Film After 11 Podcast | UHF (1989)

What movie beginning with the letter “U” could my son and I watch for this week’s installment of the Film After 11 alphabetical marathon? Unforgiven? Good movie, but rated R. U-571? Meh. While we could talk about it being complete historical BS, it’s pretty mediocre and I’d rather watch a better submarine movie instead. The Usual Suspects? Also rated R, and we’d have to get into a whole discussion about how its director and star are both extremely problematic individuals. I’ll skip that for now.

I guess that leaves us with UHF, “Weird Al” Yankovic’s one and only movie starring vehicle filled with 1980s pop culture references sure to fly right over the head of a 12-year-old kid. Is the movie goofy and fun enough to tickle his funny bone anyway? Watch and find out!

UHF (1989) - Michael Richards
Title:UHF
Year of Release: 1989
Director: Jay Levey
Watched On: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Also Available On:Blu-ray
Amazon Prime Video
Mubi
Roku Channel
Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

I last reviewed UHF after watching it on a free streaming platform, where it didn’t look great. Although Shout! Factory had released the film on Blu-ray for a 25th Anniversary Edition in 2014, I never owned that disc. For this viewing, I purchased a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray set released in 2024 as a 35th Anniversary Edition. I look forward for what the label will do for 45, 55, 65, etc.

I’m unsure whether the standard Blu-ray that comes in the case is just a copy of the 2014 disc or has been remastered. Obviously, I focused on the 4K disc. As the movie started, honestly, I was worried. Early footage under the opening titles looks pretty bad, even for 35mm optical composites. The picture is very soft there and has what appear to be DNR issues with weird grain patterns that freeze in place.

After the titles, fortunately, the movie settles into a more acceptable level of quality. This isn’t sterling reference-grade 4K by any means, but then, the film’s photography was always pretty basic. The 1.85:1 image is reasonably sharp, about on par with a good Blu-ray. If it has any benefit over regular HD, the colors and contrast are quite vivid. I suspect they look better than 35mm theatrical prints ever did, which makes me question whether they’ve been artificially boosted and manipulated in this 4K transfer. In any case, the disc looks fine, certainly better than what I watched on Roku Channel. I don’t regret buying it.

UHF (1989) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo-surround track is… adequate. It has no dynamic range at all in either the music score or sound effects. Surround speakers only come to life during a select few sequences, including the Spatula City TV commercial.

The 4K disc offers an audio commentary by Weird Al and director Jay Levey. Additional bonus features are found on the Blu-ray and all appear to be ported over from the 25th Anniversary Edition (again, making me think it’s just a copy of that disc). Among the contents are a 51-minute San Diego Comic-Con retrospective panel, a few minutes of behind-the-scenes footage that were part of the film’s original Press Kit, 19 minutes of deleted scenes dismissively hosted by Weird Al, a music video for the title song that has some pretty funny MTV parodies in it between the excessive number of clips from the movie, photo and poster galleries, and two trailers.

Some information I found elsewhere suggests that the “easter eggs” listed on the packaging are really only available on an older DVD edition and never actually made their way to Blu-ray.

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Note: Screenshots on this page were taken from the Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.

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