Then there are film such as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy with extended editions that go on and on with seemingly endless battle sequences which were too long as it was in the theatrical cut and obnoxiously too long in the extended cut. Sitting there, I have to guess that they figured that since we went to the lengths to create this footage in the first place, we might as well let the world see it. Again that college essay mind set at work. You know, since I had to learn this stuff for the exam, I will at least show you that I did. I wish I could guess at what they were thinking when they put the extended cut of Hall Pass together, but I don’t think that anyone can figure that out, not even the filmmakers themselves. Not even the college essay theory can explain this mess.

Film  

Hall Pass, whether the theatrical cut or the Enlarged Edition (I can hear Bevis and Butthead laughing now in the background at that one) is an awful film. Hall Pass is a stupid and crass film, with the enlarged edition even more so.

The film stars Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis as two 30ish husbands who can seem to get sex off their minds. Their lovely wives who frankly deserve better ( played by Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) decide to give their husbands hall passes. The halls pass is a week off from their marriage, where they can seek out sex with other women to get it out of their systems so they can return and focus their attentions on their wives. The wives leave for Cape Cod for a week of relaxation while their men go crazy. However, while on Cape Cod, the wives turn out to have better luck than the husbands in the extra curricular department.

The film is like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch extended from 5 minutes to two hours. It is devoid of anything really funny and instead is a crass and crude as you can get. Hall Pass is a bad film, embarrassingly bad, and one that you are better off skipping in its entirety.

Video  

The best thing that I can say about the video presentation here is that it is better than the film. It is a solid is unspectacular looking film with a nice natural looking color palette with nice levels of detail and decent blacks. Film grain is heavy however so if you don’t like film grain and prefer you films as clean as computer animation, Hall Pass will not be your cup of tea and really shouldn’t be anyway, grain or no grain. The film has good depth and clarity but far from reference quality. The film itself is in pristine quality and I was not able to detect any obvious errors with the encoding of the film.

Audio  

I was not expecting a reference audio presentation when I sat down to watch the film. However, even so, I was disappointed with the audio here. The film is a bit front heavy as one would expect with a comedy. While the surrounds do kick on occasion, most of the action remains centered in the front of the room. The real issues I had with the audio here is with the overall fidelity. I found the sound to be too thin and bright for my tastes, a bit on the shrill side, more like bad lossy audio rather that a DTS HD Master Audio track. The audio is just another reason to pass on this release.

Special Features  

There are two extras included with this release, consisting of an “outrageously funny” additional scene as well as a “hilarious” gag reel. I found neither to be either outrageously funny or hilarious. When you have to say you are outrageously funny or hilarious, this is usually a sure sign that you aren’t. Hall Pass is a combo pack release which contains a DVD copy of the film along with a digital copy, so you can take this mess of a film with you.

Final Thoughts  

Simply put, Hall Pass is a terrible film, one that I found to be crude and crass and at times relentlessly so. The audio is weak and the video just good with meager extras to boot. In short, there is really nothing here to recommend about this release. I suggest that you skip this one entirely.

Film

The film begins by following an assassin played by Bill Nighy who is lethally efficient at what he does but in contrast to his cold icy profession he still tries to please his overbearing mother. However when hired to kill a woman (Emily Blunt) who’s involved in a counterfeit Rembrandt painting sale, he decides to help her and turns the tables on his client.

The film definitely has a lot going on, trying to juggle character development amongst the many characters however it fails to really do so. Victor Maynard (Nighy) being the main character gets the best coverage and in the end the film really doesn’t seem to have too much thought put into it. The cliché momma’s boy jokes that are involved when Nighy visits his soul crushing mother a bit lame and honestly feel like they were simply added for cheap laughs.

The cast is definitely filled with talent such as the great Rupert Everet, but the film just isn’t memorable. The story straddles comedy and action quite well however the story’s lack of depth keeps it in the realm of fun popcorn film from being anything more. However popcorn films aren’t bad so give it a shot if you’re a fan of the actors involved.

Video

Wild Target’s video is displayed using the AVC codec. The video quality is pretty run of the mill, with little to no noise or artefacting. The film stock has a bit of grain during the interior scenes with lower amounts of light, but it’s not prominent enough to come across as a distraction.

The color palette is a bit dull with a lack of contrast that makes the black levels suffer, but the skin tones are natural and there really isn’t a need for a strong color grade. The sharpness of the transfer shine when we see the textures of the actor’s skin and the detail in the background elements such as the strokes of paint on the close-up shots of the Rembrandt painting at the beginning.

Audio

Wild Target’s audio comes at us using the 5.1 DTS-HD master audio codec. The film is a well-balanced audio mix that manages to handle the dialogue heavy scenes with the same grace as the shootouts. The dialogue is clean and centered while the surrounds get some good use of audio panning which give the mix a good atmospheric quality.

The subwoofer gets some nice LFE fodder with the shootouts and explosions that ensue, but the mix never really goes over-the-top which helps the audience stay leveled headed so the scenes with a lot of dialogue don’t feel so empty.

Special Features

There is only one special feature which is a 3 minutes EPK style interview with Emily Blunt called “On Target with Emily Blunt” which goes over her character and herself. The extra barely counts but at least it’s in HD.

Final Thoughts

The movie itself is decent but falls into the category of being a good popcorn flick that combines some slapstick action with dry black comedy. With some pretty solid technical presentation, the film makes up for the fact it only has one extra feature. However it may be a better rental than purchase unless you find it for a good price or you’re a big of fan of one of the many talented cast members.

Film

Disc 1:

Sexual Healing: The sudden attention paid to “Sexual Addiction” in celebrities, thanks to the Tiger Woods controversy is played with as a joke of a joke. The mock-surprise and confusion of the characters is very amusing as they try to solve the non-mystery of why a man who is rich, healthy and young want to sleep with many beautiful women.

The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs: The boys are disappointed by former banned book Catcher in the Rye’s lack of raunchiness and so they decide to write the grossest story imaginable in an attempt to get banned, and inadvertently write a masterpiece.

Medical Fried Chicken: One of the most over-the-top episodes this season (and that says a lot) as KFC is banned in Colorado while medicinal marijuana stores start to appear. Since marijuana can only be legally distributed to people suffering from a serious illness, a group of men in town purposefully give themselves testicular cancer. Not only does this allow them to buy marijuana but their swollen testicles inflate to the size of chairs and can be used as ‘hippity-hop’ style transportation. Offensive and hilarious, a combo South Park has truly mastered.

You Have 0 Friends: The long overdue jab at Facebook. “Friends” are treated as a commodity until Facebook goes rogue and Stan must do battle in a Tron-like setting. This one has some wonderful inside jokes for those frustrated with the Facebook phenomenon.

200 & 201: A celebration of South Park making the 200 episode mark by having nothing but two episode-long string of self-referential jokes that build to a class-action lawsuit made by all the celebrities they have ever made fun of. These episodes had to be edited and/or pulled because of the reemergence of the Muhammad controversy (said controversy refers to whether they can air an image of the Muslim prophet).

For those more concerned about the South Park references, this two-part special finally answers the long-standing question of who Eric Cartman’s father really is (which was the question of their first season cliffhanger).

Crippled Summer: Part parody of the reality show Intervention, this time with Towelie as the subject, part parody of Warner Bros cartoon charters, here depicted as handicapped children attending summer camp. Not the strongest episode of the season but plenty of absurd laughs are to be had.

Disc 2

Poor and Stupid: Cartman fears he is not poor nor stupid enough to ever become a NASCAR driver. This episode is one long jab at NASCAR fan culture…another subject that was long overdue for a good South Park ribbing. Cartman and Butters southern banter while competing on the track had me laughing out loud.

It’s a Jersey Thing: Like the Season Seven episode “South Park is Gay!” that went after the rise of Gay-themed television shows, here they go after New Jersey themed programs like Jersey Shore and Jerseylicious. Jersey people’s popularity is a plague covering all of the US and South Park takes a militant stand against it. All the while, Kyle discovers that he was conceived in new Jersey making him another of the “Three Js” that Cartman is most prejudiced against:“Jew, Jersey, Ginger.” South Park is in fine satirical form with this episode, demonstrating their disdain through pitch-perfect parodies of their subjects.

Insheeption: This episode was based on a College Humour sketch about Inception than the film itself (a fact the creators apologize for in their audio commentary). The realm of dreams is entered to search out why Stan and Mr. Mackey are compulsive hoarders (making this a backhanded parody of Hoarding reality programs as well). No matter how many of the jokes were borrowed, this is a very amusing episode.

Coon Trilogy: Cartman’s alter ego returns. Lovecraft’s Cthulu appears as the Coon’s side-kick while the secret behind Mysterion’s identity as well as an explanation for Kenny’s constant resurrections are explained. A massive three-part saga that nearly reaches the scale of their previous Imaginationland adventure. The Coon was not the strongest concept in the previous season, but it makes for an acceptable story arc here.

Crème Fraiche: The season finale is a take on cooking shows and that strange shake-weight exercise gizmo. Like many of the recent episode’s Randy Marsh is the leader in all the hijinx (he is almost usurping the four boys as a lead character at this point). This episode might be responsible of creating the slang term “Old Fashioned” for a sexual act I won’t describe here…I’m sure it will be noticeable on the internet in no time.

Video

The original Fullscreen has been modified to appear natural in a 16:9 Widescreen TV presentation. The HD presentation is absolutely flawless. The animation may still root itself in looking cheaper than most (although their animation team is now capable of creating complex 3D characters to go along with the construction paper look of the originals) but each line and colour is as precise as it can possibly be.

Audio

Dolby TrueHD English 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 English, and English Stereo are the three options available. No matter what you choose, the sound is lush and very well mixed. The grossest of sound effects are blended right into the sophisticated scores of their more epic moments.

Subtitles available in English.

Special Features

Mini-Commentaries (both discs): As with every season previous, show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone take four minutes from the beginning of each episode to speak about it. In many ways, I wish they had the time and patience to cover the entire episode as there are many smaller references and jokes within each episode that I’m sure they can dwell on. More often then not they make reference to the fact that they’re speaking and seem to be eating up time more than anything. That said, they still have interesting tidbits to share, mostly about their inspiration and motivation behind each episode’s story. These guys have a natural sense of composition, a tremendous self-awareness, and are shameless with both their praise and criticisms of others.

Disc 1

Deletes: A few scenes cut for time constraints it would seem. None are all that hilarious on their own but all could fit seamlessly back into their respective episodes. As well, each seems to be at different stages of completion for some are merely storyboards with dialogue over-top and others have the finished HD polish on them.

Disc 2:

The Coon: The debut of the superhero alter-egos of South Park’s kids, originally appearing on the Season 13 release. As an added bonus, the mini-commentary is also included in its re-release here.

Final Thoughts

When it seemed like this show was getting a bit too far into being nothing but parodies (or butchering) of pop culture references, Season 14 showed some actual character development, adding some more depth and history to these cartoon people we’ve come to know for well-over a decade now. This is certainly not their greatest season, but it is impossible to ever state that the show has lost its touch. South Park shows no real signs of losing steam as long as it can keep churning out an episode (from idea to post-production) in a weeks time, while never losing its edge or its wonderful attraction to satire.

Film

Before the opening credits (themselves, one of the few proper homages to the original show) we are served up an intense but oddball scene of a man wearing an enormous collar being decapitated by a projectile buzzsaw blade. From there, the villains taught tanks, giant spiders and various other contraptions. So yes, it would seem that the gadgets, that were a trademark of the TV show, remain but their conception is much more vast as they take on a monstrous steampunk designs, again…only adding to the bloating.

Will Smith does seem to be relying a bit too much on his comic charm as the film dedicates more time to making his character appear cool than it does in developing the plot. So while Smith gets to charm ladies, tilt his black hat and shoot roomfuls of badguys, hihgly skilled thespians Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branaugh are left to watch their creditability get crushed by the explosive budget of a Barry Sonnenfeld film. As well, Salma Hayek makes for the most token character I have seen in recent memory. She literally adds nothing to the plot and her entire performance can be summed up in a peekaboo shot of her bum while Kline and Smith sit around and stare.

Not to say that there isn’t any fun to be had. The stunts are big, the sets and costumes are heavily detailed, and a couple of tiny chuckles snuck into the mostly throwaway dialogue. This Blu-ray will serve well as a visually cluttered piece of time-killing entertainment for those who need something that will not challenge them as they watch.

Video

Widescreen 1.85:1. The picture quality is easily the best part of this release. Both the explosions and the Western sun have a lustrous orange glow, Smith’s ULTRA cool black hat has no signs of fading, and Hayek’s bottom is…well, less of a gentleman might say something crass about how defined it is in HD…but not me, no sir.

Audio

The lone track is 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio in English as well as 5.1 Dolby Surround in French and Spanish. The banter, as often banal as it is can be, comes through clear as a bell in the frontmost speakers while a nice mix of steel spurs on wood flooring combined with an expensive sounding score play equally clear in the surrounding speakers without overpowering anything. It’s in video and audio quality where big budget films get a chance to redeem themselves and this film makes for a fine delivery.

Subtitles available in English, French and Spanish.

Special Features

Music Videos:

• Wild Wild West by Will Smith featuring Dru Hill and Kool Moe Dee: Like Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black before it, Will Smith gets to record the title track to the film. This time scooping another riff from Stevie Wonder. This video is a the cinematic sort that would fit right into Michael Jackson’s catalogue. The song frequently stops as we get a story of Smith saving Salma Hayek from his arch-nemesis (Kenneth Branaugh saves a little face by not actually appearing in this). The budget to make this may have been a fraction of the feature film’s, but its still thousands more than your average video has to spend.

• Making the Wild Wild West Video: THAT’S a fine sign that you’ve made a big budget music video, when it gets it’s own mini-documentary.

• Bailamos by Enrique Iglesias: This too tries to be a bit of a cinematic music video, but falls on its face as the sort-of story of Iglesias being a wanted man dissolves to make way for dancers (complete in modern clothing, exploding the Wild West setting) and Iglesias’ love-lorn pouts to the camera. I watched this at 1.5 speed and it turned into a pretty neat dance tune…honestly.

Behind the Film:

• Wardrobes of the West: The cosutmers did do a lot of research and placed a lot of effort into making a rich mix of historic garments, and modern tributes to the main characters’ fatigues. A worthy tribute to them and their efforts.

• Good Guy’s Gadgets: A mix of character and gizmo profiles, focusing on our heroes. Decently entertaining if you’re into the film.

• Loveless Ladies: Interview with the models/actresses who played the main villain’s hench(wo)men. They are charming ladies who had decent performances in the film. Greatly outshined the models who tried to be badguys in some other big budget romp cough see my Taxi review cough cough*

• Evil Devices: The villlainous contraptions where almost entirely huge mixtrues of CG and practical effects. Each took teams of people to create. This is one of the more interesting featurettes as we get to see some very creative people at work.

Commentary by Barry Sonnenfeld: Oh my, Barry sounds embarrassed during this track. The comments he makes are very infrequent, so fans need not bother with it. But if you’re looking for some ironic fun, take a listen to Sonnenfeld opening criticizing this film, and offer tiny details, all the way through film and the ending credits.

HBO First Look: It’s a Whole New West: 15-minutes of redundant preview footage if you’ve watched the movie itself. Poor Salma Hayek has to grit her teeth through an embarrass intro bit…just avoid this feature.

Final Thoughts

The film might not be up to par, but this Blu-ray certainly offers a lot for any potential fan out there. Not so horrible that you need to run away from it, so if you find this at a decent price you could do a lot worse.

Film

The Jackass boys are back and I had a chance to see this film with some friends in theatres in 3D. To prevent burying the lead, if you’re interested in purchasing this film… do it now, the film was converted to 3D after the fact and it simply didn’t need to be… The only thing that popped out was the staged gimmicky opening scene that consists of a series of airbags and confetti going off, but to really justify paying a premium price for a 3D Blu-ray we deserve a bit more.

As for the film itself, it’s hard to critique. It’s essentially a series of clips that either consist of practical jokes, hidden camera style pranks, and footage of self-mutilation. It’s definitely catering to a specific market and it’s definitely not a film that’s fun for the whole family.

The funniest moments for me were the uses of super slow-mo camera as they pulled pranks on people by throwing water in their faces. Honestly though this sort of thing can be seen for free by watching Time Warp on the Discovery Channel. However the film quickly begins to go too far with a barrage of disgusting gag reflex testing stunts that I can’t mention here. Honestly you know if you’re going to like this film, just don’t expect the same quality compared to the first two films. Things feel a bit stale and “bottom of the barrel” and even with a few funny parts, I really just found myself checking my watch for most of it.

Video

Jackass 3’s video is displayed using the mpeg-4 AVC codec. The vide o quality is hit and miss due to the fact that we’re seeing the events from a bunch of cameras of varying qualities. The main cameras used are really high quality high definition cameras that do a great job providing sharp and clean footage.

The colors are bright and skin tones come through nicely, however there is some blown out highlights once in a while which aren’t rare for footage that comes from a video source. The nice thing about the video cams used is the fact that they produce details very nicely and the details are sharp, most notably skin texture.

Audio

Jackass 3’s audio comes at using the DTS-HD Master 5.1 audio. The score and foley is pumped up to help make up for the lack of true surround sound and although we’re given some nice centered dialogue there’s some surprisingly pieces that have been mixed to make use of all of your speakers. However these scenes are few and far between and are most noticeable in the opening and closing credit scenes which are usually the most elaborate.

For most of the film we’re given a clean and front heavy mix but it’s spiced with some nice uses of LFE and surrounds that help out the fairly plain mix.

Special Features

Jackass 3 has a small amount of extras, but they’re honestly the best possible extras for the subject matter. Deleted scenes and outtakes are pretty much just more of the movie to watch, so that’s always good. There’s also an “MTV: Making of” featurette which is as in depth as I would ever be interested in the film. Although it is only 3 extras, would you really want a commentary track?

Final Thoughts

Albeit the film doesn’t really stand out as a Blu-ray essential, the film does provide some decent content when good quality high definition cameras are used. However with hit and mix audio and video presentation, the film isn’t anything special but if you’re a fan then it may be worthwhile to await the inevitable 3D release of the film if that is something you’re into.

Film

Shenaniganz, the restaurant featured in the first film, is coming under pressure after a hot new Hooters-style restaurant called “Ta-Tas Wing Shack” moves in next door. The actual conflict of this plot is the manager of Shenaniganz is vying for a district manager position but needs to hit a 9,000 goal in a day to beat out other store managers. He then lies to his crew saying that the restaurant will close if they don’t reach said goal in order to motivate them. Meanwhile, he is also trying to learn how to pick up girls, the crew have their own problems, yadda yadda yadda, nobody really cares. Whatever plot has been scraped together is all just a fickle backdrop so that the characters can pull frat-boy style pranks on each other, and inappropriate jokes can be told. Really, there is no connection to any of the characters, nothing is truly at stake, therefore all the weight sits on how successful a gag fest it is.

To properly measure said success, I started to tally how many truly funny moments it had…by the end of the film I had notice 3 lines printed next to the counter I had drawn. This tells me there were three moments (keeping in mind that a moment’s duration is often no more than a few seconds) wherein I actually had a chuckle.

What does it say about a film when it is C-list talents that are being wasted? Adam Carolla looks asleep during his phoned-in cameo (clearly shot on a digital camera, well-away from the actual movie set). John Michael Higgins has proven in many a Christopher Guest film that he is a brilliant improviser, but he has no room to move in his role as the manager. There are other cameos but it is not worth mentioning anyone who happens to physically appear on screen, but has no emotional presence nor truly adds anything significant to their scenes, never mind the film.

There are numerous continuity errors and goofs, the director cannot frame a scene properly (the scenes in the Manager’s tiny office woudl make a superb film school tutorial on how NOT to shoot a film), and there is simply no energy to carry this film, even just for 90 minutes.

Video

Widescreen 1.78:1. It may be 1080p HD but the picture is not very sharp at all. There is a certain fuzziness apparent in close ups that is normally reserved for a lackluster DVD transfer. A disappointing treatment, but not all too surprising considering how much concern went into every other aspect of this film.

Audio

The lone track is 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio in English. There is a decent sound treatment as far as mixing background sounds and score but there are a few moments where the dialogue does not mix well, making it very apparent what was recorded on the set versus what was dubbed in during post-production. An amateur error.

Subtitles available in English and Spanish.

Special Features

Trailers: Self-explanatory.

“Sloppy Seconds”: This is a making-of featurette that runs for nearly 50 minutes. This is a surprisingly thorough look at the different levels of production. As the writer-director team of Jeff Balis and Rob McKittrick speak, they can almost be forgiven because of how they seem to be somewhat aware that this is a cheaply made, destined to avoid the theatre, piece of comedic bunk that is made for the sake of being made…almost.

Deleted Scenes: Alternate takes on scenes and other useless clips whose comedic weakness only justify their placement on the cutting room floor. Well, save for one of Justin Long’s extended takes, but frankly he could stir up laughs at a funeral.

Outtakes: 3 separate reels of improv takes and the cast giggling to themselves.

Commentary by Balis and McKittrik: Once again, some sympathy can be given to these lads after they come closer to fully confessing how cheap and bad this film is. A full on apology would have been nice, but these two chatting away will have to suffice.

Final Thoughts

Even gross out comedy fans should be bored by this. At least, I pray that they do because this is the sort of thing that should receive 0 encouragement. We do not need this to franchise like the American Pie series did. If being dirty didn’t shut Shenaniganz down, perhaps ignoring it will.

Film

Jimmy Fallon took a break from smirking his way through SNL sketches to play an overeager cop who has zero skills behind the wheel of a car. Several expensive props destroyed later, he literally runs into a cab operated by an aspiring Nascar racer, played by a nauseatingly sassy Queen Latifah. The two become hap-hazard partners in a scheme to stop a band of (sigh) Brazilian models who have decided to rob banks.

The films kicks off with an immediate overdose of trying-to-be-cool scenarios, such as Queen Latifah performing completely improbable stunts on a messenger bike through the streets of New York. This is followed by her car transforming like the Gadget Mobile so she can place lives in danger on the road and shatter any and all traffic safety laws, all for the sake of lookin’ cool. Throughout the film, this “cool” attitude remains and makes for a complete disconnection with not only the audience, but with the city of New York. This film acts like it has an intimate understanding and love of NYC but does nothing to serve that feeling by having caricature heroes chasing cartoonishly absurd villains.

Yes, Gisele and the other models as the bank robbers, how could I get through this review without addressing their talents? Gisele’s acting skills are confined to her making the odd kissy face. Beyond that, she has to rip off her clothes and/or molest another woman in order to grab your attention and remind you that she is more than just a gun-toting mannequin in this film.

Taxi is simply a gigantic waste of stunt people and a sizable budget. All the gags fall flat (I mean, they even rip off a laughing gas gag from Lethal Weapon 4…the fourth Lethal Weapon sequel for crying out loud! And even then LW4 stole it from several others, up to and including the Simpsons), and the cast is devoid of charm.

Video

Widescreen 2.35:1. There are a lot of cars in this film, and they all looked freshly washed under the HD treatment. As good as the HD is for this release, it causes some problems as some dated CG and green screen graphics become more apparent when placed amongst ultra-clean footage of real people and places. A hazard of clarity.

AVC runs at an acceptable 22 MBPS.

Audio

This disc is absolutely loaded with audio options. Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, French (both Quebec and Parisian), Spanish (Stereo only, Castellano is 5.1)), German, Italian, Czech and Turkish. Subtitles are also offered for the same languages just mentioned, plus additional texts for Korea, Netherlands and possibly others, I was losing track of them all after a while. Also included are dubbed director commentary tracks in Spanish, French and German. Never mind the huge budget depressing me, now I’m imaging how many countries are being distributed this schlock.

My subjective criticisms of the film’s quality aside, this is a well treated soundtrack. The music is booming when it wants to be obvious and the dialogue is clear enough so that not a single failed joke is missed (sorry, obviously I cannot just let it go).

Special Features

Director Commentary: Tim Story uses the word “fun” to describe his reasoning (or his excuse) for everything, be it the irrational stunts, the casting of models whose acting talents resemble Oak, the overblown set pieces and all the other junk that he tries to justify. On top of this, he his bland speaking voice has no presence. I cannot fathom him having any sort of authority on a major movie set. I am baffled.

The Meter’s Runnin’ Making Of Featurette: This mostly consists of Jimmy Fallon mugging for the camera. Another waste of time.

Lights, Camera, Blue Screen: A remedial explanation of how Blue Screen effects work that would be better left as a feature on a Star Wars DVD, or at least hosted by someone with more than one facial expression.

Tour Guide: Jimmy Fallon: Fallon’s mugging of the camera obviously worked as he leads a boring tour through the studio set. If you watch it in fast forward, it hurts less.

Comedy Central’s Reel Comedy: Taxi: Two of the stars of Reno 911 do a profile/sketch about the film in what is the ONLY funny thing on this disc. These two know how to improvise and manage to spark a little something from Latifah too. But even this gets old fast when you realize what film they are talking about.

Beautiful Criminals: A musical montage compiling nothing but footage of the models. As boring as it is, it could easily replace the film in my books…and I don’t mean that in a misogynist, hound dog sort of way…I just think it has a better plot.

Deleted Scenes: I could not sit through this even though it lasts less than 5 minutes (I think). Each is worse than anything left in the film…and that is a VERY harsh insult.

Final Thoughts

There must be some sort of irony in how the main character is trying so desperately to win back his credibility on the police force while Jimmy Fallon explodes any remaining credibility he had while portraying him. Bleh. Steer clear of this one (see that embarassing pun I just made? THAT was wittering than anything this film provided).

Film

Scott is VERY close to having it all. He’s a first stringer on his basketball team, but they are the worst in the state. He finally gets the attention of the prettiest girl in class, but that’s only because he drops off stage supplies for her play. His friend is the coolest guy in school, but he’s always too busy getting kicked out of liquor stores and straight into the awaiting fists of rival school bullies. To top it all off, like many teenagers, he’s feeling new feelings, and getting hair where there wasn’t hair before…except puberty isn’t just giving him a squeaky voice, it’s turning him into a freaking werewolf!

What starts as a secret he shares only with his father and best friend “Styles,” blows up at a basketball game where the town ends up rallying behind his furry form because it not only makes him hairy, but gives him super strength, speed, and senses. After single handedly winning a basketball game, Scott, in his wolf form, becomes an instant superstar on and off the court. Besides, in this sleepy Nebraska town, there isn’t a whole lot going on so attending school with a ‘teen wolf’ is a nice change of pace for everyone.

This film runs the aforementioned ‘teen comedy formula’ rather smoothly. All the character archetypes are here, such as the cool friend, the girl-next-door love interest, the hot-girl lust interest, the token fat friend, the cocky jock rival, the overly mean vice-principal, and the underdog protagonist (yes, eat that “dog” pun right up in this case). Heck, the formula is so prolific in this film that the wolfman aspect that made it unique becomes all but a forgotten side-reference when it comes time to have the “big game” at the climax of the film.

Michael J. Fox, in true form, remains the perfect teen to root for. He may be going through the motions at times, but he does it with the sort of clumsy charm that makes this sort of oddball film work.

The film does have some odd editing choices, some of which make for now legendary WTF moments (for lack of a more graceful term), such as the revealing of the jocky villain’s odd stomach tattoo without explanation, or worst of all, the man with his fly open, exposing himself during the dying seconds before the frame freezes before the ending credits (look that one up on the internet folks…you’ll see why it’s so infamous). This was Director Rod Daniel first film, and his lack of experience shows. On top of that, he did not exactly go onto great things (such future gems include sequels to Beethoven and Home Alone). But it is easy to look past its minor flaws to see an entertaining enough 90 minutes of cinematic…not gold, ummm…lets just say cinema.

Video

Widescreen 1.85:1. For a dated transfer, things are looking pretty good. For a film that wasn’t even given a menu screen, it just plays in a loop, some dedication went into ensuring that there was little fuzziness in the picture, just whatever was there in the previous DVD release.

The AVC is running at 38 MBPS, which is comparable, if not higher, than what I’ve seen for action films released within the last 3 years, never mind a comedy from over 25 years ago.

Audio

English Mono DTS-HD master Audio as well as Spanish and French Mono available. For a mono track(s), things sound pretty darn good. All the background sounds of big crowd (in school or at basketball games) blend well with the music and dialogue without causing interruptions. A well treated track whose only hindrance is not being offered in a more full bodied stereo or surround. Personally, I have no problem with a Mono track so long as its mixed well, and here is a good example.

Special Features

None.

Final Thoughts

As mentioned before, this film will doubtlessly make for a safe buy on many a sales rack at your local movie retailer. A perfectly fine transfer onto Blu-ray for this film. All in all, it’s just some good, hairy fun.

Film 

Every Day is a film that centers around the life of a stressed out family, trying to deal with life, work and end of live issues. The film centers around Ned (Liev Schreiber) who has been married to his wife Jeannie (Helen Hunt) for 20 years. They have two boys, a senior in high school who has come out as gay (Erza Miller) and a younger son in middle school. Ned has a hard time accepting that his oldest son is gay. His life is further complicated by the fact that he is a writer on a rather shocking and over the top cable TV show and has a crazy demanding person for a boss. To follow that, his wife travels to Michigan and returns home with her dying father Ernie (Brian Dennehy) in tow who is best described as a terribly depressed and unloving man who is simply impossible to live with, even when in full health.

All of these factors work together to stress out the entire family. Ned and Jeannie’s youngest son is afraid to sleep without the lights on. Jeannie is stressed out by her father’s sour disposition and the demands that caring for him places on her. Ned is stressed out by his son being gay and wanting to go to a gay prom with college students, all the while worrying, quite correctly as if turns out, that his son will fall in with the wrong people.

Ned’s work life is further entangled by the fact that his is keeping his son’s sexual orientation from his work colleagues and his demanding boss, who happens to be gay himself although quite open about it. All of these stresses also cause Ned to think that he needs some fun in his life and he begins a fling with his sexy co-worker Robin (Carla Gugino), which works to bring Ned to his senses.

Every Day is a well written and acted film (although a bit short clocking in at 93 minutes) about life’s every day struggles and demands and was quite enjoyable. I hope you will like it too. It sure deserves a look. Recommended as a rental only.

Video  

Every Day is a small low budget film so I was not expecting a film with reference video. I was therefore not disappointed with the video which is solid but far from spectacular. The film has a nice and natural looking color palette with good but hardly reference blacks. The encode features well preserved film grain but is inconsistent a bit in terms of detail and clarity. At times, I found the image to be quite detailed, sharp and clear and at times, a bit on the soft side.

While black levels were mostly good, there were some scenes, especially some night time interior scenes, where I found the blacks to be rather grey in appearance. Being a new film, I was not surprised not to see any technical issues with the film itself which appeared to be free of dirt or scratches and in excellent shape. I also did not detect any evidence of the application of significant digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. Other than the varying levels of detail and somewhat inconsistent blacks, I found Every Day to be a pleasing looking film but unfortunately not quite worthy of a 4 star rating.

Audio  

The audio on this release was just about what I expected it to be. The overall fidelity of the sound is good and the dialogue track well recorded and placed right in the middle of the sound field. The sound design is rather basic and rather front heavy, with the surrounds engaged mostly for the reproduction of music and some minimal sound effects. This is far from a dynamic sound mix but on the whole, rather pleasant sounding and appropriate, given the subject matter of the film.

Special Features  

The extras are rather pedestrian, consisting of several deleted scenes as well as interviews with the cast and crew. featured among the interviewees are writer and director Richard Levine ( who also wrote and produced Nip/Tuck and on whose actual family this film is based), Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, Brian Dennehy and Erza MIller, explaining their fondness for the film. The release is not BD-Live enabled and does not include a digital copy and is something of a bare boned release.

Final Thoughts  

While not exactly a blockbuster and not featuring reference audio or video, I found Every Day to be a worthwhile film about the stresses of every day life and a film certainly worth a look. Recommended as a rental only.

Film  

Moonstruck is just as wonderful a film as I recalled it to be. Warm, charming, engaging and very, very funny. The film features Cher is her Oscar winning role as Loretta, a 38 year old widow from Little Italy in New York City, who does not believe in love or good luck. She agrees to marry Johnny (Danny Aiello), a man she does not love, a fact that meets the approval of her mother, played by Olympia Dukakis. The marriage proposal is rather rushed with a temporary engagement ring that is Johnny’s pinky ring as Johnny is on his way back to Sicily to be at the bed of his dying mother. He will not formally marry Loretta until his mother dies. Johnny asks that Loretta call his brother Ronnie (Nicholas Cage) with whom he is estranged. When she does so, Ronnie hangs up on her and Loretta goes over to his bakery where they fall madly in love, or is it lust?

Loretta thinks she must break Johnny’s heart by disclosing that she is in love with his estranged brother. Along the way we are offered a look at Little Italy, the Metropolitan Opera and are introduced to the rest of Loretta’s extended family, including her father, Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia), a plumber who knows his way around a woman’s plumbing if you get my drift and who is having a clandestine affair himself. Moonstruck is a charming film that is wonderfully written and directed and features some fine performances and an Oscar winning one for Cher, who looks marvelous before all that plastic surgery and botox (what was she thinking?). Moonstruck is very highly recommended for film fans of all ages and nationalities.

Video  

The video quality here is really a hit or miss affair. There are some really great looking scenes with well saturated and natural looking colors, excellent levels of fine detail and nice blacks. There are other sequences, often times right after a very good looking scene, that have slightly de-saturated colors and are very soft, almost murky looking with mediocre blacks. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is a night time or daytime scene, interior or exterior shots, the quality is all over the place.

The only things uniform across the entire film is the presence of fine film grain and black crush, both of which are rather prevalent. The most obvious example of crushed blacks involves the scene at the opera where you are unable to delineated Cher’s deep black hair from the shadows in their booth. The same can be said for Nicholas Cage’s black suit.. Moonstruck is also not exactly a bright and bold looking film and looks more like an old photograph from the old country. As best I can recall, that is how the film looked in the theater and not the result of a poor encode or deteriorating film stock. Perhaps Moonstruck is in need of a complete restoration. I just wished that it looked better and more consistent.

Audio  

While I was far from impressed with the video presentation of Moonstrick on Blu-ray, the audio was a real surprise and a good bit better than I had anticipated. The real star for me here is the music which sounds sensational. The music has a light and airy feel with an excellent sense of depth. The instruments sound as though they are hanging in the air in front of you, with excellent transparency and imaging. Bass is deep and solid.

The sound effects sound great as well and actively engaged the surrounds where appropriate, such as the scene where Johnny’s jet returns from Italy and flies right over your head. For the most part, other than the music and the sound effects, the surrounds are used subtly for room and street ambiance. The dialogue track is fairly well recorded and just a tiny bit on the thin side. It is well placed in the mix and always intelligible. All in all, Moonstruck features a very solid audio presentation.

Special Features  

The extras all in all are rather standard fair, but are presented in HD. The extras include an audio commentary by Cher, diretor Norman Jewison and screenplay author John Patrick Shaney. Also included are three featurettes, a behind the scenes look at the making of the film, an interview with Dick Hyman who discusses the film’s score and a look at the fine Italian food available in Little Italy in New York City and Mulberry Street in particular, from a restaurant, food store, pasty shop, pasta store and a gelato stand. Also included is the theatrical trailer for the film. All of the featurettes are of an appropriate length and worth a look.

Final Thoughts  

Moonstruck is a wonderful charming film that is highly recommended, despite its less than stellar video presentation. if you are unfamiliar with the film, give it a look, you will be glad you did.