6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Clark Kellogg is a young man starting his first year at film school in New York City. After a small time crook steals all his belongings, Clark meets Carmine "Jimmy the Toucan" Sabatini, an "importer" bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather.
Starring: Marlon Brando, Matthew Broderick, Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, Frank WhaleyCrime | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.79:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 1.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Andrew Bergman's 1990 film The Freshman is equal parts charming and funny with more than a little intermixed influence from Francis Ford Coppola's epic The Godfather. Not only is Vito Corleone all but resurrected for the film but various clips are analyzed, too (the main character is a film school student). The film's title could be interpreted to hold a double meaning; the lead character is not only a college freshman, he's also a newbie in the New York underground crime scene, an unwitting lawbreaker who quickly realizes he's in over his head even as he's on the fast track to the top of a powerful family. It's a breezy, amiable entertainer with plenty to offer both the casual moviegoer and the hardcore film fan alike.
Mill Creek enrolls The Freshman onto Blu-ray and it's clear the studio has cut classes and all but failed to crack the textbook. The picture worries from the outset. The imagery under the opening titles is miserable: flat, soft, heavily compressed, and poorly detailed. Unfortunately, that's the story for the duration. This is easily one of the worst transfers for a good movie ever to be found on a Blu-ray disc and an inauspicious start for the 2021 catalogue output. To be sure, there are some scenes that fare a bit better. When Clark meets Carmine for the first time, there's a mild uptick in stability and sharpness but it's small and such moments are fleeting. The compression issues really kill this one, along with a fairly dull color palette that struggles to offer any real vibrancy and saturation. Textural clarity is hardly revealing, favoring a flatness and a structural fatigue. It's often barely coherent, barely holding together as macroblocking infiltrates every background and the core picture quality struggles to escape a standard definition look. What a disappointment; The Freshman deserves much better.
The Freshman's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack proves capable of carrying the film's sonic needs, most of which are undemanding. The film opens with a couple of surprisingly deep and detailed gunshots which represent the most aggressive sounds the film has on offer. A few quasi-"action" scenes deliver some lighter output, often underneath score, which is plenty wide and nicely detailed. City ambience and light background sounds inside the coffee shop where Clark meets with Carmine are pleasantly rich and realistic though not quite so filling as they might have been with a larger channel output at the track's disposal. Dialogue drives much of the film. It's clear and detailed with fine front-center imaging the norm.
This Blu-ray release of The Freshman contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen only offers options for "Play" and toggling subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release ships with a "retro VHS" slipcover which features alternate (and superior) artwork compared to the BD case proper.
The Freshman has long been towards the top of this reviewer's Blu-ray wish list. Sadly, Mill Creek has greatly disappointed with its release. The video quality is borderline atrocious. The two channel lossless soundtrack is fine. No special features are included. The movie is well worth owning, and the disc is at least priced right. It's better than any DVD copy, but not by a lot. Maybe Sony will one day save it with the transfer it deserves.
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