Five years ago, Sony released the black comedy in a solid 40th anniversary collection. Instead of taking the traditional double-dip, Sony went Blu-ray only for the 45th anniversary release. Ground zero, no doubt, will be the 50th year edition.
Talk about nuclear proliferation: this makes six U.S. releases of "Dr. Strangelove" in the past decade.
"Strangelove" joins "Raging Bull
" and "The Third Man
" as classics of black-and-white cinematography released on HD.
" and "The Third Man
" as classics of black-and-white cinematography released on HD.It'll be interesting to see the video presentation on the new Kubrick Blu-ray
: The 2004 "Dr. Strangelove" DVD was surprisingly dark at the expense of imagery previously much more brightly cast. The older DVDs tended toward coarse, blown-out contrasts, though -- the 2004 release felt more elegant and sinister.
: The 2004 "Dr. Strangelove" DVD was surprisingly dark at the expense of imagery previously much more brightly cast. The older DVDs tended toward coarse, blown-out contrasts, though -- the 2004 release felt more elegant and sinister.Also, the 2004 "Strangelove" went to anamorphic widescreen after mostly full-screen video versions. A direct comparison of the 2001 DVD and the 2004 disc revealed a good bit of lost visual information, some of it of note. To solve that problem, Criterion's marvelous laserdisc of 1992 shifted between 1.66 and 1.33, following the late director's wishes.
The Sony Blu-ray also appears to be in 1.66:1 widescreen. Warner's Kubrick releases of a year ago favored widescreen as well.
The Blu-ray "Strangelove" ports over its documentaries from the 2004 release, including the informative but aging "Inside: 'Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (45 minutes).
The Blu-ray's lone new content appears to be "The Cold War: Picture-in-Picture and Graphic-in-Picture Pop-Up Trivia Track," an optional extra with a title as long as the film's.
The previous Sony DVD brought in ex-Defense chief Robert McNamara ("The Fog of War") for a dissection of the nuclear brinksmanship spoofed in Kubrick's film. The Blu-ray adds picture-in-picture interviews with a pair of RAND Corp. think-tankers, Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Schelling, as well as terror expert Richard A. Clarke and a couple of academics who specialize in nuclear weapons.
The Blu-ray "Dr. Strangelove" comes out June 16 in a "deluxe book package" with a 32-page booklet. (The 2004 version's book featured super-glossy photos and an essay by Robert Ebert.) The Blu-ray streets for $39.
Stanley Kubrick high-definition reviews:
Preorder "Dr. Strangelove" on Blu-ray via Amazon.
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