5.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father's sanity is challenged by a chance encounter with two underage girls on holiday.
Starring: Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Alison Lees-Taylor, Annet Mahendru, Danielle SafadyHorror | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There’s a suburb of my hometown of Portland, Oregon called Wilsonville, which is home to a huge kids’ emporium that features what is basically a warehouse stuffed with things like arcade games and laser tag, with (outdoors) things like a batting cage, go carts, and miniature golf also thrown into the mix. It is of course one of the prime places to take tots on party days like birthday celebrations. Many years ago when my sons were young I had taken them out there for a day of fun. This place, like many others of its ilk, spits out tickets at the various arcade games that kids can then exchange for pretty cheesy prizes. The three of us were in line to perform that function, surrounded by the cacophony of literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of screaming children and the additional noise of all the arcade games going off simultaneously, when a haggard father in front of me turned around and silently mouthed to me, “I hate this place!” It was a moment of parental camaraderie that I personally will never forget, and it was funny enough for me to actually be able to withstand another hour or so of “family fun” (if only there were a bar for the parents at these places, but I digress). If you’re a parent and have ever experienced anything like this, you could very well get a kick—albeit a somewhat disturbing one—out of the weirdly hilarious Escape From Tomorrow, the debut effort of writer-director Randy Moore, a fearless guy who attracted quite a bit of attention on the festival circuit with this outing when it became known that Moore had somehow managed to shoot the bulk of the film in actual locations at Disney World and Disneyland without Disney’s omnipresent security personnel getting involved (or at least stopping the filming). Escape From Tomorrow has been regularly compared to the works of David Lynch, especially Lynch’s early entries like Eraserhead, and not just because this film, like that example of Lynchian bizarreness, is shot in black and white. I’d argue that while Moore dabbles in the same surrealism that often informs Lynch’s works, there’s also a more trenchant sense of humor in Moore’s film, one that utilizes the patently strange adventures of a newly unemployed husband and father weathering the supposedly happiest place on earth in order to generate uncomfortable laughs, rather than mere discomfort, as often seems to be the case with Lynch. While Moore’s so-called “guerilla filmmaking” achievements may draw curious onlookers to Escape From Tomorrow, the good news is that the film offers at least a bit more than simply a gimmick, even if it ultimately may not achieve total success as an actual story.
Escape From Tomorrow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Because Moore and his crew were attempting to pass as typical park tourists, the film was shot entirely with two different Canon EOS cameras, so expectations should probably be dialed down a bit from a typically digitally lensed feature. While the image is reasonably sharp and detailed, the on the fly footage has little depth and there are some recurrent issues with image stability (some of which are addressed in the commentary by Moore and DP Lucas Lee Graham). Some lighter gradients in this black and white feature are occasionally overblown, as is contrast, leading to (at least at times intentional) blooming of whites. This may or may not contribute to some slight banding which is minimally in evidence. All of this said, the issue here isn't that Escape From Tomorrow looks bad, but that it looks as good as it does. There's a purposefully dreamlike (and/or nightmarish) quality to the film that this kind of lo-fi approach suits perfectly. Despite the contrast variances, overall grayscale is surprisingly well modulated and while there's an absolute lack of shadow detail in some of the interior ride sequences, generally speaking things segue rather nicely between the brightly lit outdoors moments and the dimly lit inside segments.
Escape From Tomorrow's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 features decent if not spectacularly realized surround activity, nicely detailing the background babble of the park crowds with gentle spills into the side and rear channels, but tending to reserve the best immersion for Abel Korzeniowski's sometimes anachronistically epic score. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly in this problem free track.
Escape From Tomorrow admittedly may function better as a high concept than as a completed film, but it's such an audacious premise, and one which utilized such a risky filming gambit, that it really should be seen by lovers of independent film. At times nicely truculent, and almost always disturbing in a Lynchian sort of way, this is certainly one of the most unique films in recent memory, even if it isn't completely successful. While the shooting conditions resulted in some slightly variable video quality, things actually look surprisingly sharp and well detailed here, all things considered, and the audio is similarly well realized. While the commentaries aren't quite the info-fests and/or entertainments one might have hoped, overall this is an interesting package and comes Recommended.
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