I’ve had the opportunity to go over these three films on Blu-ray and I must say, I’m pretty grateful for two of them and the third left me scratching my head.

And so, we’ll start with what has always been my favorite of the batch:

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has always been a classic in my home. It’s easily my favorite John Hughes movie and as much as I thought I would find this movie dated, it’s aged like a fine wine. We threw it on at the office and all work stopped and we were reduced to giggling school girls. I know a lot to do has been made about the quality of the transfer of this Blu-ray, but it looks better than both my VHS and DVD copies have. Sure, maybe it’s not as great as other Blu-ray’s, but it’s certainly a step up in quality and for that, I’m grateful. I was also fascinated to see the special features on this disc. I don’t know if they were on previous releases or not because I didn’t really pay attention to them for one reason or another, but I was really happy to watch the behind the scenes featurettes from 1986. It almost felt like I was able to see more Ferris Bueller and Cameron together, their bits on the BTS were hilarious. The retrospective documentary was also really fun to watch. I would certainly urge you to buy this disc.

Next on the list, we’ll be tackling Saturday Night Fever. I had never seen this film before, and I’m not sure that I will ever have the desire to watch it again. It felt lot like a deconstruction of a culture I had no part or stake in mixed with Taxi Driver sans the violence. Which could be great, I had no stake in 50s car culture either but I would still count American Graffitti as one of my favorite films ever made (and not just because of its Lucas connection, it really is just that good.) As far as the transfer to Blu-ray, it had the grainy tonality of Taxi Driver and felt like it really was shot in the same city (minus the Disco’s, obviously.) I admire Travolta for stepping out of his comfort zone for this film, but it’s not something that was made for my taste. Some might find this an important cultural document and I’d probably agree with them, but I don’t see myself ever caring enough about Disco culture to watch this film again. As far as the special features are concerned, you’ve got what is basically a documentary that feels more like an episode of a VH1 “That’s so 70s…” sort of show than a serious retrospective of the film. And there’s a game on here also, but I hate playing games on my PS3 that aren’t controlled with a PS3 controller. I don’t understand why the games for Blu-ray don’t have PS3 functionality to them in addition to remote controls. That would have, for sure, made the Sin City game a lot cooler, too.

Moving on, we have Grease. I watched Grease quite a bit in my house as a kid. It was a perennial favorite among the ladies in the house and I used to have a love/hate relationship with it. I liked it, but if I was forced to listen to the music or watch it one more time, I was going to burst. Before this Blu-ray release, the last time I’d seen it was for the 20th anniversary re-release into theatres they did back in 1998. So it’s been 11 years that I’ve succesfully avoided this film. And I must say the time away from it did me a lot of good. The moment it started, I was hooked. I don’t know how, but I’d completely forgotten how much I actually loved this movie. So much so that as soon as it was over the first time, I actually restarted it. (I rationalized it by saying that I had to write this review, but we all know that was a lie.) Maybe it’s just that I really like stories about teenagers in the 50s, but this film works for me on every level. The characters are great, the music is fun, the construction of this film is flawless…. And it looks absolutely gorgeous on this Blu-ray. The special features are a lot of fun, too. They have a retrospective look at it from some of the actors (mostly Jeff Conaway, Didi Cohn and Stockard Channing), black and white deleted scenes (as with most, there’s a reason they were cut), and a sing-a-long that I imagine is a must for drunken girl parties. Overall, I would recommend getting this Blu-ray and falling in love with this movie all over again.