Boyz N the Hood – Blu-ray Disc Review
July 18, 2011 – 4:20 pm - Posted by: Justin SlussTags: Angela Bassett, BD-Live, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, John Cothran Jr., John Singleton, Larry Fishburne, Laurence Fishburne, Morris Chestnut, Sony
has an average rating of 7.8 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
include DVD ports & a NEW featurette
– 
– 1991
– 112 minutes
– Sony
– 
This uses 21.8GB for the movie out of 33.3GB total.
Street Date: July 19th, 2011
Overall Verdict – Recommended
Buy it on Blu-ray for $15.99 @ Amazon.com
— Review written by: Justin Sluss —
The Movie Itself is now celebrating its 20th anniversary, originally released back in 1991. The film was both written & directed by John Singleton who would later go on to direct the 1993 film “Poetic Justice“, the 2000 remake of “Shaft“, as well as “2 Fast 2 Furious” from 2003 and “Four Brothers” from 2005.
The story is very much an autobiography of sorts by the film’s writer/director John Singleton of his childhood growing up the the “ghetto” that is South Central Los Angeles, California. There are three main characters here with one of course being the part of Singleton in ways. That part is that of “Tre Styles” played by Desi Arnez Hines II at age 10 and eventually by Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a young adult. Two characters that are important, but not our other two main characters, are Tre’s mother (played Angela Bassett) and his father “Furious” (played by Larry Fishburne, a.k.a. Laurence Fishburne). Tre’s mother isn’t pleased with how he’s doing in school and tells him that he has to go live with his father (as the couple is divorced) because of this. Once Tre is moved in with his father he makes friends with a couple of other boys by the name of “Doughboy” and “Ricky” — the other two main characters. Things flash forward a good seven years and we are reintroduced to our main three characters at a cookout (BBQ) for “Doughboy” (played as a young adult by Ice Cube), being thrown by his mother and half-brother “Ricky” (played as a young adult by Morris Chestnut).
“Doughboy” had went to jail seven years earlier and has just gotten out of “the joint” and that’s really what the cookout is being thrown in celebration of. A young black male going to jail is nothing uncommon in the inner city, ghetto or what have you but this boy is a close friend of our main character Tre and the half-brother of our other character Ricky. Something about Ricky that hasn’t changed one bit you’ll see in the 7 year period time lapses here is the fact he’s still wearing a football jersey and convinced he’s going to be NFL player someday. Ricky eventually does try to get his chance at a scholarship and takes the SAT test as well. I can’t really go more into that without dealing out some spoilers. Let’s just say that these three boys are good friends and “go back” so-to-speak. This is similar to a “coming of age” type film in ways but it’s really a film with a message and I’ll discuss that more below. That message is presented to you early on in the opening title sequence. It’s one we all could see to be true then, twenty years ago, and one we can especially see to be now (present day).
“Boyz N the Hood” went on to be nominated for two Academy Awards (“Oscars“); one for Best Director and one for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen — both for John Singleton. It also received some rave reviews from respected critics, namely Roger Ebert who called it “A film of enormous relevance and importance“, which I couldn’t agree with more. In terms of other accolades after its release, the film in 1993 received the NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Motion Picture” and in 2002 it was selected by the National Film Preservation Board for exclusive entry in the National Film Registry. The film itself went on to really launch the acting careers of folks like Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett.
Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. According to IMDb‘s technical specifications listing this was shot on 35MM film using Arriflex cameras and lenses. To be a film now celebrating its 20th anniversary this looks rather impressive in its transfer to Hi-Def on the Blu-ray. Sony has really done this justice. There’s a decent amount of film grain present here but I think a tiny amount of DNR (digital noise reduction) may have been used to “clean up” the Hi-Def visuals in the debut. The black level here as you can tell HERE in an example via screenshot is pretty solid but has issues with darker shots. This dark shot shows Ice Cube in a black shirt that ALMOST blends with the black bar on the bottom in this 1.85:1 aspect content. There’s a large amount of detail and the outlines are pretty sharp here and don’t seem to have been the result of EE (edge enhancement). The fleshtones are accurate and the color palette although a tad bit subdued can at times hold a bit of vibrance in the cast’s costumes especially early in the film. All and all, this proves to be an impressive Hi-Def presentation / transfer of a film now 20 years in age; in fact it’s held up rather well. This earns a somewhat impressive “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality.
Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. This film is obviously a drama and the most important part of it is the dialogue, which is delivered very distinct throughout through primarily the front center channel speaker, with a tad bit of front left & right channels presence. The film’s original music by Stanley Clarke and songs on the soundtrack (made up of hip-hop acts like 2 Live Crew, Run-D.M.C. & even Ice Cube) gets a decent amount of rear channel “play” (presence) and LFE (bass via the subwoofer) throughout. The occasional sound effects come across as pretty realistic. There’s really nothing all that amazing, nor anything to complain about here. This manages to do the film justice and deliver a solid lossless 5.1 presentation worthy of a “4 Star Rating” for overall audio quality.
Bonus Materials are presented in both 1080p Hi-Def (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) video quality with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps sound.
- BD-Live is included on this Sony Blu-ray Disc release. This allows the user to access online content such as trailers for upcoming theatrical releases and other home video releases from the studio. This requires the user to be on a “Profile 2.0” capable Blu-ray Disc Player and have Internet connectivity.
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director John Singleton
- “The Enduring Significance of Boyz N The Hood” (27:45 – 1080p HD) is a retrospective featurette just recently recorded. This includes interviews with almost the entire cast as well as key crew members. Folks here giving interviews include writer/director John Singleton, Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nia Long, Regina King, Morris Chestnut and even Vice-President of Production @ Columbia Pictures Stephanie Allain. Lots of great behind-the-scenes still photographs here in between the interviews.
- “Friendly Fire: Making An Urban Legend” (43:17 – SD) is a making of-style featurette ported over from the previous DVD release. This also serves a tab bit as a retrospective as well with interviews from the cast and crew.
- Deleted Scenes (4:25 – SD) includes two total; “Tre Discusses His Future With Mom” & “Furious Confronts Doughboy After Ricky is Shot”
- Music Videos includes:
- “Audition Videos” (SD) is an interactive feature that lets you choose between the audition videos of Ice Cube, Angela Bassett, Morris Chestnut and Tyra Ferrell. This includes an introduction (1:34 – SD) that explains how this is presented, why and when it was recorded (August of 1990).
- “Growin’ Up in the Hood” by Compton’s Most Wanted (4:47 – SD)
- “Just Ask Me to” by Tevin Campbell (4:13 – SD)
Overall, the bonus materials are pretty decent, you get the DVD ports which includes audio commentary, a new retrospective featurette that has roughly a 28 minute runtime itself, as well as the original audition videos from four cast members. This all totals up to roughly about an hour and a half or so and will leave fans of the film pleased with what they get.
Blu-ray Disc packaging:
Screenshots:
NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Please be patient with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.
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