A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer Short Film-A Complete History of my Sexual Successes Short Film-What Chris' Mum Thought Deleted Scenes Karaoke Interviews-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	96:00 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (0:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Chris Waitt
Studio Distributor	Warp Madman Entertainment	Starring	Alexandra Boyarskaya Danielle McLeod Olivia Trench Chris Waitt Hilary Waitt
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Chris Waitt

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Chris Waitt, otherwise know as the writer of the cult naughty-puppet show Fur TV, has had countless women dump him over the course of his life. Coming to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with him, Waitt has decided to put together a documentary in which he asks as many ex-girlfriends as possible why they left him and what they saw wrong with him, before applying the lessons he has learnt along the way to potential new girlfriends and tackling an evident erectile dysfunction issue. A Complete History of My Sexual Failures is as gimmicky as a documentary could possibly be. Thankfully that gimmick also makes for a great deal of hilarity.

    Unsurprisingly, the reaction from his ex-girlfriends ranges from bemusement to anger. Some want nothing to do with the film, others are cautiously eager, and one agrees to participate provided that she is never named, is hidden by a blanket and her voice masked by a computer. Some of the funniest moments of the film come from Waitt's bungling efforts to get in touch with numerous people he has long been out of contact with - in many cases his long-suffering Mum manages to have far greater success than he does.

    Much of the comedy stems directly from the personality and outrageous behaviour of Waitt himself. Chris Waitt is a complete and utter tool. He is a socially awkward misfit with questionable life skills, who anyone in their right mind would want nothing to do with in real life. With the screen acting as buffer between his life and ours, he is hilarious and his antics are mesmerising. Chris Waitt melds a classic self-deprecative British wit with a post-South Park defiance of traditional boundaries.

    The greatest criticism that could be levelled against the film is that many of its scenes appear to be set-up (rarely with any degree of intricacy) and the reactions of many participants coerced. How many people are really going to believe that one day, after a particularly saddening interview moment, a big bag of Viagra just happened to arrive in the mail so as to prompt an immediate decision to get drunk, overdose on the blue-pills and run around the streets propositioning every lass on the streets? Whilst this makes any academic value of the film nigh on completely worthless, it is all so funny that it makes no difference to how enjoyable the film is.

    A Complete History of My Sexual Failures is shallow, crass, engaging and downright hysterical.

Video

    A Complete History of My Sexual Failures was entirely shot on digital video and looks it. The film is presented in its original shooting 1.78:1 aspect ratio (theatrically it was 1.85:1, although the difference between the two aspects is entirely ignorable given the style of the film) is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video quality is very good. Essentially, this is an excellent transfer of a sub-optimal original format. The image is clear and reasonably sharp, with only an occasional grain visible in the picture during dark scenes (as is common with digital video). There is an good level of shadow detail, though it rarely much matters in this instance. The colour palette is bold and consistent throughout.

    There are no compression-related artefacts in the image.

    English subtitles are provided. They appear to be accurate and well timed.

    This is a RSDL disc with a layer change occurring discretely at 41:40.

Video Ratings Summary

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

    The film features an English 5.1 Dolby Digital track (448 Kbps) and English 2.0 Dolby Digital track (224 Kbps).

    The audio is decent enough for the type of film this is. The audio is clear and easy to understand throughout.

    The film makes good use of an assortment of music, primarily British indie rock and electronic, to enhance the mood of the content. In fact the music, along with minimal environmental stuff, is pretty much all that makes it to the surrounds and to the subwoofer. Then again, how much audio wizardry does a rough-and-ready indie documentary need?

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Interview with Chris Waitt

    A friendly chat in a cafe with director/subject/mastermind Chris Waitt, who chats about how the film got made and the general process of putting it together. Chris Waitt is an interesting bloke and certainly makes for an interesting interviewee. This interview certainly gives away that he is probably a whole lot smarter and more calculating than he tries to come across as in the film. The information he provides here would probably be of particularly interest to would-be guerrilla filmmakers as well as fans of the film.

Bonus Short Film- A Complete History of my Sexual Successes

    A mini-doco about the life and times of Alexandra Boyarskaya, a girl that Waitt connects with throughout the course of the main film. Well worth a gander.

Bonus Short Film- What Chris' Mum Thought of It

    A major personality in the main film was Chris Waitt's long-suffering mum, Hilary Waitt. Unsurprisingly, the first question most viewers have after watching the film is "what did your mum think?". This interview captures her thoughts on the film, and answers that question quite comprehensively.

Deleted Scenes

    A handful of rather amusing deleted scenes. Worthy of particular note is one scene in which Waitt invades his old man's bedroom and quizzes him about the issue of erectile dysfunction - in all its glorious detail.

Singalong Clip

    A singalong video for a song Chris wrote about erectile dysfunction.

Trailer

    A reasonably amusing theatrical trailer for the film.

    A Complete History of My Sexual Failures has not been released in Region 1. The Region 4 edition is pretty much identical to the Region 2 edition, save for local branding and trailers for other releases.

    More a comedy than a serious documentary, A Complete History of My Sexual Failures is a hysterical display of classic British wit at its crudest.

    The video and audio are both very good, offering a very accurate transfer of the original source. The disc features an excellent range of extras that add to the film and are very funny in their own right.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall