It’s been an interesting time in the world of 4K Blu-ray. There has been recent news that several critically acclaimed, award nominated movies will not be getting a 4K Blu-ray release, or even any type of physical release in some cases. But, there are also instances where movies being decimated by critics and audiences alike are somehow getting the 4K Blu-ray treatment.
Take, for instance, All of Us Strangers and Madame Web.
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All of Us Strangers received universal critical acclaim for its powerful story and incredible acting, particularly from Scott. It has been nominated for a slew of awards, including several BAFTAs. Madame Web, on the other hand, is being savaged by critics and audience members alike. It currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 15% and 59% from critics and audiences respectively, with many citing the poor writing, bad effects and overall dull feel.
Yet, only one of these movies is getting a 4K Blu-ray release: Madame Web. All of Us Strangers, on the other hand, isn’t getting a physical release at all (as reported by World of Reel). I admittedly have not seen either of these movies, but from what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by people who’ve seen it, All of Us Strangers belongs on 4K Blu-ray and it’s a crime that it’s not.
I don’t want to speak for anyone, but from what I read in several comment sections and forums such as Reddit, home theater fans and cinephiles are not okay with the fact that this is the state of 4K Blu-ray and physical media releases at the moment. So just what is going on?
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This isn’t the first time this has happened in recent memory. It was announced that Best Picture Oscar-nominated movies Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, and The Holdovers, starring Paul Giamatti, will only be getting standard Blu-ray releases, not 4K. These movies are both generating a lot of buzz in the awards scene, with both Stone and Giamatti already having won best actor Golden Globes, and yet movie fans won’t get to enjoy them at home in their best possible quality.
Barbarian, starring Bill Skarsgård, is another movie that has been seemingly denied a physical release (as a press release mentioned a streaming date only). And Barbarian is a cult horror movie – a genre that particularly suits 4K Blu-ray and physical media – that has enjoyed great success. Understandably, fans in forums far and wide have cried out for a physical copy.
These are the kind of movies the best 4K Blu-ray players were made for. Home theater fans, in general, are movie-goers, and they will be wanting to add these movies to their collections, but can’t as it stands. What connects three of these four movies? You guessed it, they’re all owned by Disney. (The Holdovers is from Focus Features).
Ahhh good old “reference quality”hard to beat but impossible to define ;-) And I can’t see what I’m writing anymore because beta app, so…
Yes, I was nosing around the Kaleidescope website and stumbled across that. Those systems will set you back 10s of thousands of dollars, so they’d better be of the highest quality.
Streaming is a pretty low bar, plus most studios weren’t even doing real 4K transfers for years ;-)
And 4k streams really aren’t.
How so?
It came up in a previous discussion on here but the actual “4k” streaming bitrates are well below that of a 4k disc (they’re more like a Blu-ray) but they can get away the name by using a UHD source file.
Here:
Oh yeah… that’s been pretty obvious, Amazon being the worst offender in my book. I thought there were a few smaller services that promised to focus on quality… I saw Vidu is functionally no more, but I thought the criterion collection had a streaming service?
They do but make no great claims about speed or quality.
A 2020 review did contact them about it: