8.2 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
An exploration of the lessons, ethics, and legacy of iconic children's television host, Fred Rogers.
Starring: Joanne Rogers, John Rogers (XV), Jim Rogers (IX), Bill Isler, Hedda SharapanDocumentary | 100% |
Biography | 15% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1, 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Fred Rogers shared wisdom, not knowledge, with his audience. Understanding math, science, letters, history, things of that nature -- things often learned in the classroom -- are important, but knowing oneself, loving oneself, believing in one's innate worth and the worth of others just might be more powerful life tools than anything a textbook could ever teach. Director Morgan Neville's (20 Feet from Stardom) Won't You Be My Neighbor? crafts a moving tribute to a man and the wisdom that shaped generations and could change even today's world if anyone would be bold enough to slow down and listen to Mr. Rogers one more time.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? arrives on Blu-ray with a well rounded 1080p transfer. The film is cobbled together from various sources, including plenty of old, vintage clips and reels, color and black-and-white, which are of varying quality, besieged by the warts of age, but they are critical textures in shaping the story of the man at the center of it through the decades. Film and video, relatively clean or littered with wear-and-tear, the image is in many ways a comfortable rewind through the years and reliving childhood memories, a prism through which the innate flaws disappear into nostalgia and purpose. Many newly minted interviews, digitally captured, present with impressive stability, clarity, attention to detail, and color. This is one of those Blu-ray releases that necessarily transcends traditional video quality analysis. It's fine as it is, technically imperfect but perfectly presentable within the film's, and history's, context.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack but it rarely, really never, engages the surround channels. The film's audio needs are sparse, requiring good, clear, well-prioritized dialogue as its essential sound component, which this track does deliver, whether crisp new interviews or somewhat scratchy vintage show clips or interviews snippets. Musical delivery satisfies with fine essential definition and front-end width. A few light supportive effects, often within the show's clips and presenting with limited clarity and range, help define a few scenes, but this one is understandably driven first and foremost by the spoken word.
Won't You Be My Neighbor?'s Blu-ray release contains no supplemental content. The film begins playback immediately upon disc insertion. No top menu is included. The pop-up menu offers only an opportunity to toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital versions are included. The release does not ship with a slipcover, though the DVD does.
There appears to be a yearning for a Fred Rogers revival in the air. Not only was Won't You Be My Neighbor? a well-received Documentary on the famous children's television host, but a movie called You Are My Friend starring Tom Hanks is in the works (the Oscar-winning actor was recently sighted in and around Western Pennsylvania, purportedly doing a bit of research in advance of the shoot). And there's a good reason for that yearning. Here's a man who is the antithesis of everything that's come to define the world in his absence: a man with a good heart, a wholesome message, sharing simple life lessons by way of a reliably pleasant demeanor. The next time the world seems blue and bleak, whether that's the larger physical world or one's most private and innermost being, remember Fred Rogers. Remember not the tentacles of life and the suffocating grasp of today's relentlessly dim world but the warm embrace of a hug and the kind reminder that it can again be a beautiful day in the neighborhood if minds and spirits and hearts were filled with positive, rather than negative, reinforcements. Universal's featureless Blu-ray delivers just-fine video and audio. Very highly recommended. 143.
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