A Few Words About A few words about...™ Doc Hollywood -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Kevin Collins

A few words about...™ Doc Hollywood -- in Blu-ray

Doc Hollywood is, in many way, your typical "fish out of water" tale.

Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, who, of course, grew up close to the Florida locations where Doc Hollywood shot, knows the country back-woods folks.

And that may be a major reason why this charming film works.

A doctor, hoping for a new job in LA, has an incident with cattle on the road whilst on his way, and ends up -- no spoilers here -- spending several weeks in Grady.

And Grady is the swellest town that one could ever desire to live.

Especially with Julie Warner, as Lou, one of the locals, who may have one of the finest on-line intros since John Wayne in Stagecoach and Mr. Sharif in Aurens.

Warner Archive has seen fit to work their magic on Doc Hollywood, and we are the beneficiaries.

Gorgeous color -- it was shot by Michael Chapman -- perfect grain structure, wonderful resolution. The package is typical Warner Archive quality, which means that it's about as perfect as it might be.

Does it hold up, a quarter of a century later?

Beautifully.

It's still the sweet tale that Mr. Caton-Jones (of the Florida Joneses) gave us.

And Mr. Fox is delightful, as always.

Image - 5

Audio - 5 (2-track stereo)

Pass / Fail - Pass

Upgrade from the DVD - Yes

Recommended

RAH

 

[AlanPaterson]

Nice leg pull Mr 'arris. I'd pretty much lost track of Michael Caton-Jones after 'Memphis Belle'.

 

[JoshZ]

My children subjecting me to too many viewings of Pixar's Cars has dampened any desire to watch this movie again.

 

[Carlo_M]

I just bought this because of some deep nostalgia from my high school days. Looking forward to giving it a spin soon. Michael J Fox was a huge part of my childhood (loved Family Ties as well as the BTTF movies).

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

Finally got to review it on the 70. Ditto what RAH said about the technical aspects. Image quality was out of this world. And where were girls like Julie Warner's "Lou" character when I was a young single professional?

Excellent post-BTTF series effort from Michael J. Fox. Not quite as deep as say Light Of Day (1987, when is that coming to Blu?) but more entertaining if you just want some feel-good funny 90s fluff.

 

[Alberto_D]

When watching Michael J. Fox in young roles I try not to remamber about his Parkinson condition, otherwise I get a bit sad.
Hope medical science find better ways to help hin and others in similar conditions. J Fox's foundation already raised 650 million dollars for research.

Anway the 80's and very early 90's had films more full of life than today. It wasn't a depressive decade.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

Anway the 80's and very early 90's had films more full of life than today. It wasn't a depressive decade.

You nailed it my friend!

 

[Alberto_D]

Take Ferris Bueller's Day off.
Why people still like it, and like the characters ?

The formula it's very simple, they were nice people. Nice people getting fun. No steroids, no vulgarity, no porn of porn insinuation, no greed selfish guys.
Ferris wasn't a tall strong football player. He was just a normal guy, nice, with good social habilities. His best friend a good pal but with some troubles Ferris tried to help. His girfriend a not a bombshell, but a nice friendly cute girl with feelings. Three people who cared about each other. And they got hell of lot fun... The only violence was more like comedy from old cartoons.

Back to the Future. A guy trying to have a band, best friend of a "crazy" scientist, with a nice girfriend, dreaming with better days, trying to save his family, his friend and hinself. That was easy to like and enjoy such films.
Not all during 80's was good, but it wasn't a depressant era as later decades.

Today it's like many films and TV series are telling us that we are weak needing fitness or steroid, or telling us we are poor, not well dressed enough or not a Don Juan, or sad depressed if we are all that or whatever. Looks like a conspiracy to make people consume more. Turn people to feel like a crap, to persuade them to go ahead to get all these thing they preach we need.
And the weird of that all, is that we are surruounded by fake politically correctness about a lot of over exaggerated "isms" (like Ferris would said) about everthing.
In search of a "isms" free society that don't give a dawn to anybody, with friends they can delete in a second.

You nailed it my friend!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Finally got around to watching this tonight. In the early nineties, it seemed like every movie had a warm color palette like this one. I miss those days.

Lots of good character actors in this one.

 

[Mark Booth]

We showed 'Doc Hollywood' in the Booth Bijou Garage Theater a couple of weeks ago. Our guests loved it. I was surprised that many hadn't seen it before. I hadn't watched it since I got the DVD version in the late '90s. I got rid of the DVD about 10 years ago and was pleased to add it back to my collection on Blu.

Mark

 

[Colin Jacobson]

We showed 'Doc Hollywood' in the Booth Bijou Garage Theater a couple of weeks ago. Our guests loved it. I was surprised that many hadn't seen it before. I hadn't watched it since I got the DVD version in the late '90s. I got rid of the DVD about 10 years ago and was pleased to add it back to my collection on Blu.

Mark

That cheapo 1.33:1 DVD from 1998 looked awful - one of very few DVDs I gave an "F" for picture quality.

The 2016 widescreen release was a substantial improvement but still mediocre.

The Blu-ray finally brings us an appealing "Doc"!

 

[Tony Bensley]

That cheapo 1.33:1 DVD from 1998 looked awful - one of very few DVDs I gave an "F" for picture quality.

The 2016 widescreen release was a substantial improvement but still mediocre.

The Blu-ray finally brings us an appealing "Doc"!

DOC HOLLYWOOD (1991) is a strong candidate for the disc with which I plan to break my yearlong no disc buying moratorium after the Mrs and I move into our new digs. We saw this one in the Theatre the year we were married, and I'm glad that it has finally got the kind of release it deserves! This also has one of my favorite David Ogden Stiers' performances outside of M*A*S*H, with his animated appearance as the Clock in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, that we also saw that same year, as the other! May he rest in peace.

CHEERS!

 

[TonyD]

That cheapo 1.33:1 DVD from 1998 looked awful - one of very few DVDs I gave an "F" for picture quality.

The 2016 widescreen release was a substantial improvement but still mediocre.

The Blu-ray finally brings us an appealing "Doc"!

But there is “additional” image that can be seen in that version.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

But there is “additional” image that can be seen in that version.

Assuming you mean Julie Warner, nope - there's no additional skin seen in the fullscreen DVD!

AFAIK, the only version that may've revealed more nudity is the VHS - unless there was a fullscreen LD. I had the widescreen LD.

But the fullscreen DVD kept Warner cropped below the waist...

 

[David Norman]

From all reports I can find she's wearing underwear or bikini bottoms in the Open Matte versions. Seems I remember looking years ago on some VHS tape and that seems correct.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

From all reports I can find she's wearing underwear or bikini bottoms in the Open Matte versions. Seems I remember looking years ago on some VHS tape and that seems correct.

She does wear underpants - the water makes 'em see-through, though...