Catch-22 (1970)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Audio Commentary-Mike Nichols & Steven Soderbergh
Rating
Year Of Production	1970
Running Time	116:41
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:12)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mike Nichols
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Alan Arkin Martin Balsam Orson Welles Art Garfunkle Jon Voight Martin Sheen Jack Gilford Richard Benjamin Anthony Perkins
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Richard Strauss

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/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)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French German Czech Hungarian Polish Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Italian Spanish Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Slovenian Arabic Turkish Romanian English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary German Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Adapted from the famous Joseph Heller novel of the same name, Catch-22 is a satirical black-comedy set during World War II. Set on an American air force base somewhere in the Mediterranean, Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin)  has had enough of his role as bombardier in risky bombing missions and wants the base doctor to ground him from flying. He pleads insanity, but Doctor Daneeka (Jack Gilford) cannot ground a man who says he's insane, because anyone who wants to get out of a battle can't really be insane in the first place, since avoiding the battle is what any sane man would want to do. Hence the word Catch-22 which has found its way into the English vocabulary, describing any dilemma from which there is no escape due to mutually conflicting conditions.

    This film version of the famous story, made in 1970, was directed by Mike Nichols and adapted from the novel by screenwriter Buck Henry (they worked together on The Graduate). An all-star and almost ensemble cast of established and up-and-coming actors join Alan Arkin, including Anthony Perkins, Jon Voight, Martin Sheen, Art Garfunkel, Martin Balsam, and Orson Welles.

    Yossarian's battle to get himself out of active duty are proving fruitless, since in addition to his insanity problems, base commander Cathcart (Martin Balsam) keeps raising the number of required missions before a officer can be rotated. Despite his constant ramblings to the doctor that he is insane, Yossarian actually comes across as being the only member of the base that is of sound mind. Officers Major Danby and Colonel Cathcart have no consideration for the wellbeing of their men at all, and are only interested in getting as many bombs dropped as possible, leading to all manner of humorous, yet all too true, situations. There's also a young officer by the name of Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight) who starts his own company on the base, trading all manner of base supplies (including parachutes and aircraft engines) for Mediterranean artefacts and trinkets in an effort to make as much money as possible.

    The absurdities of war are promoted here, but it also the single-minded nature of bureaucracy (in particular the military system) and the mind-set of "following the rules no matter what" that the biting satire seeks to bring to the forefront of the story. The whole thing seems a little corny at times, and you will certainly need to be in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate it. It may also take repeated viewings. I've watched this three times now, and I still not sure that I fully understand it all.

Video

    The original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is on show here, complete with 16x9 enhancement.

    Reasonably sharp all round with only a fair smattering of edge enhancement to take off a couple of marks. The worst examples of this are at 74:48 and 78:40. Shadow detail suffers on a couple of occasions most notably at 91:01. There is reasonable grain in many of the second unit shots and some of the darker interior shots, but nothing overly worrying. There is no low level noise.

    Colours are rather nice, with deep saturation and solid and natural skin tones. I saw no evidence of bleeding or over-saturation.

    There are no MPEG artefacts. Aliasing is virtually non-existent, which is always a blessing. Unfortunately there are quite a large number of film artefacts scattered throughout. These are not the usual small flecks and spots, but rather larger blobs that pop up more infrequently but are nonetheless very noticeable. Check out the worst ones at 18:31, 36:50, and 71:32.

    Subtitles! You want subtitles? There are a staggering 29 subtitle options on this disc, including five alone for the commentary track. The English language subtitles are mostly accurate, though a few sentences are abridged to the point of losing a lot of their meaning.

    This is a dual layered disc with RSDL formatting. There are quite a few completely silent moments during the film, and I missed the layer change the first time round. I watched very closely for my second viewing and managed to spot it. It occurs at 62:12, right after a plane crashes. Perfect placement and almost invisible.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are a total of six audio soundtracks on this disc. A remastered English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is joined by French, German, Italian, and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. The track selection is rounded out by a Dolby Digital 2.0 English commentary soundtrack. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track offers quite a wide front soundstage, with some well done panning and directional effects. The dialogue betrays the mono origins quite often, with a less-than-staggering range in the fidelity. That harsh, and somewhat grating, sound comes through quite regularly.

    There is some surround use, mainly when the various bomber aircraft are on the screen. Handled conservatively without going over the top.

    The soundtrack doesn't require too much subwoofer use, other than a few explosions towards the end of the film. Somewhat surprisingly it doesn't get all that much of a work out during these scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer

    What a weird trailer! This is essentially the first three minutes of the film shown almost in full. It sort of sets up the premise of the film, but not the plot at all, which I guess is a good thing, but if you watch this immediately before the film, you will get a strong sense of deja vu and will effectively ruin the first scene. I suggest not even bothering with it. Framed at 2.35:1 and complete with 16x9 enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Total running time is 3:20 minutes.

Gallery-Photo

    18 black and white photos of the cast and crew. Quite small on the screen and, being mostly portrait style shots, they don't offer much in behind-the-scenes style information.

Audio Commentary - Director Mike Nichols, and Steven Soderburgh.

    This is quite an interesting commentary track from a real film-making or director's point of view. Original director Mike Nichols is joined by renowned director Steven Soderburgh, for a relaxed yet detailed analysis of the film. A screen specific commentary that sees them dissect many of the scenes with Soderburgh providing questions and prompts to keep Nichols talking. Interesting for fans of the film and students alike.

    Apart from the lack of the comprehensive subtitles, the Region 1 disc is identical to the Region 4. The local disc wins out on price and superior PAL formatting.

    This is a film that really needs to be viewed more than once, and possibly even half-a-dozen times to fully appreciate just what is going on. Black comedy at its blackest, it can be annoying and weird, as well as thought-provoking. Spotting some of the young cast who went on to bigger and better things, is one reason to give it a look.

    The video quality is probably the best this film has ever looked, and apart from edge enhancements and several rather large film artefacts is quite good for a film that is over thirty years old.

    The audio is remastered but still maintains a certain harsh quality betraying its mono origins.

    The only real extra is a worthy commentary track from the director.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall