Sin City (Blu-ray) (Disney) (2005) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Action |
Audio-Visual Commentary-Cine-Explore with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller Audio Commentary-by Directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller Audio Commentary-by Robert Rodiguez and Special Guest Quentin Tarantino Alternate Audio-Recording of the Austin, Texas Premiere Audience Reaction Featurette-Kill 'Em Good: Interactive Comic Book Featurette-How It Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to Make the Film Featurette-Special Guest Director: Quentin Tarantino Featurette-A Hard Top with a Decent Engine: The Cars of Sin City Featurette-Booze, Broads and Guns: The Props of Sin City Featurette-Making the Monsters: Special Effects Make-Up Featurette-Trench Coats and Fishnets: The Costumes of Sin City Theatrical Trailer Teaser Trailer Featurette-15-Minute Flic School Featurette-All Green Screen Version Featurette-The Long Take Featurette-Sin City: Live in Concert Featurette-10-Minute Cooking School |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2005 | ||
Running Time | 124:03 | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
No/No Dual Disc Set |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By |
Frank Miller Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino |
Studio
Distributor |
Walt Disney Studios Home Ent. |
Starring |
Jessica Alba Devon Aoki Alexis Bledel Powers Boothe Jude Ciccolella Jeffrey J. Dashnaw Rosario Dawson Jesse De Luna Benicio Del Toro Jason Douglas Michael Clarke Duncan Tommy Flanagan Christina Frankenfield |
Case | Amaray Variant | ||
RPI | $44.95 | Music |
John Debney Graeme Revell Robert Rodriguez |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 (4608Kb/s) Italian dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) German dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) Spanish dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Alternate Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 1080p | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired Italian German Spanish |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
To me it seemed like yesterday, a new Robert Rodriguez film was coming out and what's more, it was based on Frank Miller's neo-noir comic book series, Sin City. Do you remember it at your local theatre, mid-winter 2005? Fast forward four years and now you can rent or own this unique film on a digital storage format that transmits video and audio clearer than in any way you've experienced the film before. The Australian region-free release of Sin City on Blu-ray would have to be the epitome of all Blu-ray releases at the time of writing this review, the combination of video, audio and extras on this release is that good!
Fans of Frank Miller's comic book series would be familiar with the following story. After the Hollywood screenplay adaptation of Miller's Robocop 3, Miller was highly skeptical of anyone in the film business wanting to further adapt his work. He felt that the film industry could not do his comics or scripts justice on film, and besides, he was happy with the legacy that his comic series enjoyed (and continue to enjoy). Robert Rodriguez, who has used digital filmmaking exclusively since Spy Kids 2 (2002), was confident he could translate Miller's stories into a movie. He approached Miller initially, who rejected his offer. Rodriguez only got Miller's approval after he had shot the eight-minute sequence of the Sin City story: The Customer is Always Right with Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton using his own money to shoot the sequence. Thus, effectively Rodriguez started shooting Sin City in 2004 without the actual film rights! After Miller had viewed the results, Quentin Tarantino was also invited to see the initial work on the project. He was skeptical about shooting with digital cameras onto green screen, but was also impressed with the results after background scenes were added. Thus was begun a unique film project unlike anything that any major Hollywood studio would ever approve.
Sin City is the combination of four Frank Miller short stories in the Sin City series: The Customer is Always Right, That Yellow B******, The Hard Goodbye and The Big Fat Kill. Made for only $40 million (a lower than average production total for a Hollywood feature film), Sin City was a critical and commercial smash-hit. It has been in the Imdb Top 100 rated films since August 2005, reaching a highest position of number 58 in May 2006.
Sin City was shot exclusively using High Definition Digital Cameras using a combination of green screen and post-production editing to achieve it's unique comic-book visual style.
The aspect ratio of the movie is 1:85:1. On Blu-ray the film is 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions and is presented in a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer.
There is no grain or low level noise on this transfer whatsoever. Contrast and shadow is so defined and sharp that Sin City would have to be a reference movie for you to show your friends of what Blu-ray is capable of looking like on a High Definition television.
Sin City was shot in colour with black and white contrast added later in post-production (although the effect could be viewed live during the shooting of scenes). This explains why That Yellow B****** was actually blue when the film was shot, so as to prevent colour bleeding during editing. The film is mostly deep blacks and whites, but there are bold instances of colour used throughout the movie that add to it's visual style.
There are no MPEG Artefacts, Film-To-Video Artefacts or Film or Video Artefacts whatsoever in this transfer.
Subtitles are in a plain white colour in English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Italian, German and Spanish.
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The movie features a DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio 5.1 surround track encoded at 4.5 mbps. For the purposes of this review I used my Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player to encode this lossless audio track and played it back through my amplifier using analogue output leads. I would have to rate this audio soundtrack as a reference soundtrack, highlighting the discrete, surround channel capabilities of uncompressed audio on Blu-ray.
The theatrical version features the aforementioned English DTS-HDMA 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 4.5 mbps. There are three language dubs encoded in DTS 5.1 audio at 768 kbps for Italian, German and Spanish. An English Audio Descriptive track is included using a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track. Both audio commentaries are encoded at 192 kbps using Dolby Digital 2.0 surround and the film can also be played using the Austin, Texas premiere audience reaction. This track is uses Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, encoded at 448 kbps.
Dialogue is not only clear, characters each have their own unique tone to distinguish what they are saying. Some characters have been mixed for specific channels. Voiceover narrative dominates the front channels, and it is used extensively in all three stories.
The music supports the neo-noir style of the film, it really emphasises the bass in the soundtrack.
The surround sound channels are used to great effect with sound effects panning from side-to-side and front-to-back and vice versa.
The Subwoofer is used often during action sequences to highlight crashes and explosions, but it is not overwhelming.
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There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Sin City has been released in Blu-ray in a Region-free version in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. It has also been released in the Netherlands in Region B.
The United States release has the same extras as the Australian Region-free release, with bonus trailers for No Country for Old Men, Lost, The Proposal and Confessions of a Shopaholic. Dubs are in Portuguese and Spanish in Dolby Digital 5.1.
The Canadian Release has no extras. Soundtracks included are in English and French.
The United Kingdom release is identical to the Australian Region-free release.
The Dutch release has no extras. The lone soundtrack is in English with dutch subtitling.
All releases use the same MPEG-4 AVC transfer. The Australian Region-free release is a quality version of Sin City on Blu-ray, comparable with the United States and United Kingdom releases.
I used to think that my Region 1 DVD copy of Sin City, with the theatrical and Recut, Extended versions of the film was the definitive release of Sin City. This Blu-ray release, with it's exemplary video and audio transfer, makes the previous excellent DVD release incomparable in relation to picture and sound. The Blu-ray release also includes all the extras from the previous extended worldwide releases, with the exception of the Sin-Chroni-City interactive feature and the hard copy reprint of The Hard Goodbye graphic novel.
The only negative feature about the Blu-ray releases in all regions is the fact that the extras ported from the DVD extended releases are in standard definition and not 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions. Otherwise, Sin City is the new reference disc to show the capabilities of Blu-ray video and audio to your friends.
Sin City on Blu-ray would have to be the Blu-ray release of the year for 2009 so far, comparable to The Dark Knight, Wall-E and Pinocchio. Three of these four releases have been produced by Disney, who must be acknowledged for their pioneering support of this exciting digital home-video format.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony BDP-S550 (Firmware updated Version 019), using HDMI output |
Display | Samsung LA46A650 46 Inch LCD TV Series 6 FullHD 1080P 100Hz. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Sony STR-K1000P. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
Amplification | Sony HTDDW1000 |
Speakers | Sony 6.2 Surround (Left, Front, Right, Surround Left, Surround Back, Surround Right, 2 subwoofers) |