I’m used to a certain “house”-style positivism when it comes to DVD Beaver Bluray reviews. A certain regulatory stamp-of-approval. Because no Bluray ever gets panned — not really. At worst you might occasionally detect a slight under-serving of enthusiasm, as evidenced by “fairly”, “slightly”, “decent” and “somewhat.”

Trust me — as someone who writes reviews a lot, I know what “decent” means.

Hence Colin Zavitz’s DVD Beaver review of Criterion’s Local Hero Bluray (out 9.24): “A fairly robust contrast helps the image during darker moments, though perhaps a 4K restoration could have been slightly more impressive. Colors seem to be faithfully represented, with a decent amount of clarity to the image, showing a somewhat detailed picture, though at times a little soft.”

On top of which Zavitz doesn’t even say if Criterion has adjusted the sound levels correctly so that Mark Knopfler‘s guitar doesn’t overwhelm that faint tinny sound of the jingling pay phone during the final shot — a concern that I mentioned a couple of months ago.