Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Biloxi Blues Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson September 21, 2019

Biloxi Blues is the middle entry in Neil Simon's trilogy about the odyssey of his boyhood alter-ego, Eugene Morris Jerome. It won the Tony Award for Best Play of 1985, among several other prizes. This was the fourth time that director Mike Nichols worked with Simon and the first for a big-screen adaptation. Biloxi Blues picks up some time after the events of Brighton Beach Memoirs with Eugene (Matthew Broderick, reprising his role from the stage play) on a train headed for Army Basic Training in Biloxi, Mississippi. Eugene is befriended by a fellow Jew, Arnold Epstein (Corey Parker), who is very erudite and acts as Eugene's conscience. The two friends are teased and taunted by two bigger and brawnier recruits, Joseph Wykowski (Matt Mulhern) and Roy Selridge (Markus Flanagan). But even the tough guys can't prepare themselves for the rude awakening they're all in for at army barracks. Sgt. Toomey (Christopher Walken) is one cold and harsh drill instructor. He isn't as boisterous as Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) but the privates better obey his orders quickly or they'll have to give him 100 pushups or clean the latrines. In his downtime, Eugene hangs out with his comrades in the barracks and plays a fantasy game of what one desires if he only has one more week to live. Eugene also works on his formative goals of finding the perfect girl, losing his virginity, surviving boot camp, and becoming a writer.

Simon adapted his own play into a script and there exist several differences between the stage production and the movie. As Simon told Marylynn Uricchio of the Pittsburgh Post-​Gazette, the play runs two hours and forty-five minutes, an hour longer than the film. Simon made a number of trimmings, including reducing the role of Eugene's first love interest, Daisy (Penelope Ann Miller). Simon condenses a few of their scenes into more of montage. I thought Park Overall, who plays the prostitute Rowena in a bordello that Eugene visits, is even better than Miller, owing to the fact that Daisy's strict Catholic upbringing represses some of her feelings and emotions. Rowena is sassy and street smart with an underlying sweetness that appeals to Eugene. (The play has one additional scene featuring her character.) Another important difference is that Eugene frequently addresses the theatre audience in semi-long monologues whereas in the film he just delivers the voice-overs. The play has a lot more talking which Simon has cut down. Refreshingly, the film feels like an Old Hollywood picture with Nichols staging several long takes of the Army privates in conversation. There are infrequent short shots or abrupt cutaways.

Biloxi Blues is ultimately about Eugene's rite of passage into a young man with an ironical theme. The film is practically oxymoronic in depicting Army base camp life as Hell and Eugene's later admission that he misses Sgt. Toomey and his time with his "brothers," who are quite obnoxious. I'm reminded of a verse in Ecclesiastes 11:9: "Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes."

Biloxi Blues Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nichols's tenth feature as a director makes its Blu-ray debut worldwide on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 courtesy of Shout Select (#89 in the sublabel's catalog). Biloxi Blues appears in 2.35:1, which approximates the screen ratio of its theatrical exhibition. The opening aerial shots of the train have some specks of dust and dirt but those seem to have caught the lens on the Panaflex and are not the fault of Shout. There is minimal debris in the frame throughout the presentation. There are some density fluctuations beginning in the first lineup scene that the Army recruits meet Sgt. Toomey. You'll notice in Screenshots 12 and 13 that the image looks clearer and sharper than in #14 where thick grain is introduced. This may have something to do with the sunlight coming in but the granularity is markedly different. Additionally, coarse grain is prominent when the privates eat in the cafeteria and chat in the barracks (frame grabs # 1 and 9). The transfer looks fairly soft but its palette is predominated by beige, tan, and off-white hues. Green and blue are positively accented. Shimmering that's present on the non-anamorphic European DVDs is gone here. Shout has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 36000 kbps.

The 106-minute feature is accompanied by twelve scene selections.

Biloxi Blues Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies the original Dolby Digital Stereo here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1669 kbps, 24-bit). The track is consistent and well-balanced. There really aren't any sound effects which drastically affect the pitch levels. Dialogue is clean and audible, although I preferred having the volume up on my Onkyo since it was a little hard to discern all the slang. There are ten period songs (including two that bookend the main titles and end credits, which sound the best). Georges Delerue wrote just a couple of pieces for the film and one is used as a sound bridge. The score is evocative of the warm and romantic Southern music he composed during this period, which was highlighted by Crimes of the Heart (1986) and Steel Magnolias (1989).

The optional English SDH cover much of the dialogue but doesn't always identify (in brackets) the character speaking.

Biloxi Blues Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Interview with Actor Corey Parker (20:25, 1080p) - Parker portrayed Arnold Epstein in the film adaptation. He talks about his audition for Mike Nichols and Neil Simon, his memories of seeing Brighton Beach Memoirs on stage, working with Broderick as well as the other cast members. In English, not subtitled.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1:28, upconverted to 1080p) - a VHS-era trailer of Biloxi Blues presented in a reformatted pan-and-scan ratio. The telecine wobbles at the top. It uses the MPEG-2 encode.

• TV Spots (2:35, upconverted to 1080p) - a handful of TV spots transferred from videotape. Image quality and color varies.

Biloxi Blues Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Biloxi Blues (1988) is superior filmmaking to Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986) thanks to Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken's performances as well as Bill Butler's sturdy camera work. More than the antisemitic and racist undercurrents that Simon critiques in his play, Nichols's film condemns the spate of homophobia in army life that existed during the war and the military system that punished its victims. Shout Select delivers a very good transfer that easily surpasses its SD counterparts, although the grain structure has some inconsistencies. The uncompressed stereo track is passable but not dynamic. Mr. Simon and Mr. Nichols are no longer with us and it would have been great to get their thoughts, as well as Broderick's, who apparently was unavailable. The Corey Parker interview covers pretty sufficient terrain in only twenty minutes. RECOMMENDED to fans of Nichols, Simon, and Broderick.