Garden State (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Zach Braff (Writer/Director/Actor) & Natalie Portman (Actor) Audio Commentary-Filmmakers' Deleted Scenes-With Optional Commentary Featurette-Making Of Outtakes Trailer-Soundtrack Promo Spot
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	98:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Zach Braff
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Zach Braff Kenneth Graymez George C. Wolfe Austin Lysy Gary Gilbert Jill Flint Ian Holm Peter Sarsgaard Alex Burns Jackie Hoffman Michael Weston Christopher Carley Armando Riesco
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Nick Drake Chad Fisher

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Icelandic Portuguese Dutch French Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Swedish Audio Commentary Norwegian Audio Commentary Danish Audio Commentary Finnish Audio Commentary Icelandic Audio Commentary Portuguese Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Swedish Audio Commentary Norwegian Audio Commentary Danish Audio Commentary Finnish Audio Commentary Icelandic Audio Commentary Portuguese Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary French Titling Spanish Titling Portuguese Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Zach Braff is arguably best known for his work on the zany medical comedy Scrubs. It was therefore surprising for me to read that he was about to make his debut as a writer-director in the indie film Garden State. Released in 2004 to significant acclaim, it is as intriguing and enjoyable a film from a first-time director as I've ever seen. The premise is relatively simple. A young actor, Andrew Largeman (Braff), who is slowly but surely making his way in Los Angeles, returns to his home town in New Jersey for the funeral of his mother. There, he is forced to confront his emotionally distant father Gideon (Ian Holm) and come to terms with his own involvement in his mother's death, as well as meet up with many of his old school friends who, it seems, have not done a lot since his departure.

    The most important relationship of the film is that between Braff's character and Sam (Natalie Portman). It has become all too easy to criticise the acting (or lack thereof) of the many cast members of the Star Wars prequels, including Portman, but the difference between the quality of her work as Padmé and that displayed here is extraordinary. It may be the best performance of her career, better even than her more showy turn in Mike Nichols' Closer, for which she won a Golden Globe. Her characterisation of a slightly unhinged adolescent struggling with the constraints of life in a small town is remarkably realistic, and a perfect foil for Braff's deadpan humour and pharmacologically induced quietude.

    The film is always visually interesting. There are some shots that from a purely aesthetic standpoint are terrific to look at. Pretty pictures alone however, do not a good film make. Nor even do the numerous instances of zany humour. What makes this film work so well, at least up until the final act when it threatens to derail, is the wry observations about small town life and coming 'home'. Anyone who has lived in a small town, left, and then come back to visit family or friends will enjoy and likely cringe at some of the scenes. One of the best sees Andrew pulled over by the local cop, only to discover that it's someone he went to high school with.

    As I've already hinted, Garden State is by no means a perfect, or even a great film. Its achievements are modest, but that suits the temperament of the film and the intimate nature of the excellent performances, including one by the talented Peter Sarsgaard as a listless one time friend of Andrew. I look forward to the next directorial effort from Braff.

Video

    As one would expect for as recent a release as this, the transfer is fantastically clean, presented correctly in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness is uniformly good whilst not quite achieving greatness and there is scarcely anything to complain about in terms of levels of shadow detail.

    Colours are well presented, which is good as there are plenty of interestingly framed shots making full use of the palette. Skin tones are realistic.

    There is some occasional grain, seemingly intentional, and mild edge enhancement around people's profiles is a little disconcerting. MPEG artefacts are noticeable but not a major problem, whilst aliasing occurs where expected.

    The print was relatively clean with few blemishes.

    All-in-all, this is a well handled transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    We have a choice of five audio tracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 or English Audio Descriptive Dolby Digital 2.0, all of which are well presented. I listened to the English 5.1 track.

    Dialogue is at all times easily understood.

    There were no reportable instances of distortion.

    Audio sync was brilliant.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not used particularly often, even when the 5.1 track is selected, although the eclectic indie rock score is heard to full advantage. It is immersive but not explosive.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    A good swag of extras have been included.

Audio Commentaries (2) with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman; Braff, Lawrence Sher, Myron Kerstein and Judy Becker

    There are two interesting and informative audio commentaries here. The Portman/Braff track is more like a chat, which is very entertaining and funny but doesn't offer a lot of technical detail. Thankfully, the second track does.

Featurette

    This half hour documentary - "The Making of Garden State" - is detailed, candid and would be very helpful to anyone wanting to know how to make an independent film. It features a lot of behind the scenes footage and interviews with key players.

Deleted Scenes (16)

    Sixteen scenes, all short, with optional comments from the four participants in the second feature commentary, in decent condition.

Outtakes

    Three minutes of gags and bloopers.

Soundtrack Promo

    Brief, useless ad.

    The edition is almost exactly the same as the Region 1 (sans a few bad movie trailers). Go for the cheaper version.

    Garden State is touching, funny and interesting.

    The video and audio are very good.

    The extras are fantastic considering the budget of the film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall