Steven Soderbergh’s debut, Sex, Lies & Videotape, covered some untreaded territory 20 years ago. With an award winning performance from James Spader and a cult following that continues to grow, is the newly remastered Blu-ray of Sex, Lies and Videotape the definitive must have version?
Film
Following a housewife from the 80′s, Sex, Lies & Videotape covers taboo territory of sex and lust, while focusing on a crumbling marriage. Ann, Andie MacDowell, is a conservative woman and when compared to the people in her life, she appears all that more unadventurous. With her philandering husband and temptress sister, Ann can best be compared to Graham, an old friend of her husband who has come into town after a long period of disconnection.
Graham, played incredibly by James Spader, is a quiet and peculiar visitor who in his own right has some interesting sexual behaviour, but due to his almost self-conscious and pathetic ways comes off just as flat as Ann.
The movie is a staple of its time, coming straight from the indie film ether, and involving some very racy subject matter. However after 20 years and in comparison with what’s covered today, the film loses that forbidden notion that came along with it when it was first released.
The acting in the film is incredibly considering its independent roots, furthermore it should be noted that James Spader’s performance shines above the rest and for it alone, I give this movie a definite recommendation even with some of the let downs on the technical aspects of the Blu-ray.
Video
Sex, Lies & videotape‘s 1.85:1 presentation using the AVC codec isn’t anything special. There’s a lot of grain that seems to get more noticeable throughout the film and the overall washed out look and colour of the film doesn’t help either.
The detail and clarity of the film isn’t bad for a movie that’s 20 years old, but overall I wasn’t impressed.
Audio
In 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio the movie has a great score that captures the emotion of each scene well, however due to some mixing mistakes I found the audio to be lacking.
I’ve noticed some reviews talking about how phone calls in the movie were mixed poorly and the people on the telephone would sound like they’re in the room… I agree with this 100%. A few times I made the mistake of thinking people were in the scene when I couldn’t see the phone.
However besides the telephone mishap and some of the dialogue coming out a bid muddy, the sound isn’t too shabby.
Special Features
In detail the Special Features are:
- movieIQ: Real-time in-movie information about the cast, crew, music, and production via BD-Live
- Commentary with Writer/Director Steven Soderbergh and Neil LaBute
- 20-year reunion at the Sundance Film Festival
- Deleted scene with optional commentary
- Steven Soderbergh on Sex, Lies, and Videotape
- Previews for upcoming films
- Notes on remastering and restoration
- Stephen Soderberg on the trailers
- Original Trailer
- Miramax trailer
Surprisingly, there’s a decent amount of features, of course counting Previews for upcoming films is sort of cheating. There’s an insightful commentary by director Steven Soderbergh, one of today’s leading creative minds and a slew of featurettes ranging from the short- but-sweet retrospective Sundance reunion, which demonstrates the staple Sex Lies and Videotape has in Indie cinema, paving the way for fellow Indie filmmakers to get picked up by Miramax.
There are two trailers and a deleted scene; the trailers have an intro by Soderbergh while the deleted scene has an optional commentary. It’s nice to see the filmmaker involved with special features, whereas a lot of the time distributors will just throw together what they consider to be enough for a film and move one (hence all the lame special features on most Blu-rays). However, there are a few duds on the features menu for this release; such as movieIQ… Utilizing BD-live you can find out random facts and go on all kinds of tangents which end up being more distracting to the movie your watching opposed to insightful. There’s also a note on remastering and restoration for the Blu-ray format, which when compare some of the lesser looking scenes from the movie, you can’t help but say “Heed your own advice”. It almost feels like an apology note should’ve been included… or perhaps at the beginning of the note it could’ve said “Here’s what we should’ve done”.
Final Thoughts
After watching the film, I came to the conclusion that fans already enjoy the film… They know it, they love it. Those who have seen the film are going to want that extra Blu-ray goodness. However, even though there are a few special features to bide your time, it’s just not enough to warrant a double-dip. There’s also the ‘nothing-special’ video and audio quality to talk about…
However that being said, to people who haven’t seen the film, then what better way to watch the cult hit then on Blu-ray.
