I’ve been telling myself over and over that I wouldn’t buy Criterion’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle Bluray because the DVD version is perfectly fine. And then I weakened last night during a visit to Amoeba, and before I knew it I traded it for some Blurays I didn’t want and then I drove home and popped it into the Oppo around 10:30 pm. Wow…this is really, really much better than the DVD. Much. The added detail is so fresh and eye-filling that you just want to dive into it. It looks like a perfect, un-projected print delivered by the lab a few hours ago. The colors are much more vibrant and life-like. I still resent that Criterion cropped it at 1.85:1 when it’s obvious from the 1.66:1 opening credit sequence that a good amount of information has been cleavered for no good reason, but this is magnificent work. Cheers to the Criterion team. This is the best Coyle I’ve ever seen or will see for the rest of my life.