Blind Dating (2006)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Deleted Scenes Trailer-Leatherheads Theatrical Trailer-Blind Dating Featurette-Making Of
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	95:20
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:56)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	James Keach
Studio Distributor	Samuel Goldwyn Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Chris Pine Eddie Kaye Thomas Anjali Jay Jane Seymour Jennifer Alden Judith Benezra Maitreyee Brandon Skip Carlson
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Heitor Pereira

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

The movie's title, Blind Dating, has a double meaning in this context. Danny, played by Chris Pine (soon to star as James T Kirk in the new Star Trek movie) is physically blind, and has also never had a meaningful relationship with a girl. His well-intentioned brother, Larry, keeps trying to set Danny up with women who turn out to be totally incompatible with him in some way or another. Of course in the way of all romantic comedies, one fine day Danny himself accidentally meets Leeza (played by Anjali Jay - Robin Hood) who works in a doctor's surgery.

They seem to fall in love, rather easily, despite several hiccups, including one major one (which might ruin the plot if I revealed it).

Blind Dating is directed by James Keach whose directorial background seems primarily from US TV series, including episodes of JAG and The District. His real-life wife, Jane Seymour, has, for me, the most memorable role in this film. It's great to see this normally 'prim and proper' actress playing the role of a sex-crazy and rather wild looking psychiatrist!

Overall an enjoyable enough movie, which varies the usual mainstream US romantic comedy/drama themes by making the lead character visually impaired, and including inter-racial relationships. It's interesting that a picture of the main actress, Anjali Jay, doesn't actually appear on the front cover of the DVD although there are plenty of other girls pictured, perhaps so as not to make the film appear too 'multicultural'?

Video

The transfer is slightly soft, which is surprising given that the film is a recent release.

Unfortunately it is cropped down to 1.78:1 from its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1, probably to pacify those viewers who can't cope with black bars on the top and bottom of their displays!

There is a slightly pink hue to the skintones, which when combined with the soft picture and the 1.78:1 ratio lent this transfer a 'telemovie' look.

There were no visible MPEG or film-to-video artefacts.

Subtitles in English were accurate and well synchronised to the onscreen dialogue.

The layer change occurred at 62:56 and was reasonably well placed at the end of a scene.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

The audio is available in Dolby Digital 5.1. There is also English Audio Description to assist visually impaired viewers. This is in Dolby Digital 2.0.

Dialogue is clear at all times and always seems to be in sync with the actors' lip movements.

The music, by Heitor Pereira is pleasant enough without being memorable.

As one would expect for a romantic comedy/drama the audio is spread mostly across the front speakers with very little in way of effects in the rear speakers. There is the occasional front-to-rear effect, but nothing much.

The subwoofer didn't have much to do except support some of the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

The main menu screen is very boring, with just a still image and some music.

For a single disk release, the extras were reasonable without being great.

Deleted scenes

There were plenty of scenes presented in their original ratio of 2.35:1 letterboxed. There were some good scenes that would have definitely fleshed out the story and characters.

Featurette

Presented in 1.78:1 16x9 enhanced with a runtime of 5:05. This featurette had brief snippets of interviews with cast and crew describing the film in great detail. There were a few behind-the-scenes shots, but this was primarily just an extended promo for the film.

Trailer

The trailer for Leatherheads appears just before the main menu but is not selectable from the Extras menu.

Theatrical Trailer (runtime 1:52)

The original trailer for Blind Dating presented in 2.35:1 letterboxed so you get a good feel for how different the film looks in its original ratio.

The R1 version also appears to be in the incorrect ratio of 1.78:1, but does include Spanish and French subtitles.

So unless you really need those subtitles, I'd recommend the R4 version (especially now that the exchange rate isn't so favourable for us!)

An enjoyable enough film with slight variations on the usual themes present in these films. The Director doesn't seem to spend too much time on these 'issues' and prefers the film to flow quickly and fairly smoothly. I felt it was a pity that the characters and their relationships weren't more fully fleshed out as that would have improved the film without adding too much to its fairly short runtime.. Some hints at this occur in the deleted scenes also included on this DVD.

The picture and audio quality is reasonable without being great. The extras are adequate.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall