Cosi (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer-1:44 Short Film-The Two-Wheeled Time Machine Main Menu Introduction
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	96:34
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark Joffe
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Ben Mendelsohn Barry Otto Toni Collette Rachel Griffiths Aden Young Colin Friels Jacki Weaver Pamela Rabe Paul Chubb Colin Hay David Wenham Tony Llewellyn-Jones Kerry Walker
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Stephen Endelman

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, frequent
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Cosi is a strange film, and hard to describe, but let's give it a try.

    Lewis Riley (Ben Mendelsohn) is out-of-work. He applies for a job as a director/drama teacher. But it's not a normal job. It's at a mental hospital, and the students are patients. That wouldn't be too bad, but one of the patients, Roy (Barry Otto), insists that they do Cosi Fan Tutte. It would be bad enough that he wants to do such an elaborate piece of theatre, but Cosi Fan Tutte is a lot more than that: it's an opera, and it's in Italian. Lewis begins to wonder if he made a mistake taking the job.

    Roy won't take "no" for an answer. He sweeps everything along with him, organising auditions, selecting cast members, criticising the director incessantly. He chooses three women: Julie (Toni Collette), Ruth (Pamela Rabe), and Cherry (Jacki Weaver); and two men: Henry (Paul Chubb) and Doug (David Wenham). The musical director is Zac (Colin Hay). Roy's enthusiasm seems to infect the others, even Lewis. It even seems to spread to the head psychiatric nurse, Errol (Colin Friels), who was the most disbelieving of the staff to begin with. But not everyone is enthused...

    In some ways this is like the classic "let's put on a show!" movie: there are the expected personality conflicts, and there are ups and downs, but everything seems more exaggerated in this film, perhaps because these people are already somewhat extreme.

    In parallel with the development of the show, Lewis's relationship with his girlfriend Lucy (Rachel Griffiths) is deteriorating, and things are not helped by his sponging friend, Nick (Aden Young).

    As you may have noticed, there are quite a few well-known Australian actors among the cast. I'm not sure how they managed to assemble so many names, but it really helps — some of these roles are not easy ones. It's impressive, for example, that Jacki Weaver was willing to play a role that's so unflattering. Barry Otto, on the other hand, is having a wonderful time — his part is obsessive, hyperactive, attention-seeking: not a big stretch for an actor... (sorry — how could I resist?).

    Toni Collette can really sing — she gets two rather lovely numbers during the film, and another (her best performance) under the closing credits.

    This is another of those somewhat off-beat Australian films that justifies the existence of the Australian film industry. Recommended if you're in the mood for something a bit out of the ordinary.

Video

    This DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. I suspect that the original theatrical aspect ratio was 1.85:1, but there are no obvious framing issues.

    The image is soft, due to rather obvious grain; the amount of grain varies from light but obvious through to heavy and even more obvious. Shadow detail is limited, but generally adequate. There's no low-level noise.

    Colour is a little washed out at times, but not to the point of being objectionable. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are plenty of film artefacts of varying sizes. Perhaps the most egregious are the reel change markings, most obvious at 16:50 and 16:57, but also at 35:59 and 55:16 / 55:23. They are mostly out-of-frame, but visible in the top right corner. There are other spots, like the black ones at 9:31 and 16:53, and the white one at 65:15. The brightest film artefact is the yellow/green streak low down at 69:00. There are a few bounces in the transfer, too.

    There is some mild aliasing, a little bit of moire, and plenty of mosquito noise in the backgrounds. There are some ugly halos, for example at 19:40 and 36:50.

    The only subtitles are English for the Hearing Impaired. They are clear and easily read, as accurate as usual, and timed well to the spoken word.

    The disc is single-sided and dual layered, formatted RSDL. There's no layer change in the film, though. Somehow they managed to fit the entire feature film onto one layer, while putting the trailer and short film onto the second layer — that doesn't seem enough of a balance, but that's what's been done.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448kbps. I can't say that I can see why they bothered — there's nothing of any significance in the surrounds, and the subwoofer switched itself off for want of a signal (it's not missed). The centre channel is well-used, and there's some stereo separation, so the three front channels see some use.

    The dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand, although there are some thick accents. There are no obvious audio sync problems.

    The score, from Stephen Endelman, is rather good, but the best music in this film comes from Mozart (you may have heard of him). There's a rather nice song or three. The closing performance, of The Ride of the Valkyries on piano accordion, is not a highlight...

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static and silent after an introduction. It's easy to operate. There are two entries on the main menu that aren't completely obvious, however. One is the Big V of Roadshow (that doesn't sound right — it made more sense when they were Village-Roadshow) — that just triggers a logo for Roadshow and Oasis DVD. The interesting one is a small symbol marked AFTRS — I was expecting another small logo piece, but instead found a short film that runs 25:03.

Theatrical Trailer (1:44)

    An entertaining, but spoiler-filled trailer.

Short Film: The Two-wheeled Time Machine (25:03)

    An interesting short (student) film about the virtues of a bicycle as a time machine — possibly included because it features Jacki Weaver; it is otherwise unrelated to the feature film. The storyline ends about 20 minutes in, and is followed by a fairly heavy advertorial about the Australian Film Television and Radio School — I found it rather interesting.

    This film was released on DVD in Region 1 in 2003 by Buena Vista — it's annoying when Region 1 gets an Australian film before we do, but this is far from being the only example. It is difficult to find details of the contents of this DVD — there are lots of reviews of the movie, but few of them say what else is on the DVD (or what the transfer is like). As far as I can ascertain, the Region 1 DVD is completely unsullied by extras, so this Region 4 release wins on that count.

    A film that is hard to describe, but rather good viewing, on a disc that not the best.

    The video quality is not too good. It looks like it has been taken from a mediocre quality display print, which is a shame for such a comparatively recent film.

    The audio quality is good enough.

    The extras are limited, but the short film is worth watching.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall