Gavin & Stacey – The Complete Collection (2007 – 2010/BBC DVD Set)/Griff The Invisible (2010/Indomina/Vivendi Blu-ray)/Hollywood Party (1934/MGM/Warner
Archive DVD)/Submarine (2010/Anchor
Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: C/C+/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/C+/B- Extras: C+/C/C+/C Episodes/Films: C+/C/B-/C
PLEASE NOTE: Hollywood Party is only available from Warner
Bros. in their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now for
some British comedy, including some that was apparent in an underrated Hollywood gem.
Though
the BBC seems to have had higher expectations for the show to run longer,
especially on some of the hype and good reviews, we get Gavin & Stacey – The Complete Collection only after three
seasons, which means it ended sooner than they thought. Here is my coverage of the Season One:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8583/Gavin+&+Stacey+%E2%80%93+Seaso
Sad to
say the show remained pretty much in the same mode, but quit while it was ahead
(give or take the ratings) and they even managed to make a Christmas Special. If you
really like the initial episodes, you might like this set, but otherwise is not
a great show and not as funny as it always thought it was. Extras are still not bad and include audio
commentaries on episodes from the first two seasons, Outtakes for all three, Behind The Scenes on all three, James
& Ruth on Friday Night with
Johnathan Ross on the Season Two
set and cast Favorite Memories on Season
Three.
Leon
Ford’s Griff The Invisible (2010) is
a British comedy about the title character (Ryan Kwanten) being bullied at work
by an older guy who is using and intimidating him. Griff puts up with the bullying, though oddly
never reports it as harassment (the film is more interested in its idea of
comedy than realism) and then wants to be a serio-comic entry into the
Superhero genre when he finds out he just might be able to render himself
invisible. Unfortunately, this is all
over the place, corny, clichéd, formulaic and never seems to understand what it
is doing. Attempts to be a feel-good
work also backfire and it doesn’t even know how to conclude. A shame since it had potential. Extras include Deleted Scenes that might have
helped, Making Of featurette, Music Video, feature length audio commentary
track and Exclusive QR Code for more extras.
Though it
is a fun series of skits tied together by a larger narrative, Hollywood Party (1934) has eight
directors (some uncredited and including Sam Wood, Alan Dawn and George Stevens
no less) even more writers and even more stars.
The mostly black and white work has a main story with Jimmy Durante, but
also has great appearances by Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, Mickey
Mouse, Jack Pearl, Lupe Velez, many more big names then & later and even
James Wong Howe as its Director of Photography.
MGM went all out to make this fun and it is very entertaining. Made before the infamous Hollywood Production
Code totally kicked in, it is more fun than you might expect, but the names
(including having the original Stooges here) should give you an idea of how
good this is.
The
topper is an animated sequence. It
begins with a live-action/animation mix as Mickey Mouse shows up to have fun with
Durante, then he starts to play piano and the image goes full color
(three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor to be precise) as we get an amazing
musical number called The Hot Choc’ Late
Soldiers that is as incredible as it is dark and ironic, making it some of
the darkest animation Disney ever turned out.
That alone is worth seeing this film, but it is a great time capsule of
some of the greatest talent all of Hollywood had at the time and all before
they peaked, so this one gem worth going out of your way for.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer and a nice chunk of Pre-recordings and
Outtake performances for the various songs in the film, including by other
singers and even some of the creators easily making this one of the most loaded
Warner Archive DVDs yet.
Finally
we have actor Richard Ayoade’s Submarine
(2010). The actor best known for playing
Moss on the extremely underrated hit British TV show The IT Crowd (reviewed elsewhere on this site) has directed many TV
and music programs, but this is his first feature film. Here we get another Brit loner, this time
named Lloyd (Noah Taylor) who has to also tolerate bullying, dysfunctional
parents, has plenty of personal issues, odd behavior and a potential girlfriend
if his life does not get worse. I
thought this started off much better than Griff, but unfortunately Ayoade and
his screenplay (based on the Joe Dunthorne book) is all over the place and
starts running into trouble as soon as it chops up its narrative too much,
making it unrealistic when it seems to be trying for surrealism. The rest of the cast is not bad, but I was
disappointed and I hope Ben Stiller did not somehow sabotage this. Extras include a Making Of featurette and
Deleted Scenes that are not bad.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 in Gavin
remains as motion-blur prone as its first season, while the Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo remains as basic. The 1080p 1.85
X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the Blu-rays are not as good as
I had hoped with Griff a grainer presentation
than expected despite being a 16mm shoot, while Submarine was a 35mm film shoot and should have looked better, but
is the best of the four presentations on the list. The 1.33 X 1 image on Party has some image
limits due to both the age of the film and the fact that this is a DVD-R, but
it is nicely shot as all glamorous MGM films were and having Howe as the lead
cameraman is a big plus, but the Disney dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor sequence
is so good, it challenges the Blu-ray here and has been nicely restored,
outshining the rest of the monochrome on the DVD.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on both Blu-rays are dialogue and
sometimes joke-based, but Griff tends to be a bit weaker than Submarine, even
including the use of music in the surrounds.
Both have sound too much towards the center speakers, but they can both
have some good moments of sonic clarity.
That leaves the Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono on Party which sounds as good as
it is going to for its age in this lossy format, so we’ll have to wait for
Blu-ray and lossless sound for better performance.
To order Hollywood Party, go to this link:
http://bit.ly/WAC_PARTY
-
Nicholas Sheffo
