Used Cars (1980) |
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Used Cars (1980) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Audio Commentary-Robert Zemeckis, Kurt Russell & Bob Gale Outtakes TV Spots Radio Spots Gallery-Vintage Advertising Gallery Trailer-Blue Streak; As Good As It Gets Filmographies-Cast & Crew |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1980 | ||
| Running Time | 107:04 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (79:22) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Robert Zemeckis |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Kurt Russell Jack Warden Gerrit Graham Frank McRae Deborah Harmon Michael McKean |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $19.95 | Music | Patrick Williams |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary 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 |
English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek 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 | ||
Before Back To The Future, the brainchild of director Robert Zemeckis, producer Bob Gale and executive producer Steven Spielberg hit our screens, they teamed up with Kurt Russell for the 1980 comedy Used Cars. After delivering the 1979 dud 1941, the only way was up for the team. Well, that may have been the case back then, but unlike the Back To The Future series, this one has not aged well at all. What was once a funny little film from a decade full of trashy comedy of its ilk barely got a giggle out of this reviewer.
Kurt Russell stars as Rudy Russo, a stereotypical car salesman, the kind that will put the mileage back a few zeros, and do anything to make a crap car look good. His dream is to become a politician, and sees this job as merely character building, to reach that ambition. He’ll lie and cheat his way through sales, and is the best salesman Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden) has got. The trouble is, the car yard over the road, owned by Luke’s brother Roy Fuchs (also Jack Warden), is getting all the customers. Rudy comes up with the idea of hiring female strippers, to attract the attention of passers-by. What ensues is an all-out war between the Fuchs brothers, and their employees.
The film’s premise is one which simply cannot work, in this day and age, as well as it might have over twenty years ago. This is where the film fell flat on this recent viewing (my first for about 15 years), as it’s just not that funny any more. I was certainly expecting more than I got out of Used Cars, but I’m afraid to say that it should have been buried along with leg-warmers and Rodney Dangerfield (or is he still kicking?)
The video transfer for Used Cars is not that great, which is to be expected due to the print’s age – that and the fact that it is not deserving of restoration.
The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.75:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.
Sharpness levels were fairly good, occasionally appearing a tad soft, but fairly good given the age of the print. Shadow detail and black levels were quite strong considering, and there was minimal low-level noise throughout. Grain was visible throughout, and was particularly strong during the opening credits. It cleared up a bit from then on, but was clearly visible at times throughout.
Colours were strong for the most part, if only very slightly faded overall.
MPEG artefacts were non-existent, as were film-to-video artefacts, but occasional film artefacts popped up in the shape of white and black specks.
This disc is RSDL-encoded, and the layer change occurs at 79:22, which doe not interrupt any dialogue or music.
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| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
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The audio mix is very limited.
We have the choice of listening to the film in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, in the languages of English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Dialogue was always clear and intelligible. There were no problems with audio sync throughout.
The film’s music by Patrick Williams was clear, and never distorted or too loud.
Being a mono track, there was no surround channel usage.
The subwoofer supported the audio with very little bass, especially due to the lack of a dedicated channel.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
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| Overall |  |
These are in poor condition, and are not funny anyway. I almost smirked twice, but that could have been gas.
This is interesting, in that it features Kurt Russell as himself (not in character), with the real-life owner of the caryard from the film.
This range includes a five minute interview with Kurt Russell, a three minute phone message, 4 one minute ads, and 2 thirty second ads.
Thirteen stills of promotional material.
The trailers for Blue Streak and As Good As It Gets are here, but none for the film itself.
Eight pages in total - for Bob Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Kurt Russell, Jack Warden and Michael McKean.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 version misses out on:
The Region 4 version misses out on:
Used Cars is an 80s comedy that has not aged well which barely managed to make me laugh.
The video transfer is good, if not great.
The audio transfer is limited.
The extra features are decent, with the clear highlight being the fun audio commentary from the film’s director, its producer and its main star.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-525, using Component output |
| Display | Teac 82cm 16x9. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | 5 Sony speakers; Sherwood 12" 100w Powered Subwoofer |