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Man With Two Brains, The
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Last Christmas, I opened a package from a cheap relative, and I pretended to be very pleased with "Joe's Apartment" and "The Man With Two Brains". I'd heard the phrase "the man with two brains" bandied about before (say, the Rentals song on their album "7 More Minutes"), and I always assumed it was some low-budget '50s cult classic. Sure, this '83 film harkens back to classics like "Donovan's Brain", "They Saved Hitler's Brain", and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", but...yeah. Anyway, the snapper case had a photo of Steve Martin this excessive "Look at me! I'm funny!" expression on his face...and...the back of the case had a similar picture....and the plot summary on the back sounded mediocre. Yeah, I pretended to be thankful, but all my excessively greedy mind could think of was "Hey! I read DVD Talk! I know how much these discs street for!" Irritated, I did sit down and watch the two movies shortly thereafter, and I was surprised when both of them actually turned out to be a lot better than I thought. My review of "Joe's Apartment" is elsewhere in the DVD Talk review archives, but for the sake of reviewing yet another disc, here are my thoughts on that other cheapie...
In "The Man With Two Brains", Steve Martin is a brilliant ground-breaking neurosurgeon named Dr. Hfuhruhurr (pronounced just like it's spelled) who's developed a revolutionary screw-top method of cranial surgery. He gets a chance to show off this technique when the good doctor, in the middle of an interview, is involved in a hit-and-run with a beautiful young woman. Hfuhruhurr falls in love with the gold-digger (Kathleeen Turner, by the way), and the "love birds" head to Vienna, home fo the Elevator Killer, for a conference. While there, Hfuhruhurr begins to see through his wife's veil of deceipt (sniffle), but finds new love with a disembodied brain in the lab of the enigmatic Dr. Alfred Necessiter (David Warner).
Video: For a disc in Warner's lowest price tier of an '83 release, "The Man With Too Brains", despite (shudders!) a full-frame presentation, is nice and sharp, and if not for the copyright notice on the packaging, I would've guessed the film was more recent by several years. The vibrant colors and Quirky Lighting© make "The Man With Two Brains" a visual feast ("visual feast"; feel free to send me mocking e-mails for using that phrase), and both are exceptionally well-represented on the disc. Yeah. Dust and specks are present but not too distracting, and there are a couple of print blemishes (including a biggie around 00:09:44). Sure, a widescreen release would've been preferable, but I'll take what I can get...
Audio: Like its Laserdisc counterpart, the only audio selection here is a strictly-average DD mono track. There's very little distortion, although I did notice a bit when Dr. Hfuhruhurr and the reporter are in the car early on. That was probably there even in the theatrical version, so...it's pretty insignificant. There's not really much else to say about this...
Supplements: Nothing. Not even a trailer or themed menus.
Conclusion: Don't be fooled by the tagline on the box -- this isn't Steve Martin's best movie, but it is worth pulling out of the bargain bin. I can't say that I feel a ravenous need to buy anything starrng Steve Martin, but I'm one of the few people who really enjoy seeing David Warner in action, so I'm glad "The Man With Two Brains" is buried somewhere in my collection. Yeah, I guess I recommend it, but I wouldn't pay more than seven bucks.
In "The Man With Two Brains", Steve Martin is a brilliant ground-breaking neurosurgeon named Dr. Hfuhruhurr (pronounced just like it's spelled) who's developed a revolutionary screw-top method of cranial surgery. He gets a chance to show off this technique when the good doctor, in the middle of an interview, is involved in a hit-and-run with a beautiful young woman. Hfuhruhurr falls in love with the gold-digger (Kathleeen Turner, by the way), and the "love birds" head to Vienna, home fo the Elevator Killer, for a conference. While there, Hfuhruhurr begins to see through his wife's veil of deceipt (sniffle), but finds new love with a disembodied brain in the lab of the enigmatic Dr. Alfred Necessiter (David Warner).
Video: For a disc in Warner's lowest price tier of an '83 release, "The Man With Too Brains", despite (shudders!) a full-frame presentation, is nice and sharp, and if not for the copyright notice on the packaging, I would've guessed the film was more recent by several years. The vibrant colors and Quirky Lighting© make "The Man With Two Brains" a visual feast ("visual feast"; feel free to send me mocking e-mails for using that phrase), and both are exceptionally well-represented on the disc. Yeah. Dust and specks are present but not too distracting, and there are a couple of print blemishes (including a biggie around 00:09:44). Sure, a widescreen release would've been preferable, but I'll take what I can get...
Audio: Like its Laserdisc counterpart, the only audio selection here is a strictly-average DD mono track. There's very little distortion, although I did notice a bit when Dr. Hfuhruhurr and the reporter are in the car early on. That was probably there even in the theatrical version, so...it's pretty insignificant. There's not really much else to say about this...
Supplements: Nothing. Not even a trailer or themed menus.
Conclusion: Don't be fooled by the tagline on the box -- this isn't Steve Martin's best movie, but it is worth pulling out of the bargain bin. I can't say that I feel a ravenous need to buy anything starrng Steve Martin, but I'm one of the few people who really enjoy seeing David Warner in action, so I'm glad "The Man With Two Brains" is buried somewhere in my collection. Yeah, I guess I recommend it, but I wouldn't pay more than seven bucks.
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