6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
A deaf runaway arrives in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury hippie district looking for her missing brother.
Starring: Susan Strasberg, Dean Stockwell, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Adam RoarkeMusic | 100% |
Drama | 64% |
Thriller | 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 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
For untold scores of Baby Boomers, the name Dick Clark meant only one of three things: 1) host of the seemingly immortal American Bandstand; 2) host of the only slightly less seemingly immortal Pyramid gameshow (in any of its monetary values); 3) host of the, yes, equally seemingly immortal New Year’s Rockin’ Eve telecast. But of course those who perused credits through the years were likely to see the Dick Clark brand show up as part of Dick Clark Productions, where that imprimatur helped to bolster any number of entries from music shows like Where the Action Is and Happening ‘68 to trophy fetes like The American Music Awards to talk, variety or comedy outings like Donny and Marie and TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes. Clark’s producing prowess was obviously protean, and yet as a big screen force, it never came close to equalling his impact on television. Clark got his feet wet in the film industry in 1968 with The Savage Seven and Psych-Out, a film which preceded The Savage Seven in cineplexes by a couple of months. Perhaps Clark’s newness to the vagaries of motion picture producing has at least something to do with Psych- Out’s somewhat inchoate feeling, but it’s arguable that that feeling of chaos lurking just beneath the surface may in fact have had as much to do with one of the subjects of the film itself: drug use. It’s not that hard to imagine the cast and crew of Psych-Out doing a bit (or perhaps more than merely a bit) of “field research” to inform their performances and/or crafts for this film, for even taking away the intentional hallucinatory and psychedelic elements of the film, there’s still a kind of bizarre stoned quality to much of the proceedings here. Unfortunately that “buzz” is not nearly enough to carry the film through its at times absurd posturing as it attempts to tell the tale of a gaggle of Flower Children in Haight Ashbury a bit after the Summer of Love had supposedly announced a new era of “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding” (to quote a certain Aquarian anthem of the day).
Psych-Out is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Elements are in generally good shape, with relatively minor issues related to scratches and occasional minus density. While there's been a very slight fade toward brown, generally speaking colors are still nicely vivid and reasonably accurate looking, with blues looking especially good. Detail is often good as well, as in close-ups of Nicholson and Roark which reveal things like the corduroy ribbing on their shirts and vests. The biggest issue for some on this transfer will be grain management, which is occasionally problematic. There's a rather thick grain field to begin with here, one that is increased in optical sequences like the hallucination elements, but at times the grain will swarm over lighter backgrounds like whites or even blues, and in some of the darkest moments it acquires a slightly yellow appearance. That at least argues for the Olive model of no noise reduction, and there are similarly no signs of artificial sharpening.
Psych-Out features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track which capably supports the film's sometimes hilariously "hip" dialogue and the enjoyable rock tunes that inform much of the aural landscape. Fidelity is excellent with no problems to report.
There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc, despite the fact that the previous DVD release evidently included a documentary featuring Clark and others.
Psych-Out has a bit of camp value going for it, but it's a pretty inept attempt to cash in on what the creatives behind the film must have thought was a "hippie craze." An eclectic cast (to say the least) tends to mug incessantly through a variety of often silly vignettes that play like what the so-called Silent Majority probably thought "youngsters" acted. The soundtrack at least offers a few decent tunes. Video quality is generally fine but comes with some grain management issues, for those considering a purchase.
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