My Best Friend's Wedding

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	1-Dolby Digital City
Running Time	101 minutes	Commentary Tracks	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Other Extras	None
Region	4
Distributor	Columbia Tristar
RRP	$34.95

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (Dolby Digital 2.0)  French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
Macrovision	Yes
Subtitles	English  French Dutch Arabic

    Julianne decides that this is quite unacceptable, and she sets her mind to breaking up the match, enlisting the reluctant help of her gay editor, George Downes (Rupert Everett). Rupert is excellent in his role, and very funny at times. His performance is the highlight of the movie - bordering on stealing the show.

    Julianne's attempts at breaking the happy couple apart gradually escalate as none of them seem to work, generally backfiring and causing the couple to draw closer together. Her deeds get more and more despicable, and occasionally funny, such as when she pretends to be engaged to George. This sequence, however, quickly degenerates into a ill-conceived musical number which has been mysteriously inserted into the storyline for no apparent reason other than to take up movie time.

    Julianne finally manages to get the couple to break up about two-thirds of the way into the movie, but then regrets what she has done, and so spends the last third of the movie trying to get them back together again. I personally found it hard to feel any sympathy for Julianne despite the movie trying almightily hard to make us feel sorry for her - she has just spent 60 minutes being a vile human being and then we are meant to feel sorry for her? I don't think so.

    So, who gets to marry Michael? Julianne or Kimmy? Does Julianne succeed in getting Kimmy and Michael back together? Does Michael realize that he really loves Julianne and marry her? Who shot Mr Burns?

    You'll have to watch it to see how they manage to salvage a Hollywood happy ending out of this seemingly impossible scenario. Be warned, however, that you'll have to sit through a barrage of product placement (United Airlines, Chicago Hilton, Chicago Tribune, Cinzano, The Drake Hotel, Apple Powerbook, Marlboro, and Ronsley were the ones that were the most irritating) and a long pro-smoking advertisement by Julia Roberts to find out.

    As a small aside, Harry Shearer, of The Simpsons fame, has a small cameo role towards the end of the movie which is worthwhile watching for.

Video

    The transfer was crystal clear and razor sharp at all times. Shadow detail was excellent, and no low level noise was apparent. The majority of this movie takes place in brightly lit areas, which appear to be easier to encode than dark scenes. Nonetheless, there was nothing to complain about at all in the clarity of the transfer.

    The colour was perfectly rendered in this transfer. In particular, bright colours were vibrant, and skin tones were absolutely spot-on with no over or undersaturation at all at any time.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. No film-to-video artefacts were seen. In particular, there were a number of scenes which  depicted visuals that are notoriously prone to aliasing, and they were all perfectly transferred. For example, at the start of Chapter 5, there are a number of wide panning shots of a baseball stadium, none of which exhibit significant aliasing. Later on in the movie, there is a moving shot of skyscrapers, another type of shot which is notoriously prone to aliasing. Once again, there is virtually no aliasing visible. Film artefacts were essentially non-existent. I did notice two very minimal skips in the video stream; at 58:48 and 84:05 but these were very subtle and hardly noticeable at all.

    This is a reference level video transfer, and indeed I would venture to say that this video transfer is the best one I have seen to date in Region 4.

Audio

    Dialogue was almost always completely clear and intelligible, except for the odd sentence here and there. The opening sequence was not very well ADR processed, as it was quite clearly not quite in sync at times, but this was not an issue during the movie itself.

    The musical score was often present, particularly towards the latter half of the movie, and generally suited the on-screen action. A lot of well-known up tempo and romantic songs of the 60s and 70s were used in the soundtrack, as well as original music by James Newton Howard. The music was fun to listen to - most apt for a movie about a wedding.

     The surround channels were used for music, and for some ambience. Early on in the movie, the soundtrack had a somewhat up front and centre feel to it, but the surround presence improved markedly in the latter half of the movie, with the surrounds active throughout the majority of the second half. A scene which is particularly notable in this regard is the scene within the church which had an excellent surround presence about it.

    The .1 channel was used to enhance the music. It only had a light workout during this movie.

    The best extra on this DVD (and it's not really an extra) is to be found at the start of the movie, where the Sony Pictures DVC Centre logo is displayed in a 4:3 aspect and with a 5.1 soundtrack. This is the first disc I have ever seen from Columbia Tristar with this logo on it, and this logo really makes you sit up and take notice. Remember the feeling when you saw the THX logo for the first time with the swirling audio? This one is better. Looking at the quality of the logo, you can see why Columbia Tristar DVDs are all so good.

    Not only that, but we also get the Dolby Digital City trailer, once again displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio and with a 5.1 soundtrack.

    To access these trailers before the movie, you appear to need to start the movie via the menu, rather than with the Play button which simply takes you to the start of the movie. Speaking of the menu, the menu screen is not 16x9 enhanced, but this is a minor point.

    The video quality is reference quality, and the best example of DVD I have seen to date.

    The audio quality tended to be up front and centre early on in the movie, but improved in its ambience later on in the movie. I would still classify this as a good soundtrack with minimal problems.

    The inclusion of the Sony Pictures DVC Centre logo and the Dolby Digital City trailer are a wonderful unexpected bonus. This disc is worth looking at for the impact of these alone, and if you actually like this movie, or know someone that likes this movie, then even better.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Michael Demtschyna
25th November 1998