Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie Review

A witchy double feature.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater July 16, 2010

Feared by men for their sexual prowess and envied by women for their ability to free themselves from patriarchal and parochial concerns, witches have always been—in literature, in history, in the movies —symbols of feminine power and mystique. This has also gotten them in a lot of trouble. They’ve gotten burnt at the stake, crushed with stones, hanged from the gallows, drowned in cages—proof that male dominated societies will go to insane lengths to put a stop to unbound femininity. There’s something rebellious about witches, something confident, the girl-gone-supernatural vibe an unsubtle metaphor for empowerment. What’s strange, then, is that the two films included in this Warner Bros. double feature—Practical Magic and The Witches of Eastwick—are all girl, but no power. The main witch in Practical Magic hungers for normalcy—like Sam in Bewitched—and the trio of unknowing witches in Eastwick fall prey to a chauvinist who exploits what might be called “womanly” weaknesses—vanity, and the desire for male affection and/or children—for sexual gain. While masking themselves as female-bonding movies, both films actually support very traditional notions about what womanhood is supposed to be.

Someone's gonna get hurt...

Practical Magic (2.5/5)
The double feature leads off with Practical Magic, a film that practically reeks of the mid- 1990s. Not that I’ve necessarily got anything against the decade, but Faith Hill singing “This Kiss” while the camera spins around Sandra Bullock putting the smooch on the man of her dreams? It’s a bit much. Nicole Kidman even wears those little, round, fake-John Lennon, vaguely hippy-ish sunglasses that look like they were bought at Spencer’s Gifts. You know the ones I’m talking about. The one where, if you were feeling particularly saucy, you could forgo the normal mirrored lenses and get them with holographs of cobras or hundred dollar bills or whatever instead. Stylish! Grunge, by this point, had given way to “alternative,” and for female-centric music, this meant Lilith Fair. And that’s basically Practical Magic in a bland, organic, unsalted nutshell: it wants to be the movie version of Lilith Fair, a film where women can celebrate being women. Only, it’s not, not really. The film’s tagline reads, “There’s a little witch in every woman,” but the emphasis seems to be on little. In the end, the power and rebelliousness of being a witch is downplayed and the film is ultimately about falling in love and fulfilling all the stereotypical feminine ambitions.

For 300 years, the witchy women in the Owens family have been cursed: whenever they fall in love—in true love—the men they fall for die horribly, tragically, their demises announced by the chirping of the so-called “death beetle.” The story follows two sisters orphaned by the curse, raven- haired Sally (Sandra Bullock) and red-headed Gillian (Nicole Kidman), who are raised by their aunts, Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Frances (Stockard Channing), batty old spinsters who cook up love potions for the more desperate women in town. Sally pledges she’ll never fall in love, and even makes a checklist of unlikely attributes her soul mate has to have—one blue eye and one green eye, the sign of a star, the ability to flip pancakes awesomely. The idea is that no man can fulfill all of these, so she’ll never have her heart broken. While Sally sets aside her magical powers and opens a botanical body shop in town, Gillian—the sluttier of the two sisters—begins a passionate relationship with Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), a “Transylvanian cowboy” who turns out to be an abusive prick. When Sally and Gillian accidentally kill Jimmy, and then accidentally resurrect him as something “dark and unnatural,” detective Gary Hallet (Aiden Quinn) shows up to investigate. Oddly enough, he’s got mismatched eyes, a star-shaped badge, and a deft hand when it comes to flipping flapjacks.

Directed by Griffin Dunne—who genre fans should recognize as Jack from An American Werewolf in London—and based on the best-selling novel by Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic is a thin witches’ brew of supernatural shenanigans and rom-com predictability, flavored with a few dashes of lightweight horror. To make sure we realize the movie is intended to be perfect for a girls night out—or in, in the case of this Blu-ray release—a central scene involves the Owens women having “midnight martinis” around the kitchen table. They get really excited, then really drunk, and the camera nauseatingly spins around and round. Look, we’re women and we’re having fun!

Although Channing and Wiest make great old maids, and Kidman has a slinky grace that outright steals scenes, the movie’s edge is dulled by casting Bullock in the lead. She’s usually good in everywoman roles, but here, as a witch—a part that requires more onscreen magic—she seems overly plain. Most of the blame, though, should go to the script, which doesn’t give her character much dramatic leeway. She’s just another woman with “a little witch in her” who finally falls for Mr. Right. So much for the witch as a symbol of feminine power. Harmless, mostly charmless, and almost entirely inoffensive—except perhaps to those few remaining Puritans who still picket movies and try to ban Harry Potter books—Practical Magic is what no witch movie should be: bland.

The Witches of Eastwick (3.5/5)
A far better film, and the reason to pick up this two-for-one release, is 1987’s The Witches of Eastwick, which is essentially a satirical response to the question what do women want? And also, perhaps, a cautionary be careful what you wish for tale. The film follows three best friends who have either been ditched or widowed by their husbands. Jane (Susan Sarandon), who’s certainly the plain Jane of the three, conducts an elementary school orchestra, endures sexual harassment from the principal, and worries about her own deficiencies as a cello player and a woman. Alexandra (Cher), the most assured of the group, sculpts busty, curvy fertility statues. And Sukie (Michelle Pfieffer), a journalist at the local rag, is an outright babymaker with a veritable brood of kids. They’ve all been screwed over, in one way or another, by men. Naturally, then, the topic of their weekly, girls-only-style get-togethers often turns to the concept of the perfect man. While drinking and playing cards, they describe him—attributes, attitudes, even penis length. (“Hey, as long as it works, it’s in.”) Little do they realize that, as they clink their glasses together in a toast, they’ve just summoned him.

And he’s not at all what they expected. A strangely dressed stranger arrives in town and buys the old Lennox mansion, a palatial estate where witches were once executed. His name is Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson), but no one can seem to remember it, even though he causes a scene everywhere he goes, demonically snoring at the local orchestra concert and causing elderly women to think thoughts they “hadn’t entertained since WWII.” We quickly gather that he’s actually the capital-D-Devil in the flesh, and he appears to be on some sort of Rosemary’s Baby-style mission that involves sleeping with our three protagonists. (“Who are you?” asks one of the women. “Oh, just your average horny little devil,” says Daryl.) One by one he seduces them by telling each woman exactly what she wants to hear. They fall easily under his spell, and for awhile, the ménage a quatre live together in luxury at the Lennox estate and Daryl teaches the three women to explore their newfound witching powers. This doesn’t last, and jealousy soon sets in. I mean, really, how long can things go right when you’re sleeping with Satan?

The three female leads are all fantastic—Sarandon, in particular, takes her character on a crazy arc —but this is Jack Nicholson’s film, and every other scene requires him to draw on “Here’s Johnny!” levels of maniacal energy and menace. Can you imagine any actor better suited to play the devil? (Okay, I’ll give you Pacino.) Possibly the best scene in the film is when he’s trying to seduce Cher’s character, who derides him thusly: “You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick.” And yet this doesn’t faze Daryl at all; Nicholson stretches out on the bed like a cat, an almost absurdly, comically sexual pose, and soon enough he’s got Alexandra in the sack. The film is much funnier than Practical Magic, and there’s more magic as well, both in the chemistry between the characters and the special effects by Industrial Light and Magic. (Which are dated, yes, but less than you’d think.) Things go a bit over-the-top in the final act—throwing off the established tone of supernatural believability—but if you buy Nicholson as the ultimate seducer, you’ll buy the absurdities of the finale. I should say this as a word of warning: unlike the family friendly Practical Magic, The Witches of Eastwick has some extremely explicit language and what can vaguely be described as “adult themes and situations.”

Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

With two feature-length films packed onto a single BD-50, it's natural to worry that picture quality might take a hit, but thankfully there's no cause for alarm. Warner typically places many of their lower profile catalog titles on 25 GB discs, so it makes sense that they would simply double up on a 50 GB platter for this two-for-one release. With 1080p/VC-1 encodes, both Practical Magic and The Witches of Eastwick look natural and filmic, with untouched grain, no evidence of overt edge enhancement, and no real compression-related troubles. Neither film is as sharp or resolved as more modern offerings, but compared to other catalog titles from the 1980s and 90s, the results are typical. Practical Magic, as the newer of the two, has a slight edge over Eastwick in overall clarity, but colors seem a little overpumped. This is probably intentional—I can't say with certainty as I never saw the film in theaters—but regardless, saturation is intense at times, and skin tones can appear a bit too ruddy. Though The Witches of Eastwick is somewhat softer—fine details are less discernable—it looks more natural than Magic, with colors that are more restrained and lifelike. Black levels, contrast, and shadow delineation are fine in both films. Overall, while not the most miraculous catalog restorations I've seen on Blu-ray, the upgrade from standard definition DVD is definitely appreciable.

Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Likewise, the upgrade to lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround tracks has left both films sounding better than ever. Neither movie is especially intense, sonically speaking, but there are more than enough effects and atmospherics to keep listeners engaged. Arguably, The Witches of Eastwick sounds best, thanks to a typically bombastic John Williams score and more supernatural events than Practical Magic has to offer. Wind, thunder, and rain storm through the surround speakers, Nicholson's unsettling snores growl in the rears, and the crazy tennis scene features some impressive cross-channel ball movements. Though more subdued, Practical Magic has its share of magical whooshes and swooshes, along with some effective ambience, including crickets that sounded so realistic I paused the film to make sure the chirping wasn't coming from outside my house. Alan Silvestri's Americana-inspired score is rich and full as well, as are the uses of incidental music, like Faith Hill's "This Kiss," and that song about putting the lime in the coconut. Dialogue is nicely balanced in both films and I didn't notice any strange hisses or drop-outs. English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.

Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with Warner's other double feature discs, no supplementary materials whatsoever are included on this release.

Practical Magic / The Witches of Eastwick Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're burned out on vampires and werewolves, consider the witches of this Warner Bros. double feature disc. Practical Magic is less than magical—it's a time capsule of the 1990s, and not in a good way—but The Witches of Eastwick is at least somewhat bewitching, thanks to a terrific cast, including Jack Nicholson as the devil himself. Aside from the lack of bonus materials, this is a solid release, with decent high definition transfers and lossless audio. Newcomers may want to hold off, but fans of both films should have no qualms about adding this disc to their collections.