Steel Magnolias: Collector's Edition (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Audio Featurette-In Full Bloom-Remembering Steel Magnolias Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary-Herbert Ross (Director) Isolated Musical Score Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	113:28
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (56:59)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Herbert Ross
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Sally Field Dolly Parton Shirley MacLaine Daryl Hannah Olympia Dukakis Julia Roberts Tom Skerritt Dylan McDermott Kevin J. O'Connor Sam Shepard
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Georges Delerue

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Greek Finnish Danish Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish French Audio Commentary German Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The focus of this story is the patrons of Truvy's Beauty Parlour in the small town of Chinquapin. We follow them over the course of several years and watch their lives unfold with both tragic and hilarious results.

    Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts) is about to marry a young lawyer named Jackson (Dylan McDermott) when the film opens, and is having the wedding of her dreams. Unfortunately, Shelby suffers severely from diabetes and this illness will cost her dearly. She is a happy and caring women who works as a nurse in the nursery of the local hospital. Shelby desperately wants a child of her own but has been told that she shouldn't have children due to the severe nature of her illness.

    M'Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field) is a kind women with three older children and a generally happy life that is not without its hardships. She is Shelby's mother and has cared for her and helped her deal with her illness. She is delighted that Shelby is getting married but worried about letting go of her daughter because of her health problems. Her concerns are tragically realized later in the film.

    Truvy Jones (Dolly Parton) is the proprietor of the beauty parlour and a lover of gossip. She takes her job very seriously and proudly declares her salon as the best in the area. Her motto is "There is no such thing as natural beauty"! She is having some trouble with the men in her life. Her son Louie (Tom Hodges) is a bit wild and mixes with people that Truvy would prefer he didn't. Her husband Spud (Sam Shepard) is down on his luck and doesn't want to do anything, which isn't making him the best company.

    Louisa 'Ouiser' Boudreaux (Shirley MacLaine) is the terror of the town. She is a women with a short temper and a mean disposition but, as you find out later, a warm heart.

    Clairee Belcher (Olympia Dukakis) is the ex first lady of Chinquapin and a fun-loving, wealthy women. She has a mischievous streak and loves to tease her friends, especially Ouiser, with hilarious results!

    Annelle Dupuy (Daryl Hannah) arrives in town as an awkward young women who has recently graduated top of her class in frosting and streaking (hair) at the local beauty school. She has applied for and been given a job at Truvy's which is just as well as she has recently been abandoned by her loser husband.

    This is a great movie! Each of the characters in this film is charming and the acting is very good indeed. The standouts for me were Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah. It is certainly sad but there are also many funny passages and the whole production oozes quality.

    There are a number of great lines spoken in this movie. A couple of my favourites are from Dolly Parton - "There's so much static electricity in this room, I pick up everything except boys and money" and "Time marches on and eventually you realize it's marching across your face!"

    If you are a lover of good movies and don't have to have heaps of action to keep your attention, then you could do worse than watch this movie.

Video

    While not as sharp as a contemporary film, this transfer is still clear and similar to other films from around this period such as Rain Man. This transfer has excellent shadow detail and the black level is perfect.

    Apart from a slightly pastel look in the skin tones which seems to be typical of this movie-making period, the colours in this film are clean and natural looking. There is never a hint of oversaturation nor bleeding, even when strong reds are shown such as at 57:30-57:41.

    I didn't notice any MPEG artefacts in this transfer. Some fine film grain is noticeable in many scenes especially where the sky is visible, but it is never a problem, such as at 2:10-2:16.

    I found only trivial occurrences of moiré effects. The most significant example I could find was at 54:24-54:26 and it was very minor indeed. This is a very clean print. The odd fleck can been seen here and there but nothing that is even remotely annoying.

    This is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring at 56:59. It placed right on a scene change and while noticeable, is not disruptive to the flow of the movie.

   In summary, Columbia TriStar rides again, yee haaa!

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are seven audio tracks present on this disc. Six are Dolby Digital 2.0 surround tracks encoded at 192 Kb/s; English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and an English Director's Commentary. The final track is an Isolated Music Score that is encoded in Dolby Digital 4.0 with a bit rate of 448 Kb/s. I listened to the main English surround track and both the Isolated Music Score and the Directors Commentary.

    Dialogue was always clear and audio sync was never a problem. You will have to listen carefully at times as the thick Southern American accents can be tricky to decipher.

    The score by Georges Delerue is lovely and well suited to the film. In some sections it features traditional music of the south but it is mainly orchestral in nature. It is mixed rather low in the main soundtrack and I thought it lost some of its impact because of this which is a shame as it is quite beautiful at times.

    The surrounds are frequently used to carry the score, such as at 00:30-03:07 and to open up the soundstage a little but they never really make an impact. The strongest example of overall surround use for effects was at 32:14-32:32 when Drum fires fireworks into a tree. Split surround activity occurs across the front channels although the effect was a little feeble and not particularly impressive. The best example I could find for this was at 14:34-14:42.

    I didn't hear the subwoofer once and when I got up and looked at it, I found that it had got bored and gone to sleep!

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Featurette - Remembering Steel Magnolias (23:21)

Deleted Scenes

Director's Commentary

Isolated Music Score

Talent Profiles

• Two theatrical trailers, one for My Best Friend's Wedding and one for Stepmom.
• A Production Notes Booklet
• A coupon for Lipstick!

• Nothing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall