Looking for Alibrandi (1999) |
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Looking for Alibrandi (1999) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Menu Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Audio Commentary-K Woods (Dir), M Marchetta (Wri), R Kershaw (Prod) Gallery-Photo Storyboards-and Working Script notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Music Video-Weir-Killing Heidi Music Video-Teenager Of The Year-Lo-tel Deleted Scenes-+/- comm |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1999 | ||
| Running Time | 98:52 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (51:29) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Kate Woods |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Greta Scacchi Anthony LaPaglia Elena Cotta Kerry Walker Pia Miranda |
| Case | Village Roadshow New Style | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music | Alan John |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0  (320Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, at very start of credits | ||
Josephine is 17, is about to start her H.S.C. with the boy of her dreams seemingly out of her reach and she has been raised by her mother, which is an important part of the story, but won't be elaborated on here.
Pia Miranda's acting is just superb. She shows an amazing range of emotions that had me smiling, scurrying for cover and crying (well not actually crying, but certainly not feeling too good). Of course, her performance needs to be backed with other good acting performances to make a movie work, and it is. The cast seems to have been perfectly picked; Greta Scacchi as Christina Alibrandi (Josephine's mother), Anthony Lapaglia as Michael Andretti (Josephine's father), Elena Cotta as Josephine's over-bearing Nonna (grandmother). Now that we have gotten the Alibrandi bunch out of the way, onto the other stars; Kick Gurry as Jacob Coote, the boy that doesn't have a car!? (sorry, little inside joke there for those who have seen the movie) and Matthew Newton as John Barton, the boy of her dreams.
The picture is extremely clear and sharp at all times. No low-level noise, edge bleeding or excessive edge enhancement was noticed.
Update 4th November 2000: There are three instances where the picture brightness changes. One is during the movie and the other two are during the end credits. The first brightness change is at 73:31 and it is very noticeable when you are looking for it. It occurs approximately 1 second after a scene change, so in this respect it is not that disruptive to the picture, and may even go by unnoticed, as it did with me the first couple of times. The other two occurrences are in the end credits at 96:17 and 96:27, where the whiteness of the credits changes abruptly. I'd like to thank Ben Hooft for bringing these glitches to my attention.
The colour was exemplary - beautifully saturated, rich and vibrant. In the opening scene, however, the picture has a yellowish tinge and an oversaturated look about it which was deliberately done to create the appearance of home video footage.
This transfer is basically free of grain, which makes the picture a joy to watch on a big screen. I did manage to spot two totally trivial and inconsequential instances, at 42:15 and 53:34, but you will need your magnifying glass or even your microscope to spot them.
No MPEG artefacts were noticed and only one instance of moiré patterning was noticed at 18:18.
I counted nine small unobtrusive film artefacts for the entire film. There may be a couple more I missed, but film artefacts are certainly not a problem overall.
The layer change? What layer change? Yes, this is an RSDL disc, but the change was so superbly placed that I didn't see it, and it takes a great layer change to escape my notice. It is actually at 51:29 in Chapter 12. I had to use the layer display feature to find it, which is an invaluable tool when trying to locate these wonderfully transparent layer changes. Roadshow Home Entertainment have done it again - all other distributors take note, this is how layer changes should be.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail | |
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| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout the entire movie and was well-integrated into the sound stage.
Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.
Alan John's musical score is wonderful and it enhances the movie.
Good use was made of the surround speakers, which created an enveloping sound stage with good sound placement within it. As this is largely a dialogue-driven movie, the sound does predominantly come from the front sound stage, but with the continual subtle detail and the periodic louder effects and music coming from the surround channels, it stops the sound field from becoming front-heavy and dialogue-orientated.
The subwoofer gets a light but noticeable work out. It is lightly used throughout the movie, with some heavier use found at 27:21 and 35:20, which really added to these scenes and the movie.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
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| Overall | |
The Scene Selections menu has been beautifully laid out and also has a quick chapter access index. Roadshow Home Entertainment have done a truly wonderful job with this DVD - the quality and presentation is excellent and all the extras are presented in 16x9 enhanced mode.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The picture quality is superb, and only just misses out on being of reference quality.
The audio quality is excellent.
There is a great selection of extras present.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony DVP-725, using Component output |
| Display | Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-SV919THX |
| Speakers | Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1) |