- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: PG-13
- Discs: 1
- Studio: MGM
- Blu-ray Release Date: April 5, 2011
- List Price: $19.99
[amazon-product align=”right”]B004P29LFE[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase De-Lovely on Blu-ray at CD Universe
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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
What greater way to honour one of America’s greatest songwriters and musical producers than to create a biopic based on his life and turn it into a musical. That’s exactly what Irwin Winkler as done with De-Lovely. This musical biopic is filmed from the perspective of the end of Cole Porter’s (Kevin Kline) life as he watches his life play back before him in the form of a musical. It recounts his complicated relationship with his wife Linda (Ashley Judd), and his homosexual extramarital affairs. Interspersed between some of the more dramatic scenes are performances of Porter’s songs by some top musical acts like Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, and Natalie Cole.
Kline is a charismatic Porter, Ashley Judd is beautiful and charming as Linda Porter, and the cinematography is luxuriant and lavish with intricate, jazz age styling, and big stage productions. It’s a pleasant film to watch, with catchy tunes that are a part of the standard songbook today.
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
What a pleasure to see an MGM catalogue release come out that doesn’t look like it’s been raked through the mud these days. Outside of some softness and of video noise in the darker areas from time to time, De-Lovely actually looks pretty clean and nicely detailed from beginning to end in this AVC encodement and that’s an unusual statement for an MGM release lately.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack presents the musical numbers quite nicely, with a good dynamic range, big ambience, and musical low frequencies. Dialogue and vocals are clean and upfront in the mix.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
There’s nothing new here and nothing in high definition except a trailer, but the two audio commentaries are quite interesting to listen to.
The supplements provided with the release are:
- Audio Commentary by Director Irwin Winkler and Kevin Kline
- Audio Commentary by Director Irwin Winkler and Writer Jay Cocks
- Making of De-Lovely (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:25.37)
- Music of De-Lovely (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:15.19)
- Anatomy of a Scene: Be a Clown (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:05.33)
- Anatomy of a Scene: Love for Sale (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:03.10)
- Deleted Scenes (1.33:1; 480i/60) – Nine deleted scenes from the film.
- Theatrical Trailer (2.35:1; 1080p/24)
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
De-Lovely is one of the better latter-day musicals to come along and why shouldn’t it be? It’s about Cole Porter and filled with his witty and catchy tunes. It’s wonderful to look at and has a surprisingly solid transfer from MGM. Recommended.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product align=”right”]B004P29LFE[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase De-Lovely on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
