Sorry to bring up the issue of grain again, but think there's a few misunderstanding:

1) Grain is inherent in film... I mean the ACTUAL 35mm film. It is not a digital process but a chemical one. Hence it is a byprouct of that film-making process. Hence make sense CGI or animations u see no grain.

2) Because we are so used to grain in films for decades, hence some directors like to have some grain purposely to have a more film feel.

3) However problem with HD and BD is that because the resolution practically more than doubled from SD, we can see the grain much more clearly. It will be worse for older films remastered for BD so they have to "scrub" the grain away

My question for Sifus here is what is the big deal about criterion releases (besides a lot of B&W and arty shows) that they can charge premium? Are they better mastered?

i was just passing on my opinion to other enthusiasts that i found that particular title being definitely demo worthy material for those who want to show some friends the capabilities of the bluray format and in particular the dynamics of their home theaters...

From a personal point, my obsession with Picture Quality and Sound Quality of blurays simply stems from the fact that i feel that bluray is (still) a format that only a minority of people have bought into. Alot of it has to do with economics. Quite simply, the average person will not pay 70-150RM for an original bluray title given the widely availability of pirated movies we have access to. It makes bluray a still prestigious format of watching movies at home. Showing friends scenes from Planet Earth, Avatar or The Dark Knight, it fills me with great pride when their jaws drop and they comment "wow, your home theater is awesome!". Yes, admittedly its a show off thing and i am not ashamed to admit it because i am sure that most people  here can be guilty of this pleasure as well

Like so many of us here, I have invested alot of my hard earned moolah on equipment to realise "a 24 frame 1080p picture" and "a lossless audio" on a "90+ screen" at "bitrates of 25mb per sec" etc

I do admit that on many occasion i would appreciate PQ and AQ even over the actual fact that the movie was generally rubbish (Revenge of The Fallen anyone?) and this has become criteria to ALOT of my bluray purchases. Is this just being silly? perhaps.

i could write about references to particular scenes of a movie to talk about tonal balance, skin tones, palette drop outs, over saturation, pixilazation etc but then i don't think the general audience of this thread would show much interest.