Bad Times At The El Royale -2018- -bluray- -720... Best -

One of the most discussed scenes involves the camera splitting the screen vertically. For nearly ten minutes, we watch Darlene (Cynthia Erivo) sing while Miles (Lewis Pullman) watches her through the two-way mirror. The 720p transfer handles the low-key lighting—where shadows are crushed to near-black—superbly. If you watch a heavily compressed streaming version, these shadows turn into "blocky" artifacts. On a high-bitrate BluRay rip, the darkness remains organic, allowing you to see Jeff Bridges’ weathered face contort with guilt in a single candle flame.

For home media collectors, seeing a file or disc labeled with these specific attributes tells a clear story about the presentation: Bad Times at the El Royale -2018- -BluRay- -720...

, particularly its vibrant 1960s production design and atmospheric cinematography. City Girl Network With Dark and Twisted Turns: Bad Times at the El Royale One of the most discussed scenes involves the

Writer-director Drew Goddard, who gave us the brilliant The Cabin in the Woods , wears his influences on his sleeve. It's nearly impossible to watch Bad Times at the El Royale without thinking of Quentin Tarantino; it feels like a perfect hybrid of Pulp Fiction 's non-linear storytelling and The Hateful Eight 's claustrophobic chamber piece, sprinkled with the Coen Brothers' taste for sudden, shocking violence. The film is an obvious love letter to the cinema that came before it, and while it might not offer much that is new, it's an incredibly fun and meticulously crafted ride. At the same time, some critics felt the film was an intriguing but ultimately mixed bag, citing a slow pace that makes its 141-minute runtime feel long. If you watch a heavily compressed streaming version,

The year is 1969. On the border between California and Nevada, the once-glamorous El Royale hotel is a shadow of its former self. On a fateful night, four strangers (and one beleaguered clerk) converge under its dilapidated roof: a smooth-talking vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm), a weary priest (Jeff Bridges), a free-spirited hippie (Dakota Johnson), and a soulful lounge singer (Cynthia Erivo). But as in any good noir, nothing is as it seems. The priest is an ex-con; the hippie, a fugitive. Beneath the floorboards of room 7 lies a hidden stash of cash, and behind the hallway's two-way mirrors, a secret passage allows for clandestine surveillance.

Bad Times is less cynical than Hateful Eight and more tactile than streaming-era thrillers.