5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The story of Steve Jobs' ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century.
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Lukas Haas, Matthew ModineBiography | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Have you ever been guilty of rolling your eyes when some elderly person starts talking about how much the world has changed during their lifetime? I must admit I have succumbed to that trait, but I’m old enough now that I’ve actually experienced sea changes in the ebb and flow of daily life. It wasn’t so long ago that there wasn’t even an internet, and I can clearly recall my first dial up experience in the early days of the medium, with that grating noise which ultimately gave way to a quick sine wave before “contact” was established. But experiencing the internet of course required having a computer, and I am also old enough to remember a time before computers—or at least personal computers. I was managing an employment agency as memory typewriters gave way first to dedicated word processors (like the wonderfully named Wang) and then, finally, to those first clunky PCs, each governed by their own particular disk operating systems, which then had to be loaded with then very basic softwares like WordPerfect or AppleWriter. People were freaking out about these changes, and not always in a good way. Secretaries had become used to the tippy-tap of a typewriter, not to mention carriage returns with that unmistakable bell tone, and the so-called “convenience” of computers with software was a brave new world that many of them most assuredly did not want to navigate. Back in those “Dark Ages” people were too concerned with learning about the newfangled technology to care much about who had invented it, and in fact it wasn’t until I decided to go back to school part time (as I continued to work) and was studying for my Masters Degree at Portland’s Reed College that I first even heard of Steve Jobs, and then only because he had been a fellow alum. Reed’s environment is extremely eclectic, to say the least. For example, when I was working on my Masters there, I was given pretty much free rein to do whatever I wanted, and in short order I studied William Butler Yeats with a renowned Yeats scholar, took an invigorating course in Classical Greek from a wonderful English man with the superb name of Professor Peachy, and then scored the Drama Department’s production of William Inge’s Picnic. Steve Jobs felt a similar freedom about Reed’s intellectual environment but he simply could not afford the place. But everything that happened to Jobs after Reed College may be traced—at least tangentially, and I would argue much more directly than merely tangentially—back to his formative experiences at the tony liberal arts mecca of the Pacific Northwest, a place where curiosity is the drug of choice (well, one of the drugs of choice, anyway, as Jobs himself found out).
Jobs is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios with an VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This Arri Alexa shot feature is sometimes curiously bland looking, with a lot of scenes tweaked in post so that they have a slightly orange-amber tint. The film was lensed mostly by Russell Carpenter (Aseem Bajaj did the location work in India which is quite briefly featured), and while the native HD image has the requisite sleekness and clarity we've all come to expect from the format, there's just a lack of real pop throughout this film that is rather surprising, given not only its high tech subject matter but also Jobs' own focus (as even stated in the film) on aesthetic beauty. A lot of this can be traced to kind of boring looking sets, many of which are almost monochromatic. A few notable exceptions come to mind, notably a lot of outdoor sequences, where finally the palette is somewhat more varied and perhaps therefore more immediately interesting. A few isolated scenes have been intentionally altered to supposedly provide some textural differences (see screenshot 6), though the wisdom of this approach is debatable. The transfer offers quite good fine detail (see screenshot 3), and a lot of the exterior footage has nice depth of field (see screenshot 14). Contrast and black levels are strong and there are no compression artifacts of any note.
Jobs' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is a fine sounding but not overly immersive track, one that really only springs to life when the copious source cues come into play (including some by one Steven Georgiou in his guises as Cat Stevens and Yusuf Islam). There are occasional good moments of discrete directionality in crowded dialogue scenes and in some outdoor scenes where ambient environmental effects enter the mix, but this is a fairly front heavy mix. Fidelity is excellent and there is no damage to report.
There's definitely a film to be made about the incredible life and achievements of Steve Jobs, but Jobs ironically crams too much data into this offering while never penetrating much beyond a mere laundry list of people and events. The technical merits of this Blu-ray are fine, and the commentary is actually rather well done, so fans of the film will not be disappointed if they choose to add this to their collection.
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