'Smokey and the Bandit' - High-Def Digest Review

[jed]

Peter's review of 'Smokey and the Bandit' is up. He says this one's a solid if minor addition to Universal's growing library of catalog HD DVD titles -- the transfer is a nice surprise (considering the age of the film), as is the retrospective featurette, although the audio is about as exciting as a flat tire.

Full review here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/smokeyandthebandit.html

[BandofBrothers]

Im gonna get this

havent seen the film for a while (and it was either regular anaolgue broadcast or video tape)

this will be a nice upgrade

[The Bandit]

I watched it Tuesday night. Needless to say, Smokey and the Bandit is one of my favorite guilty pleasures when to comes to movie watching. The HD looks as good as it can, I think -- it, unfortunately, showcases some short falls in the filming of the movie (the camera often shakes... looks like it's related to vehicle photography)... but still, it's nice to see The Bandit and Frog and Cletus and Fred in HD.... and who could forget Sheriff Beauford T. Justice?

FYE kind of screwed me on the trade-in for the DVD SE version that came out the other year.. two bucks. Oh well, thankfully I had some other titles to trade in that covered the cost of the upgrade.

[Brad1963]

One of the joys of watching SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT again was seeing how simplistic it was and remains. If it were produced today it would be so over-produced, loud and probably obnoxious. It remains enjoyable because its simple goal was to entertain. I really think it holds up very well and is one of the better 'entertainment' films of the 70's.

[The Flash]

I recently upgraded from my old 720p setup (Samsung 50" DLP and Toshiba HD-A2) to my new 1080p setup (Sony SXRD 55" and Toshiba HD-A20). So far I am almost completely in agreement with the "tiers" that this site has established. I found it very interesting that when watching other movies in this tier (most recently Nacho Libre), I noticed quite a bit of chroma noise that seemed to get significantly better (reduced) with the new setup. Perhaps it was a result of downconverting the 1080p disc to 720p on the old setup which is no longer an issue, I'm not really sure.

Tuesday I picked up Smokey and the Bandit and just watched a few scenes, but it seemed to me that there was quite a bit of chroma noise, so much that I was surprised that the review of the disc was so good. I need to go back and watch the film in its entirety to be sure, but I was wondering if anyone else has this issue? I realize it's a 30 year old film and it's definitely an improvement over the SE standard DVD, but I'm tempted to say that Bullitt is older and doesn't have as much noise. Then again maybe I'd had a few too many Coors in keeping with the spirit of the film.

[pjarvi]

I never noticed any chroma noise myself, but the edge enhancement was glaringly obvious.

[eNoize]

Smokey still remains a very entertaining movie, so it's very sad to see how much damage the source has endured over the years. Like the review, you can tell that Universal tried the best with what they had. When you watch the film in entirety, you'll see a few moments of nice detail and the colors are by far the most improvement over the DVD. I really think this is the best it's going to get for this classic.

[AJ_Maine_Man]

The picture was very disappointing

[vinnie97]

'Smokey and the Bandit' is still a fun, silly ride thirty years on.

Amen! Even if the pic wasn't supreme, it wasn't all that distracting from the movie itself. And for $3.54 (less than the price of a Blockbuster rental), this was a no-brainer.

Bonus: Jackie Gleason was pretty damn hilarious.

[jetthead]

Originally Posted by vinnie97

Bonus: Jackie Gleason was pretty damn hilarious.

Sheriff Buford T. Justice: [to his son] There's no way, no way that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch yo mamma in da mouth!

[cupboy]

Non bonus: Sally Field was totally unattractive and un-sexy. What was up with that outfit? I've seen sexier nuns.

[Cochise]

Originally Posted by cupboy

Non bonus: Sally Field was totally unattractive and un-sexy. What was up with that outfit? I've seen sexier nuns.

[vinnie97]

Originally Posted by cupboy

Non bonus: Sally Field was totally unattractive and un-sexy. What was up with that outfit? I've seen sexier nuns.

Too right...at least she had a decent figure, but that's about it.