5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Comedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
On some transcontinental flight whose flightplan I’ve thankfully largely blocked out of my mind, I gave in to the exorbitant cost of those so-called headphones the lovely flight attendants proffer to the passengers and opted to watch the in flight “entertainment”, a film that was ostensibly a comedy but which failed to provoke even one laugh from me, Anger Management. I don’t think my lack of laughter had anything to do with me, for one of my strongest memories of that flight was boisterously laughing at a little Conan O’Brien short that also played, one of his silly News From the Future routines where he prognosticates with a flashlight aimed up at his face like he’s telling a campfire ghost story. Conan uttered a line I literally will never forget and which caused me to laugh so hard that other passengers were looking at me like I was slightly detached from reality: “In the future robots will replace humans in dull, repetitive tasks like washing dishes and marrying J. Lo.” So the moral of this story is I do have a sense of humor, and a rather good one at that, if I do say so myself (I should add that this is an opinion shared by several relatively objective outsiders, including my wife who performs regularly as a standup comedian). But much like my experience with the feature film version of Anger Management, barely a smile crossed my lips, and then only fitfully, at what is surely one of the saddest, most stale sitcoms to ever be cobbled together after a major meltdown of a once promising star. Part exploitation, part rote cliché mining, the television version of Anger Management was born of the ashes of Charlie Sheen’s spectacular flameout with Two and a Half Men, a flameout which was such tabloid fodder that it virtually guaranteed a “train wreck” audience for any new project Sheen decided to pursue. That audience did indeed show up in droves for the premiere of Anger Management, but then quickly dwindled, although ratings have been high enough (barely, according to several trades) to guarantee the so-called “back 90”, an episode order that will assure that this smarmy little exercise in self-concious “humor” will be playing in syndication long after it’s shuffled off the basic cable coil.
Anger Management: Season One is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a pretty standard looking high definition presentation, one that really fails to ever pop magnificently but which reproduces the small scale "charms" of the series to a relatively decent degree. Colors are decent and accurate looking (though as noted above Sheen is often pretty pallid looking). The show rarely opts for extreme close-ups and so fine detail is always at the more or less middling level. Despite this being a progressive presentation there are several quasi-combing artifacts that crop up when characters gesticulate madly (which they're wont to do rather regularly). The image is decently clear and generally well defined within the midrange environment that the camera setups allow, though the overall look of the show is really rather surprisingly soft for a 2012 outing.
Anger Management: Season One features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that may seem like more than a bit of overkill for such a sonically unambitious show, something that is only exacerbated by the ubiquitously "sweetened" laugh track, which is not just patently artificial but which becomes one of the few consistent effects (yes, effects) that spills into the side and rear channels. Some of the running gags, like angry driver Lacey's (Noureen DeWulf) journeys out onto the harried freeways of Los Angeles do at least partially open up the soundfield from its typically constrained ambience during the bulk of the show. Fidelity is fine, if nothing exceptional.
There are still between one and two million people checking out Anger Management on cable, but the numbers seem to be in a downward spiral already. For any fans who have grown fond of the show, this Blu-ray set will probably be a decent enough purchase. But the rest of us may be asking ourselves, if this is "winning", what does losing look like?
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Enlarged Edition w/ Extended Cut
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Ex-tended Edition
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