Don's Plum (2001) |
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Don's Plum (2001) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Trailer-Australian Rules; Kiss Kiss (Bang) (Bang); L'Ultimo Bacio Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo-11 Biographies-Cast & Crew Trailer-Visitors |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
| Running Time | 86:16 (Case: 90) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | RD Robb |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring |
Amber Benson Scott Bloom Kevin Connolly Leonardo DiCaprio Jenny Lewis Tobey Maguire Heather McComb Meadow Sisto |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | Blake Sennett |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes, constant! |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, final shots interleaved with credits | ||
I have been sitting here for almost an hour, trying to think of a nice way to tell you about this film, and am still lost for a way to start the review. Maybe something on the IMDB might make a good opening. Good, there's some trivia — that might be interesting. Oh, I have to share this! I quote (you can look at the original, if you want):
As a result of a lawsuit brought by stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire (settled in 1999), this film cannot be shown commercially in the USA or Canada.
Now that's an interesting little item, wouldn't you say? I'm not going to speculate on the reason they brought the lawsuit (another report I turned up claims the suit was brought against DiCaprio and Maguire by the producer, or that may have triggered this one), but in some ways it is a shame that the film didn't get banned worldwide.
I suspect this is an "art" film — the fact that it is shot in grainy black and white suggests that more than the inherent beauty of the film (have you noticed how so many "art" films are unattractive to look at?). I'm sure that this look is deliberate.
This is an ensemble piece, with a selection of actors you may or may not recognise in the leading roles. I was interested to see this because the first name on the list is Amber Benson (you know her as Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) — I wanted to see her acting a different role, but her role in this is fairly similar to Tara. A name you might know is Leonardo DiCaprio (the gunsmith in The Quick and the Dead. I gather he's been in a coupla other films, too). You may have heard of Tobey Maguire (yeah, the kid in Spider-Man). The other leads are Scott Bloom, Kevin Connelly, Jenny Lewis, Heather McComb, and Meadow Sisto, none of whom I recognised by name, although Kevin Connolly and Heather McComb look familiar. There's a cameo by Ethan Suplee (the guy staring at the Magic Eye painting in Mallrats). There's another cameo by Bethany Ashton (one of the writers and associate producer), playing a big-time producer.
Basically, this is a group of mostly unpleasant people spending an evening smoking heavily in a diner, and talking at length about inane things. There's a lot of bad language, and a lot of insults. About the only mildly interesting thing in this film is the acid jazz performance and dancers that Tobey Maguire is watching before going to the diner.
I'm not sure how this film got made, let alone how it got onto DVD. I can't recommend it.
This DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.781, and is 16x9 enhanced. I've seen one report that the original aspect ratio was 1.66:1, suggesting that this transfer has been slightly cropped top and bottom — it doesn't look like it has suffered because of it. Actually, it looks almost as though it were trimmed left and right, because some of the credits are placed very close to the left and right edges of frame.
The picture is well-focussed, but virtually every shot in the film is afflicted with heavy grain, which softens the apparent image. Shadow detail is poor; with almost anything a little dark plummeting straight into black. There's no low-level noise. The film seems a little over-exposed, with whites burnt out — the table they are sitting around at the diner appears to be lit from below. Everything on the table is brightly lit, and because of the over-exposure almost everything on the table is invisible. During the credits, there are a few shots that are almost grain-free — this encourages the thought that the grain is deliberate.
This is a black and white film.
There are quite a few small film artefacts, but none that are worthy of mention by comparison with the grain. There is almost no aliasing, because the grain hides it. There's no moire. The grain looks like background shimmer, but isn't.
There are no subtitles, which is unfortunate — the dialogue isn't clear enough at times.
The disc is single sided and single layered; that means no layer change, but also means that the film may have been compressed a little more than optimal, making the grain even worse — I can't tell.
| Sharpness |  |
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There is exactly one soundtrack, English in Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround-encoded. Can you guess what I listened to?
Some of the dialogue is not easy to understand; some of it is inaudible, but most of it is not too bad. There are no apparent audio sync problems.
Blake Sennett is credited with the score. One of the reports on this film is curious about this, because Blake Sennett has no other film credits on the IMDB. There are some songs in the soundtrack — I didn't recognise them.
The subwoofer is given nothing by this soundtrack unless you have bass redirected to it (there's some reasonable bass in this soundtrack). There is nothing much sent to the surrounds.
| Dialogue |  |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
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The menu is animated with music.
This is a short trailer, no more attractive than the movie.
Eleven black-and-white photos from the film.
These are really filmographies for:
Labelled More from Palace we get trailers for:
The first and last of these are Australian films.
The first three of these trailers play automatically when the disc is inserted, and cannot be avoided by pressing Menu. Fortunately, you can press Chapter Skip to jump past them.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
If the news about the law suit is accurate, then there won't be a Region 1 version of this disc.
Don's Plum depicts a fairly boring evening with some mostly unlikeable people
The video quality is fairly poor due to the high level of grain and some overexposure.
The audio quality is mostly adequate, but some of the dialogue is garbled.
The extras are limited.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony DVP-NS905V, using Component output |
| Display | Sony VPH-G70 CRT Projector, QuadScan Elite scaler (Tripler), ScreenTechnics 110. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
| Speakers | Front Left, Centre, Right: Krix Euphonix; Rears: Krix KDX-M; Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5 |