The Film
Long before she was an Oscar winner, pretty woman Julia Roberts was slinging sass and pizza in the classic chick flick, Mystic Pizza. Here, Roberts actually shares screen time with Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor. It's not a "Julia" movie, per se, although you'd never know that from the newly released Blu-ray's box art.
Roberts stars as one of three sisters. She's Daisy, the slutty one with dreams of using her slutty ways to get out of the little town of Mystic, Connecticut. Kat (Gish) has a different method of transportation -- a partial scholarship to Yale. Finally, Jojo (Taylor) is perfectly happy to live in the town, although she's not 100 percent sure if she wants to live as the wife of Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio).
Mystic Pizza is about the loves and lives (mostly the loves) of the three sisters over one summer. In case you're keeping score, we have summer, sisters, sizzling romance and Julia Roberts. If Mystic Pizza doesn't have all of the perfect ingredients for a chick flick, we don't know what does.
The Picture
Wow. Time has not been kind to this film. The opening wedding scene should be the poppiest portion of the movie (with exception of the parts seen through the bride's veil). Instead, it's grainy and even blurry in some spots. The movie does quickly improve, but never really looks "good." The one saving grace are the reds, which seem to jump out at the wedding party, in the waitress' aprons, on Julia's sweater, and at least one car. The black levels and other colors don't fare as well. The film looks really dated, and is barely an improvement over earlier DVD copies that are floating around out there.
The Sound
MGM didn't even attempt to improve on the audio. The best that this release has to offer is a DTS-HD Master Audio track in a measly 2.0 channel mix. Needless to say, all of the sounds are in the front. Dialogue sounds fine, along with the time-stamped music and various ambient sounds. Again, though, it all seems dated. It's like watching the movie from an old UHF broadcast, though without that groovy loop antenna.
The Extras
Move along, folks. There's nothing about the girls or even the town of Mystic. This release comes packing the theatrical trailer only.
Final Thoughts
Mystic Pizza is definitely one of those movies that we'd stop and watch whenever it's on TV. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that you need the Blu-ray. Repeat viewing of this release will just call out all of the imperfections. MGM really blew it with this classic chick flick, rushing it out without extras or any type of A/V upgrade over the DVD release.
Product Details
Where to Buy:
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Movie | |
| Extras |
