Blu-ray movie review: “12 Years a Slave”

Having just taken home three Academy Awards (including Best Picture), Steve McQueen's adaptation of Solomon Northup's 1853 autobiography comes to DVD and Blu-ray with a number of special features, including the 40-minute documentary "12 Years a Slave: A Historical Portrait," which offers an extended look at the harrowing imprisonment Northrup was forced into for more than a decade.

Steve McQueen's third feature (after Hunger and Shame) will likely posses an Oscar trophy for best picture (among other accolades). Last year's highest-scoring film, 12 Years a Slave depicts the harrowing true story of Solomon Northup (the Oscar-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man living in upstate New York in 1841 who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The impressive cast also includes fellow Academy Award nominees Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o, plus Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael K. Williams, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy.

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More information: There's a strain of thought that runs through the American body politic that since we are self-evidently "the greatest country on the earth", any perceived "minor" peccadilloes from our nation's past are easily forgotten and/or forgiven. This somewhat odd tendency raises its head most obviously in the treatment of Native Americans and, of course, slavery.

To Blu-ray movie lovers“The Hunger Games”

 

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (for the Hunger Games sequences) and 2.40:1 (for all other sequences). This is perhaps appropriately an even darker, moodier experience than the first film, with deep, shaded scenes making up the bulk of the film. Contrast is very strong and shadow detail remains strong throughout the film. Colors have been graded fairly aggressively throughout the film. A lot of the District 12 sequences are bathed in a slate gray or ice cold blue color, with flesh tones and other pops of primaries intentionally desaturated. While this is an understandable stylistic decision, it does tend to slightly mitigate fine detail at times. Once or twice, Francis Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems suddenly offer a completely natural, robust looking palette, and these segments pop incredibly well. The Hunger Games themselves are in a sort of semi-tropical environment, and the greens are lushly presented, though, again, several key sequences take place in the dark. This transfer shows absolutely no signs of artificial sharpening or other digital tweaking and recreates the original theatrical experience exceedingly well.
  
As with the first film, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire features an incredibly well detailed, bombastic and immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix. All channels are regularly employed with a wealth of well done foley effects and score. Crowd noises spill through the side and surround channels on regular occasions, and such intentionally hokey elements as the big tv show hosted by Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) have cheesy music and effects dotting various channels. LFE springs into action regularly throughout the track, including a spectacular fireworks display early in the film and, later, when Katniss discovers a weakness in the Games' system and decides to exploit it. Through it all, dialogue is always very cleanly and clearly presented and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire offers great reference quality audio from the first moment to the last.