Subscribers Only Content Area

Home

New Movies

All Movies

New Videos

All Videos

DVD

Search

(About Our Ads) DVD REVIEW FOR "AMERICAN GRAFFITI" (1973) (Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss) (PG) Length Screen Format(s) Languages Subtitles Sound Sides 112 minutes Letterbox (2.35:1) 16x9 - Widescreen English French English Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 1 (Dual layer) Plot: Several California teens try to sort out life, love, and their futures during a late summer night in 1962. (Parental Review currently not available) VIDEO: (B-) Considering it's source material and age, this 25+ year old film looks decent but clearly isn't a great example to showcase the crisp pictures DVD can deliver. Shot on a shoe-string budget and mostly at night, the film didn't have a stellar look in the theaters (dark and somewhat grainy — the result of purpose and economics), and that subdued look likewise shows up on the disc. Some pixelation occurs in solid, lightly colored sections of the picture, but isn't too bad, which is the same for the picture's color which may be just a bit too over-saturated (especially in flesh tones -- perhaps done to compensate for the rest of the film's overall "drab" look). For a film this old, the picture is surprisingly free of many film artifacts (scratches, etc...) although a bit more appear toward the end. AUDIO: (B) The sound is adequate (when considering the film's age), but beyond the fun soundtrack (of mostly mono recordings), there's little in the way of effects beyond some uses of echo during the dance hall sequences (but this sort of film doesn't dictate much more than that), and the dynamic range is, not surprisingly, rather flat. EXTRAS: Scene selection/Jump to any scene. "The Making of American Graffiti" — 78 minute documentary featuring contemporary interviews with the cast and crew, as well as photos, clips and screen tests from the early 1970's. Cast and crew filmographies and biographies (on-screen text). Production Notes (8 pages of on-screen text). Theatrical trailer. COMMENTS: Recipient of 5 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture and Director), and named to the AFI's Top 100 Films list, this is a fabulous picture. Perfectly capturing the essence of the lost American "innocence" of the early 60's, the movie is also fun to watch simply for the stellar cast — many of whom (Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, etc...) went on to even greater success. While the rest of the supplemental materials are standard stuff, the nearly eighty-minute documentary is a must-see for fans of the film and offers some insightful material regarding the film's production.