BoyTown (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Audio Commentary Theatrical Trailer Audio Interview-Cast Biographies-Character Deleted Scenes Main Menu Animation Music Video-Boytown Video Clips & Concerts More…-Boytown Confidential Interview More…-Behind The Scenes More…-Easter Egg
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	85:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Kevin Carlin
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Glenn Robbins Mick Molloy Bob Franklin Wayne Hope Gary Eck Sally Phillips Lachy Hulme Lois Ramsey Sarah Walker
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Gareth Skinner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Alternate Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English for the Hearing Impaired Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    What happens to members of those rock/pop groups that burn brightly for a while then vanish as fast as they appeared? Like the rest of us, they get normal jobs to pay their bills and blend in with those of us who never had an incandecent moment of fame. While their band may still be remembered by those who bought their albums, nobody tends to notice them individually any more.

    So it is for Benny G (Glenn Robbins). He is a former member of one of the biggest boy bands of the 1980s, Boytown, and now holds down a job as a school teacher, has a wife and daughter and lives a standard middle-class existence. When he hears one of Boytown's greatest hits has been remade by a new-era boy band he decides it's time for a comeback by Boytown. After convincing the other four ex-memebers of the group to reform they then convince their old record company to finance a new album.

    Their new material, written in the same style as they always wrote, fails to chart or make money. The venture seems doomed until the group realise that their audience has changed with them. Their old fan base is still out there but they are no longer teenagers, rather they are middle-aged, married with kids and holding down mundane jobs, just as Boytown are. With this in mind they go back to writing, this time about the important issues facing their now older fans. The results catapult Boytown to the top of the charts, with songs that speak of the significant moments in mature relationships and middle-aged life such as Picking The Kids Up From School, Dishpan Hands, Love Handles, Cellulite Woman, Special Time (Of The Month) and Pussywhipped. This sees Boytown riding a new-found wave of success. But will it last?

    Produced by the same team as gave us Crackerjack, Boytown is co-writtem by Mick and Richard Molloy (Mick also co-stars as Tommy Boy) and is a brilliant parody of the boy band style of music and the current trend of old bands making their come-back twenty years after they originally charted. It is not a big-budget production but survives on it's tight script and clever charactitures of boy band stereo-types - right down the the one member who everyone believes is gay, but constantly denies he is. Camera angles, staging of the concerts and video clips have all been filmed with a keen eye on satirising this genre of music. The crew's grounding in some of Australias most successful sketch-comedy shows is evident. Listen carefully to the lyrics of the Boytown songs.

    The humour is gentle, quietly digging at it's target rather than bludgeoning it, and is in keeping with the style of Crackerjack, The Castle and The Dish. Although the last two are Working Dog productions, they come from the same school of sketch comedy as Boytown.

Video

    These days it is getting harder and harder as a reviewer to have much to say about the quality of a DVD transfer and keep it original and interesting. Sure, there are a few discs that excel in their transfer and give you the "wow" factor, but excellence, by it's very nature, is a rare commodity. Poor transfers are always fertile grounds for a reviewer for we can ridicule and pull apart all the flaws, but with modern authoring equipment and software, ugly transfers are, these days, even rarer than excellent transfers, so the majority of discs tend to sit in that zone of good, but not outstanding. While this is good for the consumer, it makes life hard for us reviewers, for there is only so many ways one can say that a transfer has no noticable flaws, but is not truly magnificent. And so I find myself in this situation with Boytown.

    A good quality transfer without being outstanding. Nothing to criticise, but nothing to commend. Boytown is one of those transfers that will not disappoint anyone, nor will it excite. Of course, the cinematography is not the kind that extends the limits of the DVD format, so there is little scope to really wow us. It is not the kind of movie that warrants dark, moody scenes or brilliant colours (pastel shades only for any self-respecting, middle-aged boy band) so what you get is a clean transfer that makes the movie easy to watch and doesn't detract with faults and artefacts. What more could we ask?

    It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is the original aspect ratio.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, the audio track suffers from the same issues as the video; a good transfer without being exceptional.

    Audio uses the surround spectrum well, given the style of movie. There are no big special effects to dazzle you, and most of the film is dialogue based, so the front sound-stage is the most used. Where it all comes to life is when there is a cut to a Boytown video clip or concert. Here the volume jumps dramatically, the sub-woofer gets I fair bit of exercise and the surrounds add lots of ambience to the proceedings.

   There is nothing major in this transfer to complain about, although I did find the change in volume from dialogue to music a little too dramatic and with the volume set for comfortable listening to the speaking parts, it became a little uncomfortably loud during the music. Of course, some people will not find this a problem and it is probably just an indication of age creeping up on me. A slightly less dynamic mix would have improved the experience, in my view. This aside, a nice job has been done with the audio.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu
    The menu is animated with a looped selection of Boytown music behind it depending on which menu screen you are on.

Music Videos
    A lot of concert footage and video clips were filmed for the movie and only portions actually made the cut into the film. All this is presented in full here. They really are great parodies of the boy band style and are well worth a look. Play them in Karaoke mode (subtitles) as the lyrics are very clever. Visually, I particularly liked the homage to the Beatles in the Picking The Kids Up From School clip.

Deleted Scenes
    A collection of deleted or extended scenes of varying quality. They are interesting, however, it is easy to see why these didn't make the final cut as they don't really add to the story and would have been detrimental to the pace of the film.

Boytown Facts
    In true boy band fashion, here we have some static images and text giving the usual in-depth pointless information on each member of Boytown - star sign, hobbies, ideal lady, etc.

Boytown Confidential Special Preview
    A candid interview with Boomstein Record's owner, Marty Boomstein.

Behind The Scenes
    A short look at the filming of some of the concert scenes and video clips.

Trailer
    The theatrical trailer.

Stars Of Boytown talk with Tony Martin
    Tony Martin interviews the cast. Audio over a slideshow of stills.

Audio Commentary
    Mick Molloy (Writer, Producer, Tommy Boy), Wayne Hope (Carl), Glenn Robbins (Benny G) and Richard Molloy (Co-writer, Co-producer) give a fairly standard audio commentary. They talk about their inspirations for the film, the problems they had and some background information.

Easter Egg - Boytown Confidential
    From the set-up menu move to Dolby Digital 5.1 then hit the right arrow on your remote. This will highlight one of the pictures of the Boytown members. Select it and Benny G gives an interview about his musical influences. Stupid, funny and proof that Glenn Robbins truly is one of the most foolish people in Australia.

CD and Poster
    My review copy came with a bonus CD complete with a Boytown poster! Very 1980s. The CD has two tracks, Boytown's I Cry and Holly's Ring My Bell (the 80s dance megamix of course).

    As far as I have been able to determine, Boytown is only available in Region 4.

    The sketch comedy teams of the 1980s have grown up and are now producing quality Australian movies with a humour that is Australian without being forced and without pretending to be Hollywood. Boytown sits nicely with it's brother movie Crackerjack and it's cousins from Working Dog, The Dish and The Castle. Well worth a look, especially if you had posters of any those ubiquitous boy bands in your bedroom during the 1980s. The memories will flood back in all their cringe-worthiness.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall