Blu-ray Movie Reviews

For Vince, Eric, Drama and Turtle, life in Hollywood's fast lane can be an intoxicating ride. This season, after an accident during the filming of his latest action flick, Vince develops a new lease on life that makes him even more difficult to manage, while each of the guys must decide which steps to take to map out their own futures, both personally and professionally.

HBO does a good job with this Blu-ray release. The image features a nice sense of dimensionality and even a touch of film grain. Fine detail isn’t as resovled as some of the newer Hollywood features, or even HBO’s recent Blu-ray of True Blood, but it isn’t disappointing either. Colors have a very natural quality and contrast is solid but I did notice some irregularities in the overall quality of the master. Some shots look like they were captured with standard definition cameras only to revert right back to a HD camera in the very next frame. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is fun but the sound design is simplistic given the material. You get a nice sense of ambiance and some directional cues from the surround channels, but given the documentary like style of the show, don’t expect much more. Low bass is emphasized in the music and some of the club scenes and the balance of elements within the mix is solid.

Extras include feature commentaries for most of the episodes plus a collection of behind the scenes features. I was hoping that they’d have a sneak peek at the new season, but alas no.

While season six could be called the depressing year with almost nothing going the guy’s way, season seven is definitely the downward spiral year. The coming train wreck is obvious throughout for several characters, but I love that each character has a great story arc associated with them. Honestly, one of the best seasons of the show yet, and that’s saying something. Highly recommended.