Evil Woman (Saving Silverman) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-Canyon Audio Commentary Outtakes Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Loser; Big Daddy; The Cable Guy Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	92:26
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (60:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Dennis Dugan
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Jason Biggs Steve Zahn Jack Black Amanda Peet R. Lee Ermey Amanda Detmer Neil Diamond
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Mike Simpson Neil Diamond

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, a live performance in the credits

    Do you ever look at a disc in your collection and wonder just how on Earth you actually stepped in to watch its contents, leave alone purchasing the disc? Well, after all the reviews I have done here, sometimes I look at the Inbox and wonder what I was thinking when I volunteered for a particular film. Evil Woman is one such film, and I think that I might have selected it because of the association with a Black Sabbath song title, but that only serves to highlight how far the film fell below my expectations. It might have something to do with the fact that the film was originally titled Saving Silverman, but the title was changed for international release. Having experienced one other film with a notable name change (It's The Rage), I was expecting the worst, although what I did get was slightly more palatable.

    Wayne Lefessier (Steve Zahn), J.D. McNugent (Jack Black), and Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) are three losers who have been together since early school days. When they're not in their day jobs, which includes such things as a manager at Subway or a pest exterminator, they play in a Neil Diamond cover band. One evening, after a particularly ordinary night of playing to the crowds at what looks like a riverside shopping centre, Darren makes a pass at one Judith Fessbeggler, Ph.D. (Amanda Peet). Originally, she has no interest in Darren whatsoever, but when a fat, balding slob gets similar ideas, she takes Darren and tries to mould him into her ideal lover, making him burn his Neil Diamond records and shun his two friends in the process, among other things.

    This is the first place where this comedy falls down - if it had been a comedy based around this one woman trying to pull Darren up out of Loserville and make a reasonably pleasant man out of him, it would have been a heck of a lot funnier. However, in the end, I didn't know who I hated more - Judith or Darren's friends. In any case, Wayne and J.D. try all sorts of chicanery in order to get Darren out from under Judith's thumb, but they eventually turn to their old high school football coach, Norton (R. Lee Ermey). R. Lee Ermey's appearance in this film is a major part of what saves it, as with his psychotic militia style of acting, he saves the film from being just plain unfunny a lot of the time. Complicating matters in this rather missed opportunity is the arrival of Sandy Perkus (Amanda Detmer), a woman whom Darren had admired from a distance all the way through high school, only to have her move away at that vital last moment.

    To be honest, after the horrible photographs of Amanda Peet on the cover, and listening to her talk down at half the principal cast throughout the film, I am not surprised at all that this film had to have its name changed for international release. It's a dire effort that should earn the marketeers a thorough beating for putting it out in preference to numerous other films that could have done this kind of premise so much better. However, it is worth looking at for the hilarious cameo appearance by Neil Diamond (although I would have preferred a real musician like Frank Zappa or Robert Smith, myself).

Video

    Dean McIntosh's rule of DVD-Video transfers: the worse the film's plot, the better the quality of the transfer.

    This transfer is presented in the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced.

    This is a very sharp transfer, with plenty of fine detail on offer, which comes in handy for closely examining Amanda Peet's costumes which only just barely manage to restrain her wobbly bits. The shadow detail, when required (which isn't that often), is very good, and there is no low-level noise.

    This film is dominated by bright, luscious colours that the transfer renders with no artefacting whatsoever.

    With regard to artefacts, the first minute of the film primarily consists of archival footage from a Neil Diamond concert, and it looks like a mess. However, since this only accounts for about thirty or forty-five seconds of film, it is easy to overlook. The rest of the transfer is completely free of MPEG artefacts, while such film-to-video artefacts as aliasing are in perfectly acceptable amounts, with the most obvious example being on Neil Diamond's guitar strings at 83:05. Being that visible guitar strings show aliasing like there's no tomorrow when struck, and that there's only three other instances in the whole transfer that I noticed, this is actually quite good. Film artefacts were present in small amounts, although some of them were sizeable enough to get my attention.

    I won't comment too much about the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles on this DVD, except to say that if they were in a slightly bolder font, then Roadshow would be setting the reference example of how such captions should be encoded. A burned-in subtitle was present at 68:11 to translate a scream that was supposed to be a Thai word.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change taking place at 60:49. The layer change is noticeable, but very reasonably placed.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on this DVD. The first, and default, soundtrack is the original English dialogue, encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 at a bitrate of 448 kilobits per second. The other soundtrack is an English Audio Commentary encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding at a bitrate of 192 kilobits per second. I listened to both of these soundtracks.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, even from R. Lee Ermey, whose shouting and screaming usually requires subtitles to understand. I did not detect any serious problems with audio sync.

    The music in this film can be divided into a score by Mike Simpson, additional music by Bruno Coon, and songs by Neil Diamond. The score music is okay but nothing special, as is the additional music. The songs by Neil Diamond are that repetitive verse-chorus-verse crap that I can only tolerate in small amounts from select artists. Oh well, we can't always have films with gloriously beautiful music.

    The surround channels were mainly used to support the music, with the occasional directional effect such as a flag being thrown, but this is definitely one of those 5.1 soundtracks that could have been rendered in 4.1, or even 2.0 with surround-encoding.

    The subwoofer was occasionally used to support the sounds of cars crashing or people hitting one another, but it was not worked especially hard.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu features an animated introduction, some moderate animation, a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, and 16x9 Enhancement.

Audio Commentary - Dennis Dugan (Director)

    This Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio commentary almost put me to sleep, but Dugan does occasionally shine through with an interesting insight into the casting choices and Neil Diamond's involvement with the film.

Outtakes

    A collection of very unfunny outtakes, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound. They are not 16x9 Enhanced.

Theatrical Trailer

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and 16x9 Enhancement, this one minute and forty-nine second trailer does a good job of making the film seem more interesting than it really is.

Trailer - Loser; Big Daddy; The Cable Guy

    All three of these trailers are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, except for The Cable Guy, which is merely encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. Loser's trailer runs for one minute and fifty-five seconds, Big Daddy's runs for one minute and fifty-seven seconds, while The Cable Guy's runs for two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. All of these films are of similar quality to the feature (i.e. very little, excepting maybe Big Daddy, which I saw theatrically and quite enjoyed).

Filmographies - Cast & Crew

    Filmographies for Steve Zahn, Jack Black, Jason Biggs, Amanda Peet and director Dennis Dugan are presented under this menu. I think it should be made mandatory to include filmographies for writers, too, so that we can try to avoid any more of their work in this case.

    There appear to be two versions of this disc available in Region 1: an R-rated version, and a PG-13-rated version. Considering that anyone who'd be mad enough to fork out money for this film would almost certainly want the R-rated version, I will compare the local version to that one. The only difference between the two Region 1 versions is the extra footage, anyway.

    The Region 4 disc misses out on;

• Two Easter Eggs
• Production Notes
• Additional open-matted version
• Three minutes of additional footage

    Considering that you'd have to have been in prison for twenty-five years, much of it in solitary confinement, to get even vaguely excited by the contents of this film, I don't see how the three extra minutes help. However, considering that there are also extra Easter Eggs and Production Notes on the Region 1 disc, I would have to say that Region 1 is the marginal winner in this instance.

    Evil Woman really only serves to show how impotent and sex-starved America's media really is, and it is hard to recommend the film to anyone other than fans of Neil Diamond or Amanda Peet, whose outfits in this caper must have attracted demands for more money from her. It is worth renting once, perhaps, but I do not see myself attempting a second viewing. Fans of R. Lee Ermey might get more of a kick out of this effort, but I'd rather wait for the man to do a stand-up act.

    The video transfer is excellent.

    The audio transfer is very good, but also very tame.

    The extras are very lame.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall