Oh, my Lord. The "person" who runs the Home Theatre Forum, you know, the place that has reviewers who don't really know what they're talking about, well, it's not bad enough that a person who runs a place like this admitted early on that he had never seen a classic film before the advent of DVD, but his admission last week that he'd never seen A Star is Born with Judy Garland was, I suppose, understandable. Well, he's watched the film. He liked it but thought it too long. But here is what this "person" this man who runs the Home Theatre Forum had to say about the restoration:
"Thank Goodness the restoration of this film was
done through Warner Bros. It was very interesting
to see the attempt to reconstruct destroyed scenes
using photography stills. It worked out very, very well.
Had most any other studio attempted to restore this film
it would most likely have been a half-hearted effort."
Now, just in case you're not getting it, what he's saying here is that Warner Bros did this restoration - the implication clearly is that he thinks they JUST did this restoration and this reconstructing of destroyed scenes. Well, note to "person": This restoration of A Star is Born was done by Ronald Haver many, many years ago. It was not done for THIS Blu-Ray release. This is so typical of that jernt - a bunch of people writing about transfers when they know nothing about what film actually looks like - no, they read what some experts say, then use that as a barometer for every film ever made. Sorry, doesn't work like that. This endless tripe about DNR and grain removal - when I saw Grease the other night, I specifically asked Randal Kleiser, you know, the man who MADE THE FILM, what we were seeing. And what we were seeing was a beautiful new digital version of the film - and he was so happy that he got to remove a lot of the really UGLY grain that always plagued the film due to opticals and the film stock of the time. Point being, grain is not something that was always desired - not overt, ugly grain. It was a byproduct of opticals, and begin generations away from the camera negative. Yes, film has a natural grain, but these "reviewers" don't have a clew as to what it looks like. They use phrases like "a nice, healthy layer of natural film grain" because they read it somewhere - read that phrase, usually spoken by people like Robert Harris - only they're not Robert Harris and no amount of reading Mr. Harris' comments (some of which I definitely agree with and some of which I definitely don't) is going to make them understand exactly what he's talking about.
End of rant. And just to be very clear - note to "person": The restoration of A Star is Born would never have happened without Mr. Haver. It was his idea, he spearheaded it, found the material, and while it was indeed done through the auspices of Warner Bros., Warner Bros. would not have done it sans Mr. Haver. Other note to "person": It's not really hard to find this information - Google is your friend, and I assume it's mentioned in many of the extras included on the disc - a little research and knowledge is always helpful in stopping someone from looking like an unknowledgeable fool.
