Blow Dry (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Dolby Digital Trailer-Egypt
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	86:34
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Paddy Breathnach
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Alan Rickman Natasha Richardson Josh Harnett Rachel Griffiths Warren Clarke
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	Rental	Music	Patrick Doyle

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    The story is based on a screenplay entitled “Never Better” by Simon Beaufoy (the same guy that wrote The Full Monty). It was filmed on location in West Yorkshire, London and in the Three Mills Studios, also in London. The gentle and quiet Yorkshire setting was a perfect location for the story to be set and the “slow” locals provide a welcome relief from the uptight out-of-town entrants that have come to take part in the Hairdressing titles.

    Keighley is a small town in country Britain which has been chosen as the host “city” for the annual British Hair Championships. The townsfolks' jaws drop when the mayor (Warren Clarke) makes the announcement to the citizens and press. Heck, they all thought it was to be news of some importance, but at least the mayor is rapt.

    Phil (Alan Rickman) and his son Brian (Josh Hartnett) have been living together in their local Barber Shop ever since Paul's wife Shelley (Natasha Richardson) ran off with Phil’s hair model Christina (Rachel Griffiths). All four have been living in Keighley but barely spoken a word for 10 years. Phil uses threats to throw him out if he gets too close to his mother on Brian, which makes it hard for the lad.

    With no local entrants taking part in the titles, Shelley decides to enter but really needs the skills of Brian and especially Phil. You see, he was preparing to win his third hairdressing championship with Christina when she fell in love with Shelley and took off a few days before the titles. This hit Phil hard and has made him rather fond of the bottle, and bitter to all people, especially the girls. He even admits that if Shelley ran off with a bloke it would not have affected him as much. So will this past hairdressing champion be able to put aside his differences and help to save the day? Will Brian have any problems practicing his hairstyles ahead of the titles at the local Morgue?

    Put aside any preconceived ideas you may have about this film and give it a go. The superb cast portray each of their characters in a thoroughly entertaining manner, held together by Rickman. This is a far cry from the cool ruthless thief that caused grief for John (Bruce Willis) in Die Hard. And, to top it off, you will see the ugliest and weirdest hairdos ever created. The story has some added content that I will not delve into here (for fear of spoiling the sub-plot), which provides a real need to see the four main characters come together as a family.

Video

    The scenes are predominately close-up shots with good detail visible on the characters' faces, but at times the transfer exhibits a little softness. Most of the backgrounds are intentionally out of focus, which actually enhances the clarity and sharpness of the foreground image. Shadow detail is handled very well with good solid blacks shown in the night sky at 44:57 and 47:58 with plenty of detail being visible in the darker scenes. There was really only one point at 25:16 where the detail was poor resulting in a high amount of grain and charcoal blacks, but this was the exception and only lasted for a few brief seconds. There is no low level noise.

    The colours provided accurate flesh tones and rich bright colour was visible when required for the shot. The bright red cloth that drapes across the screen at 14:23 contained a perfect level of colour and contrast making a rich vibrant red. The neon signs are also realistic in their appearance and are full of bright colour. At 34:13 there is also a good example of colour as the camera peers through the stained glass pattern at the Morgue.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Aliasing is very rare and very mild when it does occur. Film artefacts are quite common and are both black and white, but thankfully they are small in size and not overly distracting to the viewer.

    This disc is a single sided and single layered disc so therefore there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on. The miming during the end credits is clearly intentional so that doesn't count.

    The musical score by Patrick Doyle was as bubbly as the feature and was ideally suited to the movie. The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the feature.

    The surround channels are primarily used for music with little use being made of them for directional sound effects or even ambience, not that this is really a problem as the story does not really call for their use.

    The subwoofer was not used. All bass requirements were more than amply handled by the main speakers.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (1:25)

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Behind The Scenes featurette (7:00)
• Sneak Peeks ( trailers for She's All That, Bounce, Muriel's Wedding, Committed, Confessions of Sorority Girls, All I Wanna Do, and The Faculty)

• Blow Dry trailer

    The featurette gives an insight (albeit quick) into the making of the film and talks to the main characters and Executive Producer (Sidney Pollack). The Region 1 disc wins due to the missing content.

    As I said at the beginning, Blow Dry was a fun movie that I would have otherwise completely missed because of the cover, its title and the apparent contents. Next time you are down at the local video shop, give it a go - you may just be pleasantly surprised.

    The video quality was good.

    The audio quality was also good.

    There are no real extras, not uncommon for a rental disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall