Last night I had the pleasure of watching George Lucas' classic
American Graffiti in Native UHD4K [HDR10/DTS~HD 5.1] and after reading all the negative reviews how Lucas 'tinkered' with the original Techniscope 2 perf negative and DNRed it to death, I was very pleasantly surprised through my OPPO 205/Sony Laser projector [newly professionally calibrated] how much I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it. IMO, the colors popped [unlike the previous BD~V], the image was razor sharp and Haskell Wexler's stunning cinematography, IMO,
never looked better. Most of the negative reviews alleged that the image had been scraped clean of all film
grain but Wexler reminded us in the bonus features how 2 perf Techniscope was only a step up from 16mm!!!!!
Shot on a shoestring budget of $750K and co produced by Francis Ford Coppola, I was amazed how the vintage soundtrack consisting of hit after hit from the early 60's
never sounded better in Universal's newly repurposed 5.1 remix. There was some effective LFE output and occasional discrete elements throughout.
For the $11 I paid for it thanks to AmazonUS' recent 3 for $33 UHD4K sale, I can say this is the first time I was genuinely transfixed with the results.
And one of the bonus features featuring a full length documentary on the making of the film was well worth the time I spent with this vintage slice of Americana.
