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Love Stinks
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
In Short: Worth a rental just for the commentary.
The Movie:
"Love Stinks" is one of those movies where it's awful, but still oddly watchable. The film is the debut of director Jeff Franklin, who also directed TV's "Full House". The film has the feel of a "sitcom" as well; the humor, the acting, even the direction and cinematography scream "sitcom". When all else fails, the movie even has a fart joke.
"3rd Rock From The Sun"'s French Stewart stars as Seth Winick, a successful TV sitcom writer who meets a new woman at the wedding of his best friend(Bill Bellamy). The woman is Chelsea Turner(Bridgette Wilson), and the two share a spark, and soon enough start dating. Everything seems to be going fine until Chelsea pops the question. When Seth won't respond, Chelsea turns rather evil, leaving Seth with no choice but to fight back. It's certainly a war between the two characters, but the problem is that there's no edge to it. It's certainly no "War Of The Roses", that's for sure. It's only Stewart's performance that partially redeems the movie - for the exact reason that he seems to be the only actor involved who knows how to do comedy right. His delivery during some of the fights with Chelsea is nothing short of perfect, and good for some of the movie's few laughs. His work on "3rd Rock From The Sun" is hilarious, and he deserves a stronger role than this.
It's usually not good when one of the time I laugh hardest is during an error in the film. During one scene (and this is also pointed out in the commentary), a member of the crew is hiding below a counter in a kitchen set. Midway through the scene, he starts to get up and is easily seen, and then sits back down. According to the commentary, they couldn't afford to go back and fix the scene.
Occasionally, "Love Stinks" throws out a funny line or situation, but overall, I couldn't help feeling like I was watching a weak sitcom. There have certainly been episodes of "3rd Rock From The Sun" that contain more laughs.
The DVD
VIDEO:
Not Tristar's best effort, although the inconsistent nature of the film's look might be due to the production itself rather than the transfer. Some shots seem slightly soft and don't show strong detail, and others are adequately sharp and show good detail. Overall though, the entire movie has a very "flat" feel to it that only adds to the feeling that it was shot like a sitcom. The movie isn't terribly colorful, but what colors are on display look natural and have no problems. Flesh tones are generally natural.
There are some slight problems that subtract from the image as well - there are some minor instances of shimmering and a few instances of slight traces of pixelation. There are also a handful of slight scratches on the print used, but nothing terribly distracting. It's not a very visually creative movie, and the image quality does what it can. "Love Stinks" is anamorphic and letterboxed at 1.85:1
SOUND: Yikes. Only 2.0, not 5.1. I'm not sure what kind of sound the film contained when it was released for a 2 week run in theaters, but the sound on this DVD is pretty dissapointing. The score slightly lacks clarity and is consistently weak. Dialogue, which is pretty much the focus of a movie like this, sounds unnatural and thin.
MENUS:: Very basic non-animated menus that are taken from the cover art.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: Where the movie wasn't terribly funny, the commentary is hilarious. Director Jeff Franklin, actor French Stewart and actress Bridgette Wilson have a fun time goofing on the movie and talking about the production. Stewart is the funniest thing in the movie and he manages some of the best comments in this discussion as well. Some of the main sentences to be found are; "we didn't have enough money to do that...", "we didn't have enough time to do that...", "we knew some guy so we got that set for free".
The three talk throughout the entire movie and are frequently hilarious, sometimes heading off into other topics before coming back to the movie. You're not going to learn anything about the process of filmmaking during the discussion(although I don't think the filmmakers learned much about filmmaking during the movie), but you will certainly laugh. Possibly more than you did with the movie. Most of the commentary talks about stories that happened on set, or errors in the film such as missed insert shots or characters not knowing quite where to look in the scene. Or how the neighbors quickly began to hate the production while they filmed at 3am most nights. Or the performance of the cat. During the credits when the discussion turns to the film's box office performance, Stewart says, "the money doesn't matter...at this point."
It's a very funny commentary, and the three don't take the film too seriously. I didn't learn anything about filmmaking, but I certainly laughed more than I did while watching the movie. If you rent this, you don't even need to see the movie. Just go right to the commentary.
Final Thoughts The commentary is the best thing about the DVD.
The Movie:
"Love Stinks" is one of those movies where it's awful, but still oddly watchable. The film is the debut of director Jeff Franklin, who also directed TV's "Full House". The film has the feel of a "sitcom" as well; the humor, the acting, even the direction and cinematography scream "sitcom". When all else fails, the movie even has a fart joke.
"3rd Rock From The Sun"'s French Stewart stars as Seth Winick, a successful TV sitcom writer who meets a new woman at the wedding of his best friend(Bill Bellamy). The woman is Chelsea Turner(Bridgette Wilson), and the two share a spark, and soon enough start dating. Everything seems to be going fine until Chelsea pops the question. When Seth won't respond, Chelsea turns rather evil, leaving Seth with no choice but to fight back. It's certainly a war between the two characters, but the problem is that there's no edge to it. It's certainly no "War Of The Roses", that's for sure. It's only Stewart's performance that partially redeems the movie - for the exact reason that he seems to be the only actor involved who knows how to do comedy right. His delivery during some of the fights with Chelsea is nothing short of perfect, and good for some of the movie's few laughs. His work on "3rd Rock From The Sun" is hilarious, and he deserves a stronger role than this.
It's usually not good when one of the time I laugh hardest is during an error in the film. During one scene (and this is also pointed out in the commentary), a member of the crew is hiding below a counter in a kitchen set. Midway through the scene, he starts to get up and is easily seen, and then sits back down. According to the commentary, they couldn't afford to go back and fix the scene.
Occasionally, "Love Stinks" throws out a funny line or situation, but overall, I couldn't help feeling like I was watching a weak sitcom. There have certainly been episodes of "3rd Rock From The Sun" that contain more laughs.
The DVD
VIDEO:
Not Tristar's best effort, although the inconsistent nature of the film's look might be due to the production itself rather than the transfer. Some shots seem slightly soft and don't show strong detail, and others are adequately sharp and show good detail. Overall though, the entire movie has a very "flat" feel to it that only adds to the feeling that it was shot like a sitcom. The movie isn't terribly colorful, but what colors are on display look natural and have no problems. Flesh tones are generally natural.
There are some slight problems that subtract from the image as well - there are some minor instances of shimmering and a few instances of slight traces of pixelation. There are also a handful of slight scratches on the print used, but nothing terribly distracting. It's not a very visually creative movie, and the image quality does what it can. "Love Stinks" is anamorphic and letterboxed at 1.85:1
SOUND: Yikes. Only 2.0, not 5.1. I'm not sure what kind of sound the film contained when it was released for a 2 week run in theaters, but the sound on this DVD is pretty dissapointing. The score slightly lacks clarity and is consistently weak. Dialogue, which is pretty much the focus of a movie like this, sounds unnatural and thin.
MENUS:: Very basic non-animated menus that are taken from the cover art.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: Where the movie wasn't terribly funny, the commentary is hilarious. Director Jeff Franklin, actor French Stewart and actress Bridgette Wilson have a fun time goofing on the movie and talking about the production. Stewart is the funniest thing in the movie and he manages some of the best comments in this discussion as well. Some of the main sentences to be found are; "we didn't have enough money to do that...", "we didn't have enough time to do that...", "we knew some guy so we got that set for free".
The three talk throughout the entire movie and are frequently hilarious, sometimes heading off into other topics before coming back to the movie. You're not going to learn anything about the process of filmmaking during the discussion(although I don't think the filmmakers learned much about filmmaking during the movie), but you will certainly laugh. Possibly more than you did with the movie. Most of the commentary talks about stories that happened on set, or errors in the film such as missed insert shots or characters not knowing quite where to look in the scene. Or how the neighbors quickly began to hate the production while they filmed at 3am most nights. Or the performance of the cat. During the credits when the discussion turns to the film's box office performance, Stewart says, "the money doesn't matter...at this point."
It's a very funny commentary, and the three don't take the film too seriously. I didn't learn anything about filmmaking, but I certainly laughed more than I did while watching the movie. If you rent this, you don't even need to see the movie. Just go right to the commentary.
Final Thoughts The commentary is the best thing about the DVD.
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