7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Anna PaquinDrama | 100% |
Coming of age | 18% |
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, 24-bit)
Spanish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 2.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
So much happens in the course of writer-director Noah Baumbach's 2005 independent triumph, The Squid and the Whale, that it's hard to believe Baumbach fit so much into a mere 81 minutes. But the events register with such impact—by turns funny, painful, excruciating, sometimes all three at once—that prolonging the experience any longer would be too much. Although the film remains one of the most powerful American portrayals of how children react to divorce, Baumbach also manages to encompass a frank depiction of the insecurities of male sexual awakening and the even greater terror that accompanies the discovery, which everyone makes sooner or later, that those omnipotent parental figures protecting us from everything frightening in the world can barely hold it together themselves. Unfortunately, Sony Pictures, which co-produced the film and released it on DVD, has not given Squid the treatment it deserves. Instead, it has passed off a weak and dated transfer to Mill Creek Entertainment for a Blu-ray double feature with the much lesser Running with Scissors, omitting all of the extras featured on the previous DVD. In other words, to borrow a favorite phrase from Squid's narcissist patriarch, Sony has taken "the filet" from its art house catalog and treated it like hamburger helper.
The Squid and the Whale was shot by Robert Yeoman, the regular cinematographer for Wes Anderson, who produced the film (and whom Baumbach originally wanted to direct it). But Squid looks nothing at all like one of Anderson's formally composed still lifes. Baumbach specifically asked Yeoman to shoot the largely handheld production in Super16 for a sense of immediacy and because he admired the early works of Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and the Coen Bros. The result, which I saw theatrically, was neither grainy nor shaky, but it did give you the unnerving sense of being in the room where these intimate family encounters were happening in real time. Sony's DVD was adequate for its day, but it served more as a memento of the theatrical experience than a recreation. It lacked sufficient resolution to provide either the requisite detail or any sense of depth. Mill Creek's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is somewhat better, but not nearly as good as it should be. In 2005, the mindset of telecine colorists was very different than it is now. Film grain was the compressionist's enemy, and various strategies were employed to make compression easier and artifacts less likely (and this was before anyone had learned to complain about "DNR"). The result here isn't the kind of obvious detail-stripping that results in the infamous "wax dummy" appearance. Instead, what we get is a kind of flattened, artificially stabilized, chunky grain structure that creates the illusion of a smoother image, less like film than like low-resolution video with an extra layer of noise. The video effect is accentuated by recurrent sharpening that is sufficiently noticeable to cause minor ghosting from time to time. This is a transfer that was clearly aimed at the DVD market. Since Sony wasn't putting their label on it, they obviously didn't bother to redo it. Black levels range from acceptable to weak. Colors are as strong as the compressed shooting schedule and available light levels permitted. (Today, the digital intermediate process would allow greater control over the color palette in post-production.) The only limitation from which the Blu-ray's picture does not suffer is compression. With a healthy bitrate of 25 Mbps, compression artifacts do not add to the image woes.
The film's original 5.1 track is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. For both budgetary and stylistic reasons, the sound mix is front-oriented and functional, but that doesn't mean it's been done carelessly. Individual effects such as a door slamming or a frying pan hitting the floor sometimes register forcefully off-camera, startling characters (and viewers) who are already on edge. Music is an essential element of the film's texture, not only because of the period-specific song selections—The Cars' "Drive" and the Tangerine Dream soundtrack to Risky Business are among the Eighties signature sounds heard in the film—but also because the Pink Floyd song "Hey You" plays such a crucial role in the plot. Some of these songs are heard as source music, and some are blended into the soundtrack. The dialogue is always clear, though it's often so emotionally fraught that you almost wish it wasn't.
Sony's 2005 DVD of The Squid and the Whale featured a commentary with writer-director Baumbach, an interview with Baumbach and writer Phillip Lopate, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and an insert reprinting insightful reviews from The New Yorker and the L.A. Times. The Mill Creek Blu-ray, of course, contains zero extras.
Don't blame Mill Creek for the poor treatment given The Squid and the Whale on Blu-ray. They have done a respectable job with what they were given. Don't even blame Sony, which, like the newly reorganized Miramax, has been all too eager to deposit significant portions of its catalog in the bargain bin, regardless of artistic merit. Major corporations do not leave money sitting on the table. If they treat catalog titles this way, it's because their marketing data and accounting analysis demonstrate that the cost of new transfers and/or restoration cannot be recouped from likely sales. If you're looking for someone to blame, start with all those internet posts declaring that the author won't buy such-and-such a catalog title until it drops below $10. This Mill Creek double feature fits the bill—and you get what you pay for.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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