Footloose (1984)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1984
Running Time	102:48
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (55:06)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Herbert Ross
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Kevin Bacon Lori Singer John Lithgow Dianne Wiest Christopher Penn Sarah Jessica Parker
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	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)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Danish German Greek English Spanish French Hebrew Czech Icelandic Italian Hungarian Dutch Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovak Finnish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I've been a fan of musical and dance movies for a long time. It may have been inculcated by frequent exposure in childhood - my parents were fond of musicals, too. No matter - I like them, and this one in particular. I can remember seeing this film on its original cinema release - I took my future wife to it while we were dating.

    There are some highly memorable scenes in this movie - the early sequence with the car, the truck, and the semitrailer is one of those; as is the energetic dance sequence in the abandoned factory (or whatever it is). One thing I hadn't realised was that this film features a young Sarah Jessica Parker (she was 19 that year).

    This is not a complex story - it is about the confrontation of three strong personalities, and a small town in rural USA. Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) and his mother Ethel (Frances Lee McCain) have just moved from Chicago to the small town of Bomont. Bomont is a stuffy little town, with public dancing outlawed by the town council because it is thought to encourage licentiousness. One of the town leaders is the local preacher, Rev Shaw Moore (John Lithgow - he is excellent in this role). Reverend Moore's daughter Ariel (Lori Singer) is something of a rebel. Violet Moore (Dianne Wiest) tries to keep Shaw and Ariel from fighting, without much success.

    Ren tries to fit in, but he has trouble from the beginning. He likes his music loud, and the police take exception to that. He likes to dance, and that isn't allowed. He's a gymnast, but he gets thrown off the team.

    Ariel doesn't fit in, and doesn't want to - she wants to get away from this small town. She seems to take risks to test her own worth - perhaps it's her subconscious way of finding out how much people care about her.

    Shaw has gone through tragedy, and he doesn't want to lose any of his congregation - he wants to protect them so much he won't let them make their own decisions.

    Violet is quiet and unassuming, but her presence is felt at a couple of key moments - I like her. For that matter, I rather like Ren's mother, too - she and Ren really do communicate.

    One of the most interesting parts of this film is the back story about small-town intolerance, especially personified by Roger (Alan Haufrect) and Eleanor (Linda MacEwen). It is (probably) exaggerated, but it is very effective in painting the backdrop against which the main drama is played out. The film makes a powerful argument against censorship and intolerance, but I may be a bit biased, though, given my own feelings on this subject.

    There are some strong songs in this film, most of them written for the film by various artists working in conjunction with Dean Pitchford, who wrote the script. If you liked the music of the early 1980s, you'll probably like these songs.

    There aren't a lot of surprises in this film, but that's OK - we're not watching it for that. We watching it for some good dancing, some good music, and some moments of comedy and drama. This film is not deep and meaningful, but it is entertaining.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. The original theatrical aspect ratio was 1.85:1, so this is close, but not quite right.

    The picture offers quite variable sharpness. Consider the opening long shot, which displays enormous amounts of grain, and looks horribly soft. Then notice that most of the mid-range shots are sharper, clearer, and less grainy. And then look closely at the close-ups - they are mostly quite sharp and clear, with almost no grain. I do not know what produces this effect, but I don't like it. There's quite shallow depth of field on a lot of the film, so the object in focus looks fine, but the background is generally very soft. Shadow detail is not good - dark colours plummet into black quite quickly. There might be a little bit of low-level noise, but I think it is really just grain.

    Colour is excellent. There are some vivid colours to be seen, and they are deep and rich. There are no colour-related artefacts..

    There are film artefacts, but there are none worth pointing out - there are specks and flecks, but they are small, and unlikely to disturb.

    There's aliasing on occasion, but it's mostly minor and untroubling. There is no moire, no noticeable shimmer (some of the grain could be confused with shimmer), and no MPEG artefacts.

    We have a few subtitle tracks to choose from: 24, to be precise. Only 23 languages, though, because we get both subtitles and captions for English. I watched the English subtitles (for a change - I usually watch the captions). They are fairly accurate, easy to read, and well-timed to the dialogue.

    The disc is single sided and RSDL formatted. The layer change is at 55:06. It's superbly placed, even though it is in the middle of a scene, because it comes at a silent pause when no one is moving, making it quite difficult to spot. Even though this is a bare-bones release, at least they have had the decency to give it two layers.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are soundtracks in five languages. I listened to the English, which is a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix of the original Dolby surround sound.

    Dialogue is mostly easy to understand, but a few unimportant words get swallowed; you'll probably only notice this if you have the subtitles on. There are no audio sync problems.

    There is no direct credit for the score, which is understandable, because almost all the music in this film is songs, each of which was written by a different artist, although each is credited as writing in conjunction with Dean Pitchford. The title song, Footloose, comes from Kenny Loggins, but there are songs performed by Bonnie Tyler, Sammy Hagar, Deneice Williams, and Mike Reno and Nancy Wilson (from Heart). I rather liked Almost Paradise, Holding Out for a Hero, and Let's Hear It for the Boy. The dance sequence makes Never quite special.

    The soundtrack has been remixed to 5.1, and they've done a nice job. The sound is immersive, without a lot of tricks, but there are occasional moments of directional sound. The subwoofer is not used all the time, but that's fine - it's not needed all the time. It gets to support the lowest octave of the music, but that's really all it has to do.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent.

    The Region 1 version was released simultaneously with the Region 4. It sounds very much as though it has exactly the same features, being nothing more than an NTSC version of the same thing.

    Footloose is a good music / dance film, on an adequate bare-bones disc.

    The video quality is a little disappointing, but it won't stop you enjoying the film.

    The audio quality is rather good, with a good 5.1 mix.

    Don't look for extras, or you'll be disappointed.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall