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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

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Released 16-Aug-2001
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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes-(1:45) Featurette-(6:14) Theatrical Trailer-(2:14) Biographies-Cast & Crew Production Notes Interviews-Cast & Crew-(1:39) Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	94:52 (Case: 102)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bruce Beresford
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Morgan Freeman Jessica Tandy Dan Aykroyd
Case	Amaray-Transparent	Starring	Morgan Freeman Jessica Tandy Dan Aykroyd
RPI	$32.95	Music	Hans Zimmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

Driving Miss Daisy is a gentle, melancholy movie about old age. It has some comic moments, but don't let Dan Aykroyd's presence make you think that this is a comedy. Driving Miss Daisy won a number of Oscars, but that was 11 years ago, and I don't believe I've seen it on TV, so you may have forgotten about it. There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the time because Bruce Beresford was not nominated for the Best Director Oscar, despite it winning Best Picture.

The story begins with Dan Aykroyd judging his mother (Jessica Tandy) too old to drive, and hiring Morgan Freeman to chauffeur her. She resents this, but gives in after nearly a week. This starts a relationship that extends over 25 years, through a lot of changes in Southern USA, from 1948 through to the 70s, through the bombing of her synagogue and Martin Luther King. He is black, and accustomed to prejudice; she is Jewish and doesn't understand prejudice.

I saw this movie at the cinema when it came out, and I remember feeling some mixed emotions about it. I'm considerably older now, and it rings differently. I suspect that this is a movie that you could watch every ten years, and feel differently about it each time.

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Transfer Quality

Video

I was looking forward to seeing this movie on my system, because I remembered some of the cinematography. Unfortunately, they haven't treated this movie to the transfer it deserves.

The movie was made in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This transfer is 1.78:1 but it is not 16x9 enhanced - it really should have been.

For a non-16x9 enhanced transfer, it is reasonably sharp in some sequences, but most of it is a bit soft. That's partly, I suspect, because a lot of the movie is shot in fairly dimly-lit interiors. To make things much worse, someone has cranked the edge-enhancement knob up to 11 - there are haloes around most people, and some things, in an awful lot of the film - I rate edge-enhancement as the biggest problem in this transfer. Shadow detail is rather lacking, but there is little or no low-level noise.

The colour palette is mostly fairly muted, but this seems to be a deliberate choice. There are moments of saturated colour (some red flowers, for example), but they are few.

There is a fair bit of aliasing on car grilles, window shutters and venetian blinds. Most of it is fairly minor, but there's a horrible example on the window shutters at 44:50. There are no MPEG artefacts, and few film artefacts - I picked up five or six flecks, but they were all small, and difficult to notice.

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

Audio

The only soundtrack is English Dolby Digital 2.0, with no surround encoding, which makes it fairly easy to choose one's soundtrack options. There are no subtitles at all.

Dialogue is clear and readily understood, despite the Southern accents. There are no problems with audio sync.

The score was pleasant, and very well-suited to the movie. There is ample use of music of the times to set the era. I really liked this score - it truly enhanced the movie.

My surround speakers and subwoofer awoke with a start after the end-credits when the credits for the mastering company came on - that was the only piece of 5.1 audio on the entire disc. While I think of it, the Infogrames logo at the start of the disc sounds awful - for a moment I thought there was something wrong with my system, because it sounds like a stretched videotape - horrible.

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

Extras

The list of extras looks impressive, but several of them are less than they appear.

Behind The Scenes

This shows four scenes from the movie, filmed from behind the cameras doing the filming - sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well, it might be, except that the four clips run for 0:27, 0:31, 0:20, and 0:27 - a massive total of 105 seconds. They are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

Featurette

This is a standard promo piece - an extended trailer running 6:14 minutes. It is a better than average fluff piece, but that's about it. The colour timing looks a bit off - some of the footage is much darker than it is in the film.

Trailer

This is a pleasant-enough trailer, clocking in at 2:14 minutes, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Cast and Crew Notes

Standard text bios for Morgan Freeman, Dan Aykroyd, Jessica Tandy, and Bruce Beresford.

Production Notes

Some text notes about the production - interesting reading.

Interviews

Now these really disappointed me. Like the Behind the Scenes extra, we get four clips, this time for 0:35, 0:10, 0:16, and 0:38 - that's a total of 99 seconds. Most of the footage is used in the featurette, anyway. I feel cheated.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

Pan & Scan video
French soundtrack
subtitles in English, French, and Spanish

The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

Widescreen video

Unless you want a French soundtrack, or subtitles, I'd go for the widescreen version we get.

Summary

Driving Miss Daisy is a marvellous movie, treated to a somewhat disappointing transfer on DVD.

The video quality is not as good as it should be.

The audio quality is fine.

The extras are not as impressive as they sound.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Pioneer DV-737, using Component output
Display	Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics matte white screen with a gain of 1.0 (280cm). 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 and Right: Krix Euphonix, Centre: Krix KDX-C Rears: Krix KDX-M, Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5

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