The Butcher's Wife (1991) |
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The Butcher's Wife (1991) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Romantic Comedy | Theatrical Trailer | |
| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1991 | ||
| Running Time | 100:26 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (51:26) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Programme | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Terry Hughes |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Paramount Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Demi Moore Jeff Daniels George Dzundza Frances McDormand Margaret Colin Mary Steenburgen |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Michael Gore |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
Czech Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish German Greek English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish French Hebrew Croatian Icelandic Italian Hungarian Dutch Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovenian Finnish Swedish Turkish English |
Smoking | Yes, in a doctors office?!?!?! |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes | ||
Some things are destined to be. But sometimes destiny takes a detour and things get a little sidetracked. In the end, however, destiny being what it is, it all comes to its predetermined conclusion. This is a story of destiny...and the little scenic tour sidetrack it takes along the way.
Marina (Demi Moore, Ghost: 1990) has always been able to see the future, or at least catch a glimpse of it. Raised on the coast of North Carolina, Marina comes from clairvoyant stock where the "seeing" gift is encouraged and used. For as long as she could remember, Marina has known that one day her prince would come. But until the fateful day, she could not quite make out her intended's face, but only his smile. When a series of signs herald her true love's coming, Marina is enthralled. Then, one day on the beach near her house, Marina catches sight of her destined true love who arrives in a small fishing boat. He is all she ever dreamed of...well, sort of. While her supposed-to-be true love isn't quite what she expected, Marina throws herself headlong into commitment with the unsuspecting Leo Lemke (George Dzundza: Crimson Tide: 1995) who is a Greenwich Village butcher. Taken aback but nonetheless excited about Marina's proclamation of love and intention of marriage, Leo goes along with it all and soon both he and Marina are back in the village to start their life together.
While Leo tries to get Marina to fit into his routine and her new role behind the counter at the butcher shop, she can't help but find a use for her clairvoyant skills. Soon the village is abuzz with talk about the new wife Leo has brought back from North Carolina and her uncanny ability to see into people's lives and dreams and even package up a customer's order before they've even ordered it! But all starts to go awry when Marina looks into the future loves of her new neighbours and customers, especially the psychiatrist Dr. Alex Tremor (Jeff Daniels: Speed: 1994) who has a practice across the street from the butcher. Dr. Alex isn't very impressed with the newcomer and her brand of homespun advice, especially her clairvoyance which he puts down to nothing more than heightened female intuition. But Marina starts to make a few predictions that are a little more close to home than she would like and she begins to question whether she's picked the right man to marry.
This film was directed by Terry Hughes whose work has for the most part been in the television realm, with both directing and producing credits ranging from The Two Ronnies to The Golden Girls to Friends to 3rd Rock from the Sun. With a career spanning decades in TV, Hughes does a fine job with this light-hearted story and he constructs an interesting little world and group of characters for us to follow with interest. There are some good performances here from our leads, including Demi Moore with an accent we're not used to hearing from her, and the versatile Jeff Daniels, who handles romantic comedy and slapstick (as seen in Dumb & Dumber: 1994) as well as more serious roles in films such as Gettysburg:1993 and 2 Days in the Valley: 1996 where he has a small role, but one worth seeing if you think that Daniels is just a lightweight sidekick for Jim Carrey and the guy from the Tater-Tot commercial. Mary Steenburgen (Time After Time: 1979) and Frances McDormand (Fargo: 1996) also do well in their supporting roles.
This is a nice light-hearted romantic comedy that all can enjoy. Relax, get the popcorn, sit down with a significant other and enjoy a little romance. Recommended.
The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is a slightly different (but acceptable) variant of the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The transfer is 16x9 enhanced.
The sharpness of the image presented on this disc is quite good and thankfully doesn't suffer to any major degree from age or neglect of the original print. Shadow detail is quite good with detail readily visible during the film's many darker scenes as can be seen at 32:45. Low level noise is nowhere to be seen.
Colour use for the most part during this feature is quite natural with both bright and subdued colour use being appropriate for each character and scene. The disc's presentation of the colours used is quite good with no issues of note.
MPEG artefacts are thankfully absent during this presentation with a seemingly good compression job done on the content of this disc. There is some minor aliasing to be seen on a couple of occasions during this film, such as at 4:21 on the city, 11:32 on the roller door and 54:15 on the night skyline amongst other places. This artefact is not overly pervasive with this title, but it is there. Sometimes this reviewer wishes that he could take out a restraining order against edge enhancement as it is almost a serial stalker of the DVD format. This annoying artefact makes its appearance with this title and is visible with every darker object against a lighter surface such as a lightly coloured wall or skyline. Whilst this is certainly not the worst case of overuse of edge enhancement I have seen, I can but imagine a world without it. It's easy if you try. There is a fair level of grain visible during this feature but it isn't overly distracting and not a real problem as such. The usual nicks and flecks are visible during the feature but are not hugely distracting.
This disc offers one of the most comprehensive list of subtitle options this reviewer has seen with no less than 24 choices available. This is a great title for those whose first language is not English. The English subtitles are reasonably accurate and convey the meaning and mood of the characters' dialogue without being word for word.
This disc is RSDL-formatted with the layer change taking place at 51:26. It is reasonably placed and does not disrupt the flow of the film. Most modern players will render the change unnoticeable.
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There are 6 audio tracks available on this disc with the English being presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. The remaining 5 options are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded.
This is mostly a character-driven film and as such, dialogue is a very major part of the film's content. Thankfully, the quality of the dialogue is fairly good with the spoken word understandable throughout the film.
Audio sync is also fairly good though there are some slight issues with the sometimes looped portions of dialogue not quite being in sync as can be seen and heard at 32:28 and 47:05. For the most part, though, there are no real problems to be concerned about.
Music for the film is by Michael Gore who gives the film a score with just the right amount of whimsy. There are also some fantastic standards used from the big band era which add to the romantic qualities of the film. The film's score is not overly memorable with no stand-out themes used, but it does the job of steering the mood of the film well.
The surrounds are used in a supporting role with this title and as such don't draw undue attention to themselves. The surrounds offer the appropriate atmospheric backup and serve the film well.
As is the case with the surrounds, such it is with the subwoofer. While it is a bit more active during some of the musical passages, is still maintains a supporting role within the soundtrack's presentation and adds to the quality of the audio without dominating it or drawing undue attention to itself.
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The Audio Options menu gives us the choice of 6 audio tracks, these being:
The Subtitles menu offers one of the most comprehensive range of subtitles available on any disc this reviewer has had the pleasure of reviewing. Not counting the English options, there are no less than 22 subtitle options available. Most of these are European with several Middle Eastern options available as well. This menu features Marina looking at the range of subtitles available. This menu is silent, static and 16x9 enhanced.
The Scene Selection menu offers 3 lots of 4 chapters (for a total of 12 chapters for the disc) with static images of the respective 4 chapters displayed on screen with the chapter titles under each image. Blocks of chapters can be selected at the bottom of the screen. This menu is silent, static and 16x9 enhanced.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video is reasonable with a fairly good image that features the all-too-common bugbear of edge enhancement.
The audio transfer is good with all the channels doing their respective jobs.
The extras are almost nil as is too often the case. Only a theatrical trailer is on offer.
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| Extras |  |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Panasonic A300-MU, using S-Video output |
| Display | Hitachi CP-L750W LCD Projector. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Yamaha RX-V2090 |
| Speakers | VAF DC-X fronts; VAF DC-6 center; VAF DC-2 rears; LFE-07subwoofer (80W X 2) |