Death Proof – Blu-ray Disc Review

December 3, 2008 – 6:49 pm - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: BD-Live, Eli Roth, Jordan Ladd, Kurt Russell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Omar Doom, Quentin Tarantino, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Sydney Poitier, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, The Weinstein Company, Tracie Thomas, Vanessa Ferlito, Zoe Bell

has an average rating of 7.3 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1
include the DVD ports & BD-Live
–
– 2007
– 113 minutes
– The Weinstein Company
–

Overall Verdict – Recommended

Buy it for $15.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself was both Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino of “Reservoir Dogs“, “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2” fame. This film is part of the “Grindhouse” double-feature that “Q” and Robert Rodriguez did with help from their Studio heads Bob & Harvey Weinstein. Both serve as Executive Producers on this film and the other, “Planet of Terror“. For his eighth full-length feature film Tarantino decided to go back to the grass-roots of “edge of your seat” action filmmaking. He focused on his script and primarily on his stunt crew that would make his vision a reality in the most elaborate form possible — risking their own lives to perform the stunts, without the aid of computers (CG).

He did manage to not make it all action and have some very witty quotable dialogue from his cast of characters in the film that didn’t have 4-wheels. As the menacing vehicular homicidal maniac “Stuntman Mike” we have a real legend, Kurt Russell taking the lead role. For our two groups of as Quentin called “slasher film girls” we have first the lovely “Jungle Julia” (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) with her group of three girlfriends. Her friends are “Arlene” (Vanessa Ferlito), “Shanna” (Jordan Ladd) and her unsuspecting friend of sorts “Pam” (Rose McGowan). These girls find themselves the first victims of our leading man, “Stuntman Mike” who has built himself a car he claims is “Death Proof” hence the title. Only problem is that one side of the car is “death proof” as he tells Pam after she’s in the car as he’s giving her a ride home from the bar.

Time passes and just as our judicial system always does they never see this wind up as a case in court. The reasoning behind that is best explained by the local Sheriff “Earl McGraw” (Michael Parks) as he tells his son Edgar McGraw” (James Parks) it would be easy for him to convict the vehicular homidical maniac but it would mean a lot of time and paperwork which he’d rather opt to follow the NASCAR circuit instead. This has our main character, the villain “Stuntman Mike” back out on the streets and he now finds himself in the small town of Lebanon, TN. He comes across another group of girls that meet his “stalker” fancy.

NOTE: these are production stills, not captures

This group of “slasher film girls” is made up of “Kim” (Tracie Thoms), “Abernathy” (Rosario Dawson), “Lee” (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Zoe Bell playing herself. Some of you who are huge Tarantino fans might remember Bell serving as stunt double for Uma Thurman in the “Kill Bill” film(s). These girls have their own mission that doesn’t involve our lunatic Stuntman. The one girl Kim is actually a Stunt woman and so is her friend Zoe Bell (portraying herself) so they decide to do a little stunt for fun. They find a local man in the town that has a 70′s model Dodge Charger with a white paint job like the one in the film “Vanishing Point” and talk him into letting them take it as a test drive. The means they use as insurance they don’t run off with the car is their attractive young friend Lee who happens to be asleep in a cheerleader outfit.

The idea that Zoe and “Kim” have is to get up on the roof and hood of the car holding onto belts shut in the doors. This proves to be quite the adrenaline boost for the group of friends but leave it to our old buddy Stuntman Mike to come along in his menacing 70′s black sports car with the death-bolt white logo on the hood smashing into them. What pursues is a nice chase sequence that is sure to leave you a bit on the edge of your seat at times.

“Death Proof” for the later part is all about the amazingly choreographed and visually “nail-biting” chase scenes that bare resemblance and have obvious inspiration heavily from classic films such as “Bullitt” and “Vanishing Point“. I think this is easily one of Tarantino‘s best works in a good while and the critics have said the same.

NOTE: these are production stills, not captures

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Blu-ray Disc) and presented in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The video quality here comes from a 35mm film source and was shot (according to IMDb) on both Arriflex and Panavision cameras. All of the excessive film noise such as hairs, dirt, lines and so forth were added digitally post-production. The film grain seems to be a bit natural but maybe overly emphasized in the digital manipulation of the 35mm film source. This is why you’ll see the images we have here that are production stills contain very little film grain and no noise at all in scenes that are from earlier in the film — that do contain those elements in the actual presentation.

When it comes to the Hi-Def presentation on Blu-ray Disc, the black level found here is very solid, the color palette is vibrant (when scenes aren’t in Black & White) and fleshtones are very accurate with some lovely females to serve as great examples of that statement. Speaking of the transition around halfway through the film from first Black & White and then back to color. Once you hit this point, the video delivered features a more clean picture quality with less noise and film grain present from this point on throughout the motion picture. The transition back to color only a few minutes later is visually awkward but it gets the job done. I think one thing vital to keep in mind here is that Quentin Tarantino was trying to make flaws in the video presentation. Aside from the video quality this has the car chase scenes which really hold that “edge of your seat” feel to them visually that you don’t find these days in action films that rely heavily on CG. All of the action you see here is real and is here thanks primarily to the brave stuntmen and stunt women who drove the cars.

What you get here visually from “Death Proof” as a result is a flashback to old cinema and a really nice HD presentation worthy of a “4 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Personally I think these effects look great and really shine through in full clarity now in Hi-Def with this transfer that didn’t seem to be there in the previous 2007 DVD release. The amount of improvement in comparison to the original DVD release is actually very nice and totally justifies replacing the DVD with the Blu-ray Disc. It’s very safe to say that I found no signs of compression or artifacts problems on this release visually. No real flaws to speak of just not an extraordinary piece of material visually to have that “pop” to it that we consider “demo” worthy — to the masses anyway. Fans of Tarantino will be happy with what they get when they add this release to their Blu-ray Disc collection.

NOTE: these are production stills, not captures

Audio Quality on this release is in both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1 (@640kbps) Surround. The film for the majority of the first portion relies heavily on that witty Quentin Tarantino written dialogue that you’ve come to love over the years which is delivered perfectly in both of the 5.1 mixes found on this release. The TrueHD track seems to have a little more “oomph” behind it but has a more discrete rear channel presence that at times has almost nothing coming through the rear channel speakers. I wouldn’t go as far as call it a “front heavy” mix as there are some occasional usages of the rear channels left to right pans, music and sound effects like the car chase scenes, namely the last one in the film which proves very to be pretty intense. The bass presence isn’t really too “over the top” until later in the film either but it definitely gets the job done when it needs to. You get a nice improvement here in terms of overall audio quality in comparison to last year’s DVD release. Enough to justify a pretty solid “4 Star Rating“.

NOTE: these are production stills, not captures

Bonus Materials are all presented in 16:9 widescreen standard definition video using MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps for audio.

• “BD-Live” is included on this Blu-ray Disc release from The Weinstein Company. Currently the feature hasn’t been enabled and I’m guessing will not be until street date. When it does become active it should be the source to download new content from the studio. This does require the user to be on a “Profile 2.0” Blu-ray Disc Player so keep that in mind. Check back soon after street date for this section to be updated.

• “Stunts on Wheels: The Legendary Drivers of Death Proof” (20:39) features some Stuntmen legends such as Buddy Joe Hooker and some other female stunt women that worked (risked their lives) making this film. This proves to be very much worth the watch for those of you who enjoy the stunts in all the classic old car chase films or scenes in movies.
• “Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike” (8:57) has Quentin talking about his decision to cast Kurt in the role. This was primarily due to being a fan of his entire career all the way back to his days as a child actor up to the John Carpenter films he did that obviously Tarantino is a fan of. We get some nice interviews from the man himself here as well. He seems to have really enjoyed working with “Q“.
• “Finding Quentin’s Girls” (21:13) has Quentin discussing his casting choices for the lovely females that take the leads basically throughout the film in two different “slasher film girl” groups. I have to say he made some really excellent choices for the female cast here and it’s obvious that he believes so himself as this runs rather lengthy at 21 minutes.
• “The Uncut Version of ‘Baby It’s You‘ Performed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead” (1:46) has the actress singing accapela while listening to a song on what appears to be her iPod sitting in the car. A portion of this scene is in the film but this serves as an extension of sorts. Not really my “cup of tea”, I must say.
• “The Guys of Death Proof” (8:14) has Quentin discussing the actors he cast for the roles of the males throughout the film. Some regular faces from his past work and friends. Folks like fellow Director Eli Roth, Michael Parks, James Parks, Omar Doom, Michael Bacall and even Quentin Tarantino himself talking on the role of the character “Warren” briefly in the film itself.

• “Quentin’s Greatest Collaborator: Editor Sally Menke” (4:36) focuses on the Editor he has worked with on every film he’s done since “Reservoir Dogs“. We get some nice candid greetings to Sally from the cast during outtakes and while the camera is still running which prove to be entertaining.
• “Double Dare” Trailer (2:34) is the film that Quentin mentions originally seeing Zoe Bell in who’s in this film and worked with him originally back on “Kill Bill“. This is available on DVD from First Look for those interested.
• “Death Proof” International Trailer (2:20) sadly doesn’t feature 5.1 sound but is in widescreen, so that’s a plus.
• “An International Poster Gallery” includes about 20 or so different posters. One of which I’m proud to admit I own that depicts Kurt Russell as his “Stuntman Mike” character.
• “Extended Music Cues” gives you a small little virtual jukebox of sorts that includes 3 songs that appear on the film’s Soundtrack. Those songs are as follows:
“Unexpected Violence” by Ennio Morricone (4:16)
“Gangster Story” by Guido & Maurizio de Angelis (6:00)
“Italia A Mano Armata” by Franco Micalizzi (4:25)

Overall the bonus materials you get here are great if you never saw them on the previous 2007 DVD release that they are ported over from but if you originally owned this title you probably won’t find them worth watching again in the exact same video quality. I know that last sentence was a mouth full but it had to be said. The inclusion of BD-Live could prove to be promising if The Weinstein Company actually provides some title-specific content on their version of the online content feature. These haven’t been enabled yet so you’ll have to check back later as I mentioned above until street date before they’ll actually be up and working.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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