6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A police detective goes undercover in the underground S&M gay subculture of New York City to catch a serial killer who is preying on gay men.
Starring: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox (I), Don ScardinoHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 25% |
Erotic | 18% |
Crime | 1% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Maybe some of you have heard of a little film called The French Connection, and maybe some of you even know that there were two manifestly different looking Blu-ray releases of the film, each coming with the imprimatur of having been approved by director William Friedkin. That may serve to help elucidate a couple of points with regard to Cruising, the first of which is that Friedkin’s approval may or may not be the “blessing” that can at least sometimes accompany a director overseeing a high definition version of one of their properties. The second is that Friedkin seems to be an unabashed and unapologetic revisionist, and that tendency actually played into Cruising long before this potentially controversial Blu-ray release was ever a twinkle in its creator’s eye. Cruising encountered pretty significant pushback when it was released in 1980, much of it coming from a gay community that felt it was being maligned by the film, but there was pretty considerable grousing within the film’s cast and crew as well, much of it aimed squarely at Friedkin for changes he either made or refused to make (depending on whose anecdote you’re dealing with). That revisionism seems to have continued on unabated for this Blu-ray release, as will be outlined below.
Cruising is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:
Cruising has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with 5.1 sound. This new restoration was fully supervised and approved by director William Friedkin.I'm frankly of at least two minds with regard to this transfer, and I'll start by saying that I haven't seen Cruising theatrically in at least a couple of decades, and I'm not one of those who insists my memory is 100% accurate in all things cinematic, but that said, I remembered at least parts of the film as being skewed more toward blue than they are here. There is plenty of blue throughout this presentation, as can probably be gleaned from some of the screenshots, but perhaps because the blues were so vivid they imprinted on my memory, making me think they were more prevalent than they are. That said, the best looking sequences here to my eyes are the brightly lit outdoor moments, where grading is rarely if ever used, but where primaries really pop extremely well, detail levels are excellent, and a fine grain field is easily discernable. Some of the darker material, including a lot of the blue tinted club scenes, can be a good deal murkier, with occasional crush and, in some of the darkest scenes, sudden spikes of grain that can tip toward noise territory. But one of the more curious things that struck my eyes is how variable the grain is throughout this presentation: at times, it looks really nicely organic, resolving without any issues, while at other times it's pretty chunky, and at still other times it's rather difficult to even see, giving selected moments a kind of digital, video-like appearance. I think the bottom line here is that it may be best (if objectionable to some) to simply state this is how Friedkin wants the film to look now, even if it's not exactly the way it looked then. Kind of interestingly, one of the interviews with cinematographer James Contner gets into how Contner wanted to shoot the film in black and white, and there are a couple of brief but striking high contrast black and white shots that start the film. My recommendation to fans is to carefully parse the screenshots I've uploaded with this review, preferably in full resolution, to see how they respond to the overall appearance.
The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 4K resolution at Warner Brothers/MPI.
Picture grading and image processing was supervised by William Friedkin and performed by Bryan McMahan at Roundabout Entertainment.
The 5.1 mix was supervised by William Friedkin and remastered by Aaron Levy at Smart Post Sound.
Picture restoration was completed at Silver Salt Restoration, London.
Friedkin's revisionism perhaps contributed to the audio side of things on this release as well, since the film was evidently originally released in mono, while the two tracks on this disc are DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0. The surround track isn't overly showy, which is probably a good thing, but it does significantly open up a lot of the club material, as well as providing discrete channelization for individual ambient environmental effects. Background clatter from the urban environment can also dot the surround channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, with no problems whatsoever.
Between Cruising and Looking For Mr. Goodbar, there seemed to be a pronounced cinematic suggestion that it might be best not to go club hopping and, you know, go to a movie or something. If one takes Friedkin at his word that the whole gay aspect to Cruising just gave him the opportunity to locate a murder mystery in a lesser known subculture, one might also understandably be apt to wonder why Friedkin didn't respect the "rules" of a murder mystery more observantly, and actually tie up more than a few loose ends. There are tons of rather interesting things scattered throughout Cruising, but it's also a disturbing film on a number of levels no matter what your sexual orientation or tolerance for other "lifestyles" may or may not be. My hunch is this may be another somewhat controversial transfer, but my bottom line is when this looks good, it often looks spectacular; I nonetheless have a pretty strong hunch some viewers may not react positively to some fairly wide variances that are on display. Fans of the film are getting a release with generally solid (if perhaps revisionist) technical merits, and the supplemental material is very interesting, for those considering a purchase.
1980
2018
Limited Edition - 1,200 copies | SOLD OUT
1987
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1980
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1959
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1990
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1981
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