About Last Night… (1986/Sony Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Film: C-

 

 

After much TV work, Edward Zwick made his hit feature film breakthrough, sort of, with his 1986 comedy About Last Night…  Bringing together Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins, the film has a story by no less than David Mamet from his play Sexual Perversity In Chicago, but Tim Kazurinsky (formerly of Saturday Night Live) and Denise DeClue makes it into a bad cartoon that was not good then and is surprisingly worse than I expected now.

 

Watching this, you would never expect he would go on to direct important films like Glory, Courage Under Fire and the underrated Last Samurai, but Zwick is one of those directors who has as many good films as duds.  That one of the duds was a moderate hit will always be amusing to me.  Moore seems bored, Belushi overdoes his role in every scene, Perkins is not given enough to do and Lowe is just coasting here.  Like so many plays to film, it still feels like a play, no matter how many outdoor shots we get.  This is nostalgia at best (and least?) and is only for the most curious.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is very soft and poor throughout, looking like a very early HD master, giving the better-looking 1980s films a bad name.  The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 is even weaker, barley getting anything out of the old analog Dolby A-type sound mix and sounding a few generations down.  This is true in all languages.  Extras include BD Live functions, a Zwick/Lowe In Conversation piece and vintage promo featurette.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo