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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

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Released 1-Jun-2001

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Comedy Main Menu Introduction
Deleted Scenes-4
Karaoke-4
Theatrical Trailer-1.85:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:04)
Biographies-Cast & Crew
Production Notes
Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Menu Animation
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1988
Running Time 100:05
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (60:14) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Julien Temple
Studio
Distributor
Kestrel Films
Beyond Home Entertainment
Starring Geena Davis
Jim Carrey
Damon Wayans
Jeff Goldblum
Julie Brown
Michael McKean
Case ?
RPI $32.95 Music Nile Rodgers


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
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

   Well, this sort of falls a little between the gaps. As you might have gathered, Infogrames announced some bold plans for Region 4 DVDs, but the actual presence of titles on shelves has not been real terrific. Now they have announced that they are withdrawing from the market altogether, leaving it up to our friends at Force Video to proceed with the announced releases. Quite how that translates into actual product and when it will flow is a little in the air, but hopefully it will be much sooner rather than not at all. So hopefully Earth Girls Are Easy will be available for purchase soon.

   This is a good thing, as Earth Girls Are Easy is something of a cult classic, and if taken in the right way is a bit of a hoot as a commentary upon the vapidity of American society of the 1980s. Earth Girls Are Easy is set in the Valley, meaning the San Fernando Valley, in California. A perfect setting really, as where else on Earth could three aliens blend into human society so easily? The story is broadly set around manicurist Valerie (Geena Davis), engaged to be married to a doctor (yes, the clichés are all here), but things are not perfect. For a start, it has been two weeks since she had sex and her fiancée is not in the mood far too frequently. Things are starting to go astray as she tries to come to grips with her life, and really go awry when her fiancée comes home with another woman - not expecting to find Valerie home wearing not a heck of a lot. Her life however is immediately turned further on end when, unbeknownst to Valerie, three furry aliens, desperate for female company after a long voyage in space, happen upon the furless women of Earth. In their excitement, they manage to crash-land their groovy spaceship in Valerie's swimming pool. And thus we meet Zeebo (Damon Wayans), Wiploc (Jim Carrey) and something unpronounceable but shortened to Mac (Jeff Goldblum), in all their furry colourfulness.

   Of course, they soon have to lose their colourful fur and so, with the help of her friend Candy (Julie Brown), Valerie turns the three aliens into what almost passes for good looking Adonises. Of course, letting them loose in L.A. is probably the best place to do so and they set out to prove it. From partying sort-of-hard and attracting the women, they quickly learn about life in the Valley - especially Mac. But are Earth girls really that easy?

   This is no work of Shakespeare by anyone's standards, but that is not the point. The point is the Mickey that it takes out of the Valley syndrome. The film does not aspire to be much more than that, and at that level it succeeds quite well. Probably highlighted by Geena Davis in swimwear and underwear, the performances do not aspire to greatness either. Obviously, this is evidenced by the generally B-grade talent on offer. Geena Davis was discovered in the Victoria's Secret catalogue. The fact that she progressed from there to being an Oscar winner via this film says an awful lot about Hollywood. This was one of her early films and she is pretty. As for the rest ... Jeff Goldblum has pretty much made a living as a B-grade actor and this is another in what is a fairly lengthy list. He is decent enough, as long as you are not expecting Sir Lawrence Olivier. The less said about the others the better. The direction is fairly ordinary here and the only thing that really stands out is the rather unique animated portions at the beginning of the film.

   This is an enjoyable enough film as long as you take it the right way. If you are looking for really deep, meaningful stuff then you are definitely not looking for this film.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    Whilst not a really top drawer effort, this is a nice-looking transfer that does a fine job of bringing out the colour on offer. Nicely sharp throughout, with only a couple of minor lapses to create any sort of blemish, it is matched to a nicely detailed transfer that does a fine job of bringing out the extravagant colours. There is no problem with the shadow detail on offer here, except perhaps some marginal issues during the external shots at the dance club. Clarity is excellent and there is nothing much in the way of grain to detract from the film. There are no low level noise issues in the transfer.

    One of the main ingredients of this film is a sparkling array of bright colours. You will get to see them all here in their multi-coloured glory. This is a really bright and colourful transfer, with plenty of vibrancy on offer. The colours are beautifully saturated throughout, with a strong, consistent depth to the tones that adds enormously to the film. There are just a few hints at oversaturation here and there but nothing that really is distracting to the film. There does not appear to be any colour bleed issues in the transfer.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are a few instances of film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, most notably some aliasing in the bikini worn by Candy between 73:00 and 75:00. There is also some slight telecine wobble in the opening credits, and some slightly noticeable shimmer in the roof at 19:42. There are more than a few film artefacts in the transfer, which is hardly surprising. None are especially distracting but they certainly are noticeable at times.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming mid-scene at 60:14. Whilst coming mid-scene, it is not that noticeable and is not disruptive to the flow of the film.

    Depressing is the fact that there are no subtitles on the DVD.

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

Audio

    There is just the one soundtrack on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Whilst a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack would have been nice, I guess that was expecting an awful lot for this sort of film. There is certainly nothing much wrong with what we have got though.

    The dialogue, as well as the rather ropey musical numbers, come up well in the transfer, and are generally easy to understand. There did not appear to be any problems with audio sync in the transfer.

    The bulk of the original music for the film comes from Nile Rodgers, well-known in popular music. Whilst the songs are perhaps the biggest and most important component of the musical contributions of the film, the original music makes a reasonable fist of supporting the film but it is not a really important contributor.

    The soundtrack is a very reasonable effort indeed, and should satisfy most people. It is free from any significant problems, although there did seem to be a couple of fluctuations in the volume. It has no surround encoding and is very centrally focused, but this does not unduly affect the feeling of the soundscape. Naturally, the bass channel is given the big miss here.

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

Extras

    For a film of this nature and age, this is not too bad a package.

Menu

    Highlighted by some great animation in the introduction to the main menu, and with great theming and further animation between the menus, this is one of the more memorable collection of menus from an independent release. All are 16x9 enhanced and there is some audio accompanying the scene selection menus. The only real issue with all the menus is the prevalence of dot crawl, which sort of gives the edges of the animation the look of lights alternately flashing on and off on a neon sign.

Deleted Scenes (4)

    Be warned - the quality is not real flash, with plenty of film artefacts and washed-out colour, accompanied by some rather ropey sound at times. This is obviously stuff that was dragged from some poor storage. The technical quality is matched in some ways by the artistic quality and it is not that difficult to see why the three scenes were excised from the final film. All are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and are 16x9 enhanced. They come with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. They come with a short bit of film that enables you to place them in their position in the film pretty well. The three genuine deleted scenes are Wayne Newton, Our Leader (1:08), Goldfish Snack (1:00) and The Arm That Feeds You (1:21). The other "deleted scene" is actually a collection of goofs called Potpourri (4:29).

Karaoke (4)

    This comprises three songs as performed in the film, with lyrics plastered over them: Brand New Girl (2:35), The Ground You Walk On (2:55) and 'Cause I'm A Blonde (2:15). These are presented in the same 2.35:1 aspect ratio of the film. The fourth song is actually a performance of I Like 'Em Big And Stupid (2:56) that is not in the film and this is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All are 16x9 enhanced and come with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. You might have more need of karaoke stuff than I (in my opinion, Karaoke is a Japanese obsession that should have stayed in Japan).

Theatrical Trailer (2:04)

    Pretty much the same sort of technical quality as the deleted scenes really, this is not real pretty. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Biographies - Cast and Crew

    Decent enough and up to date.

Production Notes

R4 vs R1

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

    Aside from a slightly different theatrical trailer on the Region 1 version, and significantly inferior menus, the main difference between the Region 1 and Region 4 releases is Valley Cable. This is something of a potpourri of stuff on the Region 1 release, including the deleted scenes and karaoke stuff included in the Region 4 release. There is a fake soapy, some behind-the-scenes stuff and some footage of costume tests. Balancing off that additional stuff is what I consider to be a better Region 4 video transfer. Some marginally rubbish extras or PAL formatting and a better video transfer? Make mine a Region 4 in this case.

Summary

    Earth Girls Are Easy is not a classic film, but it is a cult classic film. As long as you don't expect too much and get into the spirit of the dig at American society, this is enjoyable stuff. There is certainly little to complain about as far as the transfer goes and overall this is worthy of consideration if you are into a bit of mindless entertainment.

    One thing that does annoy me though - why do DVD masterers insist on including their little advertising trailer at a decibel level about twice that of the main programme?

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (Biological imperfection run amok)
Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-515, using S-Video output
DisplaySony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationYamaha RXV-795
SpeakersEnergy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL

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