Uptown Girls

NOTE: I am completely baffled by the back cover (see image) - it says this movie is rated R. As far as I can tell, this disc is the theatrical release, which was rated PG-13, the DVD was PG-13, the British DVD release is ages 12 and up, the German DVD release is General Audiences (Ages 0 and up). Content wise, there is a sex scene (With no sex and no nudity shown), a guy takes off his shirt, a little girl flips the bird a few times, some MILD cussing (As in OMG), and there is a suicide attempt. Its safely PG-13, and I imagine Olive just slapped the wrong rating graphic on the back of the case.MOVIE: I am not going to go into a lot of detail on the plot of the movie - the movie is now 13 years old, and I would assume that most people interested in this release have seen the movie. This was the first movie I ever saw that had Dakota Fanning in it - I walked into the movie because I was a Brittnay Murphy fan, walked out a Dakota Fanning fan.Brief plot recap - Dakota Fanning plays Ray. He father is dying and on life support in the family's home, mom is a record producer or music promoter or something (as many times as I have seen it, I don't think I have ever picked up on exactly what it is, I think she says in the movie, but its background information). Her job is important to the movie, but the title isn't. Anyways, mom is gone a lot, which means she needs a nanny. And to cope with everything going on around her, Ray has had to grow up fast, and take on the role of parent.Molly is a daughter of a rock star whose parents died tragicly when she was young. Her parents had a trust fund setup to pretty much let her live "as a princess". Until one day, her manager steals all of her money and disappears. Molly now must work for the first time in her life and deal with the real world. With zero experience and a carefree attitude, she has trouble coping with regular jobs, and becomes Nanny to Ray. Now, Ray must teach Molly how to act like an adult, and Molly must teach Ray how to act like a kid and have fun.Oh, and there is a side story about a boyfriend musician.Dakota Fanning and Brittnay Murphy were perfect for their roles, as Britney has kind of a carefree attitude, and Dakota has always been a professional, allowing her to play roles well beyond her age.This is a feel good movie, and a guilty pleasure of mine (and I am a guy).VIDEO: This is the first time this movie has been released on Blu-Ray. Before now, you had to settle with HDTV broadcasts and VOD. Both seemed to use an old transfer that, while decent, had issues with black crush and macroblocking (there are a lot of nighttime and dark interior shots in this film). While I am not sure, this DOES appear to be a new transfer, at least in my eyes, and I am watching on a 115" screen. Colors are natural, skin tones are correct, black levels are good, night scenes are detailed, contrast levels are good. The movie has a good layer of film grain and it does not appear that DNR has been applied. I did not see any halos around anything or compression artifacts, which suggest that no edge enhancement was used. Picture is nice and sharp. The reason I am not giving it a 5 is I would have liked it to have been just a tad sharper, and the film grain can be a bit distracting - In fact, the grain seems to be a bit high for a film from this era, and am not convinced it is artistic intent, and am wondering if they scanned a second or third generation copy rather than the negatives. Still, everything looks great.AUDIO: This comes with a DTS soundtrack (that is what is on the case - I will need to double check if its MA). The audio is good, and handles the soundtrack of the movie well, and I have no complaints. It should be pointed out that like most movies of this style, the movie does not have that aggressive of a sound field. The 3 for audio is because this is an average soundtrack for this movie. It does not appear to have any additional languages, at least none that can be accessed via a menu. I will have to sit down with it and see if any other audio tracks or subtitle tracks can be accessed via the remote buttons.Special Features: Pretty bland - a music video, trailer, deleted scenes, and some bonus feature that all look like they were shot in SD. The quality on all of these was poor, so I really did not watch much of any of them.Overall - Considering this is a catalogue, non-anniversary Blu-Ray release of a movie that has previously not been available, I am pretty impressed - the video quality is excellent, the sound is good, and there are some bonus features (although nothing to really be impressed about). Overall, it is a good release, and a great price at $14

BEST MOVIE TO WATCH OVER & OVER…

Twenty-five years after the film "Times Square" we get an updated version of that New Wave classic. And like its predecessor, "Uptown Girls" is destined to be more appreciated twenty-five years later than it was by contemporary critics and audiences. Both films include terrific music that had people stopping at a store on the way home from the film to pick up the soundtrack album/CD (with "soundtrack" defined as songs by a collection of artists as compared to a more traditional musical score), both feature two emotionally fragile girls-polar opposites who bond and help each other, both have Altman's cool "Kansas City" twist where the seemingly weaker girl becomes protective of the tough girl, both have absolutlely perfect endings, and both take place in NYC.One major difference was that while "Times Square" had a clear target audience, "Uptown Girls" was never able to quite figure that out. While in almost every way superior to its sister film "Raising Helen", "Uptown Girls" lacks that films consistent family focus. So we have a fairy tale marketed as a comedy, a generational bonding picture with so much unnecessary adult material (a word here-an obscene gesture there) that it has a PG-13 rating. All of which means that adults think of it as a kid film and young viewers find only intermittent sequences to which they can relate.At least the film's is consistent in its inconsistency, as Boaz Yakin's inspired and imaginative direction and many incongruously subtle script elements are paired with a contrived and predictable basic story. There is originality packaged inside unoriginality-Ray is not mad at Molly because she was not there when Ray's father died or because Molly was wrong about him living longer if Ray talked to him, she is mad because Molly convinced her to lower her defenses and because of this his death hurts her more.All this disparity should work in "Uptown Girls" favor in a few years when the dust clears and the film finds its proper audience, one that appreciates its complex dichotomy and subtle nuances. Until then it is worth noting that this will be an important film historically. Film historians will look back on "Uptown Girls" as the feature where Brittany Murphy (Molly Gunn) really began to define the perceptive airhead persona she began to develop in "Drop Dead Gorgeous". Roger Ebert sees a lot of the divine ineptitude of Lucille Ball in Murphy with both being magnets for "Whoops! moments. I don't see her going quite that far, more like Zasu Pitts or Katherine Hepburn. Hollywood has gone two generations without an actress with this kind of natural comic talent. She and Dakota Fanning (Ray) play off each other very well.Music is central to the story since Molly's father was a rock legend who died in a plane crash when she was a young girl and Ray's mom runs a record label. Little Molly inspired her father to write a song about her before he died called "Molly Smiles". She inspires her boyfriend to write the song "Sheets of Egyptian Cotton" but she does not want to hear her father's song. This sets up a somewhat predictable but otherwise perfect ending as you finally get to get to hear "Molly Smiles" at Ray's dance recital (and the film is worth watching just for this-as good an ending as "School of Rock"). As someone commented earlier, the song works perfectly in the finale as all the plot threads are pulled together: " (1) we get to hear "Molly Smiles," (2) Neal makes up with Molly, (3) we find out what happened to Tommy Gunn's guitars, (4) Ray makes up with Molly, (5) Ray finally dances free style, (6) Ray uses some moves she learned from Molly, and (7) Ray wears Molly's designer tutu. Appropriately, The soundtrack has a lot of the songs by female artists and makes for a pleasant enough album when you finally decide to play something else besides track 12. But you will probably pick this one up for the song about daddy's little girl because "When the days have gone grey, nothing's wrong when Molly smiles."Bottom line don't listen to the negative reviews see this for yourself. If you can suspend belief and just accept the contrived basic story, then it won't be hard to really enjoy Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning as two broken kids who help each other learn how to live, 25 years after "Times Square".Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Quick delivery, a great movie!

Enjoyed this movie and happy to add it to my DVD collection of movies.