The Bouquet (2012/Gaiam Vivendi DVD)/Nobody
Walks (2012/Magnolia Blu-ray)/Who
Did I Marry? (2012/E1 DVD)
Picture: C/B-/C+ Sound: C/B-/C+ Extras: D/C/C- Main Programs: D/C/C
Nothing
like watching romance and love highly oversimplified, but these releases do
that, though at least one tried to be more ambitious.
Anne
Wheeler’s cable TV movie The Bouquet
(2012) is not the one, here featuring a bored-looking Kristy Swanson as a
business woman whose parents have a flower business, but when her father passes
away, it turns out things were not going so well and it is in great trouble
now. Their priest (Danny Glover) tries
to help, knowing the situation, but she is not getting along with her sister
and will have to mend fences to save the business.
Unfortunately,
nothing can save the extremely corny, silly script that also throws in a
romance for our businesswoman and this was a very long and tired 90 minutes to
sit through. Some might even hope
vampires or Mel Gibson would show up to spice things up, but no such luck. Forgettable and nearly embarrassing, the disc
even includes a Making Of featurette,
but it adds nothing and you have seen this all before.
Ry Russo-Young fares a little better with Nobody Walks (2012) about a young woman
(Olivia Thirlby) who stays at the home of a married man (John Krasinski) who is
helping her add sound to her black and white short film. She becomes involved with the pool boy (Rhys
Wakefield) to some extent, but things get worse when she gets involved with the
husband. However, this is not some
formulaic melodrama, but more of a mumblecore film that wants to be leisurely
as it goes along.
The
problem is that time that could have been spent on more character development
(the actors are well cast and can act) is not used well and that flattens out
what could have been a good film, including a few subplots that were not bad
ideas. It is at least interesting at
times and none of the main characters are unlikable, but this does not add up
to anything memorable or that we have not seen before, resulting in a
potentially good film that disappoints.
Extras
include BD Live interactive features, a Deleted Scene, Original Theatrical
Trailer, AXS TV look at the film and separate on camera interviews with Thirlby
and Russo-Young worth seeing after seeing the film.
Finally
we have Curtis Von Burrell’s Who Did I
Marry? (2012), part of yet another cycle of African American
Christian-based melodramas inspired by the Tyler Perry juggernaut, but I think
New Kingdom Pictures does this formula more seriously and smoothly, yet the
results are sadly the same, predictable, knock-off results. Still, if the makers can get past this, they
could be the first unit to rival Perry’s.
We’ll see, but trying a more original title would be a good start.
Outtakes
are the only extras.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Walks is easily the best looking of the three releases here, not
only because it is in a higher format, but because it has a consistent look,
while the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the
DVDs are softer, have color limits, detail issues and more than their share of
motion blur. Bouquet however is even poorer with more softness throughout, which
should not be the case, but we guess they are using older HD cameras.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Walks is easily the best sounding of the releases here, dialogue
based like all three of them, but comparatively warmer, smoother and the best
recorded of the three, though having the sound towards the front speakers then
using sweetened sound effects for the post-production audio on the short film
within this film is awkward. The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVDs are poorer to begin with, but Bouquet tends to shift between
practical monophonic sound in the center speaker and simple stereo echoed in
the front speakers. Very lame.
- Nicholas Sheffo
