Its always a gamble when you manipulate technology to fit the emotional landscapes of your art and the Blu-Ray release of Noah Baumbach’s (The Squid and the Whale, Margot At the Wedding) Greenberg takes that gamble and reaches a halfway point in fruition. Either you hate the overall package because you find the main character of Greenberg (Ben Stiller) totally inept which drags down the overall aesthetic of what Baumbach’s world of Greenberg is trying to accomplish with its often flat drab world or you get it and, not so much like it, but understand and accept that everything pertains to the ambience and experience.

QUALITY:
Again the transfer here isn’t going to knock your socks off, colors are often drab, a device for the film actually to put you in the mindset of Greenberg and Florence who see the world in this gray tint that manifests their unhappiness. While it works as a third man the overall high definition experience suffers for it. As I stated above, if you can invest in the characters, you’ll understand the concept of the films sometimes displeasing contrast and accept that the lack of what your paying for is actually a sentimental bonus. Audio is decent. The film doesn’t really capitalize on the use of its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. This is a humanity piece that works on subtle environments and uncomfortable conversations that lack confidence so most of the dialogue is quiet, unless it’s a Greenberg tirade, but well transmitted. Just don’t expect a full on surround sound experience.

BONUS FEATURES:
All of the three special features are in HD, which is a plus, but the three of them aren’t interesting enough. Behind The Scenes, Greenberg Loves Los Angeles, and Noah Baumbach Takes A Novel Approach. The Blu-Ray features themselves are interesting though. Pocket Blu is a new feature for me in which you can transfer select bonus features to your mobile device to watch whenever you want. Social Blu allows you to make comments on your social networking pages direct from your Blu-Ray player (network connection needed), and of course BD Live.