Can't Hardly Wait

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General		Extras
Category	Coming-Of-Age	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 - Dolby Digital City, DVD Teaser #2
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 1 - Harry Elfont (Co-Writer, Co-Director), Deborah Kaplan (Co-Writer, Co-Director), Jenno Topping (Co-Producer), Seth Green (Actor), Betty Thomas (Co-Producer)
Running Time	96:28 minutes	Other Extras	Cast Filmographies Music Video, 1 - Smashmouth, I Can't Get Enough of You Baby Photo Gallery, 14 production stills
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Deborah Kaplan Harry Elfont
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Ethan Embry Charlie Korsmo Lauren Ambrose Peter Facinelli Seth Green Jennifer Love Hewitt
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	David Kitay

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) French (Dolby Digital 5.1) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French Arabic	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly

    Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is the prom queen, but she has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, Mike (Peter Facinelli), the school jock (and jerk). Amanda, surprisingly, is not the typical white princess that we would expect, and Mike, surprisingly, is not a total jerk.

    Preston (Ethan Embry), has had a crush on Amanda from the very moment he laid eyes on her, and tonight is the night that he plans to lay his soul bare, with quite an unexpected outcome.

    William (Charlie Korsmo) is the class nerd, victimized by Mike throughout school. Tonight, William plans revenge, but not before he has a beer... By the way, when you see the list of clubs and activities William was involved in during school, amuse yourself by still-framing through and reading all of the list...

    Denise (Lauren Ambrose) is the misfit, shunned by most of the rest of the class, and Kenny (Seth Green) is the home boy wannabe, wearing all the right clothes, and talking all the right talk. Funnily enough, this doesn't seem to impress anybody except his pals. As we find out, there is more to Kenny than meets the eye.

    The writers have taken these characters and made them all just a little bit vulnerable and a little bit flawed. Whilst they are stereotypes on the surface, we are shown more of their true natures. This makes them all likeable, and we are able to have sympathy for them all. There isn't any deep and meaningful message to this film, by the way, it just succeeds very well at what it sets out to do. As light entertainment, Can't Hardly Wait succeeds admirably.

Video

    The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear. Shadow detail was excellent. There was no low level noise apparent.

    The colours were well-rendered, though I felt skin tones were marginally paler than I would have expected. This could have been the result of using very pale actors, of course!

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. There were no film-to-video artefacts seen. There were no film artefacts seen.

Audio

    Dialogue was almost always clear and easy to understand. A few words were lost here and there, but generally the background ambience was set at a level well below the dialogue. Indeed, at times I felt the ambience could have been mixed into the soundtrack a little louder.

    There were no audio sync problems.

    The score by David Kitay suited the movie, as did the multitude of songs used to underscore various scenes. Various musical genres are used successfully throughout the film, including a number of Barry Manilow standards, which were lovingly crafted into the story.

    The surround channels were frequently subtly active with ambience and music. There were no action sequences in this movie to really work out the surrounds, but they remained nicely active throughout. Little things like background music, party noises and various crashes, splashes and bashes all came from the rears. This gave an excellent feeling of actually being in the room and at the party with the actors.

    The .1 channel was subtly active at times. Once again, nothing spectacular, just a little bottom end on some of the music and some of the ambience.

What's Missing / What's Extra

• Pan & Scan version

• Filmographies

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Music Video - Smashmouth - I Can't Get Enough of You Baby

Photo Gallery

Filmographies - Cast

Audio Commentary - Harry Elfont (Co-Writer/Co-Director), Deborah Kaplan (Co-Writer/Co-Director), Jenno Topping (Producer), Seth Green (Actor), Betty Thomas (Producer)

    The only other criticism I will level at the commentary track is that because the movie moves so quickly, a number of points and anecdotes are cut short as we progress to the next scene. However, there is a lot of good information presented by this commentary - lots of little things were pointed out by the participants. I found myself frequently pausing and backtracking slightly to check on a point that had been made, such as the subtle CGI modifications to various scenes to attain an American PG rating for the film, or to catch many of the brief cameos and bloopers.

    This commentary track is definitely worth the time spent listening to it, especially since the participants are clearly having such a fun time telling us about their movie.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are excellent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
30th July 1999