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Wonderful World
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Magnolia Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (2nd April 2010). |
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The Film
 I often wonder what happens to certain writers, directors and actors. Some make their mark – as Joshua Goldin did in the early 90's writing Sam Raimi’s “Darkman” (1990) – only to basically vanish for years, never to be heard from again until decades later. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, and in some cases, such as what happened to Daniel Waters, often my go to example of the vanishing “artist”, they disappear into the underbelly of Hollywood to ghost rewrite many troubled but expensive projects. I don’t know if that’s what happened to Goldin, but like Waters, the writer has reemerged from wherever he was hiding for all those years, reborn as a writer/director. Goldin’s directorial debut, “Wonderful World”, which he also wrote, is not an earth-shattering return of epic proportions. It’s more a whimper-y reminder that he was always here – just laying low. I really didn’t expect a triumphant return – particularly because “Darkman” was not a groundbreaking script to begin with – but, also because “Wonderful World” is a small indie movie, that barely found a distributor, and was in so few theaters, for such a short time, that I honestly didn’t even know it existed until it showed up as a preview trailer on a Magnolia Blu-ray a couple of months back. The film is not a great work of fiction – not the product of the next Great American Screenplay™ – but, honestly, it’s not a bad film by any means either. A mediocre one perhaps, and the terms “slightly underwhelming”, “cliché” and “a little depressing”, spring to mind almost instantly…. but not a terrible work in the least. What it is then is a middling film that has sprinkles of excellence within. A film that is sound in premise, and technically a finely executed piece of cinema, but genuinely lukewarm and a little doughy in finality. Ben (Matthew Broderick) is a “glass is half-empty” kind of guy; quick to point out faults, and the terribleness of life. In a word, he’s depressing – but sort of understandably so. A failed musician, once sort-of-famous for his string of children’s Folk albums, he was cast aside by the industry, his fans, his ex-wife (who’s now happily remarried) and, recently, his 11-year-old daughter, who, although she dutifully loves him and spends her weekends in his care, is becoming less and less accepting of his downtrodden ways. Newly jobless and fighting the city over legal issues, when his Senegalese roommate Ibou (Michael Kenneth Williams) slips into a diabetic coma, prompting said roommates sister, Khadi (Sanaa Lathan) to travel to the States, Ben accepts this attractive and alluring new woman into his home and life. Through her upbeat spiritualism, rhythmic dancing and easy going attitude, Khadi helps Ben reconnect with the society that he so blatantly despises, and the daughter he’s in danger of losing. Of praise, I have this to say: Broderick is excellent. He’s sulky and unpleasant; disenchanted and miserable and not likable but at the same time not hateable. He’s perfectly in tune with what his character needs to be like throughout the whole film. And, for what it’s worth, I think he can hold the picture on his own. Also, Goldin’s script, while totally flawed, is at least emotionally honest and he directs his actors well, able to pull what’s needed into any particular scene. But, said praise is faint, for Broderick is nearly always good – even in “Godzilla” (1998) he wasn’t terrible; horrible miscast, yes. But did he give a bad performance? No. So, to say that Broderick gives a good performance here is essentially stating the obvious. And, even though there are some strong positives to say about Goldin’s turn as a director, he definitely lacks distinct visual flair or a unique style, and as a writer, is not very good with dialogue, often writing hollow, stilted exchanges. The ending, without spoiling it, is pretty disheartening, but in a good way. I will say that for as cliché as the rest of the film is, for Goldin to end the film in the way that he does, and what it means for his dejected character, I do commend him. The end is satisfying, but not completely. He goes for the un-sappy. Ben gets some things, but not others. It’s a very fitting, “the glass is half-full” sort of conclusion to a very “half-empty” film.
Video
“Wonderful World” sports a rather brilliant 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 high definition transfer, framed in the film original theatrical ratio of 1.78:1. The opening credits are surprisingly spotty, with more than a few nicks and white specks – something that I wouldn’t have expected given that the film was released within the last year – but that odd sequence is a fluke in an otherwise worthy affair. Colors are bold, but natural. Facial detail is sufficient, and Broderick’s stubble offers plenty of intricate hairs to be rendered. There is a light dust of mild, unobtrusive film grain present, but it remains well digitized and not at all blocky. Contrast is pretty good, and blacks, inky, but overall the picture is flat. In all, this is a solid disc with few issues, and while the film is mostly absent of the kind of visuals that could be considered eye-candy (this is a fairly low budget film after all), the image retains a film-like texture, unassaulted by the needless tinkering of DNR or artificial sharpening.
Audio
An English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track provides the sound for the film, and it does a decidedly decent job. The soundtrack is almost exactly what one would expect for a dramatic flick – solid, front focused dialogue; mild but appropriate surround use and a mix that is relatively light on bass. For the most part “Wonderful World” abides by its genre conventions concerning sound. But, it doesn’t always. Craig Richey’s score and original music is a legitimate bright spot, and during certain sequences the music causes the mix to open up, exploding with rich, powerful vibrancy. The moments may be few and far between, but they exist. And even without those brief flashes, the dialogue and quiet nuances retain the crystalline clarity of lossless sound. English for the hearing impaired and Spanish subtitles are included.
Extras
Sometimes Magnolia Home Entertainment really impresses in the extras department. Look to the sprawling assortment of content afforded to “The Mutant Chronicles” (2008) or even the small, but effective array of material on “World’s Greatest Dad” (2009) as proof. “Wonderful World” is sadly of the second camp, with a genuinely disappointing display of mediocre material, amounting to less than 15-minutes of mostly-fluffy featurettes. Worse yet most of said material is presented in standard definition. Things begin with “As Soon As Fish Fall Out of the Sky: Character and Story of ‘Wonderful World’”, a less-than-stellar featurette, made up of interviews culled entirely from the films EPK, intermixed with (too many) clips from the film. 4 minutes 32 seconds, 16x9 enhanced widescreen. Next, “Behind-the-Scenes: Working with writer/director Josh Goldin and Actor Matthew Broderick” featurette looks to be mostly part of the same series of interviews that they used to create the longer featurette above, only they edited this to focus on the director, who Broderick mentions is an old friend who wrote one of his early 90's vehicles. Still too many film clips, but some B-roll is present as well. 1 minute 30 seconds, in 4x3 standard definition. The generically titled “Behind-the-Scenes Montage” is just that. The featurette is a mishmash of B-roll footage, not edited in any particular fashion and set against a piece of music from the film. This featurette and the two previous pieces really could have been tied together by someone with Final Cut Express installed on their laptop, in like 20 minutes, to make a slightly longer, undoubtedly better, but still mediocre, featurette. 1 minute 28 seconds, in 4x3 standard definition. Honestly I’m not a huge fan of the usual HDNet fluff included on Magnoila’s various home video releases, but compared to the other material above “HDNet: A Look at ‘Wonderful World’” featurette is a great little discussion. Yes, film clips abound and the whole aesthetic has a very commercialized feel, but I learned more about the production in this featurette than in anything anywhere else on the disc and admittedly this is one HDNet first look that is a cut above the regular crud. 4 minutes 41 seconds, in 1080i with 2.0 DTS. “Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment” includes a collection of bonus trailers, nearly all of which are encoded in 1080p high definition: - “Red Cliff.” 2 minutes 8 seconds. - “District 13: Ultimatum.” 2 minutes 2 seconds. - “The Warlords.” 2 minutes 9 seconds. - "HDNet" promo, 1 minute 2 seconds, in 1080i. Finally, Magnolia has included their standard double punch of sort-of extras via a bookmark feature and BD-Live access. Per usual, although the disc is BD-Live enabled, “Wonderful World” has no exclusive content available for download at this time. Instead, I was greeted with a message to check back later for updates.
Overall
Decent, unspectacular, okay – “Wonderful World” is not a great move. But, it is an acceptable one. Broderick is capable and at times extraordinary in his role, and it takes balls to make your main character such a miserable, unhappy person. Magnolia’s Blu-ray is pretty surprising, with both audio and video scoring well above average. Extras are disappointing though. Cautiously Recommended.
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