La La Land comes to you in the form of a Best Buy Exclusive Steelbook and is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in the good old CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1. Chazelle continues his retro tendencies by shooting on film, and with director of photography Linus Sandgren delivers a really gorgeous looking film which looks fantastic in high definition. This is a film full of the kind of bright colors and patently artificial lighting that were part and parcel of both the Freed unit and the Demy films, and this transfer preserves a really appealingly varied palette beautifully. The film tends to ping pong between naturally lit and/or graded material (as in the opening freeway number) and more "artistic" choices, as in some of the nighttime material or the big planetarium sequence. Detail levels are routinely high, especially in brighter lighting, as should be expected. While the nighttime and club scenes don't have quite the same detail levels, there's surprisingly good shadow detail and definition throughout these sequences as well. The transfer looks appealingly organic and encounters no compression issues.
Wish it had the 4K Disc like Best Buy Canada but still a winner.
This review is from La La Land [SteelBook] [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray/DVD] [Only @ Best Buy] [2016]