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Suburbans, The
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
"The Suburbans" was an interesting picture - it certainly has no shortage of starpower, but it sat on the shelf for a long time before getting a theatrical run that, at least around here, played for 1 week in 1 theater. The debut of "Suburbans" actor/director Donal Lardner Ward was the tiny indie feature "My Life's In Turnaround" about 2 slackers who want to put together a movie, was at least moderately funny. Not only is "The Suburbans" not funny, it's almost painful to watch.
"The Suburbans" is the poorly named band that's the subject of the movie - an 80's one-hit-wonder band whose members find themselves wanting to get back together when an exec(Jennifer Love Hewitt) think it's a good idea (for silly reasons I won't reveal) to get "The Suburbans" to reunite. Hewitt doesn't do much but parade around in revealing outfits(Well, I'm not complaining about that). While it starts off seeming as if it's going to be a music biz satire, there's also a lot of flat relationship material thrown into the mix, most notably between Ward and Amy Brenneman's characters. Brenneman is a fine actress, and deserving of better roles.
It's not without a few moments, though: Ben Stiller and dad Jerry Stiller pop up as record execs, and their few minutes of screen time is definitely a bright spot. Other than that though, the performances are fair at best, especially Ward, Craig Bierko and "Saturday Night Live"'s Will Ferrell(although Ferrell does provide a funny moment in an interview with MTV's Kurt Loder where he ends the interview in tears, saying "Shut up, Kurt Loder.") Hewitt is...well, Hewitt. She's energetic, but it's not a terribly interesting performance.
Overall it's a pretty uneventful flick, with the already thin 87 minute running time feeling as if it's about 30 minutes longer than that. The Stillers provide a few funny minutes, but that's about it. I really can't even recommend it as a rental - unfortunately for Tristar, that's where they seem to see this picture going as it pretty much heads directly to video.
The DVD
VIDEO: There's nothing terribly special about the look of the movie, but Columbia/Tristar has provided an impressively strong anamorphic transfer of the film, letterboxed at 1.85:1. Images are pleasantly sharp, and colors are bright, natural and nicely saturated. Flesh tones are natural, and images remain bright and clear throughout. Problems are pretty much nonexistent - absolutely no instances of shimmering or pixelation. Aside from one or two little scratches, the print is crystal clear.
SOUND: While the music in the film is clear and sounds excellent, the majority of the film is simply a dialogue-driven comedy. Surrounds are used nicely on occasion, but there's nothing too agressive about the audio of "The Suburbans". Dialogue is fine, and easily understood.
MENUS:: Although the menus aren't animated, they're fine looking, with pictures of the group as the main menu, and easily navigated sub-menus made up of scenes from the movie.
EXTRAS: The trailers for "The Suburbans", "Can't Hardly Wait" and both of Hewitt's "I Know What You Did Last..." movies.
"The Suburbans" was an interesting picture - it certainly has no shortage of starpower, but it sat on the shelf for a long time before getting a theatrical run that, at least around here, played for 1 week in 1 theater. The debut of "Suburbans" actor/director Donal Lardner Ward was the tiny indie feature "My Life's In Turnaround" about 2 slackers who want to put together a movie, was at least moderately funny. Not only is "The Suburbans" not funny, it's almost painful to watch.
"The Suburbans" is the poorly named band that's the subject of the movie - an 80's one-hit-wonder band whose members find themselves wanting to get back together when an exec(Jennifer Love Hewitt) think it's a good idea (for silly reasons I won't reveal) to get "The Suburbans" to reunite. Hewitt doesn't do much but parade around in revealing outfits(Well, I'm not complaining about that). While it starts off seeming as if it's going to be a music biz satire, there's also a lot of flat relationship material thrown into the mix, most notably between Ward and Amy Brenneman's characters. Brenneman is a fine actress, and deserving of better roles.
It's not without a few moments, though: Ben Stiller and dad Jerry Stiller pop up as record execs, and their few minutes of screen time is definitely a bright spot. Other than that though, the performances are fair at best, especially Ward, Craig Bierko and "Saturday Night Live"'s Will Ferrell(although Ferrell does provide a funny moment in an interview with MTV's Kurt Loder where he ends the interview in tears, saying "Shut up, Kurt Loder.") Hewitt is...well, Hewitt. She's energetic, but it's not a terribly interesting performance.
Overall it's a pretty uneventful flick, with the already thin 87 minute running time feeling as if it's about 30 minutes longer than that. The Stillers provide a few funny minutes, but that's about it. I really can't even recommend it as a rental - unfortunately for Tristar, that's where they seem to see this picture going as it pretty much heads directly to video.
The DVD
VIDEO: There's nothing terribly special about the look of the movie, but Columbia/Tristar has provided an impressively strong anamorphic transfer of the film, letterboxed at 1.85:1. Images are pleasantly sharp, and colors are bright, natural and nicely saturated. Flesh tones are natural, and images remain bright and clear throughout. Problems are pretty much nonexistent - absolutely no instances of shimmering or pixelation. Aside from one or two little scratches, the print is crystal clear.
SOUND: While the music in the film is clear and sounds excellent, the majority of the film is simply a dialogue-driven comedy. Surrounds are used nicely on occasion, but there's nothing too agressive about the audio of "The Suburbans". Dialogue is fine, and easily understood.
MENUS:: Although the menus aren't animated, they're fine looking, with pictures of the group as the main menu, and easily navigated sub-menus made up of scenes from the movie.
EXTRAS: The trailers for "The Suburbans", "Can't Hardly Wait" and both of Hewitt's "I Know What You Did Last..." movies.
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