City Of Angels


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Details At A Glance

General
Extras
Category Drama Theatrical Trailer(s) None
Rating Other Trailer(s) None
Year Released 1998 Commentary Tracks None
Running Time 110 minutes Other Extras Cast & Crew Biographies
Production Notes
Featurette - Making Angels (30 mins)
Featurette - Additional Scenes (13 mins, with and without commentary track)
Interviews - Peter Gabriel (1 min), Alanis Morissette (2 mins)
RSDL/Flipper Flipper for extras
Cast & Crew
Start Up Movie
Region 4 Director Brad Silberling
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Nicolas Cage
Meg Ryan
Dennis Franz
Andre Braugher
Case Snapper
RRP $29.95 Music Gabriel Yared

 
Video
Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None MPEG None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Dolby Digital 5.1
16x9 Enhancement Yes Soundtrack Languages English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Miscellaneous
Macrovision ?
Subtitles English
French
Italian
Dutch
Arabic
Spanish
Portuguese
English for the Hearing Impaired
Italian for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes

Plot Synopsis

    It is not often that a remarkable film comes along. City Of Angels is one such remarkable film.

    What if angels walked among us? What if one of them falls in love with one of us? This is the premise of City Of Angels. Nicolas Cage plays Seth, an angel, who meets Maggie (Meg Ryan), and is smitten by her - but will he give up his immortal existence to be with Maggie?

    Nicolas Cage is absolutely magnificent in his role as Seth. He plays his role to perfection, with just the right feel to make his character and his character's motivations completely clear. Meg Ryan is also superb in her role as an atheist cardiac surgeon. There are many scenes when very few words are spoken, and the emotion of the scene is carried by a subtle look, or a subtle brushing touch. Such subtlety is rare in Hollywood these days, where needless expository dialogue ruins many movie.

    This movie has a number of enormous strengths. Firstly, the story is interesting and plausible. Secondly, the main characters are strong, believable and played to perfection by Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Thirdly, the cinematography is absolutely stunning. There are some remarkable shots in this movie - there is often little need for dialogue, as the stunning visual imagery tells the entire story. Fourthly, the musical score is superb in complementing the on-screen action.

    This is a great movie, one made even more so by the fact that I was expecting it to be quite ordinary. I have not enjoyed a movie this much in a long time.

Transfer Quality

Video

    The video transfer of this movie is basically perfect, and is of reference quality.

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was razor clear and crystal sharp throughout. Shadow detail was perfect, with excellent deep and richly detailed blacks. No low level noise was present at all.

    The colours were all perfectly rendered with no under or oversaturation noted.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some very rare and trivial aliasing, none of which was of any consequence. Given that a number of Warner Home Video 2.35:1 transfers in the past have suffered quite badly with aliasing (eg Jeremiah Johnson, Fathers' Day), it is good to see that they have conquered this artefact. The very nature of the cinematography in this movie leads to there being a large number of scenes which would otherwise have had severe aliasing present given the sharpness of the transfer, but this is not at all an issue with this transfer. Film artefacts were absent except for a very annoying artefact at 40:28 which mars an otherwise flawless transfer.

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this DVD; an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    Dialogue was always perfectly clear and audible, even during scenes with high ambient noise. This is critically important for a dialogue-driven movie such as this one.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The musical score by Gabriel Yared was superb, and created a stunning atmosphere for this movie. This is a truly exceptional soundtrack.

     The surround channels were frequently in use, but always subtly - there are no explosions, but there is plenty happening in the surrounds, creating an excellent immersive soundtrack.

   The .1 channel was not heavily used except for the occasional support for the music.

Extras

    An excellent collection of extras are present on this disc. The only sour note for me is the fact that the Region 1 Special Edition version of this disc has far more extras than our version. Note that our version is not labelled as a Special Edition. We miss out on two Commentary Tracks, a Special Effects documentary, selected scene commentary with the Cinematographer, selected scene commentary with the Production Designer, an Isolated Music Soundtrack with composer's commentary, a Theatrical Trailer, and a few other minor bits & pieces that don't matter.

    The bulk of the extras on our version of this disc are on Side B of the disc, though the entire movie is on Side A of the disc. An annoying issue is the fact that we have to sit through countless copyright messages before getting to the main menu on Side B of the disc.

Menu

    The main menu is plain and functional. It is 16x9 enhanced.

Cast & Crew Biographies

    These are of reasonable length and reasonably quantity.

Production Notes

    These are brief.

Featurette - Making Angels

    This is a 30 minute Making Of featurette, which is of excellent quality. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 4:3 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Annoyingly, the subtitles default to ON in this featurette.

Featurette - Deleted Scenes

    This is a 13 minute featurette detailing some of the scenes that were cut out of the movie, replete with commentary from Brad Silberling and Lynzee Klingman. You can choose to watch these scenes with or without commentary, though they are much more informative with commentary. These are presented with Dolby Digital 1.0 sound in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, non-16x9 enhanced. The video quality of these scenes is marginal, but this in no way affects the quality of this extra feature.

Interviews

    These are short snippets of interview footage of Peter Gabriel (1 minute) and Alanis Morissette (2 1/2 minutes).

Summary

    City Of Angels is a great movie. Great story, great acting, great cinematography, great music, all presented on a great disc. The only sour note is the lack of extras compared with the Region 1 version of this disc. Nonetheless, this disc is good enough to be inducted into my Hall Of Fame.

    The video quality is reference quality.

    The audio quality is superb.

    The extras present are excellent, but we lack the commentary tracks of the Region 1 release of this movie.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
16th May 1999

Review Equipment
DVD Pioneer DV-505, using S-Video output
Display Loewe Art-95 95cm direct view CRT in 16:9 mode, via the S-Video input. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital AddOn Decoder, used as a standalone processor. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Amplification 2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer
Speakers Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer