| Reviews & Columns |
|
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
 DVD Talk Forum |
|
|
| Resources |
|
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
|
Columns
  
 
|
|
|
Sandlot, The
Fox // PG // January 29, 2002
List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
"Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they're too scared or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes."
-Babe Ruth, The Sandlot
Before I headed off for college in the Fall of 1996, I whiled away those remaining summer months in Arizona visiting relatives, where I found myself shuttling around my younger cousins a couple of times a week for cheap family flicks at the local theater. After sitting through Flipper, Free Willy II, Baby's Day Out, and one of the Beethoven movies, it's probably not an overwhelming shock that I wasn't bowled over with enthusiasm when I learned that The Sandlot was next on the list. I wasn't impressed by the promotional spots that were littering television some years earlier, and I was fully anticipating another excruciating hour and a half of celluloid drenched in kitschy sentimentality and childish inanity. To my great surprise, The Sandlot turned out to be more than merely tolerable, standing out as perhaps my favorite movie I'd seen in months. In the years since, The Sandlot has become a cable television mainstay, and I've watched it more times than I'd care to count. Fox Home Video, who continually dips into their back catalog of titles on a regular basis, is giving The Sandlot an affordably-priced shot on DVD later this month.
Scott Smalls is moving into town with two short weeks left in the school year. That would scarcely be enough time for most people to make friends, but it's especially difficult for someone as painfully shy as Scott. After spotting a group of kids playing thoroughly informal games of baseball at a sandlot, he works up enough courage to introduce himself in the hopes of, as the ninth man, rounding out a full team. The only stumbling block is that Scott can't catch or throw, and his knowledge of the sport is so lacking that he assumes his stepfather's autographed baseball from Babe Ruth was a gift from some girl. Though his first outings are nothing short of humiliating, Scott's soon taken under the wing of Benny Rodriguez, the group's most talented player, who quickly brings the young egghead up to speed. Though Scott becomes a reasonably competent member of the team, he's still not quite sure who Babe Ruth is. When their last baseball is destroyed by Benny's mighty swing, Scott returns with the autographed ball that soon flies over the fence into the realm of a legendary junkyard dog known as The Beast. Scott's horrified when he discovers the importance of the ball that's now being munched on by the monster on the other side, and he and his friends set out to retrieve it before Scott's stepfather returns from a business trip. Of course, that pickle is just one of several madcap hijinks throughout the course of the summer, which includes the geeky Squints' attempts at romance with the local swimming pool lifeguard (Marley Shelton, in an early film role) and a nauseous introduction to chewing tobacco.
The Sandlot breaks from the usual conventions. I'm hard-pressed to think of another movie so heavily centered around sports -- a genre I invariably shy away from -- that doesn't have a climatic championship where the film's protagonist makes a slow-motion, down to the wire game-winning point. There's only one 'proper' game throughout the entire course of The Sandlot, and our plucky kids clean up the floor with the competition from the get-go. Though baseball is an integral part of the movie, the team plays because they truly love the game, not out of obligation to their parents or desire to bring home another trophy for the mantle. Though the voiceovers from an adult Scotty would seem that The Sandlot is being told from an adult perspective, there's no doubt once the film's underway that we're seeing things through the eyes of imaginative kids. Glimpses of the Beast are, until the kids dismiss fantasy for what's in front of them, of a ten-foot tall monstrosity of indescribable destructive power. The underlying morals of friendship, teamwork, and confronting fears and shortcomings are present, but not force-fed in the heavy-handed manner of lesser films. It's a shame that David Mickey Evans, who went on to helm two Beethoven sequels and the inexorable First Kid, hasn't managed to reproduce the same magic that shone so brilliantly here in his directorial debut. The quirky kids are all great, particularly Patrick Renna as 'Ham', the hysterical trash-talking catcher. I'm not a talented enough writer to fully convey how much I adore The Sandlot, which manages to be both infectiously fun and still touching. There hadn't been a family movie this wonderful since A Christmas Story ten years earlier, and only the considerably different The Iron Giant is even in (and I apologize in advance for the pun) the same ballpark. The Sandlot, as I reach for some sort of conclusion, is a movie that more than warrants a spot in any DVD collection.
Video: If I were previously unfamiliar with the movie (and not bright enough to consult the back of the box or a resource like the IMDb), I'd have no problem based on this 2.35:1 anamorphic presentation believing that The Sandlot was a recent theatrical release. The detailed image is crisp and sharp, and if any flaws were present, they managed to sneak by my overly nitpicky eye. The azure sky, the earthy browns of the sandlot, and lush green grass are as perfect as my childhood memories of summers past. Fox generally gives catalog titles respectable treatment, but I couldn't have anticipated how phenomenal The Sandlot would appear on DVD. Rattle off the names of any of the usual suspects -- dust and assorted specks, aperature correction haloing, intrusive grain, digital artifacts, occasional softness -- and the answer for each and every case would be a flat "no". Genuinely stunning work. For the sadistic, a severely cropped pan-and-scan version (pleasantly labeled as such, instead of the usual 'standard' or 'fullscreen') is available on the flip side of the disc.
Audio: The Sandlot has been given the Dolby Digital 5.1 treatment, though this isn't really the sort of movie that makes for an engaging six-channel aural rollercoaster. One of the highlights is certainly the excellent score by David Newman (yes, Randy's cousin), but by and large, the audio is anchored front and center with otherwise infrequent use of the rear channels. To echo a complaint from my review of Return of Captain Invincible, the inconsistency of the LFE is a bit unusual. Any scene where the Beast lurks in the background is preceded by the sort of rumbling that threatens to knock the picture frames off my walls, but when a gigantic fence tumbles to the ground, the resounding thud I was expecting was more of a meager squeak. Perhaps I'm just reaching for something to complain about, and I can't really recall anything similar occurring throughout. The dialogue is clearly the focus of the movie, remaining discernable for the duration and not for a moment buried by other elements of the mix. Stereo surround tracks are provided in English and French, along with subtitles in a variety of languages.
Supplements: Seven TV spots and a theatrical trailer, none of which do a stellar job of representing the film, are included, along with a promotional featurette that runs a little over five and a half minutes.
Conclusion: My DVD collection is overflowing with raunchy humor and horrific gorefests, and anyone unfortunate enough to have taken a gander at my DVD racks should be well aware that I'm not one to seek out 'family films'. The Sandlot is one that I've been anxiously awaiting, and I've subjected myself to a horrendously cropped version on television numerous times over the past few years. It's a pleasure to finally be able to enjoy this movie again in its original aspect ratio. The quality of this DVD release of The Sandlot far exceeded my expectations, and its accessibility in the $15 range makes this disc borderline-impossible to ignore. Highly Recommended.
-Babe Ruth, The Sandlot
Before I headed off for college in the Fall of 1996, I whiled away those remaining summer months in Arizona visiting relatives, where I found myself shuttling around my younger cousins a couple of times a week for cheap family flicks at the local theater. After sitting through Flipper, Free Willy II, Baby's Day Out, and one of the Beethoven movies, it's probably not an overwhelming shock that I wasn't bowled over with enthusiasm when I learned that The Sandlot was next on the list. I wasn't impressed by the promotional spots that were littering television some years earlier, and I was fully anticipating another excruciating hour and a half of celluloid drenched in kitschy sentimentality and childish inanity. To my great surprise, The Sandlot turned out to be more than merely tolerable, standing out as perhaps my favorite movie I'd seen in months. In the years since, The Sandlot has become a cable television mainstay, and I've watched it more times than I'd care to count. Fox Home Video, who continually dips into their back catalog of titles on a regular basis, is giving The Sandlot an affordably-priced shot on DVD later this month.
Scott Smalls is moving into town with two short weeks left in the school year. That would scarcely be enough time for most people to make friends, but it's especially difficult for someone as painfully shy as Scott. After spotting a group of kids playing thoroughly informal games of baseball at a sandlot, he works up enough courage to introduce himself in the hopes of, as the ninth man, rounding out a full team. The only stumbling block is that Scott can't catch or throw, and his knowledge of the sport is so lacking that he assumes his stepfather's autographed baseball from Babe Ruth was a gift from some girl. Though his first outings are nothing short of humiliating, Scott's soon taken under the wing of Benny Rodriguez, the group's most talented player, who quickly brings the young egghead up to speed. Though Scott becomes a reasonably competent member of the team, he's still not quite sure who Babe Ruth is. When their last baseball is destroyed by Benny's mighty swing, Scott returns with the autographed ball that soon flies over the fence into the realm of a legendary junkyard dog known as The Beast. Scott's horrified when he discovers the importance of the ball that's now being munched on by the monster on the other side, and he and his friends set out to retrieve it before Scott's stepfather returns from a business trip. Of course, that pickle is just one of several madcap hijinks throughout the course of the summer, which includes the geeky Squints' attempts at romance with the local swimming pool lifeguard (Marley Shelton, in an early film role) and a nauseous introduction to chewing tobacco.
The Sandlot breaks from the usual conventions. I'm hard-pressed to think of another movie so heavily centered around sports -- a genre I invariably shy away from -- that doesn't have a climatic championship where the film's protagonist makes a slow-motion, down to the wire game-winning point. There's only one 'proper' game throughout the entire course of The Sandlot, and our plucky kids clean up the floor with the competition from the get-go. Though baseball is an integral part of the movie, the team plays because they truly love the game, not out of obligation to their parents or desire to bring home another trophy for the mantle. Though the voiceovers from an adult Scotty would seem that The Sandlot is being told from an adult perspective, there's no doubt once the film's underway that we're seeing things through the eyes of imaginative kids. Glimpses of the Beast are, until the kids dismiss fantasy for what's in front of them, of a ten-foot tall monstrosity of indescribable destructive power. The underlying morals of friendship, teamwork, and confronting fears and shortcomings are present, but not force-fed in the heavy-handed manner of lesser films. It's a shame that David Mickey Evans, who went on to helm two Beethoven sequels and the inexorable First Kid, hasn't managed to reproduce the same magic that shone so brilliantly here in his directorial debut. The quirky kids are all great, particularly Patrick Renna as 'Ham', the hysterical trash-talking catcher. I'm not a talented enough writer to fully convey how much I adore The Sandlot, which manages to be both infectiously fun and still touching. There hadn't been a family movie this wonderful since A Christmas Story ten years earlier, and only the considerably different The Iron Giant is even in (and I apologize in advance for the pun) the same ballpark. The Sandlot, as I reach for some sort of conclusion, is a movie that more than warrants a spot in any DVD collection.
Video: If I were previously unfamiliar with the movie (and not bright enough to consult the back of the box or a resource like the IMDb), I'd have no problem based on this 2.35:1 anamorphic presentation believing that The Sandlot was a recent theatrical release. The detailed image is crisp and sharp, and if any flaws were present, they managed to sneak by my overly nitpicky eye. The azure sky, the earthy browns of the sandlot, and lush green grass are as perfect as my childhood memories of summers past. Fox generally gives catalog titles respectable treatment, but I couldn't have anticipated how phenomenal The Sandlot would appear on DVD. Rattle off the names of any of the usual suspects -- dust and assorted specks, aperature correction haloing, intrusive grain, digital artifacts, occasional softness -- and the answer for each and every case would be a flat "no". Genuinely stunning work. For the sadistic, a severely cropped pan-and-scan version (pleasantly labeled as such, instead of the usual 'standard' or 'fullscreen') is available on the flip side of the disc.
Audio: The Sandlot has been given the Dolby Digital 5.1 treatment, though this isn't really the sort of movie that makes for an engaging six-channel aural rollercoaster. One of the highlights is certainly the excellent score by David Newman (yes, Randy's cousin), but by and large, the audio is anchored front and center with otherwise infrequent use of the rear channels. To echo a complaint from my review of Return of Captain Invincible, the inconsistency of the LFE is a bit unusual. Any scene where the Beast lurks in the background is preceded by the sort of rumbling that threatens to knock the picture frames off my walls, but when a gigantic fence tumbles to the ground, the resounding thud I was expecting was more of a meager squeak. Perhaps I'm just reaching for something to complain about, and I can't really recall anything similar occurring throughout. The dialogue is clearly the focus of the movie, remaining discernable for the duration and not for a moment buried by other elements of the mix. Stereo surround tracks are provided in English and French, along with subtitles in a variety of languages.
Supplements: Seven TV spots and a theatrical trailer, none of which do a stellar job of representing the film, are included, along with a promotional featurette that runs a little over five and a half minutes.
Conclusion: My DVD collection is overflowing with raunchy humor and horrific gorefests, and anyone unfortunate enough to have taken a gander at my DVD racks should be well aware that I'm not one to seek out 'family films'. The Sandlot is one that I've been anxiously awaiting, and I've subjected myself to a horrendously cropped version on television numerous times over the past few years. It's a pleasure to finally be able to enjoy this movie again in its original aspect ratio. The quality of this DVD release of The Sandlot far exceeded my expectations, and its accessibility in the $15 range makes this disc borderline-impossible to ignore. Highly Recommended.
|
| Popular Reviews |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
|
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices 
| |||||||