Blu Ray upgrade or not, Blu Ray edition an improvement or not

Blu Ray is the new an improved format but the releases are not always an upgrade of the DVD release sometimes they are even less attractive due to too much tweaking (One does only have too look at what has been done to the French Connection.) or less extra's etc. So I thought this would make a good topic. Those that have bought the disc can show of or complain depending on how good the release is and others can enquire about the editions on sale.

I for one would like to know if "assault on precinct 13" (the original) is worth the upgrade!

How is the new UK SALO release? I already bought it so I guess i'll find out anyway soon, but anyway, has anybody seen it?

The only question is, is it fully uncut?????

Rusty - Highdefdigest reviewed "Assult..." and here is what they said:

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Lars - Have you had a chance to watch it? I've read views from both sides of the fence.

This is what one reviewer from Amazon.co.uk had to say:

While a review on Blu-Ray.com had this to say about it:

I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts when you watch it.


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Rusty - Well there are rumors that the first cut was around 145 minutes. Then there were other rumors that it still plays in Italy by the "Cineteca Nazionale" using more footage than what we have in either of the BFI or Criterion releases. Lastly, there was a report in a Swedish newspaper back in '05 about "Pasolin's death with some tantilising info regarding two stolen SALO reels(!) - used to to lure Pasolini to the fateful meeting place where here was murdered.

The footage in the reels (which are still missing) apparently contains more gruesome torture scenes, several of which were photographed by photographer Fabian Cevallos, and can be seen for the first time in an exhibition currently taking place in Rome." (source) So, who knows when, or if, we will ever see a true "uncut" release of this movie.

The version of SALO seen on French TV is the same that we saw in theaters at the original release - but I'm unable to say if a longer print exists (or existed) in Italy. In any case nobody cut the movie for the French release, and our TV can play this kind of movies, after all, even the uncut version of Tinto Brass CALIGULA was broadcast, or Ken Russell's THE DEVILS, or Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, or Bertolucci's 1900 ....

I'm rather skeptical about Blu-Ray. Recently a reviewer commented that the recent release of Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST was vastly inferior to the previous one (on DVD). The image are brownish and he added ironically that Cary Grant's makeup looked like Nutella... I'm also persuaded - but I can be wrong - that the current image ration (1.85) is erroneous. A friend of mine has a VHS recording made years ago, and it's almost full-screen - but in spite of that, nothing is lacking on the sides (and the image is not deformed), so...

Another reason to be skeptical about the Blu-Ray's future is that we can now find many of these discs "offered" for only 5 to 10 euros in many shops.

It's true that the quality of Blu Ray releases vary, hence this topic. But as the quality of televisions, beamers etc increase so should the source material and for now Blu Ray is the way to go. To a lesser extent DVD had the same problem at the start.

Thanks Kenneth M for the info on assault on precinct 13. As for Salo as long as it's the longest print availeble it's good enough for me. It's just that I'm sceptical about UK releases as they are still often cut! And I doubt that Passolini's murder was a conspiracy but I rather believe he was killed by a male prostitute not unlike David Carredine. In the latter case I prefer the theory about kung fu masters being the culprets but how likely is that.