6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A newlywed couple cancels their honeymoon and returns to the snowy Midwest to make the funeral arrangements for their best man, who died unexpectedly after their ceremony.
Starring: Justin Long, Jess Weixler, Tyler Labine, Addison Timlin, Frances O'Connor (II)Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Classical drama was divided into comedies and tragedies, which were strictly differentiated. Tragedies ended in death, comedies in marriage. Writer-director Ted Koland's debut feature, Best Man Down, reverses the tradition and combines the forms by opening with both a marriage and a death, as a carefully planned "destination wedding" is clouded by the sudden demise of the best man. On balance the film is a comedy, but it's meant for viewers with a dark sense of humor and, at the very least, an irreverence toward convention. Koland was inspired to write the script after hearing a tale, possibly apocryphal, about a wedding where a death occurred, although that it was a guest who died, rather than a member of the wedding party. What caught Koland's attention was how the dear departed would forever be defined by those circumstances:
Surely there's more to all of us than one moment, good or bad. People are so easily categorized as "the girl who ______" or "that guy who got caught ______." . . . Public labeling used to be limited to politicians and celebrities. But in a modern world of texting, Facebook and Twitter, we're all subject to instant and permanent branding. And we rarely get to choose what that moment is.So Koland wrote a story in which the newlyweds end up discovering that they know much less about their best man than they thought. Revealing the unknown is the essence of storytelling, while discomfiture, which always accompanies the shock of sudden death, is the essence of comedy. The biggest challenge of Best Man Down was finding and maintaining the proper tone so that the humor arose naturally from the strangeness of the situation and not from any attempt to crack jokes. On that score, Koland was aided immeasurably by the wintry landscapes of his native Minnesota and by a supporting cast largely recruited from the thriving Minneapolis theater community that brought authenticity to the film along with their talent and experience.
Shot with the Arri Alexa by cinematographer Seamus Tierney (Liberal Arts and Happythankyoumoreplease), Best Man Down once again demonstrates Tierney's skill at using digital capture to generate a smooth and film-like appearance that avoids any signs of digital harshness. The image on Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is consistently sharp and clear, with finely rendered detail in both of the film's contrasting locales, the warm Phoenix desert and the snowy Minnesota landscapes. (The wedding scenes themselves were shot at a hotel in St. Paul, since one hotel ballroom looks like any other.) The blacks of the Arizona night where Lumpy spends his final moments are appropriately rendered, as are the whites of the snow banks and frozen lakes where we see him in flashback. The full spectrum of colors in between is accurately reproduced and appropriately saturated to recreate the Christmas season decor in Minneapolis, which makes the relative dullness in Lutsen all the more striking. As with the simultaneously released Bad Milo!, Magnolia has opted for a BD-25, but with limited extras, the 90-minute film has been compressed at an average bitrate of 22.01 Mbps. While nothing remarkable, this is adequate for a digitally acquired image.
The liveliest moments in Best Man Down's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track are the opening wedding sequence and a few scenes in flashback involving ice-fishing. The rest of the film is accompanied by a subtly atmospheric mix stressing dialogue and providing environmental ambiance with the surrounds. The score by Mateo Messina (Juno) strikes just the right balance between the serious and the comedic.
Best Man Down isn't for everyone. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to someone who had just suffered the loss of someone close to them. But death is a fact of life, and one of the themes of Best Man Down is how the sudden loss of someone you know can bring unexpected clarity to situations that seem insoluble and fresh perspective where it's most needed. The disc is somewhat light on extras, especially given Magnolia's usual generosity, but the technical presentation is excellent. Recommended.
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