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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Striptease (1996)

Striptease (1996)

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Released 7-Aug-2000

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama None
Rating Rated MA
Year Of Production 1996
Running Time 112:18
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Programme
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Andrew Bergman
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Demi Moore
Armand Assante
Ving Rhames
Robert Patrick
Paul Guilfoyle
Burt Reynolds
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $24.95 Music Howard Shore


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
Italian
Dutch
Arabic
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Romanian
Bulgarian
English for the Hearing Impaired
Italian for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Erin Grant (Demi Moore) has lost her job at the FBI because of her ex-husband's criminal record, and is now facing the prospect of also losing her daughter to him. After a clueless judge rules in favour of giving Darrell Grant (Robert Patrick) custody of their daughter, Erin takes a job at the Eager Beaver strip club as an exotic dancer so she can raise enough money for an appeal. Here, she catches the eye of a sex-starved and somewhat corrupt congressman by the name of David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds), who is currently running for re-election.

    David Dilbeck chases after Erin with the zest of a schoolboy. Erin is not at all interested, until he makes her an offer that is just too good to refuse; one dance - $2000. This brings Erin under the scrutiny of the men that are protecting Senator Dilbeck, who see her as a threat that has to be eliminated.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    Before I start, I'd just like to say that I don't know what is going on at Warner Home Video, but whatever it is, let's hope they keep on doing it. The colour in this transfer is excellent, instead of the usual washed-out, flat and pixelized look that I have come to expect from this source.

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The foreground sharpness is excellent. The background sharpness is a different matter, however, and backgrounds generally have a softer look about them. I feel that this is probably the result of how the film was shot rather than a transfer problem.

    The shadow detail can only be described as superb, notably during the dancing scenes at the strip club. This is one of the more striking aspects of this transfer.

    There appeared to be some extremely trivial low-level noise present in some of the black areas during a couple of the dance sequences at the Eager Beaver, at 16:30, 17:52 and 56:20. I don't expect anyone other than projector owners using component input to be able to see it - I could hardly see it.

    The colour is magnificent. It is deep and rich at all times, with beautifully saturated skin tones throughout. The colour leaps off the screen whenever it gets the chance. A good example of this is the vibrant pink of the Eager Beaver sign. Demi Moore's tan is pretty amazing, too!

    No grain, edge bleeding or edge enhancement was noticed.

    No MPEG artefacts were noticed. This simple statement does not do justice to the quality of the MPEG encoding found on this disc. For starters, I only saw two trivial cases of aliasing for the entire movie. One was at 49:23 on some car chrome, and the other was on a striped jacket at 25:47. Other scenes that could have easily suffered from MPEG artefacts didn't. A good example of this is the stage lighting at the Eager Beaver. These scenes could have easily suffered from posterization, but there was none to be seen. If you paused the DVD and stepped frame by frame through these scenes you could pick out the odd trivial occurrence of posterization, but since this is not how we watch movies, it doesn't count.

    Film artefacts are reasonably infrequent, most being small and unobtrusive. A few larger ones will catch your eye, but thankfully these are infrequent enough not to detract from the overall viewing pleasure. These larger film artefacts usually came in the form of either fibres on the image or dust on the image, at 0:58, 13:42, 13:48, 23:36, 39:00 and 50:31, or the more unusual hollow white ring type at 0:27, 26:13 and 43:53.

    This title is presented on a single sided, single layered disc. The packaging incorrectly states that this is a dual layered disc.

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

Audio

    There are three 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtracks on this disc; English, French and Italian. I listened to the default English soundtrack.

    Overall, the dialogue was clear and easily understood, however there were a couple of scenes where it did become a little harder to understand, but not to the point where you could not make out what was being said.

    No audio sync problems were noticed.

    Howard Shore's musical score really suits the movie well, as it is always adding to or enhancing the on-screen action. Eurhythmics fans will love this soundtrack!

    The surround channels are used mostly for music, with the odd sound effect tossed in here and there, but nothing to get really excited over. The surround channels were most effective during the dance sequences at the strip club, where they created an enveloping sound stage. For my money, the best examples of surround channel use could be found at 18:13, 41:20 and 58:24. The soundstage was also slightly front-heavy.

    There aren't any sequences that call for heavy use of the subwoofer, but it is there, adding a little extra punch to the soundtrack throughout most of the movie.

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

Extras

    There are absolutely no extras at all, not even Cast & Crew biographies/filmographies.

Menu

    The Menu is 16x9 enhanced and has a picture of Demi Moore as seen on the cover with the following menu options; Scene Selections (35), Languages and Play Movie.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The R1 and R4 discs are identical in content. For me, this one's an easy choice - R4 (PAL), but I will leave the final decision up to you.

Summary

    Striptease has a superb video transfer with only trivial problems.

    It offers a good clean audio soundtrack, with the usual shortcomings of a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

   There are absolutely no extras at all.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Paul Williams (read Paul's biography)
Saturday, August 12, 2000
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-725, using Component output
DisplaySony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationOnkyo TX-SV919THX
SpeakersFronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1)

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