Blu-ray Review: 'The Post'

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On Tuesday, April 17, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Steven Spielberg's 2017 political/historical thriller The Post on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD Blu-ray. Starring Academy Award-winning actors Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and the newspaper's dogged editor Ben Bradlee, The Post dramatizes the duo's 1971 decision to publish "the Pentagon Papers" in defiance of the secretive - and vindictive - Nixon Administration.

(C) 2018 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

OSCAR ® winners Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks team up for the first time in this thrilling film based on a true story. Determined to uphold the nation’s civil liberties, Katharine Graham (Streep), publisher of The Washington Post, and hard-nosed editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) join forces to expose a decades-long cover-up. But the two must risk their careers –– and their freedom –– to bring truth to light in this powerful film with a celebrated cast. - Package blurb, The Post
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's Blu-ray/DVD set was dropped two weeks after the film's April 3 digital download debut. It's an industry-standard two-disc multi-format set; one disc contains the feature film and the behind-the-scenes documentary on standard definition DVD, while the other disc is the 1080p high definition BD.
General Information:
  • Movie Genre: Drama
  • Edition: Widescreen
  • Cast: Matthew Rhys, Sarah Paulson, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Bradley Whitford, Tracy Letts, Bruce Greenwood
  • Director: Steven Spielberg
  • Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
  • Studio & Production Company: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • Theatrical Release Date: December 22, 2017
  • Blu-ray/DVD Release Date: April 17, 2018
In addition to Spielberg's Academy Award-nominated film (it earned two nods: Best Picture and Best Actress - Meryl Streep), both the Blu-ray and the DVD include a five-part documentary about the making of The Post. Written and directed by Laurent Bouzerau (Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays), the five parts are:

  • Layout: Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee & The Washington Post 
  • Editorial: The Cast and Characters of The Post 
  • The Style Section: Recreating an Era 
  • Stop The Presses: Filming The Post 
  • Arts & Entertainment: Music for The Post 
My Take
Although 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment doesn't always come up with outstanding Blu-ray releases (its 2009 BD of My Cousin Vinny is rather stingy in the extra features department), The Post is one of the studio's better offerings.
Technically speaking, the digital transfer is superb. Every frame of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's photography is nicely rendered in 1080p high definition video. This allows the viewer to be immersed in the 1970s atmosphere that was carefully recreated by Rick Carter's production design and Ann Roth's true-to-the-period costumes. I was an eight-year-old kid in 1971, but I remember the "look" of the '70s (the cars, the fashions, the graphic design of contemporary culture, and newspaper layouts and fonts).
The sound mix is also rather well-done, although I'm not sure what the audio specifications are. Suffice it to say that The Post, with its mix supervised by Richard Hymns is nicely done and allows viewers to hear every word written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, as well as John Williams' suspenseful and quietly stirring score, on a 5-speaker home theater sound system.
All in all, The Post is a Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy set worth adding to any film lover's collection, especially if one is a fan of Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streeps, or historical dramas.
Blu-ray Set Specifications:


Video

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio
Dolby Surround

Subtitles
English SDH, Spanish, French


Discs


Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD-50, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
Movies Anywhere
DVD copy

Packaging


Slipcover in original pressing

Playback

Region A


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