GoodFellas 20th Anniversary Blu-ray Recycles 3-Year-Old Disc
Posted February 1, 2010 03:10 PM by Juan Calonge
Ever since Warner Home Video announced GoodFellas: 20th Anniversary Edition (see blu-ray.com, October 26, 2009), many enthusiasts expressed their hope that WHV would use this opportunity to improve the audio or the video presentation of this major Martin Scorsese movie. However, site reviewer Kenneth Brown has taken a preliminary look at the 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray and, pending a full review, informs that the movie disc is identical to the GoodFellas Blu-ray released in early 2007.
Unlike, for instance, Full Metal Jacket (another Warner title released early in the format's life and again at a later stage in a Deluxe edition), a lossless audio track hasn't been added, and the sole soundtrack option is straight Dolby Digital.
Regarding video, the first Blu-ray edition (like all home video releases before it) presented a well-documented film artefact: in 1h16', a darker vertical line is visible across the middle of the frame (and across Robert De Niro's face) for six seconds. It's been speculated that the damage is in the film negative itself, but it would have been possible to digitally remove it for the duration of the affected shot. But of course, the disc being identical to the first edition, the artefact is still there.
The bonus disc, containing the documentary Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film, is a DVD already included in the DVD box set Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection Vol. 4, released in October 2008.
