Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Mysterio's still recovering from his prolonged experience covering JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. I dropped by his house recently, and he's hired people to walk around and pretend to be a movie crew, and he's had his mom set up a craft service table in the kitchen. It's hard for the boy to decompress, but he's trying. Baby steps, Mysterio.
In the meantime, he's been watching a little tube, taking it easy. One of the things he screened was a DVD of A BETTER PLACE, just released by Synapse Films. I hung out with Don May, Jr., the owner of Synapse Films, when I was in Montreal for the Fantasia Film Festival recently. Heck o' a decent guy, and he handed me a few discs to review. As soon as I figure out what Mongo did to my player (it smells vaguely of grilled cheese and will only play the John Ritter film TERROR TRACT, for some reason), I will take a look at some of the other Synapse releases. Until then, here's Mysterio with his take on things...
“We came here to start over – a new life in a better place. We should’ve stayed behind.”
Those are the haunting words uttered by Barret Michaelson (Robert DiPatri), upon having just moved with his mother to New Jersey after the sudden death of his father, in order to start a new life in Vincent Pereira’s directorial debut, ‘A BETTER PLACE’ now out on VHS and a Special Edition DVD.
But with starting a new life, also means finding new friends which Barret is having trouble finding at his new school. Instead he’s welcomed with sneers and jeers by his classmates and the threat of physical violence by a trio of school bullies.
It’s in the midst of a threatening locker room confrontation between Barret and one of the bullies, that Ryan Walker (Eion Bailey) steps him and backs Barret when no one else will. This soon erupts into a violent fight, finding Ryan victorious and Barret with a newfound, but dangerous, friendship in Ryan, which leads it’s way into a downward spiral, eventually ending up in murder.
It’s taken me some time to comb through this disc, as it’s rather intensive in it’s wealth of supplemental material. The featured director’s cut, sports an absolute gorgeous high-definition widescreen (1.66:1) transfer taken from a newly created wetgate print made from the original 16mm negative (which has to be seen to be believed). Also included on the disc are eight deleted scenes with director’s commentary, a newly re-mastered 5.1 Skywalker sound mix, along with a sound comparison between the 5.1 mix and original mono track, and not one, but three video introductions from producers, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier and liner notes written by the film’s own “Hollywood” Brian Lynch.
The newly created 5.1 soundtrack, supervised by Phil Benson (who also was the supervising sound editor on ‘DOGMA’ and ‘JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK’), adds a nice sense of spaciousness and ambience that envelopes the viewer in certain scenes, but never seems too overbearing with interfering with the films dialogue which is mostly directed through the center channel.
Also, not listed on the DVD’s jacket, are two hidden “Easter eggs” within the DVD – a trailer for ‘BIG HELIUM DOG’ by Brian Lynch and a second livelier and raunchier feature-length cast and crew commentary.
These “Easter eggs” are rather difficult finds, but well worth hunting for. The pop-up screen resembles the “hidden loophole” menu that was found in early APEX DVD players, allowing users access to features not intended to be found within the unit itself.
Once inside the “loophole menu” you’ll find the options for accessing the trailer and 2nd commentary track. Besides the intro’s by Kev and Scott, this is where you’ll find the “fun” stuff, as ‘A BETTER PLACE’ is about as 180-degrees opposite from you’re typical View Askew flick and deals with some heavy subject matter, sans any “snootchie bootchies” or cameos from Jay and Silent Bob. But cameos there are. Look for View Askew alumni, Jason Lee (in dual roles), Ethan Suplee and uber-producer, Scott Mosier in unaccredited cameos, as well and the film’s writer/director Vincent Pereira, Brian Lynch and Carmen Llywellyn-Lee in supporting roles. Also look for star DiPatri sporting a ‘MALLRATS’ crew T-shirt in one of the film’s earlier scenes.
This disc is a must have for anyone interested in making an independent film. The film is exceptionally well shot for it’s mere $40,000 production budget and the technical commentary by director Pereira is especially knowledgeable, although at times he tends to be too overcritical on himself, pointing out several such flaws in areas such as editing and not enough shot coverage for certain scenes. But it’s interesting to point out his explanations of problem solving and working around such in keeping with the film’s story continuity.
Where the technical commentary may suffer from too much insight from Pereira and not enough from Lynch or Bailey who also participated to a limited extent on that track, the 2nd track is all Lynch. In the beginning of the 2nd track, Pereira allows for “the downing of alcohol” to help liven things up a bit, and within minutes, fellow actor Lynch, becomes somewhat “possessed” by an entity only he knows of (or not). He ceases to be “Brian Lynch” and takes on another whole persona throughout the commentary, which had me rolling with laughter. He proceeds to playfully ridicule Pereira about making the film more of a “slasher” movie, and in the middle of the commentary, an interruption from a pizza delivery guy occurs, Then Lynch’s alter-ego, ponders the question of who would win in a fight – he or Harry Knowles, and even takes some humorous jabs at seeing this film reviewed on AICN, alongside such scoops as “GREMLINS 16 and POPEYE 2” under a header such as “CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE WORST FILM EVER MADE – ‘A BETTER PLACE’.”
Sarcasm is definitely not lost on this track. There’s even an impromptu guest commentator by one ex-Bond, “George Lazenby” who stops by to trade quips with the boys.
‘A BETTER PLACE’ has been playing on the festival circuit for years since ’97 and has now, through an excellent, well-produced DVD package, supervised by Synapse Films’ (http://www.synapse-films.com) own Don May, Jr., been finally released on home video. Like I said before, knowing this film was shot on 16mm, you’d be hard pressed, looking at the quality of the transfer, with it’s accurate flesh tones and well-balanced hues, to know any better. Except for some minor inherit artifacts and slight grain revealed by the source material, this is one of the best 16mm transfers I’ve ever seen, and is quite impressive. It’s no wonder that Kevin Smith must’ve been equally impressed with this transfer that he’s been giving serious thought to re-transferring ‘CLERKS’ though a similar process, for a proposed, upcoming 10th Anniversary Edition DVD edition of ‘CLERKS’.
Since a small distributor is distributing the disc, finding it in your local stores may be tricky. The best way is to order it on-line, either through synapse-films.com or, you can get a signed copy by the films’ director, Vincent Pereira and producer, Kevin Smith, at viewaskew.com along with a 16mm film clip of the film for a reasonable $25. Well worth the price for a big studio-comparable DVD package such as this.
