Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.0

Dirty Laundry Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 31, 2021

For anyone still suffering from "the glamour of Hollywood" syndrome, a perfect way to be disabused of any notions of what a career in the Los Angeles film and television industry is really like can be gleaned by watching a rather funny interview with Robbie Rist included on this disc as a supplement. Rist humorously recounts his fascination with being in the movies from the time he was a very young tot, informing his parents he wanted to be in a Universal horror movie like Frankenstein (one shudders to think what role he might have had), but, upon realizing that that particular goal probably wasn't going to happen, widening his horizons to simply wanting to be in a film, period. His parents finally relented and took him on a casting call with several hundred other children, and lo and behold, Rist started getting a number of high profile commercials (which are excerpted in the featurette), which, while not feature films, was a major accomplishment for a kid that young. In one of the most amusing moments of the interview, Rist starts riffing on so-called "career trajectories", mentioning how he co-starred with another famous child actor of the time period, one Jodie Foster, in one of the ABC After School Specials, when the two were more or less "equals" in the child star firmament, only to have Rist watch as Foster ascended to multiple Academy Awards and Rist kept on toiling away in a lot of guest shots on television as well as less than Oscar worthy films like, well, Dirty Laundry. There's even more "educational" information about life in good ol' showbiz courtesy of another interview on this disc, with star Leigh McCloskey. Now, McCloskey doesn't seem to have Rist's same level of self deprecatory humor, which in fact may make McCloskey's interview all the funnier for some (ahem), with the actor perhaps struggling to account for his "career trajectory" which started with high hopes at Juilliard and then crashed headlong into, again, lots of episodic television guest shots, a smattering of features (at about the same quality level as this film), and long runs in various soap operas.

All of this is to say that when even the stars of the film are eager to let prospective viewers know that they're not about to see an all time masterpiece, expectations should be set accordingly, but even going into Dirty Laundry with that kind of information may not be enough to elide some really haphazard comedy. As Rist gets into in his interview, the creative team behind Dirty Laundry seemed to simply want to include as many potential marketing elements as possible, which in this case included the stunt casting of erstwhile music stars like Sonny Bono and Frankie Valli, in a tale that sees a dimwitted concert sound tech named Jay (Leigh McCloskey) mistakenly end up with a bag of stolen loot instead of the laundry he's been attempting to do at a laundromat. He teams up with putative romantic interest Trish (Jeanne O'Brien) and nerdy neighbor Oscar (Robbie Rist) to try to elude (supposedly) comically inept bad guys.

Rist also suggests that the plan for Dirty Laundry from the get go was to take advantage of what circa 1987 was a burgeoning home video market, and so while Rist thinks perhaps the film was screened briefly theatrically, it was always intended to be a direct to video outing (the IMDb shows no actual theatrical exhibition information). As such, Dirty Laundry is an obviously low budget attempt that provides maybe a giggle or two (some no doubt unintentional), with a generally breezy if pretty lame ambience that takes the focal characters through a series of adventures before they predictably triumph and then shower Los Angeles with cash dropped from a helicopter.

Dirty Laundry Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dirty Laundry is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Rewind Collection, an imprint of MVD Visual, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. There's no information on the cover of this release as to the provenance of the element or any restoration, though closing credits cite Multicom's efforts in the restoration category. Kind of ironically, then, it's Multicom's opening logo which offers the first stumbling block, a bit of banding. The element utilized shows some pretty significant wear and tear at times, including some actual missing pieces of various frames (see screenshot 10), along with an at times faded (if still generally decent) palette, and an overall "dupey" quality that can offer chunky, clumped grain and some pretty serious crush in the darkest scenes. While better lit moments have an at least relatively organically resolving grain field, the presentation encounters some hurdles in some of the darker scenes, as can probably be made out by looking at some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, which can show an almost pixellated grainfield that can have strong yellow and even green characteristics. For such a cult item, things probably look better than could be expected, but as with the film itself, it's best to go into this with the expectations bar set pretty low.

Dirty Laundry Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dirty Laundry features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that sounds rather nice, especially perhaps when compared to the less lustrous video presentation. The film has some "built in" music aspects, as silly as they may be, and both the on screen performances as well as underscore and source cues have good fidelity and surprisingly strong midrange and low end. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and I noticed no issues whatsoever in terms of damage, distortion or dropouts. Optional English subtitles are available.

Dirty Laundry Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Star Leigh McCloskey (HD; 27:42)


• Interview with Star Robbie Rist (HD; 33:11)


• 'Hack the Movies' Commentary can be accessed under the Setup Menu, and features a troupe who kind of proudly announce they've never seen the movie before as things start up, which may kind of make the point of a commentary moot for some.

Additionally, the keepcase houses a folded mini poster, and packaging features a slipcover.

Dirty Laundry Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The cast tries awfully hard in Dirty Laundry (which may in fact give things an air of desperation after awhile), but the main problem here is that the writing just isn't very funny. This is another release of a cult item where the supplementary interviews may provide at least as much interest as the main feature. Technical merits vary from decent if improvable (video) to very good (audio), for those who may be considering making a purchase.