Bluray Disks: 5 Best

By: William Gish

Break Studios Contributing Writer

You need to know what the top 5 Bluray dics are. You’ve got your high-def, flat screen television and your Blu-ray player and you’ve got "Marley and Me" and you feel like a total moron not only because you’ve rented a movie in which everyone in Miami is blond and white, but because you’re using your high-def system to watch a film that would probably look as good on a miniature airplane television. What you need is bullets, decapitation, aliens, and all kinds of shit flying all over the place exploding. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. Check it:

"Avatar." This one’s kind of a no brainer. The highest grossing film of all time is also the most visually mind-blowing thing anyone’s seen since "The Matrix." The 3D filming process and game-changing digital effects of James Cameron’s 4th masterpiece (we’re counting “Aliens,” “Terminator 2,” and “Titanic” as one, two, and three, though feel free to toss DiCaprio overboard in favor of the far murkier, metaphysical aquatics of “The Abyss”) epitomize high-def’s appeal. The picture and sound is so clear and immediate you feel like you’re there on Pandora, living in the forest with the Na’vi. An extras-heavy 3D "Avatar" Blu-ray arrives in fall 2010, and is guaranteed to be one of the best Blu-ray discs on the market.
"Wall-E." Pixar, along with Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki, has quietly ushered us into a golden age of animation, one not only of visual imagination, but superior storytelling. "Wall-E," the best film so far in this epoch, is one of the top 5 Blu-ray discs. The clarity and quality of the picture reiterates the phenomenal work that Pixar has done in advancing what animation is capable of, while the sound is crisp and stellar.
"Baraka"/"Planet Earth." We’ve got a tie for the third best Blu-ray disc. “Baraka” is a hypnotic, ethereal tone piece, a wordless homage to our planet filmed in 70mm film, making it the perfect movie for Blu-ray transfer. It features burning oil wells to a soundtrack of bagpipes and Japanese koto drums, among a plethora of other mind-warping experiences. “Planet Earth” is a far less abstract account of our home, though it features equally as gorgeous photography, and manages throughout its running time to capture all of Earth’s ecosystems in great detail.
"Star Trek": 2009’s “Star Trek” remake gave the series what it’s always been missing: energy. Not an iota of that explosive propulsion has been lost on the film’s transfer to Blu-ray. The action scenes have the same pop and whiz that they did in the theater, and the sound is perfectly suited for the film’s epic scope. “Star Trek” is a great film, a great reboot, and one of the 5 best Blu-ray discs.
"2001: Space Odyssey." According to Sound & Vision Magazine, Stanley Kubrick’s mind-bending science fiction masterpiece hasn’t looked or sounded as good since it’s theatrical release in 1968. The film was painstakingly transferred to the high-def medium, and the work shows in the vibrant and striking color contrasts, a hallmark of Kubrick’s work. The Blu-ray disc for “2001,” one of the 5 best on the available, reiterates the vitality of Kubrick’s film.