Always (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Production Notes-(10 pages) Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-2 Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	117:23
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (69:01)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Steven Spielberg
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Richard Dreyfuss Holly Hunter John Goodman Brad Johnson Audrey Hepburn
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	John Williams

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 4.1 L-C-R-S-Sub (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Portuguese Danish Finnish Swedish Norwegian German Dutch Czech Polish Turkish Hungarian Bulgarian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    "Always is both a love story and an adventure that touches the emotions of the heart and the impact of the spirit, set against the background of the men and women who fight forest fires from the air and from the ground.

    Pete (Richard Dreyfuss) is the greatest flier of them all, a master of the sky who seems to know no fear. The only thing he can never do, to the sorrow of Dorinda (Holly Hunter), the woman he loves, is to stop flying. It is as much a part of him as breathing. Dorinda is fearful every moment he is in the air, and her fears are sadly realized when, in the course of saving their best friend Al (John Goodman) in a daring mid-air rescue, Pete loses his life. However, Pete's mission, and Dorinda and Pete's love for each other, is far from over. Somewhere on the way to heaven, Pete meets Hap (Audrey Hepburn), who explains that he must go back to pass on all he knows to another pilot, Ted (Brad Johnson). He becomes Ted's guardian angel and inspires Ted to become as great a flier as he was. But Pete also discovers the true purpose of his mission - he must return to Dorinda one more time and show her the way to go on without him, thus earning his own place in heaven."

Video

    The transfer is presented in a (measured) aspect ratio of 1.76:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture sharpness is very good, with plenty of fine detail present. The picture detail would have been really impressive if a proper 16x9-enhanced transfer had been created, but alas it's not, so this will just have to do. No low-level noise or edge enhancement was noticed.

    There is some reasonably minor grain present for much of the film which becomes more regular and more noticeable during the second half of the film. Most of the time the grain is limited to just the background, but it does spill over into the foreground for lengthy periods in the latter part of the film, which in turn disrupts the picture detail a little.

    Colour is very good, but it is a little inconsistent. Quite a few scenes look either slightly over- or under-done, but this is hardly a transfer-induced problem.

    Apart from one strange effect at 75:50 that may or may not be an MPEG artefact, this disc is free from MPEG artefacts as far as I could tell. Aliasing and moiré artefacts are rare and always minor when they do occur. I only noticed eight occurrences for the entire film, at 6:13, 6:18, 25:22, 69:49, 75:25, 76:13, 83:39 - 83:48 and 107:30. The addition of 16x9 enhancement would have definitely improved this area further. The opening and closing credits have a slight shake about them, but the movie itself appears to be steady.

    There is a healthy sprinkling of small film artefacts, with the odd big hair or scratch present too, but overall they aren't really disruptive as they are usually just one-offs. A couple of the more noticeable film artefacts can be found at 41:17, 48:03, 65:50, 68:21 and 84:17.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring during Chapter 11, at 69:01. This is a great layer change that does not disrupt the flow of the movie at all. It almost went by unnoticed.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue was well-integrated, clear and very easy to understand throughout the entire film. No audio sync problems were noticed.

    The musical score is by John Williams.

    The surround channel use is very good, with plenty of ambient sound effects which range from subtle to totally enveloping.  The front soundstage imagery is great - the precise sound placement really helps open up the soundfield, and consequently you can become immersed in the movie for long periods of time. Before everyone gets too excited about the soundtrack, let me just say that this is no Gladiator soundtrack, but for what it is, it is very good.

    The subwoofer is frequently used to subtly add bass to many scenes, and is well-utilized during the dramatic sequences.

    Packaging Error: The packaging shows the English soundtrack as having a channel configuration of L-R-SL-SR-Sub, but it is actually configured as L-C-R-S-Sub.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Production Notes (10 pages)

Cast & Filmmakers

Theatrical Trailer 1 (1:43 minutes)

Theatrical Trailer 2 (2:22 minutes)

Web Link

    All-in-all the picture quality is very good, despite the lack of 16x9 enhancement.

    The audio quality is great.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall