'The Longest Day' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Kenneth's review of 'The Longest Day' is up. He says the film is admirable, but it's still somewhat disjointed. This Blu-ray is a bit of a mess, with a generous collection of supplements, a decent DTS HD MA track, and video ruined by hideous, rubbery DNR. Give it a rent.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1343/longestday.html

[Ken Brown]

Before anybody says it... yes, I know this review was a long time coming.

Sorry for the delay folks. No excuses, it just got lost in the shuffle.

[darkash]

Great review, Ken. I guess I won't be picking this one up. Between this and Patton, Fox needs to get their act together and let go of who ever it is that is applying all this blasted DNR.

Thanks for the review.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by darkash

Great review, Ken. I guess I won't be picking this one up. Between this and Patton, Fox needs to get their act together and let go of who ever it is that is applying all this blasted DNR.

Thanks for the review.

I'm working on a review of 'The Sand Pebbles' as we speak. It has a great looking transfer and doesn't have a single spot of DNR. I really wish 'The Longest Day' had looked as good.

[DrMaustus]

By the sounds of it, it appears as if the Canadian forces that attacked one of the five beaches on D-day doesn't even get mentioned in the film. Is this correct? If so, a film striving for accuracy has failed miserably.

On the other hand, perhaps the directors knew they were juggling too many balls with a 2-hour long movie as it was. Still, as a Canadian who knows something of the sacrifices that many of the soldiers made, if the Canadians aren't mentioned, it's a dealbreaker for me.

[Arkadin]

well this edition absolutely blows the sd version out of the water, but of course the over-use of the dnr is very regrettable. Hopefully the studios will get with the program and realize that these pathetic "grain-scrubbing' practices are not wanted or warranted. That said, the sd version looks absolutely horribly blurry compared to this Blu-Ray.

[James99]

Of the five new Fox war related releases. Patton and The Longest Day are by far the best.

A Bridge To Far and Battle of Britian are single layer MPEG2 releases with no extras.

This movie and Patton are the full deal.

This movies looks and sounds great.

This review is shocking. I would suggest reading other reviews before passing on this gem.

I won't post links but they're not hard to find.

Fox has done a bad job in the past, including delaying movies over and over again.

Luckily, this wasn't one of the them.

In regards to the movie itself. Perhaps the best WWII movie ever with the best cast ever assembled for any Hollywood movie in the entire history of cinema.

As a Canadian, i'm not offended by this movie.

[GJN]

I stopped reading the review when he stated that it was based on a novel...

[gene9p]

not all movies are meant to be in hd..this is a good example..I watched it and did not find it as bad as described....but if you think this looks wrong wait till the Godfather hits HD..a classic all time great movie,filmed dark and meant to be that way, Hd can only hinder it's look and it certainly cannot improve the movie..we just have to accept that the sd versions are more accurate to film presentation than hd versions..not everything is meant to look like a 3d ,cgi cartoon and sound that way...there is a huge difference between a great classic film and the pump them out every week films of today

as far as the Canadiens part in D-Day..remember this was filmed in the early 60's by a very racist and prejudiced America and that included the film industry...it's more of a promotional film of every popular, and soon to be popular actor,check out Sean Connery pre James Bond,and Gert Frobe, Goldfinger himself

[Arkadin]

don't quite get "The Godfather" opinion.
They have done a very meticulous restoration with the director's direct involvement and NO grain scrubbing. That title SHOULD be absolutely amazing, and I cannot wait personally.

[Rishi]

Originally Posted by GJN

I stopped reading the review when he stated that it was based on a novel...

Yeah, to be precise the book is not a novel as it is entirely nonfiction.

[Blu-Balls]

This movie is good and I didn't find the transfer all that hideous.

I recommend it.

[Jimbo976]

This Blu-ray is great and I highly recommend it to anyone. Sure they could have held back some on the DNR but as is this one looks great and is a very good movie.

[rmmil978]

I thought the movie looked, eh, decent. The use of DNR did make some scenes a bit awkward where the people didn't really look like they belonged in the picture, but I was VERY impressed with the audio quality. For a movie of its age, I thought the audio quality was top notch.

[mischa316]

I rented this the other week and for it's capabilities it looked good. The only thing it's in Black & White. I was like what is the point of putting a B&W movie in HD. Dont get me wrong it's a great movie little too long almost 3 hours. I just dont think I would pick it up because of the B&W. I'll just stick to my SD DVD upconverted.
Mischa.