Funny Farm (1988) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	101:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,4	Directed By	George Roy Hill
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Chevy Chase Madolyn Smith-Osborne Kevin O'Morrison Joseph Maher
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Elmer Bernstein

    Most comedians have one or two films in their past that are, to put it quite simply, about as funny as surgery to remove a skin cancer. Chevy Chase, on the other hand, has almost an entire career filled with films that make a great substitute for Valium, and Funny Farm is one of them. The blame for this cannot really be laid upon the principal cast or George Roy Hill's direction, as these people do their best with what they are given. The blame for this collection of mildly funny gags and missed opportunities must be placed squarely upon screenwriter Jeffery Boam. I only hope that the novel by Jay Cronley is funnier than this, or at least easier to read than the film is to watch.

    The film begins with a retirement party for New York sports writer Andrew Farmer (Chevy Chase), who announces that he is moving to the town of Redgum and writing the great American novel. Things start to go badly awry from the word go when he and his wife, Elizabeth (Madolyn Smith-Osborne), arrive at the house with the removalists getting lost due to Andrew's lousy directions. They soon learn that the local sheriff, Ledbetter (Kevin O'Morrison), has yet to pass his driving test, and that the local postman, Crum Petree (an uncredited Kevin Conway), is a drunkard who is usually quite swooshed by the time he gets to their house.

    As things descend into the more farcical, one cannot help but pine for the jokes that could have been made of the situation. I suspect that some of them were recalled by Chase and used in Christmas Vacation. Unfortunately, this DVD does not endear me at all to the film, presenting it in what could possibly be the worst possible light, as a matter of fact. Sarah Michelle Gellar fans might want this DVD so that they can spot her uncredited cameo, however.

Video

    The first thing you will see when you put this disc in your player is a message containing the message that "This film has been modified as follows from its original version: it has been formatted to fit your screen". This prompts me to send a message of my own to Warner Home Video, with two salient points. First of all, I did not spend twenty-two hundred dollars on an eighty centimeter CRT with a manually selectable 16x9 mode so that I could watch 4x3 programming. Secondly, were Warner Home Video asleep when the 1.78:1 digital television standard, which will replace 1.33:1 analogue television by the next decade, was adopted?

    As my previous statement implies, this transfer is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and it is not 16x9 enhanced. To add insult to injury, this disc is NTSC formatted, so you will have to make sure your display can handle this signal before purchasing this title. The original aspect ratio of this film was 1.85:1, so it would appear that we are receiving an open-matte presentation, but this only serves to create obvious redundant spaces at the top and bottom of the frame.

    The sharpness of this transfer is up to the usual standards one expects from the NTSC format, but it cannot compare with a PAL transfer from a High Definition telecine. The shadow detail is pretty average in the few shots where it is really needed, with just enough detail for these moments to make sense. No low-level noise was found in this transfer.

    The colours in this transfer had a somewhat dull look to them, but they were acceptably rendered with no composite artefacts or smearing.

    MPEG artefacts were not found in this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of a few instances of aliasing on such things as a car at 2:23, and a truck at 9:07. One unusual aliasing effect was noted on the water behind the Farmer residence. I don't know where the interpositive used to create this transfer was dug up, but it must have been somewhere that bears a resemblance to the Farmer yard, as film artefacts are a real nuisance here. A large black mark that looks like a hair was noticed in the top middle of the frame at 6:11, and this was unfortunately a typical example of the size and obtrusiveness of the film artefacts in general.

    There are no subtitles whatsoever on this DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks available on this DVD: the original English dialogue, and a French dub, both of which are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 kilobits per second. I didn't verify this with the French dub, but the English soundtrack is definitely stereo. I only listened to the English soundtrack.

    The dialogue is pretty clear and easy to understand, and there are no discernable problems with audio sync.

    Elmer Bernstein's score is probably the best thing about this film, with suitably clownish or creepy themes used to emphasise the weak comedy of the film.

    The surround channels were not used in this soundtrack.

    The subwoofer had the night off.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static. Interestingly enough, I was utterly unable to access it from the DVD software I use on my PC, so I was not able to verify whether it is 16x9 Enhanced. The cheap look and design leads me to believe it isn't, however.

    The Region 1 version that is presently available has the same formatting as the Region 4 version, but it is packed in a Snapper case. My preference would be to buy neither, considering Warner Home Video's apparent laziness in terms of getting a decent transfer.

    Funny Farm could have been a good comedy in the spirit of Caddyshack or one of the better Vacation films, but instead it meanders towards a fairly obvious conclusion. I really feel that I've seen this sort of thing being done a million times before, and better, in such eighties comedies as The Money Pit, for example.

    The video transfer is really ordinary, and exhibits enough artefacts to resemble a forty-year-old film reel.

    The audio transfer is in stereo, and that is probably the nicest thing that can be said about it.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall