Woody Allen in 2K – Four Films by the American Master

Fans of Woody Allen can add four of his works in Blu-ray 2K, Italian edition, to their collection. Celebrity, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, and Everyone Says I Love You offer an opportunity to (re)discover part of Allen's cinema from the Nineties.

Celebrity (1998) is a corrosive and fragmented satire on the world of fame, shot in elegant black and white and starring a surprising Kenneth Branagh as an Allen alter ego. The film is populated by illustrious cameos and brilliant episodes, telling the moral and emotional emptiness of a protagonist unable to stop, just like the society he observes.

With Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Allen instead delivers a comedy that offers a brilliant reflection on the relationship between art, compromise, and morality, set in 1920s theatrical New York. Winner of an Oscar for Dianne Wiest, the film is remembered especially for the character of Cheech, a killer and unwitting theater critic, a symbol of irony as fierce as it is lucid.

Mighty Aphrodite (1995) mixes contemporary comedy and Greek tragedy through the use of a classical chorus that comments on the protagonist's obsessions. The film earned Mira Sorvino an Oscar and remains one of the most successful examples of Allen's ability to combine slapstick, moral reflection, and romantic melancholy.

Closing the quartet is Everyone Says I Love You (1996), an atypical and luminous musical that pays homage to classic Hollywood cinema. Between New York, Venice, and Paris, Allen constructs a choral romantic plot in which characters sing with imperfect but authentic voices, transforming emotions and desires into musical numbers of great charm.

All films were natively shot on 35mm film, with very little information on materials for Mighty Aphrodite (50, 200, and 500 ASA). Image format 1.85:1 for Celebrity and Bullets Over Broadway, 1.78:1 for Everyone Says I Love You and Mighty Aphrodite, all with 2K 1080 interlaced resolution (1920 x 1080/25i). Video quality is above average except for Bullets Over Broadway, where slight light instabilities are occasionally noticeable. Overall, a step up from older DVD editions. Dual DTS-HD MA 2.0 (16 bit) and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 kbps) tracks for Italian and English, with decent rendering.

Extras: trailer for Bullets Over Broadway.