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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Forget Paris (1995)

Forget Paris (1995) (NTSC)

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Released 25-Jun-2002

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Romantic Comedy Main Menu Audio
Theatrical Trailer
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 1995
Running Time 101:19
RSDL / Flipper Dual Sided Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,4 Directed By Billy Crystal
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Billy Crystal
Debra Winger
Joe Mantegna
Julie Kavner
Richard Masur
Cathy Moriarty
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $19.95 Music Marc Shaiman


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement Yes, Ellen's father is a walking commercial repeater!
Action In or After Credits Yes, extra scene with Mickey and Ellen's father

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Forget Paris is a romantic comedy about the unusual, and not quite smooth sailing, relationship between Mickey Gordon (Billy Crystal) and Ellen Andrews (Debra Winger). Their story is told mainly as a series of flashbacks from the perspective of their friends to another couple - Andy (Joe Mantegna) and Liz (Cynthia Stevenson) - at a restaurant on the eve of Andy and Liz's wedding.

    Mickey's father died and his wish was to be buried in a remote French village with his fellow war buddies. On the way to Paris, the airline somehow manages to lose the coffin! Ellen is the customer service manager assigned to help Mickey find his lost "luggage" and they fall in love and have a glorious week in Paris.

    After that, they decide to get together and marry, but life is not so easy. First of all, Mickey is a basketball referee which means he travels all over the country attending games and is seldom home. Ellen gives up her glamorous job in Paris and initially isn't too happy when she is stuck in a crummy job and Mickey is never home. Eventually she manages to get a promotion and Mickey takes a break from basketball and tries to settle into a job that involves less travelling. Now Ellen is happy but Mickey isn't.

    Things come to a boil when Ellen's father (William Hickey) comes and stays with them. Soon their marriage hits the rocks, especially as their efforts to conceive are not successful. Will their love for each other be able to sustain the hard knocks?

    This film tries very hard to recapture the magic in When Harry Met Sally but unfortunately I don't think it quite gets there. The concept of using flashbacks told from the perspective of close friends of the couple surprisingly works quite well, and helps bring light relief to some of the darker parts of the story. And the story does venture into the dark and stormy side of relationships - virtually unknown territory for romantic comedies which typically are more about falling in love rather than the harsh realities of trying to make a marriage work.

    Billy Crystal works overtime to deliver the charm and the wit but the wisecracks overpower the story. I have a lot of respect for Debra Winger but somehow she doesn't feel right for this film - she looks tired most of the time and for some reason the clothes she wears are too young for her. The friends are great: Richard Masur and Julie Kavner (you will recognise her voice as "Marge" from The Simpsons) are great as Craig and Lucy, similarly John Spencer and Cathy Moriarty play Jack and Lois well. Even Robert Costanzo works quite well as the waiter with the dry and deprecating one-liners. Finally, we get to see quite a few real NBA basketball players basically playing themselves in cameo appearances.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    This is yet another one of Warner's NTSC DVDs which are essentially Region 1 discs rehashed at minimal additional expense for Australia. We get two versions of the film - full frame and widescreen 1.78:1 (16x9 Enhanced) - on a dual-sided disc. I mainly watched the widescreen version as that is closest to the intended 1.85:1 aspect ratio of the film.

    I am reasonably happy with the transfer, which features acceptable levels of detail, good black levels and fully saturated colours.

    The film source is relatively clean and grain free. There is a bit of telecine wobble at the beginning of the film, and there is some stair stepping or aliasing around the opening titles, but apart from that I did not notice many video artefacts.

    There are English and French subtitle tracks present. I turned on the English subtitle track briefly just to verify its presence and to check that it was reasonably accurate.

    The full frame version of the film has a comparable video transfer quality and appears to be an open matte version of the 35mm print.

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

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this disc: English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded (192Kb/s). I listened to the English audio track.

    I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get a 5.1 mix given that the film was theatrically released in Dolby Digital and SDDS. However, given that this is a dialogue-focused film, I suppose we are not missing out on much.

    The quality of the audio track is acceptable, with a rather full-bodied sound. I did not notice any specific problems with it.

    The rear speakers are mostly used for reproducing ambience in the music soundtrack. Incidentally, the music score features lots of songs by George Gershwin, Johnny Mercer and Cole Porter. The original music score by Marc Shaiman is typical romantic comedy material and the end credits feature a typical over-produced easy listening ballad.

    I did not notice any issues with dialogue intelligibility or synchronisation.

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

Extras

    This is a fairly bare bones disc.

Menu

    The menus are static and 16x9 enhanced regardless of which side of the disc is being accessed. The main menu includes background audio.

Theatrical Trailer (1:54)

    This is Pan & Scan and features Dolby Digital mono (192 kb/s) audio. The trailer is somewhat grainy and pixelated.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 1 and 4 versions of this disc are identical, right down to the FBI warning that appears at the end of the film.

Summary

    Forget Paris is a watchable and somewhat unusual romantic comedy, but it ain't When Harry Met Sally. Audio and video (NTSC) transfer quality are reasonable. Extras are limited to a theatrical trailer.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Christine Tham (read my biography)
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-NS905V, using Component output
DisplaySony VPL-VW11HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics 16x9 matte white screen (254cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials/Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationDenon AVR-3300
SpeakersFront and rears: B&W CDM7NT; centre: B&W CDMCNT; subwoofer: B&W ASW2500

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