A Change of Seasons

It was a quote from Risky Business, "Every now and then say, 'what the heck'" (so, I'm used to the TV version…) that came to mind when I finally got past my continued avoidance of reviewing this. Under the circumstances how apt it is that it came from a film starring that all 'round sleaze bag Tom Cruise.

A Change of Seasons starts out with a naked Anthony Hopkins (who had hair once) and equally naked Bo Derek romping about all slippery-like in a hot tub - and in slow motion no less. Somehow it manages to get worse from there (and for the teenage boys out there, yes, you do get to see Bo's breasty bits).

So why Hopkins and Bo? Well, he's a university professor named Adam Adams (oh dear), and as a prerequisite of his passing 40 he's done that which too many men of his age do, had a major plug-in to his inbuilt Lolita-complex and started an affair with a nubile young girl, in this case one of his students, Lindsey (Bo). His wife Karen (Shirley MacLaine, and this film's ONLY saving grace at all) smells a rat and confronts him, he confesses and then we're 'treated' to the most pathetic string of clichéd excuses imaginable, such as "It's not such a big deal", "It's just a phase I'm going through", "Men are different", "You're overreacting" - and if I type any more I'm going to be cleaning diced carrot out of my keyboard for many, many years to come…

When a rather bizarre handyman named Pete shows up unannounced in her kitchen one morning, and with her husband off bonking Lindsey in Montreal, sadly Karen takes the "what's good enough for the gander" approach and gets some extra-marital nookie for herself. Ah, but when Adam arrives home and finds the two all very much giggly and (al)together, it's astounding how that big green eyed monster in him comes out to play, and how his pathetic jealousy begins to consume him.

School break time comes, and the Adams' decide upon a rather peculiar arrangement. The two of them will take their two bonkubines with them to their country house up in the snow. Karen and Pete are having a ball, but Apeman Adam certainly isn't - what's that one about shoes and feet? Still, all is going kind of OK until their heartbroken daughter Kasey, with a propensity for saying "Holy smoke!' a little too much, rocks up - obviously with no idea that the old ticker is in for a further shock on catching up with her parents. Anyway, Lindsey gets sick of Hannibal's sulking and runs home to Daddy, Hannibal follows, the two old sleazes meet, they all go back to the chalet, Kasey's boyfriend appears and asks for her hand in marriage, Pete has his own demons to face and leaves, Karen gets smitten with Lindsey's father, Adam begins to realise what an utter twat he's been (albeit a little late - HA!) and Bo wears the worst pair of boots I have ever seen in my life...

Hmm, for some reason when I made the review template I always use I stuck the word 'blah' here as a spacer. I should just leave it at that, but then that would be remiss of me...

Cinematically released in a ratio of 1.85:1, this ends up in a non-anamorphic state at somewhere about half way between that and full screen. Almost as scatty as the male lead in the film, the transfer doesn’t seem able to make up its mind whether it should be too dark or too light, so it just merrily bounces between the two throughout the duration of the film, with a number of major and minor black and white specks popping along for the ride. Easily the wishy-washiest DVD transfer I have yet seen, the film is grainy throughout and even wobbly at times. Shadow levels and contrast are ordinary to say the least, and as for skin tones, well it mostly appears as if the makeup department used leftover supplies from the making of The Addams Family.

There's that word 'blah' again - and my what a tempting four letter concoction it is. Served up to us in sinfully flat, Saturday afternoon television movie-style mono, the sound is often fluttery, distorted and just plain icky. Lip synch veers in and out of stability throughout; especially with some notable scenes where what is being mouthed certainly isn't what we're getting to hear. For goodness sakes, here's a film about one of the most sickeningly unpalatable things in the world, marital infidelity, and they feel that we're too dainty to handle the word "shit" (it gets edited to "shi…") - or maybe they were just worried that it was too apt a description of the movie? Needless to say there is no surround or subwoofwoof action whatsoever.

Then there's the soundtrack. Henry Mancini, hang your head in shame - either that or there's another person of the same name as the man who composed the incredible theme to The Pink Panther out there somewhere composting (yes, I meant that) film "music". A dire affair all round, things get even ludicrously worse with the film's theme song, performed by some sop named Kenny Rankin (why bother with the second syllable in the surname?) and entitled Where Do You Catch the Bus For Tomorrow?. Yes really, and I checked the credits and believe it or not it actually WASN'T composed by Milhouse's dad Kirk! Speaking of believe it or nots, it sounds like the worst possible collaboration imaginable between Joey Scarbury, the Starland Vocal Band and Rupert Holmes, and the fact that its nomination for the 'Razzie' for worst song of 1981 didn’t score it a gong leaves me in abject terror of ever suffering that which actually did.

Yeehaw! There are some very up to date Filmographies for five of the actors, and that's it.

Despite the pathetic drivel masquerading as a script, MacLaine does the best I think anybody could with the role vomited up for her, whereas Hopkins telexes in his performance seemingly from somewhere in the vicinity of Virginia (I'll let you figure that one out), and Bo Derek gives us her regulation Barbie Does Hollywood act once again to little effect except perhaps on those teenage boys I mentioned somewhere back there.

A Change of Seasons is an incredibly dodgy film on a decidedly dodgy DVD. You're intelligent people, I'll leave you to make up your own minds...