The Film
The arrival of her husband's old college buddy signals Ann Bishop Mullany's (Andie MacDowell) sexual awakening, and becomes the catalyst for the end of their marriage. As a frustrated and sexually repressed 80s housewife, stirred by a visitor with his own sexual problems this had all the backstory elements of one of those late night Cinemax movies. But instead of Sex, Lies and Videotape, this dialog-driven film goes nowhere slow, the promised sex - from the title - is hardly delivered in this film, which seems as sexually repressed as Ann. Even James Spader, who plays the somewhat pervy Graham, is just too middle of the road. Having mastered the role of the ultimate douche in a dozen films he's never vile enough in this one, considering his home wrecking ways. Instead he's just like Peter Sellers in Being There, he likes to watch.
The Picture
Released during the heyday of VHS, Sex, Lies, and Videotape looks its age to a tee. The Blu-ray barely cleans up its act with this 1.85:1 presentation. Despite the bonus feature "Notes on Remastering and Restoration," which explains how film is remastered, cleaned-up, and transferred to Blu-ray, the picture doesn't see that much improvement. But then again, there's only so much improvement that can be expected from a film from the late 80's about videotape.
In a dialog film, there's only so much room for the sound to be noticed, or it fails. But fail it does, having all the impact of mono VHS in some points, notably in scenes where characters are talking on the phone. The person on the other end is heard almost more clearly than the person physically in the scene, and the result almost comes across either as a narration, or simply to confuse the viewer.
However, there are moments where the sound is effective, notably in sequences with background noise - but usually not during dialog in this conversation-heavy film. When John Mullany (Peter Gallagher) visits Graham Dalton (James Spader)'s apartment in the middle of the night, you can distinctly hear the crickets chirping their night song in true surround sound. The joke here is that crickets are usually heard in comedy routines to signal a performance so bad that the audience left or is asleep. Could that be the point with this sequence?
The Extras
Blu-ray of course has the capability to deliver bonus materials way beyond DVD, not to mention videotape, and maybe that is the other joke with this one. There are plenty of extras, yet some are not all they promise. As with many new Sony Pictures Home Entertainment titles on Blu-ray disc, the film has a movieIQ mode where viewers can call up information on actors, locations, songs, and more through the use of BD-Live. Other featured extras include a deleted scene, which can be watched with or without commentary from Steven Soderbergh and commentary with Steven Soderbergh and Neil LaBute.
Less impressive are original and studio trailers, and "Notes on Remastering and Restoration." The later is merely text that appears over the menu screen, and describes the process in trade terms with detail on how films are cleaned and prepped for Blu-ray. The feature seems almost like an apology for not doing a better job with the film's presentation. While it does describe the process used for Sex, Lies, and Videotape, it seems terribly generic in the presentation. The same extra can be used for the next film, just change a line or two about getting Soderbergh's approval and Sony Pictures is set to go.
Final Thoughts
Sex, Lies, and Videotape is another movie that characterizes the 80s, but at least this one was actually made at the tale end of the decade of decadence. Instead of showing excess and drug use, Videotape looks at the housewife of middle America, and how difficult it is to conquer the boredom and injustices of her life in a story that moves as slower than it took to rewind all those tapes back then. With an arguably disappointing transfer to Blu-ray, perhaps the film should have been left in 1989 when it was released.
Product Details
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