Loser (2000) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Dolby Digital Trailer-City Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Behind The Scenes Music Video-Teenage Dirtbag-Wheatus Biographies-Cast & Crew |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
Running Time | 91:21 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Amy Heckerling |
Studio
Distributor |
Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Jason Biggs Mena Suvari Greg Kinnear |
Case | Soft Brackley-Transp | ||
RPI | $36.95 | Music | David Kitay |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English German Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish |
Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
Soon, his grades start to suffer, but his lecturer, Professor Alcott (Greg Kinnear) doesn't show any sympathy for his situation. No one seems to even care for him except Dora Diamond (Mena Suvari) who feels sorry for him when he accidentally stumbled and fell on entering the lecture hall one day. He starts to fall in love with Dora only to realize that she has a huge crush on Professor Alcott himself and apparently has been in a rather one-sided relationship with the professor for some time. The professor happens to be a self-centred twit who does not really care for Dora.
Dora comes from a poor family and can barely afford the tuition fees. She was doing part time work in a girlie bar but is eventually fired due to her naivety. She turns to Professor Alcott for help but he is more concerned about maintaining his reputation. In desperation, she even resorts to sleeping in Grand Central with the tramps rather than go home.
So, basically the movie is trying to tell us both Paul and Dora are 'losers' who are really nice people who ought to deserve better, maybe even each other. Will both of them realize they are being taken advantage of (Paul by his roommates, Dora by Professor Alcott) without them losing their "niceness"? Will they realize they are Meant For Each Other and find true happiness? Can you spot the ending coming a mile away?
I really enjoyed Clueless, and the cast list sounded really promising, so I had high expectations for this movie. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The movie tries so hard to ensure we get the message that the two characters are 'losers' that it makes it hard for me to feel any real empathy for them. I think there is a difference between being nice but naive and just being plain dumb and in this case the characters are so clueless and apathetic about their situations that I started feeling they deserve everything they are getting.
Cameo appearances by Andy Dick (NewsRadio's Matthew Brock) and David Spade (Just Shoot Me!'s Dennis Finch) fail to generate any real excitement. Dan Ayckroyd's role as Mr. Tanneck is so small it borders on being a cameo appearance (he only appears in two scenes).
In summary, the movie wanted to say "nice guys finish first" but end up saying "nice guys ought to finish last" instead. So, the real 'loser' is probably the movie itself.
The movie is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with 16x9 enhancement. The film source is extremely clean and free of dirt or grain, and the transfer by Sony Pictures DVD Center is excellent, with no sign of MPEG artefacts apart from slight "ringing" around the titles during the opening credits. Sharpness, colour saturation and shadow level is basically reference quality.
The disc comes with no less than 17 subtitle tracks ranging from English to the Scandinavian languages (all four) and even Hindi and Arabic. Even the trailer is subtitled in Dutch and the featurette in German and Dutch.
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The quality of the audio transfer is good but nothing to shout about. Dialogue is crystal clear and in perfect sync with the video. As the movie is fairly dialogue-focused, most of the audio is front-centred with the left/right fronts used mainly for various effects. The rear speakers are mostly used for ambience, particularly for music. Speaking of which, the music is just your run-of-the-mill teen flick background music and is not memorable. The cameo appearance of Everclear, a band I have never heard of before nor intend to in the future, is ho-hum.
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Overall |
The music video is presented in a letter-boxed non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-626D, using Component output |
Display | Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics 16x9 matte white screen (203cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVR-3300 |
Speakers | Front left/right: B&W DM603; centre: B&W CC6S2, rear left/right: B&W DM601 |