Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	88:09	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	David Mirkin
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Mira Sorvino Lisa Kudrow Janeane Garofalo
RRP	$34.95	Music	Steve Bartek

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English Dutch  English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    And that really is the plot here - Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) have a high school reunion, and recall how terrible high school was and how on earth are they going to go back and impress people? Forgetting of course that what other people think is irrelevant, as long as you are true to yourself. But what the heck, they invent some lame story anyway, thoroughly annoying really successful people like Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo) and amusing those people that really do not count. Of course, this is the movies, so the geek they avoided at high school is now the wealthiest graduant of the class (Alan Cumming) - hang on, is this starting to sound familiar????? And of course he still has the hots for Michele after all these years.

    Pardon me whilst I go and throw up. We are not talking serious story line here. This is fluff and has to be treated as such. Mind you, when the fluff involves one of the most gorgeous women around (sorry Lisa, but I am talking about Mira) I say long live fluff. I mean this contains some of the most inane dialogue ever heard in film - yet works (to a fashion) because it is so utterly inane. Forget plot development, forget character development, forget great cinema, just enjoy the fluff. And remember why you always avoid those reunions!

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

     The transfer is reasonably sharp, but does have an overall softness to it, no doubt to emphasize the "eye candy" as I believe the ladies were referred to in one review in Region 2. Shadow detail is good but definitely not amongst the best in that regard.

     The colours were uniformly rendered, but I felt that they could have been a little more vibrant. There is certainly no problem with oversaturation here. Some may find the overall brightness of the transfer, which does diminish the colours somewhat, may take a little getting used to.

   There were no MPEG artefacts nor video artefacts noted. Film artefacts were a bit of a problem, especially a number of black lines on the transfer. These were a little distracting.

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on the DVD, the default being an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There is also a French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack and an Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I listened to the English default.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times.

    Audio sync did not appear to be a problem with the transfer at all.

    Although credited as writing the score, it has to be said that there was not a whole heap of original music score from Steve Bartek. Most of the music here was a bunch of songs from the eighties, which suited the film well and brought back a few memories.

    The surround channels were again well balanced and there was some lovely detail out of the rear channels - especially during the reunion scenes. You were nicely inserted into the sound picture, which had a very forward presence to it emphasizing the one on one nature of the dialogue.

    The subwoofer got some really serious workout here, especially during the songs. Not my cup of tea, bass-wise, but plenty will enjoy the big booming bass that you can crank out here.

Menu

• 16x9 enhancement

    The overall video quality is pretty decent.

    The audio quality is actually pretty good, especially if you like to crank your music up loud.

    Well guess what, Buena Vista even ran out of the white paper for this one!

Video
Audio
Extras	nada
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
10th September 1999