EdTV review...
08-10-99 | 12:18 PM
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Here's a posting of my review of EdTV, it's also over at Home Theater Forum
When I first went to the theatres and viewed EdTV, I was rather surprised. I had heard how it was a 'Truman Show Light', but really the premises are quite different. Even conceding that fact, the 'light' tag does stick. This is a mildly entertaining film that you forget five seconds after you see it. I won't sit here and slam it mercilessly. I DID buy it.
The Supplements
There are a plethora of well-done supplements by Universal on this disc. Due to the fact that they came out so close together, it is hard not to compare EdTV's supplements to the excellent Mallrats supplements. First of all, the series of menus in the EdTV SE are BLAND. Again, I was pretty surprised. They were Disney bland. The thirty-minute documentary (produced by JM Kenney, who put together the superior Mallrats documentary on that disc) was all in all well done, with interview clips from all the principals. Some info was quite interesting-the video guys cast in the film were real camerapeople, who shot almost all of the video footage! In other distracting news, the "Buckwheat hairdo" award has to go out to Brian Grazer. His hair is so bad that all one can do is stare at it. You don't hear a word he's saying.
The deleted scenes section is very comprehensive, containing close to an hour (or maybe it just felt like an hour) of deleted scenes. To fit this much material on the disc, compromises were made. The bit-rate is staggeringly low in this section, with big blotchy artifacts, especially in the non-film-transferred video footage (which is shown 1.33). Still, being a student of film, I love to see deleted scenes, because they can show the evolution of a story from script to final product. There are scene extensions, abandoned sub-plots, and standalone scenes galore. One VERY annoying aspect of this section is the utter LACK of chapter stops. Get ready to put that scan button to good use.
Also a nice feature, there is about a ten minute outtake reel, more or less featuring Woody Harrelson. It's well done, and quite entertaining.
There are also TWO commentary tracks. One is with director Opie Cunningham, and the others are with writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. If you are fans of any of the above, you'll probably enjoy what they have to say. I'm not, so I'll move on. One additional note to Universal…MAKE IT SO YOU CAN SWITCH BETWEEN AUDIO TRACKS ON THE FLY. It's very annoying to have to go back to the main menu
to select another audio track (that was my big pet peeve in the Mallrats SE too).
There are two music videos included, by bands Bon Jovi as well as The Barenaked Ladies. They are typical MTVesque drivel, and after being subjected to Bon Jovi, I got rather cranky and moved on.
One very NICE feature that I enjoyed was the "Univeral Showcase", which consisted of the complete theatrical trailers for "Bowfinger" and "Mystery Men". Nice touch, Universal. The rest of the disc included the standard film notes, cast and filmmaker's section, and theatrical trailer.
So, should you buy this? Well, if you're a fan of Opie Cunningham's work, this is a no-brainer. It's a light, somewhat entertaining film. I'll probably watch it a couple of more times, so I'm not really complaining. BTW, I purposely left out the cursory Video and Audio section of this review, because all they typically consist of is "the film had deep blacks" and "there was no visible artifacting" and the like. I will say this-EdTV's transfer is on par with good Univeral releases. I'll leave it at that.
When I first went to the theatres and viewed EdTV, I was rather surprised. I had heard how it was a 'Truman Show Light', but really the premises are quite different. Even conceding that fact, the 'light' tag does stick. This is a mildly entertaining film that you forget five seconds after you see it. I won't sit here and slam it mercilessly. I DID buy it.
The Supplements
There are a plethora of well-done supplements by Universal on this disc. Due to the fact that they came out so close together, it is hard not to compare EdTV's supplements to the excellent Mallrats supplements. First of all, the series of menus in the EdTV SE are BLAND. Again, I was pretty surprised. They were Disney bland. The thirty-minute documentary (produced by JM Kenney, who put together the superior Mallrats documentary on that disc) was all in all well done, with interview clips from all the principals. Some info was quite interesting-the video guys cast in the film were real camerapeople, who shot almost all of the video footage! In other distracting news, the "Buckwheat hairdo" award has to go out to Brian Grazer. His hair is so bad that all one can do is stare at it. You don't hear a word he's saying.
The deleted scenes section is very comprehensive, containing close to an hour (or maybe it just felt like an hour) of deleted scenes. To fit this much material on the disc, compromises were made. The bit-rate is staggeringly low in this section, with big blotchy artifacts, especially in the non-film-transferred video footage (which is shown 1.33). Still, being a student of film, I love to see deleted scenes, because they can show the evolution of a story from script to final product. There are scene extensions, abandoned sub-plots, and standalone scenes galore. One VERY annoying aspect of this section is the utter LACK of chapter stops. Get ready to put that scan button to good use.
Also a nice feature, there is about a ten minute outtake reel, more or less featuring Woody Harrelson. It's well done, and quite entertaining.
There are also TWO commentary tracks. One is with director Opie Cunningham, and the others are with writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. If you are fans of any of the above, you'll probably enjoy what they have to say. I'm not, so I'll move on. One additional note to Universal…MAKE IT SO YOU CAN SWITCH BETWEEN AUDIO TRACKS ON THE FLY. It's very annoying to have to go back to the main menu
to select another audio track (that was my big pet peeve in the Mallrats SE too).
There are two music videos included, by bands Bon Jovi as well as The Barenaked Ladies. They are typical MTVesque drivel, and after being subjected to Bon Jovi, I got rather cranky and moved on.
One very NICE feature that I enjoyed was the "Univeral Showcase", which consisted of the complete theatrical trailers for "Bowfinger" and "Mystery Men". Nice touch, Universal. The rest of the disc included the standard film notes, cast and filmmaker's section, and theatrical trailer.
So, should you buy this? Well, if you're a fan of Opie Cunningham's work, this is a no-brainer. It's a light, somewhat entertaining film. I'll probably watch it a couple of more times, so I'm not really complaining. BTW, I purposely left out the cursory Video and Audio section of this review, because all they typically consist of is "the film had deep blacks" and "there was no visible artifacting" and the like. I will say this-EdTV's transfer is on par with good Univeral releases. I'll leave it at that.
