5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins, Kim Cattrall, Dan Aykroyd, and Jennifer Love Hewitt star in this re-imagining of Walter Huston's The Devil and Daniel Webster - this time concerning a struggling writer who sells his soul to Old Scratch (Hewitt) in a desperate bid to find fame and fortune on the literary circuit.
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alec Baldwin, Dan Aykroyd, Kim CattrallDrama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Is there a surefire way to determine whether you’re a film geek or not? Well, here’s one example from my own misspent youth: I was beyond excited when Criterion announced it was releasing a (more or less) complete version of the 1941 version of The Devil and Daniel Webster, which other confirmed film geeks will most likely know was originally released as All That Money Can Buy, only to have large swaths of the original version chopped, leading to a much shortened re-release under its better remembered title. The Devil and Daniel Webster (note that the link points to a DVD, as Criterion has yet to bring this out in high definition) had its problems, as perhaps evidenced by the cut and (later) paste history it endured, but those issues probably pale in comparison to the ones suffered by Shortcut to Happiness, a rather odd, modernized remake which was filmed in 2001 but never saw the theatrical exhibition light of day until 2007 (just one indication of those aforementioned problems).
Shortcut to Happiness is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual's MVD Marquee Collection imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer
in 1.78:1. While there are a few rough spots along the way, some at least due to the ubiquitous use of opticals in the film*, this is a surprisingly strong
transfer of a lesser known property. The opening sequence, supposedly culled from Bez's writing, and featuring superimpositions of texts (hence, lots
of opticals), has a somewhat more pronounced grain field that's just slightly splotchy looking, along with what I assume is an intentional honey yellow
grading (see screenshot 6 for an example). Once the "real" story starts, things look decidedly better from both a "grain management" and natural
palette standpoint. Detail levels are quite pleasing throughout the presentation, and pops of color, like the gorgeous purplish dresses Hewitt wears,
look nicely saturated. There are a few moments that are not part of any optical that do look slightly rougher, as in Jabez's first visit to Webster's
publishing skyscraper, where the grain kind of looks like insects swarming over the granite halls.
*Shortcut to Happiness was shot on film, and I'm frankly assuming that its 2001 filming timeframe, along with its budgetary
constraints and long post production issues means that no digital compositing or digital intermediate was ever done; if anyone has verifiable data to
the contrary, let me know and I'll update the review with that information, though my assessment of how things actually look won't change.
Shortcut to Happiness offers a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 track that more than suffices for this film's pretty limited sonic ambitions. Dialogue, including occasional narration by Jabez and Daniel Webster (just another kind of weird structural element), sounds clear and clean throughout the presentation, and the kind of fun, Danny Elfman-esque score by Christopher Young also reverberates with clarity and precision.
Maybe because I was expecting an out and out disaster, I was actually kind of pleasantly if only intermittently surprised by Shortcut to Happiness. Some of the refashioning works, some of it doesn't, but a lot of the writing is really very smart, and there's an underlying sweetness to things despite the kind of tart subject matter. Technical merits are generally solid for those considering a purchase.
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