Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie Review

Quentin's themes.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 7, 2019

It’s probably no mere coincidence that the cover of this release of Boogie Boy prominently advertises the collaborative efforts of this film’s executive producer Roger Avary, mentioning Avary’s Academy Award win for having co-written Pulp Fiction. There’s an undeniable Tarantino-esque quality to Boogie Boy, and it manages to attain certain grittiness that may help it to elide some of its more cliché ridden tendencies, at least for some viewers. As precious and overly self conscious as some people find Tarantino, he does have an ear for almost metaphysically infused dialogue, something which writer and director Craig Hamann can’t quite match here, despite what seems to be a pretty obvious attempt to mimic certain traits of Tarantino.

Jesse Page (Mark Dacascos) and his best bud (and maybe more than that — see below) Larry Storey (Jaimz Woolvett) are both out of stir and out to have a good time, dropping by a bar where a singer named Jerk (Joan Jett) is tearing up the stage. When a drug deal goes bad, a “road trip” of a sort ensues, with a number of new supporting characters being introduced. Boogie Boy has some really interesting casting choices (the cast includes everyone from John Hawkes to Frederic Forrest to Traci Lords), and it has a certain cheeky humor some of the time, but it never really delivers the jolts of adrenaline (in a needle or otherwise) that the best Tarantino films can. Even the supposed “action” elements are sporadic, making this a rather odd entry in the filmographies of some of its participants. There are some rather broad hints of a romance between Jesse and Larry (hence the allusion above), which is another potentially interesting angle to this film which is really not developed in any meaningful way one way or the other.

Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Boogie Boy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual's MVD Rewind imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The cover of this release touts this a being a "brand new director approved 4K high definition transfer for the original camera negative". MVD Rewind has been building its catalog with releases of admittedly niche material, and this is certainly technically one of the better presentations they've offered, something that may augur well for fans who have been purchasing the MVD Rewind series as a series. Aside from some occasionally slightly splotchy yellow looking grain (something that's visible in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, but which looks substantially more organic and natural in motion), this is a really pleasing looking transfer, with consistent densities and contrast, and vivid accounting of the palette. Detail levels are excellent, and some of the fine detail is really precise looking (look at the shadow pattern of a screen on Dacascos' face in screenshot 1, or the fingerprints in screenshot 5). While damage is minimal, there are a few blemishes like some white flecks during the opening credits, and some intermittent scratches (some rather large if short lived ones show up at circa 1:02:00 next to Frederic Forrest's face).

Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Boogie Boy's LPCM 2.0 track faithfully recreates the sonics of the film, and while a surround track probably could have upped the energy of some of the musical elements, this is often a very talky film, and the track included offers excellent support for both dialogue and ambient environmental effects. Fidelity is fine throughout the presentation, and there's no damage of any kind to report.

Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Boogie Boy (1080p; 1:31:59) is a really well done piece that includes good interviews with Mark Dacascos, John hawkes, James Lew, producer Braddon mendelson and writer/director Craig Hamann.


• Image Gallery (1080i) has been authored without a timecode, but it does proceed automatically, so have your remote pause button handy if you stumble on an image you want to peruse for a while.


• Trailers includes Boogie Boy (480i; 2:42) along with trailers for other MVD Rewind releases.

Additionally the keepcase houses a folded mini poster.

Boogie Boy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you set your expectation meter appropriately, Boogie Boy offers some good supporting performances, and a decent premise which is probably not fully realized. Fans of the film should be very pleased with the technical presentation here, and there are also some appealing supplements on hand, for those who are considering a purchase.