I’m so delighted with the new Criterion Repulsion Bluray (out 7.28) that I’ve played it twice start to finish, and I only opened the package last night. I didn’t sit there like a bowling pin and literally watch it twice. I watched it once and I ran it a second time as a kind of white-noise sideshow in the corner of my eye, tuning in and out and half-listening as I worked on the column.

It doesn’t seem to have been de-granularized in the slightest and I still love it. Just goes to show that people like me are fine with a natural grain look as long as it’s been done right. For all I know the grain has been toned down, but it looks amazingly sweet. It’s there but it’s fine. The monochrome tones are pleasingly vivid and soothing, and the sharpness of the picture is just right in an unforced and untweaked way.