Any Given Sunday (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation-#1 Listing-Cast & Crew-#1 Audio Commentary-#1:Oliver Stone (Director) Audio Commentary-#1:Cast & Crew Isolated Musical Score-#1 Theatrical Trailer-#1:2.35:1, 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:21) DVD-ROM Extras-#2:Trivia Game, Script To Screen, Virtual Edit Suite DVD-ROM Extras-#2:Essay, Reviews, Web Link, Sound Hits Featurette-#2:Jamie Foxx Audition Tape (3:23)/Screen Tests (2, 3:24) Featurette-#2:Full Contact-The Making of Any Given Sunday (27:09) Music Video-#2:Shut 'Em Down-LL Cool J (3:40) Music Video-#2:My Name is Willie-Jamie Foxx (1:49) Music Video-#2:Any Given Sunday-Jamie Foxx (3:27) Deleted Scenes-#2:+/- Director's Commentary (32:36) Outtakes-#2:(4:13) Featurette-#2:Football Outtakes Montage (8:30) Featurette-#2:Miscellaneous Landscapes and Outtakes Montage (3:28) Gallery-#2:The Art Of Selling Featurette-#2:Stills Gallery
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	150:45
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (74:12) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Oliver Stone
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Al Pacino Cameron Diaz Dennis Quaid James Woods Jamie Foxx LL Cool J Matthew Modine Charlton Heston Ann-Margret Aaron Eckhart John C. McGinley
Case	Alpha-Dual
RPI	$36.95	Music	Robbie Robertson Paul Kelly Richard Horowitz

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Italian French Spanish German Romanian Bulgarian Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Thankfully I am a huge fan of American Football and jumped at the chance to review Any Given Sunday. As a long time fan of the Green Bay Packers, the last survivor in major professional sport in America that still has roots in small town USA, this is an especially apt film for me. It is doubtful that no team more than my beloved Packers has suffered at the hands of the changing of professional sports in the television age, yet they continue to survive and thrive in the National Football League. The team gives you some perspective as to the issues being raised by Oliver Stone in the film - a professional sports teams based in a small town of about 300,000 in Wisconsin, it is hard for them to compete with the big boys based out of places like Miami with their populations of millions. Yet they do, and have an almost religious following such that every home game is sold out on a season ticket basis (the revered Lambeau Field is to be extended to cope with the demand) and the season ticket waiting list alone would make just about every Australian sporting team green with envy. So given my deep interest in this great sport, there was a fair chance that I would enjoy the film - a film that takes a no-holds-barred look at professional sports, warts and all. It is not especially hard to see why the National Football League were reluctant to support the film - it certainly does not gloss over some of the serious issues facing football, amongst many other professional sports. How accurate is the film? I would take serious note of the lack of National Football League support as a fair indication that this is close to the mark. The fact that such revered names in football as Jim Brown (of Cleveland Browns fame and arguably the greatest running back of all time), Lawrence Taylor (of New York Giants fame and the greatest linebacker of all time), Bob St Clair (of San Francisco 49ers fame), Y.A. Tittle (also of San Francisco 49ers fame), Johnny Unitas (of Baltimore Colts fame) and Dick Butkus (of Chicago Bears fame) agreed to appear in the film, and in the case of Lawrence Taylor more than just cameo in the film, certainly weighs heavily in favour of the film. After all, these six gentlemen are all members of the Pro Football Hall Of Fame.

    Any Given Sunday is broadly the story of the Miami Sharks, a fictional pro football team playing out of the Orange Bowl. They are a team at the crossroads. After being used to success, the team now finds itself on the slide and young owner Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz) is determined to return the team to its former glory. To do so, things need to change, but one thing that has not changed is incumbent coach Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), who sees nothing wrong with sticking with the tried and tested methods he has used for years. After three straight losses, the pressure is mounting on Coach D'Amato for a win, but things go from bad to worse when veteran quarterback and team leader Jack "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid) goes down with a serious back injury. Things go from worse to even worse when the second string quarterback goes down with an injury on the very next play. Cue third string quarterback Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), a journeyman player who never expected to play and is thrown into the deep end. The major participants are rounded out by Dr Harvey Mandrake (James Woods), the head medico of the team who sees nothing wrong with doing whatever is necessary to satisfy the team. This includes administering drugs to assist players getting onto the field when they should be prevented from doing so, as well as falsifying medical reports in order to toe the line demanded by management. The emergence of Willie as a star player leads to disharmony in the team that threatens the very core of the concept, as he proceeds to rub just about every player the wrong way, not the least of which is star running back Julian Washington (LL Cool J). What follows is the slow unravelling of the team, both on and off the gridiron, as the season progresses towards its conclusion, with a place in the playoffs as the goal of management, then the slow patching of differences as the team comes together for a playoff run - and a rebirth of sorts amongst the main players as they conquer their own personal walls.

    Whilst I would be loathe to suggest that this is is the greatest screenplay that has ever come from Oliver Stone, it does have its moments and these are most especially noticeable in the reasonably decent characterizations that we see of most of the main cast. This certainly benefits Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz in particular, as they certainly have a fair chance to create two solid characters. It is not so beneficial to James Woods for instance, whose character does not get a whole-hearted run here. Still, with so many parts with lines, I guess certain major roles have to miss out to accommodate those minor roles. Unfortunately it does mean that Lauren Holly gets barely any on-screen presence at all, which is a bit of a shame. But it should also be understood that being part of a team involves sacrifices, and that would certainly account for some roles not being as prominent as perhaps would be expected in a film. At least Oliver Stone does it his way rather then toeing the usual Hollywood line of a couple of major stars and sod all else. However, beyond the performances, what stands out here to me is the cinematography with plenty of on-field stuff that really does try and highlight the game from a player's perspective. It certainly achieves much of the aim and the result is something that I would rate as one of the best films about professional sport that I have seen.

    Not the very best that Oliver Stone has ever done, but a darn good film nonetheless. Whilst the sport chosen may alienate sections of the film viewing public, this should not be seen as a wholly American Football film but rather a look at the grotesque and more unseemly aspects of any professional sport, where money rules above all else.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is very close to the theatrical ratio of 2.40:1. It is 16x9 enhanced, as we should expect of every widescreen release.

    Apart from those scenes that are intentionally diffuse and without any sort of form (to highlight the lack of clarity of persons suffering severe head injuries such as concussions), this is another wonderfully sharp and detailed transfer. Whilst it has been shot at times to de-emphasize foreground detail to falsely highlight shadow detail, the overall shadow detail is very good indeed. This is a wonderfully clear transfer and you would not find anything hidden here at all. Everything just jumps out at you as far as the transfer is concerned. There is no hint of grain in the transfer and low level noise is equally non-existent.

    One thing stands out immediately as far as colour is concerned: the all black uniforms worn by the Miami Sharks look all black. Given that a really good solid black is often difficult to capture on film, it is a bold move indeed to go with this predominant colour scheme but it succeeds wonderfully well. In general the colours in the film, despite the vast predominance of darker colours at times, come up brilliantly and very vibrant. The overall appearance of the transfer is extremely natural, and the bright vibrant colours certainly go a long way to setting the right sort tone for the Miami setting - which after all considers itself a bright, vibrant city. Yet despite the bright palette of colours at times, saturation is just about spot on throughout and there is no hint of any oversaturation in the transfer. There also was not any evidence of any colour bleed in the transfer.

    Artefacts? Nothing of any significance at all, unless you count a couple of extremely minor hints of aliasing that are barely noticeable in the overall flow of the film. There was very little evidence of any film artefacts either, and overall this is a truly superb transfer in every respect. The words reference quality get banded around a little, but if you are looking for a true reference quality transfer this is as good as you can get. This is especially so since there are significant night time sequences and even then there is no let down in the quality on offer.

    The two DVD set comprises one RSDL formatted DVD for the main feature and one Dual Layer formatted DVD for the extras package. The layer change occurs at 74:12 in the main feature, which is mid-scene: despite this, it is well handled and is hardly noticeable and barely disruptive to the flow of the film. The second DVD is presumed to be Dual Layer as no layer change was noted during any of the extras on the DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand in the soundtrack, especially within the context of the style of the film. There were no problems with audio sync in the transfer.

    The original musical score is credited to Robbie Robertson, Paul Kelly and Richard Horowitz. However, its role is very limited, as the bulk of the music in the film is all popular music that ties in very well to the sorts of activities the characters would be indulging in, as well as the mood of the film. Oliver Stone in his commentary suggests that there are over 100 pieces of music used in the film - I would not like to argue!

    Just as the video transfer could be considered reference quality, the audio transfer is not far short of that mark either. Since a lot of the film is set during games, where plenty of peripheral ambience would be noted even though the focus would be the on-field action, this film needed strong surround channel use in order to succeed. It got it aplenty. In many instances the surround channel use, especially through the rear channels, is quite subtle, but it adds so much to what is going on in the film that if it were not there, it would be sadly missed. Even when the focus is on Willie Beamen as he concentrates on what is happening on-field, the action through the surrounds really conveys the blocking-out effect. The bass channel gets a fair old workout here, but thankfully it is an entirely natural sounding effort with no unnecessary emphasis on the bass. I was sort of dreading this as I envisaged plenty of huge bass effects to accompany the on-field hits, but there was nothing unnatural here at all. Definitely one of those rare instances where the sound engineers were well in tune with what the film was trying to achieve. The whole soundtrack is nice and open without any hint of congestion, which is what really helps make this shine. About the only thing I could fault here would be the fact that we did not get a higher 448 Kb/s bitrate soundtrack like the Region 1 release.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Disc One:

Listing - Cast and Crew

Audio Commentary - Oliver Stone (Director)

Audio Commentary - Cast and Crew

Isolated Music Score

Theatrical Trailer (2:21)

Disc Two:

Pregame:

Featurette - Jamie Foxx Audition Tape (3:23)

Featurette - Jamie Foxx Screen Tests (2) (3:24)

Featurette - Full Contact: The Making Of Any Given Sunday (27:09)

Halftime:

Music Video - Shut 'Em Down LL Cool J (3:40)

Music Video - My Name Is Willie Jamie Foxx (1:49)

Music Video - Any Given Sunday Jamie Foxx (3:27)

Postgame:

Deleted and Extended Scenes (32:36)

Outtakes/Gag Reel (4:13)

Featurette - Football Outtakes Montage (8:30)

Featurette - Miscellaneous Landscapes and Outtakes Montage (3:28)

Gallery - The Art Of Selling

Gallery - Stills

DVD-ROM Extras

Special Online Events

Training Camp

• Grid Iron Challenge - this is a trivia challenge involving sixteen questions about American Football. Answer the questions in a four minute time frame, win the game based upon the points awarded and you earn a bonus: you get to look at the playbooks for the five games shown in the film. For non-fans, this will probably be difficult and the reward less than interesting, but for fans of the sport, this is a very interesting little exercise indeed. I spent a good twenty or thirty minutes wandering through the playbooks, which I found quite interesting.
• Script To Screen - utilizing two scenes from the film, Tony & Willie and Game 3, this demonstrates how an Oliver Stone film evolves rather than just relying upon purely the script. It takes the form of being able to see two different scripts - the Director's Draft, which has a lot of Oliver Stone's notes scribbled over it, and the Shooting Script - then viewing the Early Rough Cut of the film before seeing the Final Cut of the film. This is extremely interesting and would have been even better if the video had actually worked...
• Virtual Edit Suite - utilizing the scene of Tony meeting Christina as the basis, this shows the progression from a whole bunch of dailies, through the rough cut, the rough cut with music and finally the final cut of the film. The four different stages of editing the film have an optional commentary from the film editor Tom Nordberg to boot. You can also listen to a little talk from the man about the editing of the film. Whilst I could not indulge in the entire package, this is another very interesting addition, not so much about Any Given Sunday but how films in general are actually put together.

Scoreboard

• Essay - Touchdowns And Fumbles: Football Films Through The Decades - an interesting enough essay, that discusses the various football films that have been made. However, I have to question why this is provided as DVD-ROM content rather than as ordinary text on the DVD itself.
• Reviews - takes you to the website www.warnervideo.com/ags_articles where direct links to review articles from various major US newspapers are provided for your consideration. Pardon me for raising the issue, but since you need to buy or rent the DVD to access the DVD-ROM content, isn't this a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Original Theatrical Website

Sound Hits

Other Links

    The DVD available to buy on its own in Region 1 appears to be a single DVD release that contains the film, which by the way is an extended director's cut, and a limited package of extras comprising the theatrical trailer, making of featurette and the LL Cool J music video. Accordingly, that release is vastly inferior to the Region 4 release and if you are wanting the film alone, Region 4 is the standout winner by such a long way it is not funny - especially as the landed price in Australia would be not much less than you could pick this up for locally at one of the chain stores (mine set me back $29.85).

    The online reviews of this single DVD release would indicate a similarly excellent video and audio transfer by the way.

    However, if you are a hard-core Oliver Stone fan, you might be interested in the 10 DVD Oliver Stone Collection available as a box set in Region 1. Any Given Sunday is included in this box set in its 2 DVD version, and from what I can find out it would seem to be pretty much similar to the normal Region 4 release. However, to get this 2 DVD version you would have to be indulging serious dollars as the set goes for around the USD200 mark - hence the reason it would be for serious fans only. As far as I can ascertain the 2 DVD version is not available separately yet, although it may become so available later, or may be so available where a retailer has broken up the box set. However, even if it were to become available separately, I would have serious doubts as to whether it would offer any substantial improvement over the Region 4 release.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall