Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Rating	?
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	96:29
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:13)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark Waters
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Matthew McConaughey Jennifer Garner Michael Douglas Emma Stone Breckin Meyer Lacey Chabert
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Rolfe Kent

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/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 for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Romantic comedies seem to be a dying art form as Hollywood has struggled to put out a decent one lately. This film adds another one to the list of average or below average romantic comedies produced in recent years.

    Anyway, it focuses on successful photographer but unsuccessful human being, Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) who is a serial womaniser and thinks marriage is a terrible idea. Despite this he is going back to his home town to attend the wedding of his younger brother, Paul (Brecklin Meyer) who is marrying the mildly neurotic, Sandra (Lacey Chabert). One of the bridesmaids is his teenage girlfriend, Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner) who he still has feelings for. At the wedding practice dinner he is loud and obnoxious, telling everyone how stupid he thinks marriage is. After basically being thrown out by Sandra's father, a former marine (Robert Forster), he is visited in the bathroom by his dead Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). Uncle Wayne and three women ghosts from his past, present and future set out to show him the error of his ways. Fairly obviously, the idea is based upon A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

    Unfortunately, this film suffers badly from being unengaging and varies wildly in tone from farce to morality play. There is little or no chemistry between McConaughey and Garner and neither seems right for their role. The actors who play them as children are more believable. The film was written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore who have since written The Hangover, which is certainly a better comedy. The director was Mark Waters, a young director whose credits include films such as Mean Girls, Freaky Friday and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

    Overall, this film is not terrible just very unmemorable and does not engage with the audience. There are better things to spend your time watching.

Video

    The video quality is good but not up to the standard of the best new film transfers.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced widescreen.

    The picture was quite clear and sharp in the foreground but somewhat undefined in the backgrounds. Shadow detail was decent but never great. There were some minor MPEG compression artefacts here and there such as at 12:25.

    The colour was well rendered and vibrant within the confines of the colour scheme.

    Other artefacts include some edge enhancement (e.g. 3:45).

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired which are clear and easy to read.

    The layer change is at 64:13 and caused a noticeable pause.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was reasonably clear and easy to understand throughout, although the subtitles were useful on occassion.

    The music consists of a score by Rolfe Kent plus lots of pop tunes from the 1970s and 1980s. The score doesn't really stand out.

    The surround speakers were used mostly for atmosphere and the occasional surround effect (such as voices or party scenes). This is not really a movie where you would expect aggressive surround usage.

    The subwoofer was used for music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is still and silent. Scene selection is available.

Theatrical Trailer (2:22) 

    Decent Trailer.

Additional Scenes (9:39)

    A variety of extended scenes including a different opening, all of which are boring and inconsequential.

    The Region 1 release of this movie has no extras whatsoever which means Region 4 seems to be the best available. It is also available on Blu-ray.

    The video quality is good but not up to the standard of other recent films.

    The audio quality is very good.

    Small selection of ordinary extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall