Two Moon Junction (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer
Rating	?
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	100:45
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (55:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Zalman King
Studio Distributor	MGM	Starring	Sherilyn Fenn Richard Tyson Louise Fletcher Burl Ives Kristy McNichol Martin Hewitt Juanita Moore Don Galloway Millie Perkins Milla Jovovich Nicole Rosselle Kerry Remsen Hervé Villechaize
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Jonathan Elias

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian 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 for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired French Italian Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Portuguese Greek	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Zalman King's most popular piece of fluff, Two Moon Junction, reaches new heights (or is that "lows"?) in his unique style of soft-porn nonsense.

    As I wrote in my review of Wild Orchid, "after a brief career as a television actor, appearing in episodes of Gunsmoke, Land Of The Giants and Charlie's Angels, Zalman King stepped behind the camera. Having written and produced the very successful and titillating Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986), King had at last found his niche. He followed this up by writing and directing another two pieces of enjoyable, erotic fluff, Two Moon Junction (1988) and Wild Orchid (1990). King seems to know when he's on to a good thing, so during the 1990s he churned out soft-porn for US cable, as a series entitled The Red Shoe Diaries. The one exception to this was the surfing flick, In God's Hands (1998), in which he kept to his formula, but replaced scorching sex scenes with scorching surf scenes".

    "As with all these movies, the sex (or surf) scenes are sensual, dynamic, exciting, and bold, but the rest of the movie drags along like a squashed snail. King's movies have far too much style, and far too little substance. He fills his films with vibrant colours and lots of atmosphere, through the use of colourful or striking locations, filled with smoke, and/or mysterious people dripping with sweat. The characters have long aimless conversations in whispers about nonsense, or brood endlessly in silence."

    In Two Moon Junction, a beautiful Southern Belle (Sherilyn Fenn) is to be married. A few weeks before the wedding, and after a chance meeting, she cranks up a blistering and uncontrollable affair with a visiting, muscular carnie (Richard Tyson). When her family finds out, there are dirty deeds aplenty, as the carnie is made none too welcome in these here parts. Along the way there's lots of flesh, simulated sex, and people masturbating (off-camera).

    Despite the attempted twist ending, the only thing remotely surprising is that veteran and respected actors Burl Ives and Louise Fletcher agreed to appear in this drivel. Also of note, the once thoroughly wholesome Kristy McNichol appears as a bisexual, topless cowgirl. Now I didn't see that coming!

Video

    The very grainy transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The sharpness overall is reasonable. The shadow detail is also mostly okay, but suffers in the darker scenes. The colour is good, which is important, as colour is used heavily in this film (albeit a little too obviously).

    MPEG artefacts are not a problem, but the image did look slightly pixelated at times. There are no problems with film-to-video artefacts, except some telecine wobble, which is most noticeable during the opening credits. Film artefacts appear throughout, and include everything from dust to the odd white vertical line. In short, the print used for the transfer wasn't very clean.

    English for the Hearing Impaired, German for the Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, and Greek subtitles are present. The English ones are accurate. The movie is presented on a single-sided, dual-layered disc, and the layer change is at 55:55.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are four audio options on this DVD: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine, although as with King's other films, the dialogue is often spoken in whispers or slightly muted.

    The musical score is credited to Jonathan Elias, and it features plenty of sax, which helps contribute to the thick atmosphere.

    As a Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo) track, there is no surround presence or LFE activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There is only one extra

Menu

    A very simple menu.

Theatrical Trailer (2:04)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with English Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

    Two Moon Junction was released on DVD in Region 1 back in 2000.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• Production Notes Booklet
• 'full screen' version on flip-side

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Dual-layer

    It's close, but I would favour the R4 for the dual-layered presentation, and PAL transfer.

   As with Wild Orchid, Two Moon Junction would have scored only one star for the plot, but the 'good bits' earn it another star and a half.

    The video quality is very, very grainy, but acceptable.

    The audio quality is very limited and flat.

    There is one extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall