Clash's "Armageddon Time." I don't have audio specs for the Prime stream but it sounds like a very solid lossy DTS or 5.1+. It's an excellent sound track.

Christopher Spelman only wrote fifteen minutes of score but he makes each note count. When interviewed for the Focus Feature press kit, he divulged a surprising inspiration: Rota's score for Fellini's 8½ (1963). Spelman says he played classical guitar so it sounds like it's being played on either an unamplified archtop jazz guitar or a real archtop guitar. This part of the score works well because it's integrated nicely in the sound track's backdrop and isn't intrusive. For the family motif, Spelman wrote in a xylophone that's bowed to other instruments. There's also some emotive strings that aren't played too loudly with furtive guitar anchoring the background.

Optional English SDH as well as French and Spanish subtitles can be accessed for the feature.

Armageddon Time Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (4:14, 1080p) - three scenes that were omitted from the final cut: "Paul's Interview" (1:56), "Home After the Funeral" (1:05), and "Goodbye to Ted" (1:13). Each is displayed in 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen with 2.0 stereo (192 kbps). They're worthwhile and interesting to see, although they don't enhance the story much. I thought Gray could have perhaps left "Paul's Interview" in the theatrical version as we see little of Headmaster Fitzroy (Richard Bekins) in the rest of the picture. In English, not subtitled.

• Building a Family Cast (4:08, 1080p) - the first of three mini-featurettes from Focus Features' EPK. We hear from co-stars Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, writer/director/producer James Gray, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Banks Repeta, and Jaylin Webb. The actors talk about how they approached their characters. In English, not subtitled.

• Growing Up Gray (3:50, 1080p) - the best segment in this small lot of extras. Gray discusses the importance of commemorating members of his immediate and extended family while filming on the very street he grew up! Hathaway, Hopkins, Strong, and production designer Happy Massee also contribute remarks. In English, not subtitled.

• A Grandfather's Legacy (3:40, 1080p) - a spotlight on Grandpa Rabinowitz with Hopkins briefly explaining the mini-bio he wrote of his eventual character and how he interpreted Rabinowitz's role in Paul's life. There's also interview snippets with Hathaway, Gray, Repeta, and producer Rodrigo Teixeira. In English, not subtitled.

Armageddon Time Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

James Gray's films are always intelligently crafted which makes them a pleasure to revisit time and again. I initially admired Armageddon Time from a distance but it's grown on me in repeat viewings. While I probably prefer Gray's crime thrillers to this one, his balance of pathos and humor here make it re-watchable. (I would rank his very best works thus far as We Own the Night [2007], Ad Astra [2019], and The Yards [2000].) The transfers on Universal's Blu-ray and the UHD stream on Prime each have their own strengths so I don't feel you can go wrong with either. I wish that Universal had put more effort into the extras aside from some omitted scenes and a Focus Features EPK. The studio likely didn't ask Gray to record a commentary track as I'm sure he would have obliged. You may want to wait till the retail price dips below $20. A VERY WARM RECOMMENDATION for Armageddon Time.