Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 4, 2010

Winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" (1990) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios-UK. Unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray disc. In English, with optional English SDH, Italian, German, Catalan, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Japanese and Traditional Chinese subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Sailor and Lula

Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) and Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) are madly in love. Lula’s mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), a crazy Southern belle past her prime with a serious drinking problem, doesn't like it at all. In a desperate attempt to push Sailor away from her daughter, Marietta offers to have sex with him, and then hires an assassin (J.E. Freeman) to take him out. However, Sailor rejects the bad offer and beats the assassin's brains out. While he is in jail, Lula patiently waits for him.

A couple of years later, Sailor gets out and offers to take Lula from North Carolina to California. They would also stop in New Orleans -- to try a few of those famous fried banana sandwiches and listen to some good old-fashioned jazz.

While heading West, Lula decides to send her mother a postcard to let her know that she is doing well. Marietta goes berserk and immediately asks two ex-lovers, Johnny Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton), a lousy private investigator, and Marcelles Santos (J. E. Freeman), a perverted goon who may or may not have something to do with her husband's death, to go after the lovers and take out Sailor. Johnny agrees, assuming that once the job is done, he will get to have some fun with Marietta, just like the old days when they were young and in love, while Marcelles tells Marietta he will help her if she finally lets him deal with Johnny.

After a short trip to New Orleans, Sailor and Lula end up in Big Tuna, Texas, where Sailor befriends Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), a nasty character paid to kill him, while Lula gets a nasty stomach flu. Shortly after, Sailor and Bobby agree to rob a local bank.

David Lynch's Wild at Heart premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990, where it won the prestigious Palme d'Or award. A year later, it earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Diane Ladd).

Like most Lynch films, Wild at Heart has colorful characters with fascinating secrets. From afar, most of them look like normal people. However, they do things normal people don't and end up in places normal people wouldn't. Needless to say, they also have experiences most normal people don’t.

Also like most Lynch films, Wild at Heart blends contrasting material that would be utterly incompatible in other films. One is dark and disturbing. The other is light, often incredibly hilarious, and sometimes surprisingly witty. The masterful blending of this contrasting material is what makes Wild at Heart a memorable, seriously enjoyable genre film.

Lynch adapted Wild at Heart from Barry Gifford’s pulp-noir novel “Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula”, published in 1990. Several years later, Lynch and Gifford collaborated on Lost Highway, which initially received extremely polarizing reviews.

After it was featured in Wild at Heart, Chris Isaak’s song Wicked Game became an international sensation. The original soundtrack also features two quirky tracks sung by Cage, various classic and modern tracks, and original music composed by frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti.

Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, David Lynch's Wild at Heart arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios-UK.

The release is sourced from a good but somewhat inconsistent master. Detail, clarity, and contrast are pleasing. The color scheme is also quite nice. Reds, greens, yellows, blues, browns, grays, and blacks look rich and natural. The age of the master shows, but there are no serious anomalies. Compression artifacts pop up here and there, and they tend to affect the viewing experience the most. There are no serious stability issues. Image stability is good, but in a few areas small enhancements could be beneficial. All in all, even though its current presentation is not ideal, Wild at Heart looks good in high-definition. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is no problematic PAL or 1080/50i content preceding the disc's main menu. Please note that the main menu can be set in one of the following languages: Japanese, English, Italian, German, Catalan, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Traditional Chinese).

Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are eight audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, German DTS 5.1, Japanese DTS 2.0, Italian DTS 2.0, Catalan DTS 2.0, Brazilian Portuguese DTS 2.0, Latin Spanish DTS 2.0, and Russian DTS 2.0. For the record, Universal Studios-UK have provided optional English SDH, Italian, German, Catalan, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Japanese and Traditional Chinese subtitles for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is pleasing. The range of dynamics is certainly impressive. The dialog is also exceptionally crisp, clean, stable, and very easy to follow. There are no balance issues with Angelo Badalamenti's wonderful music score either. While viewing the film, I also did not detect any disturbing pops, cracks, hissings, or audio dropouts to report in this review.

Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Most unfortunately, there are absolutely no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray disc whatsoever.

Wild at Heart Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

And so the trend continues. We have another very good release of a classic David Lynch film that gets a Blu-ray release in several European markets but not in North America. However, unlike Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and The Elephant Man, I have a very, very good feeling that Wild at Heart will appear on Blu-ray in North America in 2011. For those who cannot wait, the UK release is a very good alternative. It looks and sounds very good. One more thing. While I am not a proponent of dated transfers, and ideally would like to see fresh masters done for catalog titles as often as possible, if for whatever reason there are no funds for specific older films to get a fresh new masters, at least bring it to Blu-ray in its raw form, looking like film, which is exactly what we get with this Blu-ray release of Wild at Heart. It is not perfect — there are some minor fluctuations, a few flecks popping up here and there, etc — but it looks like film. I am fine with it, and I am certain a lot of other people will be as well. This is a top film, folks, so do not hesitate to pick up the Blu-ray release. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.