DirtyHarry Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's a very interesting discussion going on over on Hollywood Elsewhere today about whether studios re-releasing older movies on Blu-ray are going too far in tweaking the originals to make them look "better." At the center of the discussion is the Dirty Harry Blu-ray DVD. Glenn Erickson, writing for film.com, points out that the Patton Blu-ray DVD was "enhanced to minimize the natural grain," but that in that case, the altering makes it look more like the theatrical 70mm presentation, so he doesn't take issue with that one. The Dirty Harry Blu-ray, however, Erickson considers "more complicated." He notes:

"The Blu-ray disc shows heavy tweaking to minimize grain, sharpen contrast and brighten colors. Sunny exteriors haven't changed much but heavy processing has given most night shots an almost unnatural look -- detail and bright color in what were once dimly lit areas, with everything else falling into inky blackness. "

Jeff Wells doesn't have a problem with this -- if it makes Dirty Harry look better, who cares? But in the discussion thread on the post, folks are getting down into the nitty-gritty of the issue: studios doing digital remastering for Blu-ray transfers, sometimes without consulting the cinematographer as to why scenes where shot as they were. HE commenter TheVicuna links to an excellent interview at cameraguild.com, the website for the International Cinematographer's Guild, with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond; in part of the interview, he talks about the DVD transfer of Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, for which he was not called in to supervise the transfer; the resulting transfer, Zsigmond says in the interview, was "terrible."

I'll have a full writeup from the Changeling press conference later, but wanted to quickly post this little tidbit for you: Clint Eastwood confirmed there will be no more Dirty Harry films, which presumably means his newest film, Gran Torino, will not star everyone's favorite badass cop. Asked whether it's true that we'll see more of Dirty Harry, Eastwood said definitively, "That is not correct." Angelina Jolie then quipped, "I am!" and Eastwood fired back with a laugh, "Yeah, Dirty Harriet, starring Tomb Raider."

Eastwood said that for one thing, he's just too old to be believably playing the role of a working cop at this point, and that while he enjoyed the role and saying "do I feel lucky?" he's more interested in being behind the camera at this point than in front of it, which is just where he is now at this point in his career. Not sure if that means that he's not, in fact, starring in Gran Torino (as reported); they were pretty iron-fisted about keeping the press conference questions related to Changeling.

So, there you have it, folks. Sorry to disappoint, but if you want to see Dirty Harry, you'll just have to rent the DVDs.

• Carl Pingitore (1924-2008) - Editor of Dirty Harry, for which he was also an associate producer, Play Misty for Me, Across 110th Street, Prime Cut and That Man Bolt. He won an Emmy for producing the series Police Story and was nominated for producing the 1981 TV documentary High Hopes: The Capra Years, about film director Frank Capra. He died February 23, in Eureka, California. (Times-Standard)

• Richard Baer (1928-2008) - Television writer (Bewitched) who also apparently appeared uncredited in Citizen Kane as a character called "Hillman". He also wrote a 1958 Columbia Pictures-released film titled Life Begins at 17. He died February 22 in Santa Monica, California. (Variety)
• William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) - Author and conservative commentator who appears as himself in the documentaries Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Hugh Hefner: Once Upon a Time, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, New York in the Fifties, The Source, Kerouac, the Movie, What Happened to Kerouac? and Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film. He died of emphysema February 27, in Stamford, Connecticut. (Variety)
• W.C. Heinz (1915-2008) - Journalist and novelist who co-wrote the novel MASH, which was adapted into a film and television series, with H. Richard Hornberger (jointly they used the pseudonym Richard Hooker). He also appears in Ken Burns' documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. He died February 27, in Montpelier, Vermont. (NY Times)