7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Scott Hastings is a champion caliber ballroom dancer, but much to the chagrin of the Australian ballroom dance community, Scott believes in dancing "his own steps". Fran is a beginning dancer and a bit of an ugly duckly who has the audacity to ask to be Scott's partner after his unorthodox style causes his regular partner to dance out of his life. Together, these two misfits try to win the Australian Pan Pacific Championships and show the Ballroom Confederation that they are wrong when they say, "there are no new steps!"
Starring: Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice, Bill Hunter (I), Gia Carides, Barry OttoRomance | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There’s an old adage that states “nothing succeeds like success”, but in the case of Baz Luhrmann the saying might be slightly tweaked to state “nothing exceeds like excess”. Luhrmann attracted quite a bit of attention with both Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet before really catapulting into the stratosphere with Moulin Rouge!. Luhrmann seemed to take at least a partial step backward with his interesting if overwrought epic Australia and as this review is being written many are waiting with bated breath to see what Luhrmann is going to make out of the immortal F. Scott Fitzgerald property The Great Gatsby, due to open in just a couple of weeks. No doubt the hoopla surrounding that film helped convince Lionsgate to bring Luhrmann’s first feature out on Blu-ray, and while it’s nowhere near as polished as his later efforts, it has several Luhrmann hallmarks already in evidence, including a love of musical theater, outrageous stagings with equally outrageous characters and an often pretty cheeky sense of humor. What’s really interesting in revisiting Strictly Ballroom after so many years is how it almost seems fashioned in the mold of Christopher Guest’s rightly lauded mockumentaries (Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Best in Show). Strictly Ballroom is being marketed now as the “film that inspired Dancing With the Stars", certainly at best a backhanded compliment (at least in my not so humble opinion), and something that is all the more peculiar given the— well, eccentricities of several of the characters on display in Luhrmann’s first magnum opus. Strictly Ballroom toes a rather fine line between mockumentary and gentle romantic comedy, with purely narrative elements interspersed with “first person confessionals” delivered straight to the camera. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, therefore, but it’s unusually charming and often quite ebullient in its own small scale way.
Strictly Ballroom is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a strangely schizophrenic looking high definition presentation that can be at least relatively sharp at one moment and then seem rather fuzzily soft the next. Colors and saturation are similarly variable, at time quite robust and at other looking really pallid. Contrast follows in this weirdly inconsistent tradition, with some scenes (ironically a lot of the dimly lit interior moments) offering great shadow detail while others have an overblown look that robs the image of fine detail. My hunch is some at least moderate noise reduction has been applied to this release. While grain is still more than evident, some of the extreme close-ups have a just slight waxy look about them which may belie such digital tweaking. On the whole, while this isn't a stellar release by any stretch, it's certainly passable and at least in sporadic moments quite good.
Strictly Ballroom's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix reserves its surround activity almost exclusively to the music and crowd sounds in the dance competitions, leaving the rest of the mix rather securely anchored in the front channels. Fidelity is excellent, with dialogue and score presented very cleanly and clearly. Dynamic range is somewhat limited but has a few spikes in the dance competition sequences.
- Behind the Red Curtain (Backstage Snapshots) (480i; 2:20) contains a nice homage to Pat Thomsen, who died before the film opened.
- That's Looking Good (Production Design) (480i; 00:18) takes a veritable glimpse at the film's costumes.
- Dance to Win (Promotional and Various) (480i; 1:36) looks at poster designs and other publicity materials.
- Yesterday's Here (Baz's Family Album) (480i; 00:46) takes a quick look back at Luhrmann's own history as a ballroom dancer along with some sweet shots of his own mother dancing.
- Love is in the Air (Scott and Fran) (480i; 1:11) details the casting of the principal roles.
Strictly Ballroom has none of the revisionist grandeur of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, nor little of the visual splendor that made his Moulin Rouge! so unforgettable, and yet it's really a charming and often funny and sweet little romp, at least if accepted on its own modest terms. There's a certain "not quite ready for prime time" ambience hovering over this film which in a way only increases its allure. Luhrmann fans who haven't yet seen this and are jonesin' for something before The Great Gatsby opens may well want to check this out. This Blu-ray offers decent if a bit underwhelming video, good audio and the very good (if sometimes awfully brief) supplements from the DVD release. Recommended.
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