Though for most of the eighties I was in my
pre-teens, I still remember a lot of the music from that era (thanks to having a big
sister). This would explain why I found there to be so much to like about the world wide
smash hit The Wedding SingerSet in 1985, The Wedding Singer follows the story of Robbie
Hart (Adam Sandler in a tailor made role, to show off not only his comic talent but also
his singer ability). Robbie is a wedding singer and his about to marry is girlfriend of 6
years Linda (Angela Featherstone who reminds me of a Cat in this film…it’s all
in the eyes I’m tellin’ ya) as fate would have it, Linda leaves Robbie right at
the alter. Soon after Robbie starts to fall in love with the new waitress who is part of
the catering crew. The ever so sweet Julia (is played by the ever so sweet Drew
Barrymore), and like Robbie, Julia is about to marry her boyfriend of 4 years. Problem is
, Glenn (Matthew Glave) her boyfriend is a big schmuck, but of course Julia is oblivious
to this fact……but not Robbie.
Through nothing but fate, Robbie ends up helping Julia prepare for her wedding during
which he falls madly in love with her while Julia only half knowingly starts falling for
Robbie….
As romantic comedies go this only "just" makes it into that Genre, as
it’s not you typical soppy movie that they try to pass of as a chick flick these
days.
This is a laugh a minute with so many quirky characters such as the little old lady
learning to sing for her 50th wedding anniversary, by paying Robbie with
Meatballs, to Robbie’s backup vocalist George(the very versatile Alexis Arquette)
named so as he dresses and looks like his idol Boy George.
Not only that, but The wedding Singer has one of the best soundtracks included in a film
in years. They’re song every one knows, and loves.
SO HOW DOES THIS TRANSFER HOLD UP?
This version of The Wedding Singer is Roadshow’s 2nd attempt at
re-authoring. Due to the first release have some nasty audio sync problems, Roadshow
decided in good conscience to give it another go….and it’s a film that most
certainly deserved it.
Though the same video source was used for this 16:9 Enhanced DVD, presented at 1.85:1,
the image quality is a little bit better, with a higher resolution, giving the picture a
less edgier and more glossier & sharper look. Even some the aliasing has improved a
little. Considering this is a 1.85:1 movie, there is more aliasing present than you’d
normally expect seeing as there far less vertical image compression done during the
telecine process than you do for a 2.35:1 framed movie (anytime you letterbox a movie to
fit a 4:3 frame you end up with what looks like overlapping lines, and this can cause
edges to be jagged)…
This niggle aside, the colour reproduction has resulted in an exceptionally vibrant image
that really shows a rock solid colour reproduction.
Though it’s been a while since I saw the original DVD version I believe the
saturation level looked a touch higher on that version, making fleshtones too overdone,
but here, they look great.
Due to audio problems with the original release, Roadshow got hold of a new DA-88
master for this version. Unless you have a DVD player that can at times show the dreaded
audio sync delay (like my Pioneer 717) you won’t have any complaints about audio sync
here. While on my machine I found a few moments of exaggerated bad ARD (dialogue looping)
on the Samsung DVD907 it was fine. You could see it was a hair out in spots on the sammy,
but not to a point you’d tear you’re your out. Even on the pioneer the moments
of bad looping weren’t "that" bad, and faired better than the original DVD
release.
Syncing issues aside, this is a soundtrack that rocks.. The default Dolby Digital 5.1
track is a killer, with constant use of ALL speakers. The music used in this film has been
remixed to get maximum use out the rears and bass. Though I found the Dolby 2.0 track to
be quite lacking in this department as it seemed to focus mostly on the front
soundstage…
As for extras, all those present on the original release are included here, though we
are treated to a Dolby Digital trailer, this time it’s EGYPT.. (love this
one…awesome bass)
The menus have been tweaked a little, mainly to speed up what seemed like the heartbeat of
a 95 year old on the first release… It’s now got more rhythm to go with the
background audio that is in Dolby digital 2,0 this time (The original used MPGE2.0).
The scene selection menus now have audio grabs right from the movie. Personally I
didn’t like this approach as it wasn’t keeping in theme with the rest of the
menus. I would have been including the visual elements to go with the audio grabs (hint
hint:-)
The extras consist of the following
Music Video "video killed the radio star" – President’s of the
United States Theatrical Trailer a good looking 16:9 image with DD2.0
Featurette 4 minutes of behind the scenes and interviews
Interviews – main cast. Title cards are used to separate each grab
On the Set - a 2 minutes montage of outtakes
It’s great to see Roadshow taking another stab at this DVD, even though it’s
still not cheap to completely author a movie for DVD. Generally speaking, this one is a
big improvement over the original, but be warned, anyone with one of those
"sensitive" DVD players who happens to pick up on less than perfect audio
syncing, will notice a few spots here and there.
