5.6 | / 10 |
Users | 2.6 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.9 |
Two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer as he tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job. Ben is besieged by people who want him all to be sorts of things -- a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy, youthful and tuned-in -- everything except for the one thing he and all the preposterously behaved people he's surrounded by really are: bumbling human beings just trying to survive by any means necessary.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Bruce Willis, John TurturroDrama | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Tinseltown, Hollywood, whatever you want to call it, the movie mecca of Los Angeles, despite its carefully cultivated appearance, is hardly a land of the free or home of the brave. Actors and anxious directors are bound by clauses and contracts, while hesitant studio execs play a cautious numbers game and put the kibosh on their artistic underlings. All the players, big fish and small fries alike, worry about sliding off the map of cultural relevancy and disappearing into oblivion. The film industry—or just the industry—is not always kind, and What Just Happened is a sad, reflective comedy that chronicles roughly one month in the career of Ben (Robert De Niro), a harried movie producer, as he tries in vain to keep all the cracked plates of his life spinning. Unfortunately, life imitates art imitating life and the producers of this film can’t quite seem to balance everything out, eventually squandering their fantastic ensemble cast.
The beard stays.
Magnolia Pictures releases What Just Happened on Blu-ray with a 1080p, AVC-encoded transfer that's short on HD wow moments but otherwise suits the tone of the film. Overall clarity is average, with some nice sharp facial textures and decent background detail, but a far softer look than most modern cinematic outings. Grain levels hold steady through most of the film, in a thin but pervasive layer, although there are a few instances where analog noise spikes a bit. Blacks, however, are somewhat inconsistent, sometimes looking spot-on, other times seeming washed out, and occasionally crushing detail—like during the scene in the editing bay. Colors are strong and realistic, and skin tones are natural, except when strong lighting dictates otherwise. I did notice two strange transfer issues though. When De Niro walks into the bathroom at the beginning of the film, there's some bizarre contrast wavering on the tile flooring, and later, when he looks up at his ex- wife standing on the stairs, I noticed what appears to be a minor earthquake of telecine wobble.
As a character-driven comedy, What Just Happened sports a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track that is balanced to enhance and prioritize dialogue. Voices are clear and well mixed throughout, and while the film is expectedly light on surround use—offering up few discrete effects—the ambient activity that is present in the rears is fluid and never jarring. Thankfully, a fine score by Marcelo Zarvos fills out the sound field when necessary—especially when De Niro is tooling around town in his Ferrari SUV—and the bass in the incidental music gives the track its sole opportunity to rumble. While a bit on the thin side, this is a pleasant enough mix, and my only complaint is in regard to the overly brash sound design that pops up during the funeral scene.
Commentary by writer/producer Art Linson and director/producer Barry
Levinson
This is a reasonably enlightening commentary track, but those hoping for juicy details about
celebrity tantrums or seedy stories of industry bigwigs may want to direct their attentions to the
checkout line gossip rags instead. Linson and Levinson stick mostly to the story, discussing the
minutiae of production and giving their insider's perspective on the events of the film. I found it
interesting that they wanted to shoot the Vanity Fair "30 Power Producers" with real Hollywood
honchos, but the big-shot producers really did quibble too much about who would be standing
next to whom. With only a few patchy moments of silence, this is a decent track that sheds a
little more light on the sometimes sad and often comical world of the Hollywood elite.
Making Of What Just Happened: From Book to Script to Screen (SD,
23:47)
"Making Of" documentaries usually bring to mind dull, EPK-style talking heads, but this one is
actually entertaining and substantive, featuring interviews with writer/producer Art Linson,
director/producer Barry Levinson, and the great Bob De Niro. The three discuss the film's origins
as a memoir, talk a little about the independently funded, 33-day shoot, and comment on the
absurd realities of working in Hollywood.
Deleted Scenes (SD, 7:07)
There are three deleted scenes here, the most interesting of which is an epilogue that tells what
happens to each of the characters.
Behind the Scenes (SD, 2:47)
This brief segment just cobbles together a few behind-the-scenes clips, with no narration or
explanation.
Casting Sessions (SD, 26:58)
Here we see the casting tapes for nearly every bit role in the film, including Moon Bloodgood as
Laura, Ron Li-Paz as the Rabbi, Dey Young as Ben's first wife, Paul Herman as Jerry, Jean-Mitchell
Richaud as the festival host, Brent Rose as First AD, Logan Grove as Max, Jonathan Kaplan as
Suit #1, Katrina Buck as Verna, Peter Jacobson as Cal, Jason Kravits as Pollster, and Kate Burton
as Dr. Randall. Each session is followed by a finished scene from the film that showcases that
actor.
No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Movie (SD, 1:59)
In this throwaway segment, the dog from the movie "talks" to us, via narration, about his role in
the film. Don't watch this unless you really want to be annoyed.
I think one of the secret aims of What Just Happened was to make "shot the dog" the new "jumped the shark." As in, "yeah man, The Office totally shot the dog with that last episode." I mean, it makes a bit more sense than shark jumping, whatever that is, but I don't think it'll catch on. Anyway, What Just Happened never grabbed me. It has a few fun moments, but the film as a whole seems somewhat unfocused. Add that to an acceptable, but never impressive AV offering, and you have a solid rental that will appease De Niro fans and anyone who wants to know exactly what it is that a producer does.
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