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DVD Review HTF REVIEW: 50 First Dates: Widescreen Special Edition (1 Viewer)

Michael Osadciw

Screenwriter
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Jun 24, 2003
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Michael Osadciw



50 FIRST DATES
WIDESCREEN SPECIAL EDITION





Studio: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
Film Year: 2004

U.S. Rating: PG-13
Canadian Rating: PG
Rated for: Crude Sexual Humor and Drug References

Film Length: 99 minutes
Genre: Romantic Comedy

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 anamorphic
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Subtitles: English & French
Closed Captioned: Yes
SLP: US $28.95






Release Date: June 15, 2004



Film Rating: :star: :star: :star: 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

Starring: Adam Sandler (Henry Roth), Drew Barrymore (Lucy Whitmore), Rob Schneider (Ula), Sean Astin (Doug Whitmore), Blake Clark (Marlin Whitmore)

Also starring: Lusia Strus, Dan Aykroyd, Amy Hill, Jonathan Loughran, Allen Covert, Peter Dante

Directed by: Peter Segal
Written by: George Wing

Forced Trailers: Seinfeld, Spider-Man 2, White Chicks


Imagine having to win over the girl of your dreams…every friggin’ day.



After the success of The Wedding Singer as the worlds greatest couple (!), Adam Sandler is back with Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, a romantic comedy appropriately set in Hawaii. Sandler plays Henry, a marine biologist living in Hawaii who has a rapport with both his animal patients and female tourists. He’s a funny guy and a playboy, and he makes girls go head over heels for him. It’s no wonder all of his flings want to stay in touch with him.

Henry on the other hand, does not want to see these women again, ever! He’ll come up with any excuse to not see or talk to them, for example, like a lame excuse of being a secret agent and needing to disappear for the girl’s protection. The girls buy his stories and Henry moves onto the next one.

Henry’s desire to attract the tourist changes when he walks into the Hukilah café. He sees this girl named Lucy sitting at a table on her own making a house out of waffles. He’s attracted to her appearance as well as her mystery. In an attempt to give a hand in finishing her waffle house, she invites him to sit with her. The two of them find they get along well and can’t wait to see each other the next day. Unfortunately for Henry, the next day he meets Lucy she doesn’t remember who he is. He’s informed that she has Goldfield’s Syndrome, a short-term memory loss disorder from the result of a car accident she had almost a year prior. It’s a rare case of someone who’s memory is wiped clean after they wake up from sleep the next day, and still think it’s the day before they’ve stopped remembering.

Henry is saddened by her condition, but optimistic he can make a change for her. Each and every day he goes back to that café to try to make her like him over and over again. He can’t take the same approach each day because she responds differently each time. With the help pf his friend Ula, Henry must concoct different ways of getting her to like him each day. But it’s not just Lucy he must win; it’s also her protective father Marlin and her brother with an inferiority complex, Doug. Even though the chances are virtually zero for Lucy to ever remember who Henry is, his love for her makes him try harder and harder and makes him willing to take all of the frustration accompanied with his pursuit.

The film has its funny moments but it’s essentially a basic comedy. What do I mean by that? Well, there really isn’t anything original in this movie. The film tries to be funny by means of old tricks we’ve seen before. Sandler and Schneider get beat up a lot by Barrymore, there’s the old man who can barely speak English who’s tried to be made ‘cute-funny’ by simply giving him lines that simply use the words s*** and a** all of the time. More crude humor comes from Schneider, which is expected. He looks good tanned as a native islander smoking too much grass. As funny as he could be, its old and tiring humor we’ve all seen before.

Astin’s character is the most funny of all. He’s playing the young kid who lifts weights and wears netted muscle shirts to look tough despite having a serious inferiority complex. He adds a little freshness to the screen away from Sandler and is playing something different from his Hobbit role over the past few years.

Barrymore looks really good in this film. Actually, I think she looks her best here. Maybe it’s the colours and the clothes she wears and the Hawaiian setting, but the look of her youth was emitting from the screen in a way I’ve never seen before. Her character really is a tragedy if you think about it. Every day she wakes up not knowing what happened the day before. I would think that the reminders she gets each morning of the previous days would be overwhelming for her causing her to act strange each day and not be as calm as she appeared in the latter part of the film. We do see her break down many times because of her circumstance, but I felt as each day passed in the film, she became calmer with Sandler’s character rather than starting from square one again not knowing who that stranger is and the fact he’s head over heels for her. Thus the movie became more of a movie once Sandler and Barrymore’s relationship developed on screen. The script must to take the audience down that romantic path or else even the viewer would feel like butting heads against the wall trying to make Lucy remember. Still, it’s a nice performance for Barrymore that’s funny along side of Sandler, who plays his typical self. He’s less stupid in this film then some of his other ones, and maybe a little more human than normal. I enjoyed him in this movie and had little to criticize. He sings another song (with his large vocabulary for lyrics) and is accompanied by his Sandler crew of Dante, Covert, and Loughran at different points in the film.


VIDEO QUALITY
:star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This film is presented in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio from its 35mm (Eastman 5213) print. The disc is enhanced for widescreen televisions so you can see all of the resolution provided on this DVD. The image is not spectacular, but it’s not really bad either. The outdoors look beautiful as the scenery really hits a nerve. Why do I live in an industrial city? I have no idea. The beautiful Hawaiian scenery and the low-lying clouds above are displayed nicely on this disc. There are only a few compression artifacts around moving objects in the distance and no annoying edge enhancement is noticed. Most of the film is outdoors and the images are bright and colourful. The golden-yellow sunsets look great on screen and skin tones are always on par with reality. Only a few outdoor shots had a higher black level than normal, but those were isolated incidents. All other indoor scenes with dimmer lighting never looked plugged up or washed out. Beware! A chopped-up fullscreen version exists on the market too.


AUDIO QUALITY :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

Encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1, I found this soundtrack to be more aggressive than normal. Using my reference of –6 on my preamp, the Dolby Digital soundtrack was louder than it usually is and I had to take it down quite a few decibels just to make it comfortable to listen to. The music, mimicking the Hawaiian experience was recorded louder than normal and not very spacious. I also found the dialogue not integrated spatially enough and it carried this forward and slightly boxy tone. Sound effects were fine for the most part and were used mostly in the front soundstage. Surrounds and LFE were used sparingly throughout the film. This is one of those soundtracks that rely solely on the main channels for telling the film.


SPECIAL FEATURES :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

There are a few features on this disc worth checking out. The first is the Drew Barrymore and Peter Segal Commentary we can listen to throughout the film. They are both very enthusiastic when speaking about the film, especially Barrymore who always sounded delighted to speak each moment she had the opportunity to.

All of the following features are presented in 4:3 using various aspect ratios and using DD2.0. Three featurettes are included on this disc. The first is The Dating Scene (20.30) which is a behind-the-scenes footage piece featuring the cast speaking about their experiences on the set and on location as well as how the movie was contrived. Next is a piece called Talkin’ Pidgin (4.54) which explains the slang used on Hawaii. It’s a mixture of English and different Hawaiian dialects becoming almost a language on its own. Lastly, Comedy Central’s “Reel Comedy” (19.38) episode is included featuring Schneider in his character and Sandler in his longer fuzzy curly hair (it almost didn’t look like him!). Like the rest of the Reel Comedy episodes, it goes over the film’s plot and plays clips from it in really bad picture quality.

Of interest is the blooper reel (7.04) and the deleted scenes (5.04). The blooper reels are great and offer a lot of laughs from cast and crew and can give you an idea of the personalities of the actors behind the camera. The deleted scenes don’t add much to the film at all, and they can be viewed with director’s commentary on or off.

There is also a thirty second promotional clip for Sandler’s New Album featuring new crazy songs from the star of this film. Three Music Videos are also included in DD2.0. Their video quality is only O.K. and so are the song remakes for the film. Though I do love the originals, especially ”Love Song” by The Cure. The remake of it here is not bad but doesn’t have the same haunting elements of the original song.

Lastly, Filmographies and previews are included. There is no chapter selection insert, although you do get a sweepstakes card to enter to win a five-day Hawaiian vacation at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Oahu. There are no DVD-ROM features on this disc.


THOUGHTS…

50 First Dates is a cute story for Sandler and Barrymore to be in together. I did enjoy the film and the DVD, but not as much as I had hoped. The tired comedy film genre needs some fresh ideas to make a good comedy. Much of the film’s characters are clichéd but it’s their performances that keep the movie afloat around the island. Also, as mentioned, the audio presentation on the DVD wasn’t as good as other films out there. I hate forward sounding soundtracks because there is big loss in dynamic range. Besides that, the beautiful setting kept my interest in the film because I like to see places I’ve never seen before (some of it was still shot in California). For those brief moments in the film, it was refreshing. Despite still enjoying the movie, I wish I could say the same for the whole film.

Michael Osadciw
04.06.11
 

jonathan_govols

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Messages
123
Well I'm a huge Sandler fan and I must say that this one is my favorite film of his since Happy Gilmore. I just really enjoyed this one alot. I found it to be much funnier than I expected and it has alot of heart. I would definately recommend this one to Sandler fans and any non Sandler fans who liked the Wedding Singer.
 

Colin Jacobson

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2000
Messages
13,328
We get clips for Seinfeld on DVD, Spider-Man 2 and White Chicks. These also appear in the Previews area, where we find additional trailers for 50 First Dates, Hellboy, 13 Going on 30, Secret Window, The Company, Anger Management, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Big Daddy, Punch-Drunk Love, Mr. Deeds, Eight Crazy Nights and a Maverick soundtrack promo.
 

ClaytonMG

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jul 27, 2002
Messages
180
Do you know if it's the full trailer for Spider-Man 2 or if it's the same teaser that Sony has been using on practically all their discs now.

Clayton
 

Carlo_M

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 31, 1997
Messages
13,385
The girlfriend and I saw this and liked it. Yes it had heart, and yes it was funny. Not the greatest romantic comedy, but pretty darned good. My favorite Sandler movie since The Wedding Singer & Happy Gilmore. This will be a day-n-dater for me. Thanks for the thorough review!
 

Nate Anderson

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 18, 2001
Messages
1,152
I saw this just today in the cheap theatre (cheaper than a rental, so why not?) and enjoyed it immensely. Of course, I'm a sucker for Drew Barrymore and I've always enjoyed Adam Sandler for the most part.

I'm going to pick this one up tomorrow as well.
 

Bryan_O

Agent
Joined
Jun 17, 2004
Messages
49
My wife and I watched it last night. We both liked it, laughed quite a bit. But the movie seemed to drag a bit around the hour mark. I think my wife's comment summed it up... "maybe they should have stopped at 40 dates"
 

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