Out Cold (2001) |
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Out Cold (2001) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Emmett & Brendan Malloy (Directors) with Grandma Rose Featurette-Greetings from Bull Mountain Featurette-King of the Mountain Deleted Scenes-9 |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
| Running Time | 86:12 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By |
Emmett Malloy Brendan Malloy |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Walt Disney Studios Home Ent. |
Starring |
Jason London Zach Galifianakis Lee Majors A.J Cook Derek Hamilton Caroline Dhavernas Flex Alexander Victoria Silvstedt |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | Michael Andrews |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes, Snowboarding gear everywhere. Soft drink. | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
When you consider that this is a quote from the Grandmother of the two directors, and when you also consider how biased Grandmothers are towards their Grandchildren, this will give you some idea of the standard of movie we have here.
Having spent a few seasons on mountains in both Canada and New Zealand I jumped at the opportunity to review this DVD, hoping for some widescreen snowboarding action with an accompanying 5.1 soundtrack. Ten minutes into the film I was starting to think I was onto a good thing, but then the snowboarding scenes evaporate and we get into the story (and I use the word "story" in its loosest possible sense). From then on we get a couple of small riding scenes before the 23-minute mark, followed by a boarding drought until the final credits.
If you've seen any one of the dozens of 1980s teen comedies involving summer camps, or group-of-misfits-take-on-the-man type fare, then you already know the plot of this film inside out. Rick (Jason London) is the hot local snowboarder on Bull Mountain, and together with his friends Luke (Zach Galifianakis), Pig Pen (Derek Hamilton), Anthony (Flex Alexander), and Jenny (A.J. Cook) he leads an idyllic life consisting of snowboarding, drinking, partying and generally bumming around.
This "perfect" existence is threatened when a big resort developer, Jack Majors (Lee Majors), buys out the sleepy small-town resort that is Bull Mountain, and moves in to make some serious changes. These changes don't go down well with the locals, who are seeing everything they love being replaced, and it builds up to the climax where they decide to take matters into their own hands.
There's a contrived love triangle thrown in, involving Rick, Jenny and an old flame of his (who just happens to be Majors' daughter), but it failed completely to have any feeling or reason behind it.
There are a few cameo appearances by some of the world's best boarders including: Rob "Sluggo" Boyce (who co-ordinated all the snowboarding shots), Rio Tahara, Todd Richards, Brett Kelly (skateboarder), and maybe some others that I missed. This will probably be of some interest to the riders out there, but will just be seen as bad acting to anyone else.
This film is classified as a comedy, but the number of times it managed to raise even a smile from me could be counted on one hand. The times I was slightly amused were during some of the scenes where the group are playing pranks on each other, and even then it was really only in a reminiscent, immature, "he he, I remember when I used to do things like that" type of way. Painful dialogue (delivered poorly), sexual innuendo, gross-out Farrelly-style jokes, and physical gags make up the rest of the "comedy" in this snoozer.
Combine this with the inclusion of Victoria Silvstedt as Majors' other daughter Inga, and you'd be pretty safe in coming to the conclusion that the target audience for this movie is probably 12-14 year old boys. So, unless you're a real fan of this type of humour, or desperate to see some snowboarding action (and you've seen every snowboard DVD available already), or you just have to see some of the world's best boarders embarrassing themselves with their poor acting skills, then this is probably one to be avoided.
This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which was the original aspect ratio of the theatrical release. It is 16x9 enhanced.
This is a very good transfer, with only a few minor flaws - yet another case of a poor movie getting a very good DVD transfer.
Sharpness is very good throughout the film. There are a number of darker night-time scenes, and these come up very nicely with good shadow detail and no low-level noise that I could see. Some of the daytime snowboarding scenes, with spectacular Canadian mountain scenery, are so crystal clear that you almost feel as if you're there.
As far as colours go, there are a lot of dull scenes with overcast lighting (due to the nature of filming on mountains in winter), but when there is colour it is rich and clear. Some of the clothing in particular had bright mixes of primary colours that showed no signs of bleeding or chroma noise.
No serious MPEG artefacts were visible throughout, although there was some edge enhancement noticeable in some of the outdoor snow scenes. Most obvious examples were around the mountaintops in some of the panoramic shots (35:45 and 57:13), but it was never distracting or painful.
There were also the occasional film artefacts, but it was just the odd bit of dirt and again nothing that caused a problem.
There are two lots of subtitles on this DVD: English, and English for the Hearing Impaired. Both were almost word-perfect in the section that I tested, and the English stream actually gave you any song lyrics that were playing in the background. Some of the dialogue is delivered quite quickly, so the only negative comment I would make about the subtitles is that there can be a lot on screen at one time, making it hard to read it all in time, and also covering large portions of the picture.
This is an RSDL disc, but I was not able to detect the layer change.
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This is a decent audio transfer with no problems to speak of, but it's not going to blow you away.
There are two audio tracks on this DVD. The default is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There is also an English Audio Commentary track, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. I listened to both soundtracks.
Dialogue was clear and generally easy to understand throughout. The only occasional comprehension problems arose when the delivery was too fast or mumbled. There were no audio sync problems, but there were a few lines that you could tell had actually been changed during the ADR process. From the comments of the directors, I assume that this was done in order to reduce some of the cruder lines of dialogue to get the desired rating for the film.
The musical score by Michael Andrews was largely forgettable, but I think this was more due to the fact that the soundtrack was dominated by numerous modern songs. In fact, until the directors commented on the "dramatic score", I have to confess that I hadn't even really noticed there was one! The aggressive songs included are appropriate for the intended audience of this film, and will no doubt be enjoyed by those that would be interested in this DVD.
The surround channels saw little action throughout the dialogue-driven sections of the film (which is most of it), but they kicked in nicely for the snowboarding action scenes and whenever a song started up.
The subwoofer, like the surrounds, only really became active during the few action scenes, and when the music was pumping.
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I still find it disturbing that movies such as The Hunt for Red October only have bare-bones DVD releases, yet movies of this calibre get the full extras treatment. Having said that, quantity of course does not necessarily equate to quality in the world of extras.
The menus are all static, 16x9 enhanced, and the main menu also contains a looping sound effect of wind whistling around.
This is your standard extended trailer fluff piece. Nothing of real interest.
More a music video than a featurette really. This is a selection of some of the snowboarding highlights, put to a musical soundtrack. Probably more exciting than watching the film and skipping to the best bits.
Many of these deleted scenes are of the same quality humour as the final release (which isn't saying much), so I don't think they would have really added or detracted much from the movie, although they would have extended its mercifully short 86 minute run time.
They are all presented in a letterboxed 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and are not 16x9 enhanced. Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0. Video and sound quality are very poor, with some scenes not containing any audio whatsoever. The scenes can be played separately or you can use a "play all" option.
An extension of an existing scene where Stumpy describes how he invented snowboarding to real pro boarder Rio Tahara.
Alternate opening sequence where we meet Papa Muntz and witness his untimely death (which is only talked about in the actual movie).
Another in the series of pranks played on Luke while he was passed-out.
Half a minute of silent scooter riding.
Stumpy trying to sabotage some of the resort renovations.
One deleted joke that took place during the bull ride sequence.
Stumpy accuses yuppie skiers of rudeness.
The scooter from the earlier deleted scene is advertised as missing.
Alternate closing speech by Stumpy.
Yes, you read that right - this scene-specific commentary features not only the two directors, but also their Grandmother. The inclusion of Grandma Rose could be considered nothing more than a "comic" gimmick in my opinion, as she was silent throughout most of the film and from what she said, could hardly even see the picture. (Note to directors who bring Grandmother to commentary recording: make sure she brings her glasses and hearing aid!)
Having said that though, this commentary was surprisingly interesting and kept me awake for the full length of the movie. In fact, I think I enjoyed watching the movie more with the commentary track than I did the first time through. The Malloys seem like likeable enough characters, and keep the anecdotes coming for most of the running time. It's just a shame the movie they're commenting on (their first, by the way) was less than stellar.
There are a few silent moments, especially round the middle of the film, but all-in-all this is definitely the best extra on the disc.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;
The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;
There are no differences to speak of, so my choice would be the Region 4 PAL version
A handful of cool snowboarding scenes do not a good movie make. If you're looking at this movie for its humour and story, then look elsewhere. If you're just wanting some good boarding action, then try renting some DVDs from your local surf shop first. To be fair though, if this is your style of humour then it's a mindless way to wile away a rainy Sunday afternoon.
The video quality is very good.
The audio quality is more than adequate.
The extras are plentiful although lacking in any real quality or substance. The commentary is the best of the bunch.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Omni 3600, using RGB output |
| Display | Sony 1252QM CRT Projector, 250cm custom built 16x9 matte screen. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS797- THX Select |
| Speakers | Accusound ES-55 Speaker set, Welling WS12 Subwoofer |