Reels of film actually have an incredibly high resolution, often higher than you can fit on a Blu-Ray disc if you made a perfect translation of that film digitally. If you have an original negative, inter-positive, or other "higher level" film reproduction of the original, then you can get a pretty solid picture.
Unfortunately, film isn't as reliable of a medium in terms of longevity as digital film is, so whenever you get a digital remaster and they couldn't find a good source, you can often tell.
However, if you have a really talented team of remastering people with a good budget (such as those who Criterion employs or hires out), even a reel in poor condition can look pretty damn good.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
