6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In the fictional and hypnotic Rain City,ex-cop Hawk has just been released from prison after serving hard time for killing a man. Meanwhile, a young, down-on-his-luck father, Coop, and his radiant, innocent wife, Georgia, head toward the city with their new baby in search of a new life. Littered with eccentric gangsters and thugs, Rain City almost serves as a side street to human evolution. At the center of it all is Wanda's — a dive diner run by Hawk's ex — where the characters' lives will intersect, changing them forever. Written and directed by Alan Rudolph, TROUBLE IN MIND is set somewhere in the future and the past of countless classic film noirs, creating a completely realized neo-noir masterpiece.
Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine, Lori Singer, Geneviève Bujold, Joe MortonCrime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Film-Noir | 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 (48kHz, 24-bit)
1675 kbps
English SDH
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 | 3.5 |
In his tenth feature as a director, Alan Rudolph constructs a pastiche of different time periods and styles in RainCity, the one-word mythical city that stands in for Seattle in Trouble in Mind (1985). With its throwback portrayals of detectives and mobsters, the picture is in debt to 1940s film noir. Wearing a black fedora and trench coat, ex-cop John "Hawk" Hawkins (Kris Kristofferson) is a paean to noir characters once played by Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and John Garfield. The local crime boss Hilly Blue, who's portrayed by Divine out of drag, is directly inspired by the larger-than-life bad guys once inhabited by Sydney Greenstreet. (Divine's performance was criticized by some reviewers as an amateurish impersonation of Greenstreet but it's a terrific turn on its own.) The film is set in the near future where martial law patrols the streets. Militia soldiers attempt to keep the demonstrators at bay.
As the movie opens, former detective Hawk (Kristofferson) is being released from prison after serving almost eight years for killing gangster Fat Adolph (Gailard Sartain) without legal provocation. The first person he goes to see is Wanda (Geneviève Bujold), an old flame who's the proprietress of Wanda's Cafe. Hawk would like to rekindle his romance with Wanda but she tells him to back off. Wanda does give him a single apartment above her cafe. In a camper parked nearby, the not-married country bumpkins Coop (Keith Carradine) and Georgia (Footloose's Lori Singer looking a lot like Daryl Hannah) have recently moved in with their baby Spike. Coop wasn't able to pick up a local job so he joins forces with petty thief Sole (Joe Morton), who's also a beatnik poet. Georgia isn't very smart but Wanda gives her an opportunity to work at her cafe as a waitress. Hawk tries get his old job back through his former colleague Lt. Gunther (George Kirby) but the police force is unwilling to rehire him. Hawk develops a fascination with Georgia and wants her to become his new romantic partner. But Georgia wants Hawk to help get Coop out of trouble first.
Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray of Trouble in Mind comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (feature size: 28.30 GB). The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. I would place a safe bet that this older transfer derives from the same master that Shout! prepared for its "25th Anniversary Special Edition" DVD thirteen years ago. For a lot of its runtime, the picture is gray with a hazy, smoke-filled atmosphere. It also boasts some neon lights and bright colors. The image occasionally shows some print damage in the middle of the frame. For example, see the tramlines in Screenshot #s 20-22. There's also a tramline at the beginning of the scene from frame grab #19. The grain structure is quite harsh throughout the picture but I think that was intentional.
Director of photography Toyomichi Kurita had previously served as a camera operator on Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) and I wanted to see how critics regarded his first solo work as DP on Trouble in Mind. Kurita was rightly praised almost across the board. For instance, Catharine Rambeau of the Detroit Free Press observed: "This is cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita's first feature, and he appears to be extraordinarily talented. The picture glows; even its murkiest settings gleam, and individual scenes are handsomely framed. Kurita, working with the slick dark streets and lurid neon so popular now, has made them look fresh." Newsday's Mike McGrady descriptively and succinctly encapsulated the overall look of the movie: "In general, Rudolph catches the texture of a Hopper painting — the loneliness and alienation of the modern city, somber and smoky grays streaked by garish color bursts, neon everywhere, streetlamps casting perfect white circles out into the darkness, too-red lipsticks, flickering candles, the blinking blue-red-yellow-white lights atop police cruisers." Shout! has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 34.00 Mbps, with an overall bitrate of 36.20 Mbps.
A dozen chapters accompany the 111-minute film.
Shout! has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1675 kbps, 24-bit) as the lone sound track. Spoken words are audible and delivery is adequate. The ballads sung by Marianne Faithfull and the original score by Mark Isham are highlights more so than the f/x. Roger Ebert wrote in his four-star review: "This is a world for which the saxophone was invented." Indeed, Isham performs on sax along with Pee Wee Ellis. This is a bluesy soundtrack with Isham also performing impressively on trumpet and electronic keyboards. On the Antilles/New Directions CD (as well as on the vinyl releases), he eloquently captures the blues on the tracks "Pleasure in Old Sufferings," "The Invitation," and "Intimacy."
Optional English SDH are included for the feature.
Shout! has retained the two main supplements from its 2010 DVD. The original liner notes leaflet by Alan Rudolph has not been reproduced here.
Trouble in Mind is a stylish throwback noir that I'm pleased has finally reached Blu-ray in the States. If you don't own Shout! Factory's 2010 DVD, then definitely pick this release up as it's doubtful that there will be a new transfer made anytime soon. It ports over the two extended featurettes. If you bought the earlier SD, this disc does feature lossless audio and the picture benefits from the added resolution. A SOLID RECOMMENDATION.
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