Glory Road
(Blu-ray)
Picture:
B- Sound: B+ Extras: C+ Film: B
When James
Gartner’s Glory Road (2006) came out in theaters, it did not do as well
as it should have. Then when it came out
on DVD, I hoped it would be a huge surprise hit and get notice. It did OK on DVD, but not what it should
have. Of course, all films move to
pay-per-view/on-demand and all the other outlets eventually allow more people
to see it. However, a new wrinkle has
been added that can only help this and other films that deserve a second
chance. It is part of one of the early
waves of High Definition Blu-ray releases from Disney and is easily one of the
best titles issued so far.
To recap, the film is based on the true story of how girls
basketball coach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) took on a new coaching job that
included a mostly-African American team at a time such players were considered
inferior and were frankly discriminated against explicitly and outright. The story is about sports history as much as
Civil Rights, which you can read the rest of at the link to my previous DVD
review:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3938/Glory+Road+(Widescreen)
I also
liked the look of the film, though the previous standard DVD’s anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was weak and did not come close to capturing how good
this film looked in 35mm film. After
testing this on more than one Blu-ray player, it looks like the 1080p version
of this film here comes from the same master as the DVD and it has issues that
it should not have. This is not just because
co-cinematographers John Toon and Jeffrey Kimball (both A.S.C.) do a stylized
look for the film, but because someone missed certain nuances and detail doing
the film-to-tape transfer. It still
looks better than the DVD, but comes up a bit short visually.
Like the previous DVD, the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix here has
good surrounds, but falls short of how good this sounded in the theater. Fortunately, the PCM 24bit/48kHz 5.1 mix here
is one of the most impressive in the format to date and really shines. The sound on this film is better than the
theatrical playback I heard and that is down to the hit records used. Extras include two audio commentaries and only
one of the three featurettes (Surviving
Practice) from the DVD, also dropping the Alicia Keys Sweet Music
Music Video. Those commentary tracks are
by Gartner and Bruckheimer and the co-writers Christopher Cleveland &
Bettina Gilois, who again deserve credit for their focused script.
- Nicholas Sheffo
