World’s Greatest Dad – Blu-ray Disc Review

November 28, 2009 – 11:51 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Alexie Gilmore, BD-Live, Bobcat Goldthwait, Bruce Hornsby, Daryl Sabara, Evan Martin, Krist Novoselic, Lorraine Nicholson, Magnolia, Magnolia Home Entertainment, Michael Thomas Moore, Naomi Glick, Robin Williams

has an average rating of 7.5 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 25gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
are worthwhile & funny but too short
–
– 2009
– 99 minutes
– Magnolia Home Entertainment
–
This uses 19.2GB for the movie out of 23.2GB total.
Street Date: December 8th, 2009

Overall Verdict – A Recommended Dark Comedy

Buy it for $23.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself was both written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait (of former “Police Academy” fame). Some folks may have forgot he was still alive, as he himself even jokes but he is still alive and well and making great independent films.

“World’s Greatest Dad” stars funnyman Robin Williams in a very unique role. The film tells the story of a man named “Lance Clayton” (played by Williams) who works as a poetry teacher and is a single parent with a teenage son. Lance’s son, “Kyle” (played by Daryl Sabara of “Spy Kids” fame) is extremely rude to his father, a loner except for one close friend and is obsessed with masturbation and pornography. That isn’t really too uncommon these days for a teenage male to have these traits but there is a type of masturbation out there that some folks try that involves choking yourself almost to the point of death that is very dangerous; Kyle does this type of masturbation as we learn pretty early in the film when his father (Lance) walks in on him and catches him. This gives Lance quite the scare and just weird vibe knowing that his son does this type of masturbation it makes him even more aware that his son truly is disturbed.

Being a single parent with a teenage son with issues is enough to drive anyone nuts but then you add on top of that trying to have a romantic life and you’ve got yourself one seriously dramatic life and in this case, film. Lance as I mentioned earlier works as a poetry teacher at a high school, it is at the school where he is having a fling with a female teacher, “Claire” (played by Alexie Gilmore). Claire and Lance are seeing each other on and off and on basis and it comes pretty obvious that she isn’t ready or willing to have a serious relationship with Lance and it also comes as pretty obvious that Claire is seeing another man, in fact another teacher from school. With all this going on and Lance trying to find some ways to bond with his truly disturbed son, its hard for him not to loose his mind. That is really where I have to end this synopsis to avoid any spoilers what-so-ever here as I think that this film is best left to be experienced and not described by me. I will though go ahead and mention that there is a tiny cameo by former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic in the film when Robin Williams‘ character is standing at a newsstand looking at adult magazines as well as an obvious cameo by writer and director Bobcat Goldthwait as a limo driver.

In closing, it is definitely easy to say that “World’s Greatest Dad” is a dark comedy and by all ways more-so than any other of Robin Williams‘ other (unique) roles over the past decade in such other dark comedy films like “One Hour Photo” or “The Big White“. It is probably not a film that I would suggest for every fan of Robin Williams but it is a very truly unique and movingly great film that holds a great performance given by Williams that should be acknowledged, regardless.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the VC-1 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. First thing you’ll notice here is that despite being what would appear to be a 35mm film transfer to Hi-Def contains a huge amount of detail here. Close-ups reveal even more detail but generally all shots hold a great amount of detail and the wonderful cinematography done by DP (director of photography) Horacio Marquínez is done complete justice. The black level is very solid, fleshtones are accurate and the color palette here is very vibrant, with strong emphasis obviously on the bright but almost darkish red that serves as the school colors in the film. Its nothing that contains “3-D pop” or anything but it is very impressive of a Hi-Def presentation and worthy of a “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Kudos to the folks at Magnolia on a job well done.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. First off dialogue is delivered very distinct throughout and requires no volume adjustment of any sort. The film’s original music by Gerald Brunskill and the songs featured like “I Hope I Become A Ghost” by The Deadly Syndrome all sound good here with a decent amount of rear channel presence and LFE (bass). For a dark comedy (basically really a drama with funny elements to it) this is not the most demanding films in terms of audio but it does get the job done well with it’s DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix. There’s not a huge amount of rear channel presence or LFE (bass) except for the times where there are the musical elements going on during the film but it’s definitely not “front heavy”. The sound mix here is decent and gets the job done, it earns a solid “4 Star Rating“.

Bonus Materials on this release are presented in both Hi-Def (HD) video using VC-1 codec and Standard Definition (SD) video using the MPEG-2 codec. As for sound, content in HD contains DTS 2.0 Stereo @225kbps audio and SD content contains Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps.

• BD-Live is included on this Magnolia Blu-ray Disc release which allows users on a “Profile 2.0” capable Blu-ray Disc Player with internet connectivity to access online content such as trailers of other films from the studio available on Blu-ray, DVD or theatrical.
• “Behind-the-Scenes: WWBCD?” (18:35 – SD) is a great little “making of” documentary directed by Bobcat‘s daughter. It includes tons of behind-the-scenes footage and great interviews with the cast members such as Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Alexie Gilmore and the film’s writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait. This proves to be a definite must-watch if you enjoyed the film!
• “Outtakes” (1:53 – SD) are pretty damn funny but are way too short. Robin Williams is known for being an absolute blast on the set of the films he works on and you’d expected this to have been much longer with that taken into consideration. Regardless, it is still worth the (short) watch.
• “Deleted Scenes” (4:07 – SD) are worth watching if you really enjoyed the film. They add a little bit more to the film.
• “HDNet: A Look at World’s Greatest Dad” (4:42 – HD) was done for the HDNet Hi-Def network owned by Mark Cuban, who owns a share of the company that made this film, Magnolia. This is a nice little interview with Bobcat Goldthwait discussing the film he wrote and directed.
• “I Hope I Become A Ghost” (4:12 – SD) Music Video by The Deadly Syndrome is included. This is very cool in a lo-fi indie sort of way as a music video and the way the song was used in the film was marvelous so its great to see this included as a bonus material. I have to admit I went immediately to iTunes and bought this song after I first saw the film. Very cool song and very good band.
• Audio Commentary with Writer and Director Bobcat Goldthwait is included which is a definite treat if you enjoyed the film as much as I did.

Overall the bonus materials are worth watching and should leave fans pleased but longing for a bit more if they really enjoyed the film; as this 33 minutes or so roughly of content is definitely nice but not really elaborate in terms of bonus material.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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