Austen Tayshus-Totally Out of Control (2005)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Additional Footage-Comedian's Revenge Interviews-Cast-Austen Unplugged TV Spots
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	68:55 (Case: 70)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Steven Graham
Studio Distributor	21st Century Picture Shock Entertainment	Starring	Austen Tayshus
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.0 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Austen Tayshus came into existence in 1981 as the creation of Sandy Gutman. He first gained public prominence in 1983 with the spoken word single Australiana which shot to number 1 in Australia and is still one of the biggest selling Australian singles of all time. Prior to going into stand-up comedy, Gutman attended film school and wrote several scripts. In 1998 he won Best Film and Best Actor awards at Tropfest for his short film Intolerance which was inspired by an experience he had with a neo-Nazi taxi driver. (Gutman’s father was a Holocaust survivor and many of his family never made it through WWII.)

    The DVD starts with a small introduction of shorts showing Austen escaping from a Rehabilitation clinic. I found this part a bit lame but thankfully it is only very brief (just over a minute) and in no time the actual show starts.

    This is live show that was shot at the Stadium Comedy Bar in Perth just a few days after the Boxing Day Tsunami in January 2005. Some (in fact probably most) comedians would consider it inappropriate to make jokes about this sort of tragedy, especially so soon after it had occurred, but Austen is not your typical stand up comedian. Everything is fair game for Austen and if he hasn’t offended you at some point during his performance I’m sure he’d feel he hasn’t done his job properly. In an interview with Andrew Denton on Enough Rope he joked that he dreams of offending his entire audience so much that they all walk out and he ends up performing to an empty room. I can’t see that happening anytime soon. He may occasionally be controversial with his comments but he is also extremely funny. During his performance the Pope, cops, politicians, the rich, the poor, the drunken guys at the front table and the guy at the next table who is not laughing are all targets of Austen’s comedy.

    The thing that I like about Austen Tayshus-Totally Out Of Control is that it is a real live show, not a well polished presentation that just happens to have been shot with an audience. Austen interacts with (read: insults) his audience on a regular basis and points out to the hecklers who make stupid comments that they’ve made it onto the DVD.

    Austen Tayshus is very Australian and extremely funny, however he is rarely politically correct. His style is relaxed, casual and often confrontational. His brand of comedy may not be to everybody’s taste but those who don’t try to take him too seriously are really going to enjoy this DVD performance. I had a lot of fun and many laughs while watching this DVD. This is a must buy for anyone that finds Austen’s style of humour appealing and fans will not be disappointed by this very funny show.

Video

    The opening scenes seem to have been shot on a consumer grade camcorder and look pretty awful. Thankfully things improve considerably once we get to the actual show which has been shot with professional grade video equipment. While I can not see that anybody is going to use this DVD to demonstrate the image quality of their home cinema, the quality is more than adequate for this sort of material.

    The DVD is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is never particularly sharp and this is made slightly worse by some less than perfect focus from the camera operator, although it was not that distracting and never detracted from my enjoyment of the material. Black levels and shadow detail were fine although the brightly lit venue was never going to present an issue here.

    The colours are typical of a video source and generally well saturated and as accurate as video tends to allow.

    The video is interlaced which resulted in some inevitable aliasing problems on my progressive scanning TV but this is going to be very dependant on the de-interlacing of your video equipment. For those watching on standard interlaced television this won’t be an issue. The other prominent artefact was some unusual colouration around the collar of Austen’s white shirt where a small band of purple/blue seems to flare at the edges. I’m fairly sure this is inherent in the source material caused by the video camera and is not an issue with the actual DVD transfer.

    There are no subtitles on the DVD and it’s a single layer DVD and thus contains no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two English soundtracks on this DVD; a Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 256 Kb/s. The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is essentially mono and when decoded with Dolby Pro Logic II all sound is firmly anchored in the centre channel. The Dolby Digital 5.0 is the superior soundtrack and is far more dynamic and really captures the atmosphere of the live venue wonderfully.

    Audio sync is not a problem with this DVD however there are times when Austin has a tendency to mumble and be deliberately hard to understand., Apart from this the dialogue is easily discernable.

    The use of the surround channels in the Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack is truly excellent and perfectly captures the atmosphere of the live venue. Crowd noises as well as the reverberations of the venue’s sound system are wonderfully conveyed and this soundtrack really helps to give the listener a sensation of being in the audience of the show.

    Being a 5.0 soundtrack (and not a 5.1 soundtrack) there is no subwoofer channel in the soundtrack but this really isn’t an issue with the DVD and would be rather redundant anyway.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    A modest and amusing collection of extras round out this disc.

Menu

    Everything on this DVD is slightly twisted including the initial copyright warning at the beginning of the disc. The menus are themed around Austen’s escape from the Rehabilitation Clinic. Menus are 16x9 enhanced, animated and contain some oddly eerie music in the background. The main menu options are Audio Setup, Shock Treatment (the main feature), Chapter Rehab (chapter selection) and Extra Therapy (the bonus material).

Comedian’s Revenge (2:07)

    Austen allows a heckler on stage while he gets a drink from the bar and then proceeds to heckle the heckler. Amusing stuff. Strangely it contains two identical Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. The video is 16x9 enhanced.

Austen Unplugged (8:43)

    The most substantial of the extras, this is an interview recorded specially for the DVD. Austen (or is it Sandy? - probably a mix of both alter-egos) speaks frankly at times about his early career, take a few swipes at various people and also uses the opportunity to tell a couple of Austen style gags. Make sure you watch to the very end of the credits. Once again there seems to be two identical Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. The video is 4x3.

TV Spot (0:30)

    A pretty lame TV advert for the DVD that parodies The Exorcist and contains very brief clips from the show. Again it contains two identical Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks with 16x9 enhanced video.

    As far as I'm aware this DVD has not been released outside of Australia.

    Austen Tayshus' live DVD is not going to appeal to everybody but for those who enjoy Austen's unique style of comedy this is a terrific stand-up show. I certainly enjoyed it very much and really got quite a few really decent laughs out of it.

    The show has been shot on video and while it's never likely to impress anybody the quality is more than adequate for this sort of material

    The Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack is terrific and really captures the atmosphere of the live venue wonderfully.

   A modest and amusing collection of extras round out this disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall