Rejoice, movie geeks. Home theatre gear – especially audio – has become a bargain; DVDs have never looked and sounded better. Show off your home theatre’s capabilities to your friends with these movies.
Live Free or Die Hard
The picture and sound provide a rationalization for enjoying the cheesefest. The image quality is great – sharp and bright with real black and real grayscale. The audio dynamics and bass will suck you in.
Chapter 1: A subwoofer demo: the Fox logo has a power failure and crashes. Beware: it sounds very real.
Chapter 5: Who knew machine guns had this much bass?
Chapters 14 & 15: A bass symphony featuring helicopter, machine guns, and stuff blowing up real good.
Cloverfield
Best recent example of home theatre making an only okay movie enjoyable. This is because of the sound, especially bass, throughout. It’s so good that to my surprise I got into the film. I hated it in the theatre because of the jerky home video look. (Did they invest in the audio to compensate for the gimmicky “Blair Witchy” video?)
No Country for Old Men
Best recent example of a dramatic film seriously enhanced by great picture and sound. The look is dark and rich and sharp. The sound is enveloping, subtle and ambient. It’s constantly pulling you into the story with a heightened realism of natural sounds. It’s not as flashy as Die Hard but a great system show-off nonetheless.
Besides, impressed as your dates may be with your system, they may not be into stuff blowing up real good.
