I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009/Fox Blu-ray)
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: C- Film: C-
Four years after his awful feature film version of the
musical Rent, Director Chris
Columbus returns for the not-so-impressive teen comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper. It
is a film we have seen a thousand times before with Columbus playing it safe and adapts a book
that must not have been so hot either.
It is about a pair of isolated “geek” friends (Paul Rust and Jack T.
Carpenter) who get involved with a group of very sexy women because the former
is highly interesting in the title character, played by Hayden Panettiere.
Unfortunately, this has every cliché you could imagine and
makes Columbus
seem like he is stuck in the 1980s. The
film has some energy and the actors are not bad, but there is no chemistry, you
never believe on moment of this and after films like Superbad, it seems like it was made a few years ago and shelved
until it could be released. Some of the
actors may gain from working in this, but Columbus
has been in big trouble since he left the Harry Potter series and at this rate,
he may never recover.
The 1080p 1.85 X 1 AVC @ 33 MBPS digital High Definition
image was shot in 35mm film by Director of Photography Phil Abraham and has
that flat 1980s look with a little updating, making one suspect Columbus was
trying to revive that kind of film, but the 1980s are over and you can see
actual similar films in home video anytime.
Detail is an issue and colors can look phony. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix
is dialogue and joke based, so surrounds are usually devoted to a few action
sequences, slapstick sequences and the Christophe Beck in his adequate
commercial composer mode. Extras include
“Outrageous” Alternate Ending, Deleted Scenes and “more laughs with the cast”
that apparently did not fit the film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
