6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
Set in 1964 in a lower middle-class New York neighborhood, Heinz has just been released from prison but is still obsessed with Linda. She turns for help to Harry, an ex-boyfriend who has recently taken up the cause of non-violence. But Harry soon finds himself in a morally compromising situation where violence is the only solution.
Starring: Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, Todd Graff, John Turturro, Pierre EpsteinDrama | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
According to a story reported at IMDb, Five Corners came about when actor-turned-director Tony Bill was auditioning actors for another project (possibly Untamed Heart, which Bill directed some years later). Many arrived with audition pieces from the plays of John Patrick Shanley. Bill was sufficiently intrigued by the dialogue to contact the playwright about a movie script. The resulting film was set in Shanley's native Bronx, just like the Oscar-nominated Doubt, which Shanley wrote and directed 21 years later. Five Corners is a messier, more youthful, less polished film. It was Shanley's first produced script, but in a quirk of timing, the independently produced film was held back from American screens until after the release of his second, MGM's 1987 hit Moonstruck. The latter won three Oscars, including one for Shanley's original screenplay. The most obvious reason to watch Five Corners today is the presence of leads Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins and John Turturro, all of whom were on the cusp of major careers. The usual criticism of the film is that the plot is a mess that "spiral[s] out of control". I respectfully disagree. The script for Five Corners is tightly structured with the precision of the practiced dramatist that Shanley already was when Hollywood came calling. It's the abrupt shifts in tone that throw so many viewers, but if you're attuned to Shanley's peculiar frequency, those shifts are not unexpected. Shanley has often said that he's bored by people who make sense, and that's how he writes characters. It's a risky approach, and it doesn't always succeed, on either the stage or the screen, but when it does, the results are unique. Anyone familiar with Shanley's notion of character should not be surprised that his most successful work to date celebrated the tentative and uncertain state of mind embodied by "doubt". Five Corners, based on memories from Shanley's youth, is filled with characters who don't make sense, know it and ultimately don't care. They're just trying to get through difficulties as each of them confronts their own personal challenges on entering adulthood in a particular place and era.
Director Tony Bill was an established player in the studio system, but he also understood the practicalities of independent film. He hired a professional cinematographer, Fred Murphy (Hoosiers), to shoot Five Corners, but the film's look reflects the limitations of its shoestring budget. None of Image Entertainment's Blu-rays of releases by Handmade Films has been especially impressive, but Five Corners is distinguished by having been taken from a source without major damage, speckles, scratches or wear-and-tear. The image on this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has the soft, grainy texture of a faster, cheaper film stock from the era, but there's a reasonable amount of detail to be seen when the lighting is sufficient. Grainophobes will complain, but those who understand that some movies just look this way will appreciate that the grain hasn't been artificially reduced by digital filtering. The color palette is naturalistic, with occasionally stronger colors reserved for specific environments (e.g., the blue water at the local fountain, which is a key location). In general, though, Five Corners is a dusty urban environment where strong colors are not the norm. Black levels are generally good, although there's very little in the way of true black in this environment, because even at night some illumination always exists. With few extras and only one audio option, the 94-minute film compresses comfortably onto a BD-25.
Five Corners' functional stereo track is presented in PCM 2.0, which does justice to both Shanley's dialogue and James Newton Howard's score. Even with an advanced surround decoding system, there is little in the way of a surround field. This is a basic stereo mix, where the sound effects remain primarily in the front.
Perhaps the best compliment that can be given Five Corners is that it feels like a recently made independent film, if one can imagine it with unknown faces and digital video. There's something primal and essential in how Shanley recreated these memories from his youth. One of the film's most refreshing touches is the complete absence of a "writer" character—the typical coming-of-age character sitting aside from the action, scribbling in a notebook or drawing on a sketch pad, who is an obvious stand-in for the author and will go on to "tell the story". You don't find those characters in a story by Shanley. After all, he already knows himself. The people who interest him are the ones he doesn't know. Recommended, as long as you understand what you're getting into.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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