6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Two young men are trying to make their way in a corporation, one on charm, the other on hard work. When Bernie, the company president, invites them to his beach house for the weekend and dies unexpectedly, a serious threat requires them to pretend that he's still alive.
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Catherine Mary Stewart, Terry Kiser, Don CalfaComedy | 100% |
Dark humor | 2% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Under the old studio system, directors had to be versatile. Victor Fleming famously made both The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind in the same year. Michael Curtiz, was equally adept at a gangster film like Angels with Dirty Faces , a romance like Casablanca, a musical like White Christmas, and many other styles. Contemporary equivalents aren't easy to find, but a good candidate is Canadian filmmaker Ted Kotcheff, whose eclectic oeuvre extends from Wake in Fright, the harrowing drama of an Englishman's descent into madness in the Australian outback; to First Blood, the initial entry in the Rambo series; to the critically panned but enduringly popular Eighties farce, Weekend at Bernie's. Bernie's disproves the adage from Soapdish, an underrated Nineties comedy, when the head writer of a TV drama tells her producer: "Actors don't like to play coma. They feel it limits their range." In Bernie's, actor Terry Kiser spends two thirds of the movie playing a man who's dead—and still manages to steal the show, thanks to cooperative co-stars, a skilled crew and Kotcheff's wicked sense of humor. Having previously dispatched a series of gourmet chefs in ways that would make Gordon Ramsay's day (Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?), Kotcheff appreciated the comedic value of a skillfully positioned corpse. In Bernie's, he devises interesting ways to "animate" the cadaver, and Kiser's performance gives new meaning to the term "deadpan". It doesn't hurt that, before the untimely passing of Kiser's titular character, the actor has made him so thoroughly despicable that you much prefer him dead.
Weekend at Bernie's was shot by cinematographer François Protat (Johnny Mnemonic), a frequent collaborator with director Kotcheff during this period. Although the Northeast is said to be suffering from a heat wave in the film, the palette remains bright and cheerful, even in the sweltering city. Once the action shifts to Bernie's island retreat, the cool hues and pastel tones of a seaside paradise help establish the comic contrast with the potentially morbid subject matter. Fox/MGM's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is an exceptionally fine catalog release. The source material is in excellent shape. Detail, sharpness and clarity are superior throughout—to such a degree that one can even spot a specific makeup effect used to transform Terry Kiser into Bernie Lomax (the trailer gives away this moment, but I won't). Blacks are deep and solid, and the image has a fine and natural grain pattern that appears undisturbed by filtering, sharpening or other digital manipulation. With an average bitrate of 26.89 Mbps, and no extras other than a trailer, Bernie's has been brought to Blu-ray without visible compression artifacts.
Weekend at Bernie's was released in Dolby Stereo, which has been reproduced here as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. When played back through a good surround decoder, the track provides a pleasing sense of ambiance, especially for scenes on the island ferry, at the seashore, in the lighthouse where Gwen takes Richard sightseeing and aboard Bernie's boat. The dynamic range is very good, although there is little in the way of bass extension, and the dialogue is clear. The jaunty soundtrack by Police guitarist Andy Summers sets the perfect mock-serious tone.
Other than the film's trailer (1080p; 1.85:1; 2:35), the disc has no supplements. As is customary with MGM catalog titles mastered and released by Fox, the disc has no main menu. Also, the disc has been mastered with BD-Java, which means that you cannot stop and resume playback from the same point, and Fox has not deigned to include the bookmarking feature that BDJ supports.
The essential appeal of Bernie's is that it's a slapstick comedy, which never goes out of style; it just has to be reinvented for each age. John Hughes may have been the Eighties' single most prolific contributor to the genre, between the Home Alone franchise and the Vacation series, but Klane and Kotcheff made their mark with Weekend at Bernie's (and the far less successful sequel that Klane directed). The film is a period piece now, but it's still funny, because the craftsmanship is solid. The lack of features is unfortunate—somewhere there must be great outtakes—but the presentation is good enough to make this Blu-ray highly recommended.
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