Blue Car (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Audio Commentary-Karen Moncrieff (Director) Deleted Scenes-13
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	84:05
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:51)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Karen Moncrieff
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	David Strathairn Agnes Bruckner Margaret Colin Frances Fisher A.J. Buckley Regan Arnold Sarah Buehler Dustin Sterling Mike Ward Wayne Armstrong Aftab Pureval Wendy Lardin Jenn O'nofrio
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	?	Music	Adam Gorgoni Stuart Spencer-Nash

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German Italian German Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary German Titling Italian Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Blue Car is the title of Meg Denning's poem, one that she will be entering into a national competition for high school students. It's a deeply personal poem, about deeply personal happenings in her life. Meg (Agnes Bruckner) is 17 and in her last year of high school. But what should be a happy time is one filled with despair and disillusionment for the lovely young blonde. Meg lives with her little sister Lily (Regan Arnold) and their mum Diane (Margaret Colin). Their dad walked out several years back and now their mother must work long shifts and study at night just to make ends meet for the family. As a result there is precious little time for Meg to have any friends outside of school with all her spare moments spent working or caring for her little sister. So Meg pours her heart into her poetry. It is her one outlet in life and she feels she is actually quite good at it. At school she is consistently encouraged by her English teacher Mr Auster (David Strathairn), a middle-aged, mature man, who to Meg seems to be the only calm and wise voice she can listen to.

    Mr Auster encourages Meg's poetry and suggests she enter a national competition. He also encourages her to seek his help and offers time outside of class to tutor her in the finer forms of poetry - "we need a map of your nerve centres" he suggests to her one afternoon while they are sharing lunch together, as he tries to get her to dig deeper with her emotions and turn them into something special on the page. The two strike up an unlikely friendship, which becomes a rock for Meg as family life slowly spirals out of control. Her sister is prone to bad dreams and bouts of self-mutilation, while their mother is seldom at home and pays scant attention to her daughters when she is there. When a family tragedy strikes, Meg seeks out Mr Auster for comfort and it's at this moment that the troubled young teen exposes herself fully to the fatherly figure of her teacher. But having a lovely and vulnerable 17-year-old girl clasping on to him in his dark car stirs something in Mr Auster. When Meg wins the local round of the poetry contest and is invited to join Mr Auster in Florida for the finals, the fatherly teacher may just find himself doing something he is going to regret.

    This is a real low budget film that contains a few mistakes, a few dodgy looping audio problems, and slight waywardness with the plot in the second act, but also features some superb acting and solid direction. The performances from David Strathairn as the married, yet lonely and troubled teacher and Agnes Bruckner as the young woman in search of some support and love are sensational. The direction is understated and calm, with nothing rushed and nothing rammed down your throat. The climax does come a little quickly for my liking, but it hits home powerfully and shatters all preconceptions built over the past 80 minutes in an instant.

Video

    This is a fairly decent video transfer that does betray the film's budget nature on occasion, but overall there is really nothing of any major consequence to complain about at all. It is finely detailed, sharp and consistent in colour.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85: and it is also 16x9 enhanced.

    Overall sharpness and detail level is excellent, with only some minor edge enhancement on the scenes in the poorly lit Denning apartment. Grain is probably the biggest issue with pretty consistent graininess appearing on many of the darker scenes. The most notable occurrence of this is around 4:29 in the apartment. There is no low level noise.

    Colours, while not being super vibrant, are at least well rendered with no problems. Blacks are solid and skin tones perfect.

    I couldn't pick any apparent MPEG artefacts. No aliasing or any other film to video artefacts are present. A couple of very minor film artefacts that in no way spoil the picture quality are present.

    There are plenty of subtitles available, including the English variety. I sampled them extensively and found them excellent.

    This is a dual layered disc that is formatted RSDL. The layer change occurs at 64:51. It is extremely well placed just as Auster and Meg enter the motel room. I missed it the first two times through and was forced to use software to identify its location.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    A slightly unusual soundtrack combination is on offer here. There are a total of four audio tracks on this disc, three for the film and one commentary track.

    For those of us that speak English, the only real option is a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack. For those of you able to converse in Italian or German, you are treated to a proper Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I made a quick comparison between the two channel soundtrack and the two surround soundtracks and really couldn't find a whole lot to distinguish them apart in terms of spaciousness or channel separation. There is plenty of front channel separation on the two channel effort, and while not having the surround flag embedded in the bitstream, switching on Pro Logic processing provided plenty of left/right/centre activity and enough front separation to suggest it was originally a surround track.

    The dialogue is excellent with no audio sync problems apart from a couple of really obvious looping issues.

    The score is excellent, with a moody and slightly blues rock feel to it.

    There is no real surround channel or dedicated subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Audio Commentary

    A full length and screen specific commentary from first-time feature film director Karen Moncrieff.  She is a relaxed and articulate speaker as she explains the many problems, budgetary constraints, casting decisions, and general filmmaking techniques she employed throughout. She is particularly honest about the many mistakes in the film and the lessons that she learnt along the way. A forthright commentary that is quite refreshing in its honesty.

Deleted Scenes

    13 deleted scenes, all available to play with or without a director's commentary. All have been cut to keep the story moving along or because they were simply later deemed unnecessary inclusions. The scenes run for between 0:26 and 4:55. The first scene is actually an alternative opening sequence.

    Minor soundtrack specifications are the only differences between the Region 1 disc and the local version.

    The Region 4 disc misses out on;

• French Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack 

    The Region 1 disc misses out on;

• German Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
• Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack

    Blue Car is a remarkably fresh and honest film from first-time film director Karen Moncrieff. Agnes Bruckner is excellent as the young high school girl who, with her home life in shambles, seeks solace through her poetry and the wisdom and charms of the calmly reassuring teacher.

    The video is excellent despite the low-budget nature of the source material.

    The audio is fairly unremarkable but performs the task required.

    The extras are limited, but the quality is excellent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall