6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Brooklyn-born Mickey drives a cab, while his brother Francis makes a fortune on Wall Street. Three years ago, Mickey disappeared after a bad break-up with his fiancée, Heather. Meanwhile, Francis seems to have settled down with a beautiful wife, Renee, but lately he's fallen for another woman: his brother's ex, Heather. Things get really interesting after Mickey marries Hope, a hopeless romantic, following a whirlwind courtship -- and then, just by chance, Heather gets into his cab.
Starring: Edward Burns, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, John Mahoney, Michael McGloneRomance | 100% |
Comedy | 52% |
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 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Writer-director editor Ed Burns is a self-professed admirer of Woody Allen; so it's hardly a surprise that his second film, a romantic comedy released under the title She's the One after Burns considered and rejected various alternates, reflects Allen's influence throughout. But She's the One doesn't feel like an Allen film, in part because Burns's combative Queens-Irish sensibility couldn't be further from Allen's passive-aggressive Jewish-Manhattan aesthetic. (The East River may be geographically narrow, but spiritually it's a yawning gulf.) More importantly, though, She's the One is as much about sibling rivalry as it is about romance, and siblings are a minor light in Allen's firmament. They appear all right, but they only cast enough light to be decorative. When you watch Hannah and Her Sisters, you're not following the relationships among the sisters; you're watching the relationships between each sister and the men in her life. Relations between the sexes are a major topic for Burns as well, but he always circles back to the unbreakable bonds of love and hate between the two brothers, Francis and Mickey Fitzpatrick, at the heart of the story. Different though they may be, they're united in being mystified by women, and it's fitting that their mother remains an unseen presence off-screen (even if the real reason is that Burns was saving money on an actress). These two guys see the world through the eyes of their gruff old man, a retired New York City firefighter whose first name no one uses, and who constantly refers to his sons as girls. Put a real woman in the mix, and all three of them are baffled. Burns's interest in this milieu was clear from the title of his first film, The Brothers McMullen, and he portrays it with an affection that is of an entirely different order than Woody Allen's images of his New York Jewish past, which are usually parodies. At the same time, Burns is remarkably clear-eyed about the damage that such a testosterone-driven approach to life does to those who pursue it, and the serious side of She's the One examines the result of sibling rivalry taken to extremes—and stopped by the old man's intervention just in time. (Or maybe not.)
On his commentary track, Ed Burns praises his cinematographer, Frank Prinzi (with whom Burns would work on many subsequent films) for achieving such a professional look on a limited budget. Prinzi came from the world of shoestring independent films (e.g., Living in Oblivion), but you wouldn't know it from She's the One. It's not a blockbuster extravaganza, and by design it lacks the nostalgic sheen of Woody Allen's Manhattan, but Prinzi understands how to capture a clean, detailed, well-lit image in real locations and under tight time constraints. (It's no accident that much of his recent work has been for television.) The image on Fox's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is smooth and film-like, with a lightly accented grain pattern and a wealth of tiny detail that registers almost subliminally, fully establishing the sharply contrasting environments in which these characters interact: the blue collar environs of the Fitzpatrick home in Brooklyn; the tenement squalor of Hope's apartment; and the glossy but cold apartments, shops and offices where Francis, Heather and Renee plot, scheme and suffer. The colors aren't overly saturated, but they're vivid. (Burns says in the commentary that the pink walls in Hope's place didn't turn out on film as he expected, but the effect is memorable.) There were no signs of high frequency filtering, artificial sharpening or other inappropriate digital manipulation, and no compression artifacts.
While I couldn't find a definitive historical authority, it's likely that the budget for She's the One limited the original audio format to Dolby Stereo Surround. Especially given the nature of the track, which is primarily dialogue and music by Tom Petty (his first movie score), a 5.1 track would have been a waste of the production's limited funds. When Fox released the film on DVD, the disc included a choice between a DD 2.0 surround track and DD 4.0 (left, center, right, mono suround). The latter option was not unusual on DVDs where the producers had access to the original discrete tracks used to create the matrixed mixdown. The Blu-ray, however, has only a 2.0 track, mastered in DTS-HD MA, and Tom Petty has never sounded better. His songs, performed with his band, the Heartbreakers, in both full versions and instrumental covers, give She's the One a unique sound and added dimension, and they play beautifully on this track, spreading out into the viewing room with excellent fidelity. Dialogue is clear and well-recorded, and though Burns repeatedly points out scenes in the film that had to be looped because of ambient noise, none of them stands out in the finished mix. This is not only a serviceable track, but also an entertaining one, which, for a film that's primarily about people talking, is no small achievement.
The special features have been ported over from the 2000 DVD. (Note that, although the DVD jacket listed "TV Spots", only the theatrical trailer appeared on the disc.)
The Brothers McMullen made Ed Burns famous, but She's the One has always been my personal favorite among his films to date. Something about the era, the story, the subject and the casting coalesced into a near-perfect whole, even if the film stretches credibility at points, as all films do. (My daily life frequently does as well.) Fox's Blu-ray doesn't add any new extras, but it gives the film's audio and video a respectable treatment that allows its virtues to shine at their best. Highly recommended.
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Includes "The Shop Around the Corner" on DVD
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The Director's Cut
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Extended Cut
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Warner Archive Collection
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Rental Copy
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Warner Archive Collection
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