'OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (French Import)' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh has reviewed 'OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (French Import).' He says it's a very funny secret agent parody. The import Blu-ray has nice picture and sound. Worth a look.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1651/oss117_fr.html

[Homerx]

I have this movie aswell it was a very good funny film. Very goof id say its a cross of james bond and get smart with a little austin powers

[ahsoka]

Regrettably, at the 65-minute and 70-minute marks on my copy, the video breaks up into terrible pixelation artifacts, like a bad satellite TV feed. Both problem areas are repeatable. I'm not certain whether I just have a defective copy or the errors are an inherent part of the disc encoding. Fortunately, each instance lasts only a brief second.

I was wondering about that, the picture breaks up completely at those times on my copy as well. Annoying even if it lasts only for a moment...
Anyway, it's a fun and entertaining movie.

[Eternal Now]

"If there was filtering of any sort applied here, it may have been done intentionally to give the movie a softer texture and clean-scrubbed appearance, which in this case is not undesirable. 'OSS 117' is still a nice-looking High Definition picture."

So, now its the "director's intent" to have the film scrubbed to death with DNR? Maybe I'm just not understanding this review. The picture is supposed to resemble plastic?

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by ahsoka

I was wondering about that, the picture breaks up completely at those times on my copy as well. Annoying even if it lasts only for a moment...

Thanks for the confirmation. It appears to be a disc mastering issue, then.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Eternal Now

"If there was filtering of any sort applied here, it may have been done intentionally to give the movie a softer texture and clean-scrubbed appearance, which in this case is not undesirable. 'OSS 117' is still a nice-looking High Definition picture."

So, now its the "director's intent" to have the film scrubbed to death with DNR? Maybe I'm just not understanding this review. The picture is supposed to resemble plastic?

Yes, some directors add DNR at the Digital Intermediate stage of production.

If you ever have a chance, go have a professional high-resolution headshot photo of yourself taken, and ask the photographer to send you the raw file without any touching up. Take a look at it in full size, so that each and every pore in your skin is visible in frightening detail, every stray hair on your head and in your eyebrows is clear and distinct, and every blemish you may have, no matter how invisible to the naked eye, stands out like a glowing red Mt. St. Helens just before it erupted. Then have him send you the "touched up" version where they DNR it a little to soften the details and digitally paint out some of your imperfections.

Now imagine that one of these photos will be projected onto a 50-foot screen in front of a packed audience. Which one will you choose?

DNR is not inherently evil. It's just a tool, like many others. It can be used for good or for bad.

The DNR on this movie is not objectionable. On the other hand, the DNR on Gangs of New York that makes the whole picture smeary is something else entirely.

[Arkadin]

nice clarification regarding dnr Josh.
glad to see hdd reviewing some imports.
hope we'll be seeing a lot more.
"Tell No One" would be a great choice imo.

[Sky_Captain]

This is one of those discs I got into a bidding war on ebay over. I had to have it. Incidentally, the movie is repeated on the 2nd disc in standard def. Handy for poor relatives...

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

This is one of those discs I got into a bidding war on ebay over. I had to have it. Incidentally, the movie is repeated on the 2nd disc in standard def. Handy for poor relatives...

Not on my copy. It's just the documentary in PAL format.

[sonofcretu]

Indeed a very fun movie to watch and a great picture quality for one of the fist made in france of a french movie Blu-ray

Regarding the introduction and deleted scenes of the Blu-ray disc....i live in Canada and my brand new Samsung BP-1500 plays same without any problem on my 52 Sony Bravia through HDMI 1080P/24Hz settings...........

[krylonman]

No breakups at the 65- or 70-minute marks for me! That was a pleasant surprise. (I watched it on a PS3, by the by.)

[ahsoka]

Originally Posted by krylonman

No breakups at the 65- or 70-minute marks for me! That was a pleasant surprise. (I watched it on a PS3, by the by.)

Yeah the problem seems to be player related. I get the picture break-ups at 65 and 70 minutes when playing the movie on my Panasonic BD30. On the BD10 it only appears at the 70 minute mark!

[krylonman]

Originally Posted by ahsoka

Yeah the problem seems to be player related. I get the picture break-ups at 65 and 70 minutes when playing the movie on my Panasonic BD30. On the BD10 it only appears at the 70 minute mark!

Yikes, that's not pretty. I definitely saw nothing like that (and just to be more specific if it's a player issue, 40 GB PS3 with current firmware). This sounds vaguely like the problem Weinstein's first HD DVD releases were having; firmware updates cleared all of that up, so maybe this will be gone altogether after a while.


P.S. I keep going back to the description of OSS 117 himself as "a little bit racist (not intentionally)." Maybe it's just me, but I'd say this is putting it mildly to the point of, well, lying. It even sounds apologetic, as though "not intentionally" makes him less of a racist, though I don't see how it would. Not a few very funny moments, even entire scenes and subplots, revolve around him being hugely ignorant and dismissive of other cultures. It's way more prominent than his "deep" homophobia, which is just one line that's, sad to say, the exact same thing any respectable doctor would have said in 1955. So...what's up with that?

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by krylonman

P.S. I keep going back to the description of OSS 117 himself as "a little bit racist (not intentionally)." Maybe it's just me, but I'd say this is putting it mildly to the point of, well, lying. It even sounds apologetic, as though "not intentionally" makes him less of a racist, though I don't see how it would. Not a few very funny moments, even entire scenes and subplots, revolve around him being hugely ignorant and dismissive of other cultures. It's way more prominent than his "deep" homophobia, which is just one line that's, sad to say, the exact same thing any respectable doctor would have said in 1955. So...what's up with that?

What I was getting at with that is that he's not a hateful racist. He's just oblivious and ignorant of other races and cultures to the point of being a buffoon, but he's not deliberately trying to oppress those peoples.

The homophobic thing is more than one line. Through the whole movie he tries to fend off suggestions that he's gay. But, again, he's not hateful about it, just profoundly ignorant, and the movie makes him look like a giant ass for it.

[krylonman]

Originally Posted by Josh Z

What I was getting at with that is that he's not a hateful racist. He's just oblivious and ignorant of other races and cultures to the point of being a buffoon, but he's not deliberately trying to oppress those peoples.

Ah. I've got to admit that it doesn't seem like much of a distinction to me; this is a character who makes it clear he doesn't think Egyptian culture amounts to more than dirt coated on everything, believes that their government needs replacement by "grown-ups" and that Arabic should be chucked because it's too hard to read. It's a comedy because he says such amazingly vile things with such sunny good cheer (and that is funny, at least as far as I'm concerned; I'm a huge fan of "Strangers With Candy," and that kind of thing has got to constitute at least 80% of its material).

Why I'm making such a point of it I don't know. I just got this impression that it was as though he was less of a racist because he wasn't snarling like a villain or reading from the standard-issue list of dirty names. I'd disagree.

The homophobic thing is more than one line. Through the whole movie he tries to fend off suggestions that he's gay. But, again, he's not hateful about it, just profoundly ignorant, and the movie makes him look like a giant ass for it.

Well, if you're not gay, it's not homophobic to insist that you're not gay.



Edit: Oh dude, I just noticed you also wrote the review of 'Belly' and have been dealing with that ridiculous thread for a while. You must be so sick of talking about RACISM OMG. Feel free to just drop this whenever you want.