I’m an excellant driver.
I’m sure you’ve all seen Rain Man. It was on TV constantly when I was growing up and I was always aware of it. You might own in on VHS or DVD. Luckily I didn’t because now I have the Blu-ray and can watch Dustin Hoffman talk about buying his suits at K-Mart in full 1080p HD.
Rain Man won an impressive 4 Oscars in 1988, including Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay.
We definitely need more classic movies like Rain Man on Blu-ray, so I was pretty excited to hear it was being released. Here’s a quick review of of the Rain Man Blu-ray if you’re thinking about adding it to your collection.
The Blu-ray
Rain Man looks pretty good on Blu-ray for being an older film, but the picture isn’t perfect. It looks like they used a little too much noise-reduction from time to time, but it’s definitely an improvement on DVD resolution. The disc comes packed with a 5.1 audio track that unfortunately I can’t appreciate because I have a lame audio set up.
There are a few bonus features, none of which are in HD. They include:
- Separate Audio Commentaries by Director Barry Levinson, writer Barry Morrow, and writer Ronald Bass
- The Journey of Rain Man
- Deleted Scene
- Lifting the Fog: A Look at the Mysteries of Autism Featurette
- Original Trailer
Some new retrospective content in HD would have been nice, but I can hardly expect the studios to put money into bonus features like that on catalog releases anymore.
The Verdict
Rain Man is a great film, and if you don’t own it already I would definitely recommend picking up the Blu-ray. If you already own it, it depends on how much you enjoy upgrading your movie collection.
