Say It Isn't So (Rental) (2001)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Trailer-Monkeybone; Dr. Dolittle 2; Moulin Rouge
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	91:51
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	J.B. Rogers
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Heather Graham Chris Klein Sally Field Orlando Jones
Case	?
RPI	Rental	Music	Mason Daring

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, only minor instances
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Say It Isn't So tells the story of Gilbert "Gillie" Noble (Chris Klein), a lonely orphan who falls for the new hairdresser in town, Josephine "Jo" Wingfield (Heather Graham). Their love seems too good to be true, and soon they are engaged, but then Gillie's somewhat dodgy PI delivers some shocking news - it seems that Gillie's birth parents just happen to be Valdine (Sally Field) and Walter Wingfield (Richard Jenkins), and hence he and Jo are siblings. As can be imagined, this news isn't taken well by either Jo or Gillie. In fact, Jo is so distraught that she flees town to an ex-boyfriend.

    Eighteen months pass, and things have not gone well for Gillie, who has lost his job under the stigma of having "had relations" with his sister, and is now living with his new-found parents. On the other hand, things couldn't be better for Jo as she is now engaged to be married to the ex, Jack Mitchelson (Eddie Cibrian). Only days before the wedding however, Leon Pitofsky (Jack Plotnick) shows up at the Wingfield house with the papers and evidence to prove that he, and not Gillie, is the long lost Wingfield son. This leaves Gillie precious little time to reach Jo and tell her the news before the wedding. But to do that he must first overcome Valdine, who is set on the idea of her daughter marrying the rich Jack. He is also aided in his quest by pilot extraordinaire Dig McCaffrey (Orlando Jones), whom he meets in a rather interesting manner on his way to tell Jo the good news.

    Say It Isn't So is certainly not an exercise in good taste, and as with most movies the Farrelly brothers have had anything to do with - they are executive producers on this effort - those who are easily offended need not apply. For people who enjoy a good squirm, and can distinguish between comedy and reality, then this will provide many a good laugh. This film is certainly better than the turkey that was Tomcats, and fits very nicely in the stable of other Farrelly comedies such as There's Something About Mary and Me, Myself & Irene. To finish, for those who are not aware, the Farrellys stuck to their habit of keeping their friends in work, as this film was directed by James Rogers who acted as first assistant director on every movie they made up to Irene.

Video

    The video transfer presented here is quite good, although it is not without its problems.

    Say It Isn't So is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    This transfer is quite soft throughout, and often appears to be somewhat hazy. While the level of sharpness is good enough to pick out most detail, it certainly could have been better, and is really a little disappointing. There is no real problem with grain during the transfer, with the only noticeable grain being in the sequence from 24:27-24:32. Shadow detail is quite good, although the very dark areas of the frame do tend to lose most detail. There is no low level noise present in this transfer.

    The colours in this transfer are quite good, with the golden browns and greens of the countryside showing up very nicely. There are a few occasions when the colour tends to lose its edge, but these are relatively infrequent.

    There are no compression artefacts present within this transfer, despite the single layer nature of the disc. While there are a few instances of light aliasing, most would be missed unless specifically looked for, and what does occur is quite innocuous. The transfer is largely free of film artefacts, although a number of black artefacts show up against the sky during the same segment as that which provided the grain problem - 24:27-24:32.

    The subtitles are very accurate, dropping only the occasional word. Like the last Fox title I looked at, the title and artist for all contemporary music used in the movie is displayed in the subtitles as the song starts, which is a nice touch.

    This is a single sided, single layered disc, and hence does not contain a layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track present on this disc, being the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 Kbps.

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand for the most part. There are no instances of hiss, or other distortions, and the score and effects never interfere with the dialogue. The only problem is the "Voicelator" used by Richard Jenkins to help his stroke-afflicted character speak (similar to the devices used by smokers who have had their voice boxes removed). There was even one occasion when I had to enable the subtitles to understand what was being said.

    Audio sync is a major problem with this disc. From around the ten minute mark, until over half-way through, it is quite obviously not right. The sync does generally improve after about three quarters of an hour, but instances where it is out still occur throughout the transfer. Possibly the best illustration of this problem occurs at 50:02 when Chris Klein punches a desk, as the noise of the hit plays while his hand is still poised above it. For people (like myself) who tend to notice audio sync problems, this will drive you nuts.

    As is typical for this genre, the music consists of a blend of contemporary tunes, and score music. The score (listed under "original music" in the credits) is attributed to Mason Daring, and is in the style of the contemporary tunes, and is generally used to fill gaps where an existing song could not be found. The combination works better here than in many recent attempts at this type of score, although the use of music from one of my favourite bands may be clouding my judgement somewhat on that matter.

    Unsurprisingly, this is a very frontal soundtrack. There are only a very few occasions when the rear channels come into use, such as a plane fly over. Even the score is not particularly well supported through the rear channels. All this is really to be expected for a principally dialogue-driven comedy however, and certainly did not affect my enjoyment of the film.

    The subwoofer use is very good, providing bass to both the score and sound effects where necessary (such as the aforementioned plane). While not constantly employed, the bass track is certainly better than is typical for this type of movie.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Preview Trailers (6:00)

• Audio commentary with director J.B. Rogers and actor Chris Klein
• Six deleted scenes with audio commentary
• Making-of featurette
• Theatrical trailer
• TV spots

• Preview Trailers

    The video quality is good, if not as sharp as it should be.

    The audio quality in general is good, although it suffers from a very nasty sync problem that some people may not be able to put up with.

    Extras and rental discs generally don't go in the same sentence, and that is the case here. We have only three DVD trailers for other upcoming Fox releases, and not an extra more.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall