A League Of Their Own

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1 not 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 Sleepless in Seattle - 1.33:1 not 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono Stuart Little - 1.33:1 not 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0
Year Released	1992	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	122:43 minutes	Other Extras	Featurette-Untitled (6:56) Featurette-A League Of Their Own (27:22) Music Video-This Used To Be My Playground-Madonna Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (72:42)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Penny Marshall
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Tom Hanks Geena Davis Madonna Lori Petty Jon Lovitz David Strathairn Garry Marshall Bill Pullman
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$39.95	Music	Hans Zimmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	4.0
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 4.0, 384Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English German French Dutch Spanish Italian Portuguese Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, slightly
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during

    Jon Lovitz opens the movie with an excellent and very funny cameo role as a foul-mouthed, cynical, sexist talent scout who has been sent out to recruit women softball players for the new Baseball league. He spots Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and her sister Kit (Lori Petty). Dottie is rather good, but isn't interested in trying out until Kit talks her into it. They both make it, and the remainder of the film follows the ups and downs of their season, including the antics of their drunkard coach, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) who finally realizes that these women can actually play baseball and then finally starts to help them rather than hinder them.

    Throw in a series of strong female supporting characters, and you have a very entertaining way of spending two hours, perhaps a little too syrupy-sweet for some, but entertaining nonetheless.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. It is generally a very good transfer that falls shy of reference quality because of some minor blemishes.

    The transfer was very clear and very sharp for the great majority of the time. However, early on in the movie, it tended towards the dark side, particularly for inside shots. Outside shots were always perfectly rendered. As the movie progressed, the inside shots improved and because easier to view and by the end of the movie they were no problem at all. This is the first time that I have seen this movie so I cannot refer back to its theatrical presentation in regards to the director's intent with these shots, however, the style of the cinematography makes me believe that these renderings were deliberate artistic choices rather than errors in the transfer itself. For best results, this transfer should be watched either in total darkness or under strictly controlled lighting conditions.

    The colours are variably presented, once again it seems by artistic choice. Early on, the colours are very muted and browns and greys predominate, but following the first newsreel footage, the colours become vibrant. Greens in particular are beautifully rendered in this transfer. The colours tended to oversaturate a little in the darker scenes, but nothing that was particularly distracting.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some very minor aliasing on some baseball stadium seats and on the steely lines of the train early in the movie, but were fundamentally absent. Film artefacts were rare and went unnoticed other than those deliberately inserted into the movie.

    This is an RSDL disc, with a relatively lengthy and noticeable layer change occurring at 72:42, during Chapter 17.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on this DVD, with the default being English Dolby Digital 4.0, which is the track that I listened to. This soundtrack sounded like it had been decoded from a surround-encoded source into discrete Left, Centre, Right and Surround channels, and then encoded onto this DVD in this configuration rather than being remixed from the original audio stems., but more on that later.

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to make out and there were no audio sync problems.

    The score by Hans Zimmer is somewhat unremarkable, with the most remarkable scoring being towards the end of the movie where it started to sound excessively schmaltzy for my tastes. Of particular note, however, is the song which closes the movie, This Used To Be My Playground. In a word, this song is brilliant, and brings a superb closure to the movie. It is far and away the best example of a movie theme song that I have ever heard. It perfectly encapsulates all that the movie stands for, and all that the movie was about.

    The surround channel had limited use, with only the occasional ambient sound effect finding its way into the rear. Dominant centre channel dialogue or sound effects tended to cause a collapsing of the surround soundfield into the centre channel, which is why I believe this 4.0 soundtrack is merely a decoded surround-encoded soundtrack rather than one sourced from the audio stems of the original master soundtrack. This was pretty much a front hemispheric sound mix for the great majority of the movie, not that a full-blown 5.1 soundtrack would have been all that much better for this style of movie. It would, however, have prevented this occasional collapsing soundfield effect from occurring.

    My Dolby Digital decoder feeds low frequencies to my subwoofer even if it does not detect a .1 channel, and the subwoofer was kept moderately active without being particularly stressed by this soundtrack.

Menu

Theatrical Trailers

Featurette - Untitled

Featurette - A League Of Their Own

Music Video - This Used To Be My Playground - Madonna

Cast & Crew Biographies

    The video quality is generally excellent with some minor let-downs early on.

    The audio quality is reasonable without being remarkable.

    The extras are decent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (my bio)
28th March 2000