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Join an all-star cast including Kevin Kline, Jeff Goldblum, John Cleese, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover on a fun romp through the old west. A group of unlikely friends are thrust together in the most accidental of circumstances while on their way to Silverado. Together, they end up righting injustices and bringing peace back to a small town and its inhabitants. Despite the fact that Westerns were very much out of style when this film was produced in 1985, Silverado pulled out all the stops with stunning scenery, an excellent orchestral score and complicated interwoven plot lines.
Columbia advertises this special release as digitally restored 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen on the box, however a slight mix-up during disc mastering resulted in a 1.78:1 anamorphic presentation (actually the ratio for 16:9 TVs). Though no picture has been lost – image is instead added to the top and bottom – Columbia has still promised a new, correct version with the proper theatrical aspect ratio. The original print is very clean and crisp, resulting in stunning picture quality with vibrant colors and excellent detail that rivals some of the best transfers produced today. No aliasing or grain is visible; even thin sharply contrasting details come through strong such as highlights on jail cell bars. Black levels aren’t calibrated absolutely perfect, however this is not a noticeable problem. The dual-layered disc holds 7.3gb worth of data and features 28 chapter stops, with the layer change occurring at the beginning of chapter 18.
Silverado’s original audio track has been freshly remastered into 5.1 channels for this release. Dynamic range is excellent with well defined (if minimal) bass. The rear channels feature a fair amount of use, including plenty of music and quite a few sound effects which make use of the discrete imaging more than I would have expected. However, possibly due to the age of the recording, a fair amount of background hiss and hum can be heard on dialogue and atmospheric tracks, though it has been reduced as much as possible. As somewhat of a surprise this DVD features extremely strong language support – in addition to the 5.1 English track you’ll also find stereo Spanish and mono Portuguese dubs. There are also no less than 6 subtitle choices - English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai.
The disc is billed as a Collector’s Edition and features the prerequisite original theatrical trailer in full-screen video, plus text filmographies of the stars. But the big extra is a brand new 37-minute featurette, The Making of Silverado, featuring high quality full-screen video and stereo sound. This excellent documentary covers many of the aspects involved in producing Silverado in great detail, including location selection, rehearsals, training, storyboards, sound design and even a few outtakes. A small insert in the Amaray case also provides a quick rundown on film production.
Silverado is an excellent Western that will appeal to a broad range of audiences. At a retail price of $24.99 USD this is a good value disc – especially considering that it comes from Columbia/Tristar, who are well known for top-notch audio and video quality. Recommended.
- Reviewed by Daniel Tonks on June 18, 1999.
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System Equipment
Sony DVP-S500D DVD Player
Sony STR-GA8ES 5.1 Receiver
Sony KV-27V65 27" Television using S-Video
Nuance Spatial & Star Series Speakers
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