6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
An immigrant housemaid seduces a 15-year-old boy and later fakes her own death as part of his chauffeur's blackmail plot. Troubles arise when the two start to fall in love.
Starring: Eric Brown (I), Sylvia Kristel, Howard Hesseman, Ed Begley Jr., Ron FosterComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
None
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 1.5 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Released during the early years of teen horndog cinema, 1981’s “Private Lessons” found its inspiration for exploitation from a different source than simple teenage lust. Going controversial, the feature depicts a sexual relationship between a thirtysomething woman and a 15-year-old boy, hoping to find titillation in a taboo union, immediately separating the film from its more routine competition. Director Alan Myerson (“Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach”) takes on an incredible tonal challenge with the endeavor, and he rarely lands a stable moment of emotion or comedy, often swinging all over the place in an effort to distract from the inherent iffiness of the premise. “Private Lessons” isn’t a strong picture, failing to do something outrageous or harmonious with the material, scripted by Dan Greenberg (adapting his own novel). It’s a mess of nudity, sex, slapstick, and mean-spiritedness, unsure of it wants to stimulate viewers or repel them, unable to secure the cheap thrills the subgenre is known for.
Packaging lists the "Private Lessons" Blu-ray as the "Original Theatrical Version newly remastered in 4K HD from the original 35mm camera negatives." Now look at the screencaps provided and see if you agree with Cinema Epoch's claim. The AVC encoded image (1.78:1 aspect ratio) is a mess and not representative with what most collectors would consider to be a true 4K remaster. Colors are muted, but they come into contact with shifting sources, finding a true palette (and resolution) difficult to discover (check out the last three screencaps to see quality differences in the same scene). Primaries are approachable but hardly wonderful. Detail is smoothed out, looking like a victim of heavy filtering, making facial particulars hard to see. At certain points, Kristel looks like she's wearing a white mask, absent any skin texture. Delineation is quick to solidify, flattening evening sequences. Artifacts seep into most scenes, with pixelation and banding common. Scratches and speckling are detected throughout, and chemical damage is periodically spotted. Certain sequences in the feature are slightly vertically stretched, while others (contained to the final act) are slightly horizontally stretched. The movie itself only takes up 15 gigs of space on the disc.
The default selection for audio on the disc is a 5.1 Dolby Digital track, is intends to open up the original mix, giving it new life for home theater use. It doesn't work. While dialogue exchanges aren't unintelligible, soundtrack selections sound hollow and distant, lacking pop music energy. Slightly better is a 2.0 Dolby Digital track, which returns simplicity to the listening experience, though a tremendous boost in volume is required to make it engaging. Atmospherics are basic, without personality.
Matters get particularly messy for Philly in the final act, which also introduces a level of cruelty to Lester's plan, content to make the boy suffer as he works to attain easy money. It's not a major issue with the film, but the third act is more troubling than entertaining, while the finale itself comes across as wish fulfillment instead of reality, trying to exit on smile instead of a frown. "Private Lessons" had its competition and imitators over the years (all offering more interesting seductresses than Kristel, who's a total blank), but rarely did another movie attempt to pull off such a provocative pairing. The picture almost invites condemnation, but fury is the wrong reaction to have with a feature that's already so hopelessly clumsy and dull.
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