7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The story of how the Los Angeles Lakers became the most successful professional basketball team in the 1980s.
Starring: John C. Reilly, Quincy Isaiah, Jason Clarke, Gaby Hoffmann, Hadley RobinsonSport | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Biography | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Dutch
Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Digital copy
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Having grown up in a city that never had a sports team in any of the so-called "major leagues" (not necessarily referring only to baseball), I frankly just never quite understood the mania surrounding a hometown group to root for, even if watching various sporting events on television was (perhaps expectedly) a regular occurrence. But then I moved to Portland just as "Rip City" was entering the national lexicon, and I suddenly found myself ensconced in a sort of St. Vitus' Dance that had gleefully "infected" seemingly the entire populace, an infection that, well, went viral when the Blazers won the National Basketball Association championship. There's something akin to that mass mania at play, at least ultimately, in this series centered on Los Angeles, whose intermittently celebrated and/or disparaged Lakers are the focus of this almost manic production. "Showtime" may almost automatically remind home theater enthusiasts of a certain "premium" network, but for denizens of L.A., and especially fans of the Lakers, "Showtime" came to typify an entire era where the Lakers assumed the kind of supremacy that many sports teams can only dream about. But the athletic dominance of the team was only part of the "Showtime" branding, and in fact Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty offers some of the presentational "entertainment value" that the team attempted to offer at its games and for its broadcasts.
Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I'm just going to start this review by stating overtly the presentation here defies any real dissection in terms of things we normally address in our reviews, since the presentational style is so widely variant by design, and filled with all sorts of things we normally find fault with, including video anomalies, damage, noise, pixellation and any other "issue" which may or may not occur to you. I'd simply recommend spending a few seconds looking at some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review to get some idea of the gamut of styles and imagery that you'll be greeted by. As is briefly discussed in some of the supplements included with this release, there was an intentional decision to use a huge array of different techniques here to "film", and I'd simply point those interested to this title's IMDb Technical Specifications page for at least a partial listing. As such, anyone looking for a homogeneous viewing experience had best move on, because this is one of the most rapid fire stylistic assaults I personally can remember seeing. Virtually no scene, let alone sequence, is delivered via only one "method", and indeed intercutting can often offer different "looks" at the same characters. It's an almost exhausting approach at times, one that I'm not completely sure makes a point other than to admittedly dazzle the viewer and give them perhaps a visual analog of what a "fast break" might feel like. All of this said, in the most "traditional" moments, which I'd term the 35mm content, detail on the film's wonderfully garish recreation of the fashions (?) of the era are beautifully rendered (the show's production design is one of its inarguable merits). Within the context of all of the typical bugaboos we curmudgeonly reviewers regularly find fault with being an intentional part of this presentation, this is an astoundingly varied presentation that receives a solid if psychedelic transfer.
Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that delivers a perhaps slightly less chaotic experience than the visual side of things does. That's not to say there isn't activity on this track, because it's often nonstop, with good layering effects that can, for example, deliver some background clamor like people hanging out at the Johnson home which can then suddenly feature a notable presence front and center, as in any of the many characters who break the fourth wall to deliver anecdotes directly to the camera. Nicholas Britell and the always amazing Robert Glasper contribute pulsing, propulsive cues that also populate the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Dutch subtitles are available.
Each disc contains The Forum featurettes devoted to individual episodes but often getting into various sidebars
hosted by Rick Fox, with a rotating selection of guests.
Disc One
Because of the vagaries of the way my reviewing life works, I binge watched Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season, and this frankly may not be one of those shows cut out for such a strategy. The series makes a compelling point about infusing energy into a supposed moribund institution, but that very jolt of energy makes this show "turned up to 11" virtually the entire way, both in a narrative but especially a presentational sense. As such, this might be best taken in small doses, so to speak, where the sometimes juvenile humor (see screenshots 8 and 14 for just two examples) probably come across better, and the film's peripatetic proclivities are arguably easier to digest. One way or the other, Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season is often hugely entertaining. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very appealing. Highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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