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Despite the fact they do go over similar ground in they’re looking at the film from two very different perspectives, whether it be based on what the film is to them or what their duties were during production. I always found it curious Criterion had went the route of two separate tracks instead of recording the two together as I (ignorantly) assumed they would more than likely cover the same material. First, from the LaserDisc, are two individual audio commentaries recorded by each of the brothers, Allen and Albert Hughes.
MENACE TO SOCIETY TRAILER UPGRADE
In all, despite a couple of minor issues, it’s a sharp upgrade over Warner’s previous edition, and probably worth picking up for that reason alone.Ĭriterion puts together an impressive special edition for the film, porting material over from both Warner’s previous edition and their own 1994 LaserDisc edition before adding on some new material. The restoration has cleaned things up impressively, though minor specs still pop up here and there, though they can be easily ignored. Despite the mild noise around the reds, the interrogation scene still comes off incredibly sharp, the faint smoke cleanly rendered. Outside of those sequences grain looks fine otherwise, and details are sharp. Despite this, the presentation still manages to look better than what Warner’s offered, the same scenes presenting heavier macroblocking effects around the reds. Though the reds look gorgeous, far better than what VHS could have even dreamed in doing, the scenes can come off a little bit noisy, especially when blending into the shadows. It’s rendered here decently enough, though does hit some noticeable hiccups during scenes using heavy reds, like the opening flashback, the house party sequence, and the police interrogation interestingly, in his commentary, Albert Hughes mentions that New Line didn’t want him to bathe any scenes in red due to how poorly such sequences are rendered on VHS. There’s a more film-like texture to the presentation thanks to a better retention of the film’s grain structure. Unsurprisingly, Criterion’s new high-def presentation offers a far superior one over Warner’s 2009 Blu-ray edition. I am working from the Blu-ray that comes with the 4K UHD edition, but outside of the absence of the UHD disc the editions are the same.
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The restoration was sourced from the 35mm original A/B negative. The 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation comes from a brand-new 4K restoration conducted by The Criterion Collection and Warner Bros. Criterion brings the director’s cut of Allen and Albert Hughes’ Menace II Society back into the collection (after originally releasing it on LaserDisc in 1994), presenting the film on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.