From Broadway Dream to Sea Fury - Warner Re-releases

Warner Bros. Discovery, distributed by Arvitalia, brings back the 2K Blu-rays of Alan Parker's Fame and Nicholas Ray's King of Kings, alongside the 4K release of Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea – The Origins of Moby Dick. Three very different films spanning musical, biblical epic, and historical adventure.

2K - From the New York Stage to Ancient Judea

Fame (1980) is Alan Parker's musical that follows the aspirations of young students at a famous New York art school. It's an engaging and partly dramatic work that tells the price of pursuing a career in entertainment. Image format 1.78:1, close to the original 1.85:1 (1920 x 1080/23.97p), VC-1 encoding on a dual-layer BD-50, Dolby Digital 1.0 monophonic audio for Italian (192 kbps) and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (16 bit) for English.

Extras are the same as previous releases, starting with the fantastic director's commentary, unfortunately without Italian subtitles. Subtitles are available for the two specials dedicated to the film and the school that inspired it; there are also short clips with brief interventions from the director and part of the cast recalling their days on set; trailer. Lacking a main menu, the disc only has pop-up windows.

King of Kings is a completely different beast, a spectacular 1961 epic directed by Nicholas Ray that recounts the life of Christ against the backdrop of Judea under Roman rule. Superb 2.35:1 transfer (1920 x 1080/23.97p) AVC/MPEG-4 on a dual-layer BD-50, with intense colors reminiscent of the glorious Technicolor system; sharpness and contrast are equally impressive. Shot in SuperTechnirama, one of the 70mm formats of the era, despite its 170-minute runtime, the film fully benefits from the 2K rendition, with natural grain and solid blacks. Only slight hints of noise in the dustier and desaturated sequences.

Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 audio (192 kbps), which at times becomes opaque, revealing the many years on the shoulders of the dubbing of the era. The register changes radically when switching to the original DTS-HD MA 5.1 (16 bit), which illuminates the narration, even surprisingly so. The extras are brief and include a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Sermon on the Mount and vintage footage of the premieres in New York and Los Angeles. Additional footage from the premiere at the Egyptian Theater and the original theatrical trailer complete the material.

The Whaleship Essex in 4K

Completing the trio is In the Heart of the Sea – The Origins of Moby Dick, directed by Ron Howard. Chris Hemsworth leads the cast in the story of the disaster of the whaleship Essex, attacked by a sperm whale in 1820, a real event that would inspire Herman Melville. This edition is offered in a combined Ultra HD + Full HD package.

Aspect ratio 1.78:1, close to the original 1.85:1 (3840 x 2160/23.97p), HEVC encoding on a dual-layer BD-66. The transition to 4K UHD does not bring significant increases in resolution or detail, as it is a native 2K master, but HDR-10 enhances light dynamics, colors, and shadow detail, allowing aquatic scenes to breathe. The comparison with the included 2K Blu-ray therefore reveals a visible but overall subtle improvement.

Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps) is just sufficient to allow the drama to be accompanied by effects, music, and dialogue. The original Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (24 bit) with ATMOS objects is the reference, with an immersive sound field that galvanizes starting from the whale sequences. Dialogues suffer somewhat from the particular accent adopted by some performers, which sometimes compromises their intelligibility; overall, an enveloping soundtrack. No extras on the 4K disc, on the 2K disc we find the notable past material with over 2 hours of production focus, with a full 36 minutes of deleted scenes and 7 minutes of extended ones. Subtitles in Italian.