4K UHD Review: Kino Lorber’s Uncle Buck (Special Edition)

John Candy is Uncle Buck.  The John Hughes comedy makes its 4K UHD Debut thanks to Kino Lorber.

The Film 

Man, in the last decade Uncles, with good reasons, have gotten a bad name.  Almost four decades ago John Candy brought good-heartedness to Uncle-dom, maybe not good-heartedness at least an entertaining one in the John Hughes written and directed Uncle Buck.  

The tragedy strikes the Russell family and parents Bill and Cindy (Garrett Brown and Elaine Bromka) have to leave their Chicago home for Indiana, there are few if no options to watch over their kids.  The bottom of the list happens to be Bill’s brother gambler and all-around lout Buck (John Candy).  Buck agrees to watch over Tia, Maizy, and Miles (Jean Louisa Kelly, Gabby Hoffman, and Macauley Culkin) while Bill and Cindy are gone.  This begins a battle of wills between the oldest Tia and Buck causing strife within the household and both of their lives.  

Candy takes a role that in the hands of others would have been a misanthropic asshole and gives us a warm albeit misguided man-child learning to grow up having to care for these children.  Part of the charm of Uncle Buck is seeing Candy be charming in the most dubious of situations and actions (e.g., threatening a teenage boy with torture, punching a drunk clown, kidnapping, and much more).  It helps that the film is filled with winning performances by the likes of Amy Madigan, Gabby Hoffman, and Macauley Culkin.  In fact, the children’s actors steal the show.  Hoffman and Culkin are beyond cute, they are nimble comic performers with perfect timing.  Culkin’s interrogation of Candy early in the film is so good they used it as the centerpiece of the film’s promotion.  

Now the film is quite troubling with its treatment of Tia a confused teen girl who when she isn’t being manipulated by her boyfriend Bug (Jay Underwood) is being threatened and abused by her Uncle.  One finds this the oddest of storylines considering Hughes always balanced treatments of young women in his teen dramedies.  It was like the understanding that was so present in Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink had all but dried up and gone away.  The result is something that feels so wrong in a film that does manage to be delightful otherwise. 

Ultimately, the film is a starring vehicle for Candy’s ample comedic talents.  Uncle Buck succeeds in showing that.  

The Transfer

The all-new HDR/Dolby Vision Master – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative is another excellent upgrade in picture from Kino Lorber.  The film was released by Universal in 2011 on Blu-ray.  The quality of the image can’t be quantified.  The 2011 disc suffered from the dreaded Universal DNR cleaning of transfers of that era.  That disc looks terrible in every way that a transfer of a film can look. This newly scanned transfer on the 4K UHD disc is marvelous in every way you expect a 35mm shot film to look in 4K.  The Chicago shot film is positively luminous and gritty in equal measure.  The way the transfer handles even the lowlight scenes of suburban Chicago is an example of how amazing UHD is and how close it gets us to the theatrical experience.  There isn’t a blemish, scratch, or fleck of dirt on the flawless transfer.  The grain structure, the clarity, and the color are all perfectly balanced giving us another excellent 4K upgrade of 2025.  

The Extras

They include the following;

DISC 1 (4KUHD):

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Joe Ramoni

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Joe Ramoni
• Sixteen Going on Seventeen: NEW Interview with Actress Jean Louisa Kelly
• Theatrical Trailer

NOTE: Commentaries appear on both the 4K UHD and Blu-ray discs.  

The all-new Audio Commentary by Film Historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson opens with how this film is where the home of Home Alone was found.  Some of the details of the track include an overall look at the thematics of the film and the push and pull of ‘family values’ and how this press against feminism and the character of Uncle Buck – using Roger Eberts review of the film – talking larger about this tensions; a discussion of what author Susan Flutie called Backlash – and the movement of anti-feminism in the 80s and 90s; how Flutie’s critiques and feminism relate to Uncle Buck – giving examples throughout; a great interview – with quotes – from Amy Madigan during the press tour for the film; John Hughes views on maternity and family values – during an interview during press tour for Curly Sue; the fantasy of the John Hughes films; the importance of John Candy beginning to being a star in Hughes work and its transition focus towards adults – The Great Outdoors, Trains Planes and Automobiles, She’s Having a Baby, Uncle Buck and Only the Lonely; a discussion of Julie Miller’s 2016 Vanity Fair article on the film; how this and Trains, Planes and Automobile relate to one another adult loneliness; and much more.  Heller-Nicholas and Nelson deliver a truly wonderful dissection of this film beyond the surface getting deeply into the themes and cultural touchstones of the era.  A vital commentary track.  

The all-new Audio Commentary by Film Historian Joe Ramoni opens with how this is the penultimate film directed by John Hughes and how important this is in his filmography.  Some of the details from the track include how geographically close the house that Uncle Buck takes place in is to the other various homes that Hughes written and directed films are – like Trains, Planes and Automobile, Home Alone, and Weird Science; how high schools were used as studio space to build the interiors and used for other production needs; an interesting conversation about Hughes trust in his production heads and how that formed his films and shaped them; Hughes insistence on filming in Chicago and why; the dynamic between John Candy and John Hughes – what made the work so good, how it informed on performance and their films, also how Hughes and Candy met; the work of Macauley Culkin – and the behind the scenes love between Candy and Culkin; the speedy production scheduled and post-production schedule – the film was filmed in January 1989 and was released by August of that year; the work here and career of Amy Madigan; a larger discussion of the Uncle Buck TV series which is a sequel of sorts to the film; the remake of the Uncle Buck 2016 TV Series starring Mike Epps; the box office success of the film; a discussion of the audio commentary track by John Hughes (the only one) for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – which speaks Hughes as a director; the iconic pancake – including a great promotion that was out at the time, and how Cooking with Babish attempted to make the pancake and how he couldn’t and his solution; the clown scene and how much larger it was bigger in the script; the what if projects that never happened between John Candy and John Hughes; a larger discussion of the reshaping of the film in its final edited form and the script that was written by Hughes; a larger discussion of the actors that appear in the film; and much more.  

Sixteen Going on Seventeen – Jean Louisa Kelly and the sound of Hughes-ic (19:26) – is an all-new interview with Actress Jean Louisa Kelly opens with her early childhood and the thriving arts/theater community in the town – all culminating with getting the lead in Annie in a professional production in Connecticut. Kelly also discusses how she got the role in Uncle Buck after working on the original Broadway cast for Into the Woods.  How closely she related to the character of Tia because of how it mirrored her own life.  Meeting and working with John Hughes.  Working with Gabby Hoffman and Macauley Culkin and how more experienced they were than here.  Working with John Candy – and how he was off-set.  

Macauley Culkin Audition (0:35) – the brief video audition with John Candy where Candy instantly breaks.  

Rounding out the special features are trailers for Uncle Buck (1:59); Summer Rental (1:29); Spaceballs (2:36); Delirious (2:23); Career Opportunities (2:15)

The Final Thought 

Kino Lorber gives Uncle Buck a new life with its 4K UHD edition.  Highest recommendations!

Kino Lorber’s 4K UHD Edition of Uncle Buck is out now.