Well this was a flop 10 years ago and sadly it’s
still pretty much a flop. There are so many combining factors, which make this such a slow
film that it was bound to flop right from the word go.
Based on the book by Tom Wolfe, I can see how this would have made an interesting read.
However it didn’t do so well as a film.
Tom hanks is the high profile, high rolling Sherman McCoy who schmoozes with New Yorks
finest in the financial stakes while his less than intelligent wife enjoys the life of a
wealthy socialite.
Sherman has sought out some excitement in his life with his mistress Maria Ruskin
(Melanie Griffith). Maria is equally conversant with a high rolling life and is much worse
than your average bimbo.
All seems to be going well with this little affair until Sherman misses a turn and ends
up in the Bronx with Maria in the car with him. Through a string of events Maria ends up
driving into a black man and injures him enough that he ends up in hospital in a coma.
Sherman, a little tense about this situation agrees not to go to the police and the two
of them spend the next few days thinking that they will never be discovered for this.
However the mayor and a local black religious leader get together and decide that this
could be a good vote-winning situation to hunt down the white man and serve justice.
Through all of this the focus is also on Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) who is intent on
bringing the money making story to the masses and at one stage gets very close to Sherman
and finds out the truth about who was driving the car that night.
So how does this transfer hold up?
...  |
VIDEO
The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is less than quality I had
expected. There is an obvious problem with grain throughout almost the entire transfer.
While on a small 69cm screen this isn’t so much of a problem but go any bigger and it
would be much more noticeable. The presence of grain gave the overall transfer a soft
badly focused look and had little or no sharpness to the image.
Shadow detail suffered due to this as well and was quite poor generally. Most times
there was little or no detail in shadowed areas at all.
The colour palette was realistic but didn’t really bring out any great feature in
the film. There certainly didn’t seem to be any scenes where the colour really
grabbed me. It seemed a little dull and lifeless.
The were no mpeg artefacts and only some minor issues with shimmering and ailiasing.
There was however an abundance of film artefacts, scratches dust marks etc which were
quite distracting.
 ... |
AUDIO
The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack was not overly impressive either. There is of
course little room for anything really punchy but there was little life to the audio track
anyway. Dialogue was sharp and clear. The surround channels were used sparingly if at all.
The score from David Grusin was very average and not
memorable at all. It really just sounded like your average run of the mill film
soundtrack.
I was disappointed in this audio track. Given that the film isn’t really that old
I felt a better job could have been done here.
EXTRAS
None
OVERALL
Overall I wasn’t impressed with this transfer or the film really. So unless you are a
diehard fan of one of the cast, give this one a miss and hire it instead.
| PICTURE
QUALITY |
6/10 very grainy |
| SOUND Quality |
6/10 lifeless and dull |
| EXTRAS |
0/10 not a thing |
| OVERALL |
6/10 very average |
Review Equipment
TV: GE 68cm (16:9 selectable)
DVD: Samsung DVD909 (via S-Video)
Receiver: Yamaha DTS RX-V595a (Sweeeeet)
Speakers:-
Fronts: Wharfdale Diamond R6 (on a pair of custom made stands you'd KILL for)
Centre: Venturi
Rears: Sony bookshelf
- Reviewed 13th January 2001
*Bonfire of the Vanities jpeg
files for internet promotion use only. Copyright© exists on all aspects of these files by
Warner Home Video
...