The Crush (1993) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Scene Selection Anim & Audio Filmographies-Cast-4 Trailer-Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; Chill Factor; Diabolique Trailer-Pacific Heights; Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves; Silent Fall Trailer-True Romance; Young Guns II
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	88:53
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Alan Shapiro
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Cary Elwes Alicia Silverstone Jennifer Rubin Kurtwood Smith Amber Benson Gwynyth Walsh Matthew Walker
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Graeme Revell

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French Spanish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Crush can't quite make up its mind. Is it meant to be titillating and smutty? If so, it fails because there's no real nudity in it. Is it meant to be a remake of Lolita? If so, it fails because the older man isn't drawn to the young girl. Is it meant to be a horror movie? Well, maybe, but it doesn't really succeed there, either - nothing nasty enough happens to anyone. It feels like the director changed his mind as to the aim of the film while making it.

    This film has the distinction of being the first film in which Alicia Silverstone appears (she's playing a 14 year old, despite being 17 at the time). It has Amber Benson (you know her as Tara on Buffy) in her first role, too.

    Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes) has just arrived in town to take up a job as reporter for the trendy magazine Pique. He has trouble finding a place to live all through the opening credits, but finally gets to rent a guest house belonging to the Forresters. Mrs Forrester (Gwynyth Walsh) shows him the place, and we barely see her again. It is her daughter, Adrian (Alicia Silverstone) that we'll be seeing a lot more of. Adrian develops a crush on Nick, a crush that escalates to the level of obsession. Nick, on the other hand, is interested in the photographer he's working with - Amy Maddik (Jennifer Rubin). The only other real characters in this film are Michael (Matthew Walker), Nick's editor; Cliff Forrester (Kurtwood Smith), Adrian's father; and Cheyenne (Amber Benson), Adrian's only friend.

    I was quite unimpressed by the ending. Heck, I wasn't really very impressed by the entire movie. It's not Alicia Silverstone's fault - her performance is quite good (she won MTV awards for it). Cary Elwes isn't bad, either. The rest of the cast are OK. The score is loud, and extremely heavy-handed, which doesn't help. But I blame the writer/director - this film really lacks direction, and there are large holes in the plot.

    A bit of trivia - Alicia Silverstone's character is called Adrian on this DVD. Apparently she was called Darian in the theatrical release, but the girl (or her family) upon whom the screenplay was based objected, and the name was changed to Adrienne or Adrian for subsequent release. Perhaps the fact that the screenplay was based on real events explains the lack of direction. It probably didn't help that Alan Shapiro was both writer and director (as well as the person those real events happened to) - perhaps a different director might have tightened up the storyline and given it more focus.

Video

    This is another of Warner Home Video's recent releases of NTSC discs. If your system won't display NTSC, skip this one.

    The cover reports this DVD as being presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, not 16x9 enhanced. It could not be more wrong: the film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. Oops!

    The picture is a little bit soft most of the time. There are a few moments of strong grain that look far less sharp, and a fair bit of lighter grain. Shadow detail is excellent and there is no low-level noise.

    Colours are good and strong, with no oversaturation and no colour bleed.

    There are a few film artefacts, but they're momentary and not huge. There's no serious aliasing (probably because of the softness). There's no moire. There's a little bit of background shimmer, but it's not at all distracting.

    There are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. I only looked at the English - they are really captions, mentioning sound effects as well as words. They are mostly accurate, and easy to read, but the timing is a bit off - sometimes the subtitle appears early, sometimes late, but it's never out by too much.

    The disc is single-sided (with an attractive picture label), and single layered, so there is no layer change. There's plenty of room on the single layer for this short film and the limited extras, so that's no problem.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The English (only) soundtrack on this disc is Dolby Digital 5.1 - it is a remix, because the original soundtrack was stereo (according to the credits).

    The dialogue is clear and comprehensible. There are a couple of visible ADR glitches, but no major audio sync issues.

    The score is quite poor. Graeme Revell cannot be proud of this effort. It is rather loud (which always puts me off), raucous, and full of clichés - almost a paint-by-the-numbers effort.

    There's little in the way of directional sound here, so your surrounds will have to be satisfied with providing a pale imitation of the fronts. The subwoofer gets a fair bit of muffled booming bass, supporting the score, but it's not exciting stuff.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menus have music behind them, and some neat transitions. The main menu isn't animated, but all the submenus are.

Trailers - Morgan Creek DVDs

    We get eight trailers for other Morgan Creek DVDs:

• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (2:01)
• Chill Factor (2:18)
• Diabolique (1:51)
• Pacific Heights (1:08)
• Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (1:58)
• Silent Fall (2:02)
• True Romance (2:06)
• Young Guns II (1:56) 

Cast Filmographies

    We get one or two pages of filmography for each of Cary Elwes, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Rubin, and Kurtwood Smith.

    Once again, the comparison between the R1 and the R4 is pretty simple. The disc content is identical (save for the region coding). The R1 disc has a silver on silver label, and is provided in a snapper case. The R4 gets a picture label, and is in an Amaray case (albeit one with an error about the aspect ratio...). Gotta call that a small win for the R4.

    The Crush is a mediocre film, presented nicely on DVD.

    The video quality is rather good.

    The audio quality is good, but the score is dreadful.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall