DVD Review HTF REVIEW - Fletch: The "Jane Doe" Edition (1 Viewer)

[Tim Glover]

Thanks James. That is good news indeed. I was hoping we would see a HD of this film though!

 

[Kevin EK]

I also thank James for looking over the R1 release. It's the one thing I must admit I didn't do when reviewing this release. Under normal circumstances I pick up the prior copy and compare the two. With this one, I just went through the review copy - that's my bad, I should have taken the extra day to grab the old one from Laser Blazer before posting. I probably should have taken a hint from the quality of the trailer on the disc, as that was in considerably worse condition.

However, the transfer quality issue still exists for me - at least in that I didn't expect the earlier transfer to be that much worse. When I saw the grain levels and the washed-out colors, I didn't think that this situation could be that much of an improvement. Lesson learned on that one.

OTOH, the lack of involvement by Chase is a big problem for the supplements.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Yes a real shame that Chevy is nowhere to be founf

 

[GuruAskew]

As a much bigger fan of the books I find it more disappointing that Gregory McDonald wasn't interviewed.

With Michael Ritchie dead and Chase and McDonald not participating you have to wonder what kind of grips and caterers are featured in the doc.

 

[GuruAskew]

Picked this up and watched everything on the disc last night.

The positive: the picture quality is SUBSTANTIALLY improved. It's worth it for that alone. I remember watching both films back-to-back about a year ago and the previous edition left A LOT to be desired and while the new transfer isn't gonna give a modern high-profile blockbuster a run for it's money it's finally been brought up to an acceptable level.

The negative: the extras are TERRIBLE. The comedic bullshit from the featurette is simply obnoxious, arrogant and maybe even insulting. It's like "we did a half-assed job no this so we're gonna try to make up for it in laughs!" and it fails miserably. I honestly, sincerely think that if you break out a stopwatch and clock the amount of screentime everyone gets in the featurette the obnoxious DVD producer will beat all the legitimate participants by a significant margin.

I don't know what David Prior or Charles De Lauzirika or JM Kenny Laurent Bouzereau or any of the other "name" producers look like (and I only know what Van Ling looks like because of his T2 cameo that pre-dates his DVD producer job and the "Alien Quadrilogy" easter egg which is an EASTER EGG) but the one small consolation is that even if this loser succeeded in getting his talentless face on-screen thus becoming the most recognizable of all DVD producers he did it via THE WORST DVD SUPPLEMENTS EVER MADE

The whole thing just reaked of "cheap" and "lazy". We all know Chevy Chase is arrogant to the point that it borders on insane but he's participated in DVD extras in the past and counts "Fletch" as his favorite of all the films he made so I seriously doubt that he was altogether impossible to get for this DVD. Maybe this DVD producer shoulda spent less time filming his "cute" little "Fletch" parody scenes and more time tracking the star of the movie down.

Secondly, there are many members of the supporting cast featured but just as many not. I personally have a hard time believing that people like Joe Don Baker, George Wendt and William Sanderson wouldn't participate. A more likely scenario is that the limited budget and scope of this terrible production didn't have much wiggle room to accomodate things like travel and/or scheduling.

So yeah, instead of hearing comments from the star or the movie you get to hear a story about how Larry Flash Jenkins (who played Gummy) ran too fast when filming his scenes and Michael Ritchie told him to slow down! Oh, man, what a behind-the-scenes gem! It's probably the most bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping anecdote I've ever heard in a DVD feature ever and it's all the more insulting when the rich literary history behind the film is literally reduced to this ""Fletch" started out as a book series. They're great, you should read them."" THAT'S ALL THAT IS SAID ABOUT THEM.

So yeah, when it comes to presentation of the film this DVD delivers a noticeable and well-deserved upgrade but as far as the extras are concerned this is probably the worst attempt at a "special edition" I've ever experienced.

 

[Darren Gross]

Is Kevin Smith on there anywhere? He's a fan of the books and has been trying to make a FLETCH movie for years...

 

[James.M]

We should probably be grateful to get any features at all. We all know Universal spent about $5 on the features budget. Hence no Chevy atc. It could have been better but I didn't find it as obnoxious as you did. A slight overreaction from you methinks. Fletch is not a work of art.

Chevy could have done it for the love of it, but why help Universal fill their coffers when they have no interest in making movies with him any more?

I strongly suspect this to be the reason seeing as he participated on the WB Vacations DVDs.

 

[James@R]

I can appreciate what they tried to do with the making-of, but they devoted far too much valuable time to the 'joke'. These things seem to get lighter every year, so you pretty much hope to see as much info/interviews as possible. It was literally painful to watch so much time wasted on a lame attempt to convince us the dvd was being cheaply made. (Shorter bookends would've made the final Chevy joke a lot funnier.)

And honestly, I'm surprised that Chevy wasn't involved, since he is so fond of the character. I assume it was a money issue, as Universal appears to be on a roll with bare-bones SE's for classic comedies (The Jerk; Smokey and the Bandit).

Also, Kevin Smith isn't included and there's no mention of the attempts to continue the franchise- which is not surprising. However, it would've been nice to have had some acknowledgement of Fletch Lives. As a fan, I would've certainly tried to include some info on the sequel, since it will probably never receive a SE of its own. Of course, without Chevy, there was probably little point.

Oh, who am I kidding. If I had produced the making-of, it would've just been 20 minutes of me hitting on Gail Stanwyk.

 

[James.M]

Kevin Smith has only hindered the franchise. For over ten years, Kevin Smith, first at Universal, and then at Mirimax, supressed all the works of Gregory Mcdonald, especially Fletch by taking options on the work, and not producing.As a result of Kevin Smith's tying up, under pretences which turned out to be FALSE, film rights to Fletch, also tied up were ALL of Gregory Mcdonald's worldwide book rights.

Frankly I'm glad his fat ass wasn't on the DVD.

 

[James@R]

Actually, I am too. I mentioned him only in reply to the question.

 

[george kaplan]

Wrong. Fletch is very much a work of art (as are all films). It may not be an oscar-winning foreign language drama, but that doesn't make it any less "art".

 

[GuruAskew]

Do you really think there would be ANY interest in doing another "Fletch" movie after "Fletch Lives" if not for Kevin Smith?

Here's the reality of the situation: Universal had the rights for years and did nothing with them and the rights lapsed quietly circa 2000.

Around that time someone at Miramax who was familiar with Kevin Smith's love of the series (I believe it was Jon Gordon but don't quote me on that) noticed that the rights were up for grabs again and notified Kevin Smith that he was willing to acquire the rights for Miramax on Smith's behalf.

Due to Smith's busy schedule the note proclaiming the availability of the "Fletch" rights sat on his desk unnoticed for days or even weeks and guess what? When Smith finally got to it THE RIGHTS WERE STILL AVAILABLE BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE WANTED THEM.

Of course Smith wanted the rights and so they were purchased and Smith actively tried to get the ball rolling on the film. The script was written and Smith intended "Fletch Won" to be a quick followup to "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" but Harvey Weinstein was unable to cast Jason Lee in the role due to his poor box-office history (you have to remember that this was pre-"My Name Is Earl") and Smith refused to compromise to the point that both parties were in a standstill. I don't see how that amounts to "false pretenses". Kevin Smith stuck to his guns. Unfortunately that resulted in no movie but "false pretenses" would be if Smith turned around and did more goofy disguise shit with some big star that didn't fit the role after promising a faithful adaptation with Lee.

The timing on this project is sad altogether. Smith was passionate about doing justice to Gregory McDonald's books for a change and when first attached to the role Lee woulda been perfect. By the time Lee was enough of a "name" to star in the movie Smith had moved on and Lee was too old to play Fletch in his early 20's.

The point is, whether you look at Smith's tentative plans to do a third "Fletch" film (a sequel with Chevy Chase) at Universal in the late 90's to his years of work on "Fletch Won" at Miramax there's one common thread and that is that in both cases Smith was the only person in the entertainment industry that had any interest in the property.

Now Bill Lawrence is supposed to be doing it but there's absolutely no denying that "Fletch Won" wouldn't exist as a cinematic production without Kevin Smith's involvement. Of all the books in the series it was Smith's idea to start with the "origin story" and it's obvious that it wouldn't be in any stage of development without the years of momentum that it's gained from Smith's attachment.

Kevin Smith has done more to raise "Fletch" awareness in the last 10 years than anyone else.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Just a quick off-topic aside -- people constantly berate Sony for various reasons, but they've been as generous with extra DVD content, in terms of quality and quantity, as any of the big studios.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Kevin Smitch bitchfest.

 

[GuruAskew]

The only "Fletch" book that the Weinstein Co. doesn't own the rights to is "Confess, Fletch".

The rights to that book are complicated by the fact that it introduces the character of Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn, a character that was spun off into his own 4-book series.

Somebody else owns the "Flynn" rights yet no "Flynn" movie has ever been made. Can you blame Kevin Smith for that? No. You can blame the lack of a "Flynn" movie on the fact that Gregory McDonald has all but given up on writing mysteries and has never come close to matching the success of "Fletch" and "Confess, Fletch".

It's been 13 years since the last novel featuring the Fletch character ("Fletch Reflected") was published and McDonald considers that the second book in the "Son of Fletch" series as the elder Fletch isn't even the central character, and 21 years since the last proper "Fletch" novel ("Fletch Too", the immediate sequel to "Fletch Won"). McDonald's most recent mystery, "Flynn's World" was recently published in 2003 but it was released as an E-book 2 or 3 years before that to no real success and supposedly sat unpublished for several years before THAT.

Clearly the market for Gregory McDonald's properties is pretty much non-existent and I've yet to see anyone produce any shred of credible evidence to suggest that there would be any McDonald-related movie in the works if not for Kevin Smith.

The last one was "The Brave" (which is a brilliant non-mystery novel, by the way) which is supposedly so bad that it's first-time director/star Johnny Depp was humiliated with it to the point where he's never allowed it to be released in America. It must be pretty bad when a movie starring Depp and Marlon Brando collects dust on a shelf. A couple of his other non-"Fletch" books have been adapted into movies as well and they are similarly unavailable and obscure.

I'm a fan of McDonald, I tend to read through his "Fletch"/"Flynn"/"Son of Fletch" series in chronological order about once every year or two and though I find it flawed in many ways I still enjoy the first "Fletch" film but anyone who views Kevin Smith as some sort of boogeyman who has single-handedly stifled a white-hot cinematic entity is completely and utterly ignorant and misinformed.

If you want to blame anyone you can blame the people responsible for the cinematic monstrosity that is "Fletch Lives".

 

[GuruAskew]

I just wanted to point out that this statement is absolutely untrue:


The "Fletch" rights package only applies to the "Fletch" and "Son of Fletch" books and as I said above, "Confess, Fletch" isn't included due to the complications of the inclusion of the "Flynn" character.

 

[Dharmesh C]

"We are no longer in the Chevy Chase business"
So said a Universal exec a few years ago.

 

[GuruAskew]

Yes, this was said to Kevin Smith when he brought up making a sequel to "Fletch Lives" starring Chevy Chase.

They were essentially dumbfounded that he wanted to do it.

This "Mallrats"-era so it had to be around '95. Can Kevin Smith be blamed for the lack of "Fletch" films between '89 and '95?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Kevin Smith can be blamed for starving babies in Africa.

If you really want to.

 

[James.M]

A form of art, but not *art* per se.

Blockbuster comedies even less so.

 

[James.M]

double post.