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Directed by |
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Starring |
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Specs |
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- 16:9 Enhanced
- Dual Sided
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Languages |
- English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
- English: Dolby Digital Surround
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Subtitles |
English - Hearing Impaired |
Extras |
- Additional footage - (Alternate ending-Next Friday)
- Theatrical trailer - (Friday, Next Friday)
- Audio commentary - (Next Friday)
- Cast/crew biographies - (Next Friday)
- 3 Music video - (1 Friday, 2 Next Friday)
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Friday/Next Friday |
Roadshow Entertainment/Roadshow Entertainment .
R4 . COLOR . 182 mins .
MA15+ . PAL |
Feature |
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Contract |
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Friday/Next Friday are two films produced, written and starring Ice Cube, the rapper turned sometime actor. Never heard of these films? Think they must be rubbish? Well, the first one made around 30 million dollars in the States and the second made around 50 million (which is about 850 million Australian dollars at the moment). This is not a bad return on investment for what are essentially low budget-low and seemingly low appeal comedies.
Friday
Ice Cube is Craig. It’s Friday, he’s just lost his job, his dad’s on his back to be a dogcatcher and a real man just like him, his girl is giving him hell and his best friend who is in debt to the local heavy Deebo just dragged him into even more trouble. It’s gonna be a long long day, but you can be sure all bets will be settled before Friday’s over.
Next Friday
After the events at the end of Friday, Craig has to go into hiding with his rich Uncle in the suburbs. Thinking that things might be a little quieter and safer, he finds that his Uncle Elroy, his cousin Day-Day and the neighbours are just as nuts and more dangerous than the folk back home. Just like last Friday, he ends up in the middle of other peoples troubles and has to resolve everything before the day is out.
Even though Ice Cube is occasionally a little too aware of the camera and the plot in these movies, he survives because he mostly plays it straight and lets the cast of oddballs that he has populated the world with do the dirty work. Whether they are a main character (Craig’s father with bowel problems) or a minor walk-in (such as the irate African trying to return a cd or the music store owner Pinky who is a demented version of every Samuel L. Jackson character) something or someone funny pops up frequently enough to keep your interest.
Thankfully, they didn’t feel the need to keep theses characters up on the screen indefinitely to draw out the running times, with Friday being a well paced 88 minutes and Next Friday, which is better assembled and probably more mainstream, running at 94 minutes. This way, the characters and what little plot there is don’t out stay their welcome. Once each film was over, I had a good recollection of the standout out characters and situations and that made the movie more successful in my mind.
Video |
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Contract |
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Unfortunately, probably the best I can say is that this dvd gets a serviceable transfer. With one movie and its respective extras to each side, there’s plenty of space for the short runtimes of each. Friday has bright colours and a generally good picture which is a little soft and lacking detail. It also tends to suffer from grain and pixellation in many scenes where the compression is obviously just a little too tight. Keeping in mind the low budget nature and quality of the source prints it isn’t so bad as to be overly concerned with, but it does mar an otherwise okay transfer. Next Friday is slightly better, with the same bright colouration and only reasonable low-level detail. The saturation appears a bit warm but may have just been the intended look. Again, the detail is a little low and suffers from over tight compression, but it does the job as long as you don’t go expecting the look of the big budget blockbuster transfers.
Audio |
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Contract |
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Overall, nothing spectacular with either movie that will have you showing off your system to friends. As with the video transfer, it’s all a little bit ordinary, with no real standout moments and no great failings. Where it counts in the dialogue it works reasonably well with the exception of only a few moments in each movie. The mix is more front heavy, with the surrounds only minimally used and then not really to great effect when they are used anyway. The audio seems to improve and broaden appreciably when the soundtrack kicks in, with good dispersion through the front channels and plenty of bass. There isn’t really any call for a highly active and dynamic use of the soundfield in either movie, so you tend not to miss it too much in this case.
Extras |
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Contract |
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Overall |
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Contract |
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I didn’t really expect to like either of these films, thinking they’d rely on lame American specific humour, excessive foul language and silly slapstick. Well, they do, but they still managed to make me laugh. Not being big budget Hollywood comedies has probably worked in their favour, because you don’t go in to them with such high expectations. It’s all a bit raw in style and technique, but I’m sure my younger brothers are going to enjoy coming over and watching it again with me.
LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=368
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And I quote... |
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Review Equipment |
- DVD Player:
Sony DVP-525
- TV:
Sony 68cm
- Receiver:
Sony STR-DB930
- Speakers:
Wharfedale s500
- Centre Speaker:
Polk Audio CS245
- Surrounds:
Wharfedale s500
- Subwoofer:
DB Dynamics TITAN
- Audio Cables:
Standard Optical
- Video Cables:
standard s-video
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