Sex and Death 101 – Blu-ray Disc Review

June 22, 2008 – 1:40 AM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Daniel Waters, Julie Bowen, Patton Oswalt, PCM, Simon Baker, Starz, Winona Ryder

has an average rating of 6.4 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 25gb disc
PCM 5.1 @6.9Mbps & Dolby Digital 5.1
prove that size actually DOES matter
–
– 2007
– 117 minutes
– Starz (formerly Anchor Bay)

Buy it for $23.95 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

The Movie Itself was Written / Directed by Daniel Waters — most known for writing the films “Heathers” , “Hudson Hawk” and “Demolition Man.” This marks his directorial debut and is quite the unconventional one at that. In fact this whole film’s plot really is unconventional and at times hard to take seriously in the slightest bit. The whole plot to this revolves around our leading man with an even unoriginal name, “Roderick Blank” (Simon Baker). Roderick is a successful business man who’s currently engaged to a woman named “Fiona Wormwood” (Julie Bowen) but still can’t seem to keep his mind off sleeping with other women. It’s just his “luck” days before his wedding he gets this mysterious e-mail that contains what he and his personal assistant (secretary) discover to be a list of the 101 women he has and will ever sleep with in his entire life. That right there is sure to have lost a majority of you itself and it’s not due to my writing skills. In fact that’s pretty much the opening lines to the movie’s theatrical trailer, I kid you not!

Our man Roderick suddenly ends up getting an explanation of what’s going on — in between having lots of sex with hot ladies. He’s introduced to “Alpha” (Robert Wisdom), “Beta” (Tanc Sade) and lastly “Fred” (Patton Oswalt) who give him the “411″ about the list and clue him in that he’s the only one that got that e-mail while others simply got a date and time (of when they would die). So now he finds himself knowing that marrying this woman is pointless and he can magically now find all of these girls named out in order on this list and have sex with them. It’s THAT simple folks, that simple. He sleeps with some pretty beautiful women along the way, I have to admit. Meanwhile we have a female serial killer called simply, “Death Nell” (Winona Ryder) going around putting men in coma’s that are trying to have sex with her. She crosses the line one night and a guy falls over the railing of a hotel balcony, she’s now become an official murderer. As you’d figure it’s destined for this happy go !@#$y guy and man-hating female to meet.

Not many critics really liked this film it’s easy to tell — aside from Richard Roeper from “Ebert & Roeper” who said he rather enjoyed it. Rotten Tomatoes has a 26% (out of 100%) rating for this film which makes it technically just that — a “rotten tomato” to some. The average rating of 6.4 (out of 10) over at IMDb is much more encouraging to the home video consumer but I’ll be honest with you. This film is all over the place, not really in any particular order at times aside from where the main character is number-wise on his list of women he’ll sleep with. The script (story) and plot just seem to jump around a lot and even develops a sub-plot that almost feels like it’s two films in one at times. It also kind of seems like a twisted male version of “Sex in the City” or something which is really odd, in a bad way I’m afraid to say. To me the only thing that saves this is the hot ladies, female nudity, ocassional laughs which mostly come from funnyman Patton Oswalt playing his “bit part” in the film as Fred.

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-25. This 35mm to Hi-Def transfer obviously contains a visible amount of film grain and noise but this is to be expected from first a 35mm transfer and second, especially from a small Independent film like this. That being said I won’t knock it’s video quality in terms of clarity and definition as it does definitely hold it’s share — which is good given the subject material at times. Speaking of which flesh tones are perfect and you’ll appreciate that, trust me. The color palette is vibrant and all and all this is a somewhat pleasant High Definition viewing experience — not just because of the female nudity either. This earns a respectable “4 Star Rating” for overall video quality. I’m not really sure if the size of this disc, a BD-25 (25 gigabyte instead of 50 gigabyte) attributes to any compression problems but I didn’t see any personally. The film does run a good almost 2 hours in it’s entirety but if you take into account the amount of bonus materials included (listed further below) you’ll understand that this shouldn’t have any compression problems. Either way this is a nice effort from Starz. Also like to mention, I’m happy to see them back releasing to Blu-ray Disc.

Audio Quality on this release is in PCM 5.1 @6.9Mbps and in Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps. Surprisingly this starts out with great rear channel and bass presence in the film’s Music composed by Rolfe Kent. Dialogue is delivered very clear and distinct here with no problems what-so-ever. The soundscape you get in this PCM 5.1 is a tad bit impressive for an Independent film such as this but nothing that will really “rock your socks off” or anything — despite the film’s sexual vibe. The times the film’s music kicks in really do bring back that surround and bass presence. As one of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt so elegantly puts it in the film “this deserves some kind of montage or something” — well, it gets just exactly that throughout the film. Mostly when our main character is “getting lucky” to be honest but there are some semi-dramatic moments the music sets the vibe quite well. There’s really nothing to complain about here at all, this receives a “4 Star Rating” for audio quality on this release.

Bonus Materials are presented in 16:9 (Widescreen) Standard Definition (480p) using MPEG-2 for video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @192kbps.

• “101 Perversions (17 minutes) strongly warns you that it contains “spoilers” so it’s best you don’t watch this before the film. This is your basic “making of” style documentary and Includes interviews with the Writer/Director Daniel Waters as well as star Simon Baker and the rest of the cast ensemble. This proves to be rather informative and entertaining so safe to say fans will enjoy it (after the movie).
• Trailer (2 minutes)

Overall what you get here is straight-forward and the very basic of bonus materials. I honestly wouldn’t really expect too much more from an Independent film like this and I mean that in a kind way. Fans of the film will be pleased with the bonus materials they get here but they most likely won’t “blow their load” (so-to-speak).

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