Blu-ray Movie Reviews

In the summer of 1963, innocent 17-year-old Baby vacations with her parents at a Catskill's resort. One evening, she is drawn to the staff quarters by stirring music. There she meets Johnny, the hotel dance instructor, who is as experienced as Baby is naive. Baby soon becomes Johnny's pupil in dance and love.

Honestly, if you haven’t seen this one already you’ve been living in a hole somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We’ve also seen countless releases of this film over the years so the real question is; is this even worth getting? Well the answer is yes. This is only the second release on Blu-ray (I’m sure we’ll see A LOT more) but it ups the ante considerably in the A/V presentation department making this the definitive edition for those looking for the best in picture and sound quality. The extras aren’t too shabby either.

The last Blu-ray edition of this film looked awful. This new release looks considerably better, but don’t forget this was shot on a small budget and never looked that great to begin with. Surprisingly the most glaring issues come from the long outdoor shots in the daylight, which should be the easiest to get right. Unfortunately they look overly soft and grainy and don’t hold up nearly as well as the indoor shots. Dimensionality fares pretty well though in the better looking sequences and detail is a clear step up from any version I’ve seen of this film before. This new release also sports a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, but it doesn’t sound much different than the versions I’ve heard before it. Dynamic range is pretty good and the dance sequences definitely open up the soundstage, but overall it falls short of most of the modern soundtracks we’ve become so accustomed to today.

My biggest gripe with this release is the god awful box it comes in. It makes accessing the disc hard, and the box just looks cheap. Inside you’ll find a photo album and notes on the film and the disc contains some commentaries, retrospectives, deleted scenes and music videos.

It is too bad that the best edition of this film yet comes in the worse case for the film yet. I will probably just swap the disc with the previous release and use that case. If you love this film though, this is the best it has ever looked.