New Best Friend (2002) |
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New Best Friend (2002) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary-Zoe Clarke-Williams (Director) Filmographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Trailer-The Sweetest Thing, Enough, Not Another Teen Movie Trailer-The Forsaken, Urban Legend |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2002 | ||
| Running Time | 87:12 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | Zoe Clarke-Williams |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Mia Kirshner Meredith Monroe Dominique Swain Scott Bairstow Rachel True Taye Diggs |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $36.95 | Music | John Murphy |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | Varies | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Slovenian Swedish Turkish Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes, plus drugs usage |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
New Best Friend is kind of like a cross between Beverly Hills 90210 and a murder mystery, except it's not set in Beverly Hills, there is no murder, and the "mystery" is fairly transparent.
At the start of the film, we find an acting sheriff, Artie Bonner (Taye Diggs) being briefed by the Dean of Colby University (Edmund Kearney) about the recent drug overdose of final year student Alicia Campbell (Mia Kirshner) that has left the girl in a coma. The Dean wants Artie to conduct a "delicate and discrete" investigation into the circumstances of the overdose.
Over the course of the investigation, Artie realises that nothing is what it seems. Alicia is a "good girl" who comes from a poor background, and is hoping to get a scholarship to a law school. However, recently she has been paired with a beautiful, rich and spoilt girl, Hadley Ashton (Meredith Monroe), for a sociology assignment. Despite her reluctance, fairly soon Alicia is drawn into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll of Hadley and her friends Sidney (Dominique Swain) and Julianne (Rachel True).
Is this a classic case of innocent girl being lured into decadent ways by three wild girls? Not quite, for Alicia is not above snooping into her friends' belongings, manipulating Hadley's father, and also trying to steal Hadley's boyfriend Trevor (Scott Bairstow).
Although not strictly a "murder" mystery, it might as well be because Alicia never really wakes up from her coma throughout the whole film, and when the truth is revealed Artie behaves as if he's just caught Jack The Ripper.
Although the film shows some promise and is rather stylistic, I found the overall storyline disappointing. The clues seemed so obvious that I keep thinking there must be a shock ending, or a plot twist, or something awaiting in the next scene. They must have snipped the "surprise" out because when the revelation came it was so obvious that I thought something must be wrong. And the "evidence" is so circumstantial I am sure any decent lawyer would be able to quash the prosecution's case.
Alicia's transformation from poor, plain-looking innocent girl to a wild femme fatale is so quick it is ridiculous. And Artie's actions are also incredible - he is ticked off by the Dean twice and at one stage is slapped with a sexual harassment complaint and yet he doesn't even slow down.
Finally, there are some gratuitous lesbian scenes that are not only totally unnecessary, they actually slow down the storyline at critical moments. What's even more surprising is that the film is written and directed by women, and yet the lesbian scenes are so unrealistic they seem to be manufactured to cater for a male fantasy of lesbianism.
The transfer is in widescreen 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The intended aspect ratio is 1.85:1, based on a 35mm film source (with some scenes captured digitally using an HDTV camera).
Even though this is a relatively short film, the disc authors have crammed too much into a single sided single layered disc. As a result, the transfer look a bit on the soft side and there is persistent low level pixelization on nearly all the scenes (quite obvious whenever I hit the Pause button). Other than that, though, detail levels are average and colour saturation is pretty close to perfect.
The film source looks very clean and there are no signs of film marks. Grain is visible but fairly minimal.
There are quite a few subtitle tracks on the disc: English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, Italian Audio Commentary, Spanish Audio Commentary, Dutch Audio Commentary, plus English for the Hearing Impaired. I turned on both English subtitle tracks briefly and the dialogue transcription is similar for both tracks. The English for the Hearing Impaired seems to also include transcriptions of lyrics of background music and non-dialogue utterances, as well some dialogue attribution.
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There are 4 audio tracks on the disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), and English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).
As you would expect, this is pretty much a dialogue driven film so most of the sound comes from the front centre speaker. The other speakers are mainly used for background music ambience and there is some evidence of panning of Foley effects across the front channels (moving vehicles etc.)
Dialogue quality is good and there were no issues with audio synchronization.
The subwoofer is used to support the low frequencies in the background music.
Incidentally, according the director Zoe Clarke Williams, she originally wanted to use music by Ani DiFranco for the soundtrack but couldn't afford the licensing rights. The original music score is by David A. Hughes and John Murphy and is fairly forgettable light instrumental pop with a Southern twang. The music used in the parties is nondescript rap and house music.
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The only major extra is an audio commentary track.
The menu is 16x9 enhanced but static.
Ho hum.
Zoe covers a wide variety of topics on this commentary, ranging from plot details, to pointing out subtle things on screen, to casting, location, production anecdotes, camera techniques, background music, and so forth. I appreciated the film a little bit more after hearing this commentary, and I think Zoe has a promising future but she needs to choose better storylines!
There is one still each (except for Dominique who gets two) for the following members of the cast & crew:
This is presented in 1.85:1 (16x9 enhanced) and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded (192Kb/s). It is subtitled in Italian, Spanish and Dutch.
The following trailers are included on this disc:
The first two trailers are subtitled in Dutch only, the last three in Italian, Spanish and Dutch.
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's no real difference between the two.
New Best Friend is a whodunit set on a college campus. The plot is mainly told as a series of flashbacks, and the identity of the culprit is pretty obvious.
The video transfer is slightly soft and pixelated.
The audio transfer is okay.
Extras include a director's commentary track and some trailers.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Linn Unidisk 2.1, using Component output |
| Display | Sony VPL-VW11HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics 16x9 matte white screen (254cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials/Ultimate DVD Platinum/AVIA. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE (upgraded) |
| Speakers | Front and surrounds: B&W CDM7NT, front centre: B&W CDMCNT, surround backs: B&W DM601S2, subwoofer: B&W ASW2500 |