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Secretariat
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (14th February 2011). |
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The Film
 After being oversaturated with horseracing movies earlier in the decade, Disney decided it was time to revisit the genre with one of the most famous horses in “Secretariat” (2010). Filled with heavy Christian overtones, Secretariat has blinders on (pun) considering its social placement in the late 60’s and early 70’s, instead focusing on the story of Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) in trying to make some sort of second wave feminist statement about women. Oh and there’s a horse. Beginning with Secretariat’s birth, the movie doesn’t shy away from its melodramatic moments as Chenery rises from ordinary housewife to own one of the most successful horses of all time. With her mother’s death and ailing father, Chenery takes a chance on a coin toss to select an unborn horse. With the help of trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovitch) and groomer Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis), Secretariat, then called Big Red, is prepared for major races, enduring some trials as he starts poorly. Then with a new jockey and renewed hopes, Chenery begins turning Secretariat into the legendary horse that he became, suffering a few missteps on the way including some financial troubles and one loss. One of the initial problems of the story is trying to find drama in a well-known story. As someone who has no interest in horseracing and has never watched a horse race, even I know that Secretariat won the Triple Crown and is probably the greatest racing horse ever. So how do you build the drama around a horse race when everyone knows the outcome? Apparently the answer is melodrama, because writer Mike Rich lays it on thick (not surprising since this guy also wrote "Finding Forrester" (2000), "The Rookie" (2002), "Radio" (2003) and "The Nativity Story" (2006)). Each turn in the story tries to evoke some dramatic emotion with over the top music and some cornball music. When it’s not trying too hard to pull at the heartstrings, the movie is making a series of failed jokes, many of which are height related because jockeys are short and it’s easy to shoot for a laugh. Add on top of that the portrayal of Eddie Sweat, a legendary horse groomer who has his own set of biographies, is never characterized as anything more than a stable hand with a special gift, and a constant supply of humble praise for white folks, and you get an overbearing dramatic plot with a lack of respect for anyone different. But the performances all hit about the notes that are laid out by the writer. Nelsan Ellis does a good job with what’s given to him to portray Sweat, considering he has maybe 10 minutes of screen time and a dozen lines, while Lane as Chenery puts all she can into being the resilient woman who overcomes the odds in a male dominated profession. But that aspect of the story is fairly tangential, as she is portrayed as a housewife when no respect is given to her own achievements like attending Columbia Business School. Instead she is just a rich white archetype, meant to be an everywoman character. Meanwhile Malkovitch realizes that the script isn’t very good and appears bored throughout his performance, keeping in tune with the plodding script (another horse pun). Top it all off with incredibly functional directing from Randall Wallace and you have another sports movie with dramatic undertones based on a true story. The cinematography by Dean Semler brings out the natural surroundings of the film really well, and t's disappointing that some great footage is wasted on a poorly put together story. Throw in a cutesy comparison between a woman and a breeding horse by Chenery’s son, a blind eye to the political era with a very glossy look at hippies and a point in the movie where the husband bluntly says all the things that she has taught them, and you have a ham-fisted attempt to tell a story of a woman who owned one of the most successful horses ever, leaving out the stories of those she worked with to accomplish it all and wrap it in a moralizing Christian undertone and you have “Secretariat”. Don’t forget the 193 minute runtime, an actual feat to turn the movie about one of the fastest sporting events into a 2 hour trot (final horse pun).
Video
Presented in 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 encoding and a 2.35:1 aspect ratio the film has moments of brilliance in lighting and warmth in look, thanks to a good cinematography job, but unfortunately the transfer is incredibly inconsistent. From one shot to the next heavy grain will pop in and out. It’s a jarring experience at times since there are long stretches of cleanliness followed by some poor resolution that just don’t make any sense, especially coming out of the squeaky clean Disney mold.
Audio
The main audio track is an English DTS-HD Master Audio track in 5.1 surround sound mixed at 48kHz/24-bit and it presents another sharp transfer, this time flawed by overuse of somber music and gospel tunes despite an incredibly problematic depiction of black people. Still the levels are all there and the sound moves properly on the horse racing track where it emphasizes the breath and gallop of the horses to really bring a race to full effect. If only there was a decent script to match the track. There’s also an English Descriptive Video Service Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track, along with French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. There are English, French and Spanish subtitles, both for the film itself and the commentary track.
Extras
The 2-disc set is a Disney combo pack, including Blu-ray and DVD, with featurettes, deleted scenes, promos and bonus trailers shared between the two, as well as an audio commentary and extra featurettes on the Blu-ray. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY The audio commentary with director Randall Wallace. His voice doesn’t bring a lot of energy to the track, and so it’s incredibly boring to try and listen to. Wallace does a fairly typical job in discussing some of the interesting facts about the movie, shooting locations, praising the actors, writer, etc. But then goes on long sections of silence, until popping back in to add a little bit of information. It’s not an engaging commentary track in the least, and some of the major aspects of the film have already been covered in the featurettes, but he throws in a few good bits of information, but it’s not worth sitting through. Next on the disc is the featurette called “Heart of a Champion” which runs for 14 minutes and 56 seconds, speaking with the writer, director, actors and real life people involved in the story. The featurette is the story of the horse himself, with people praising the horse and some good archive footage of the actual horse races, along with people actually involved describing the events as they happened and as they saw them. As a background featurette it’s well put together and gives anyone interested further in the story of Secretariat a bit more information. “Choreographing the Races” the second featurette, runs 6 minutes and 27 seconds, speaking mostly with the director and crew, trying to establish how they put together the different races. They speak with Rusty Hendrickson, the horse trainer who prepared the 5 different horses used in the film, looking at the different angles that they had to put together in the film, going through some of the problems that they went through for the film. “A Director’s Inspiration: A Conversation with The Real Penn Chenery” featurette runs for 21 minutes and 12 seconds, and like the title implies it’s an extended interview with Penny Chenery. Speaking with director Randall Wallace, Chenery talks about the need for her to distance herself from the film, even mentioning some of the parts that were altered for dramatic effect, how she thought the film captured her. She at one point goes so far to say that she didn’t realize some of the emotions of the situation at the time until she saw the film, which makes me question some of the film’s dramatic decisions to pull out these emotions when they may not have been expressed at the time. Still it’s nice to include the interview so you can hear Chenery’s voice, though I wish there had been the chance to hear from others, but most of the other major players have died. Next are the 7 deleted scenes, with introduction and optional audio commentary by director Randall Wallace, playable together described below. - “Director’s Introduction” runs for 40 seconds, Wallace talks about the scenes that got cut, describing these as the scenes that he loved. - “Alternate Opening” runs for 1 minute and 18 seconds, Eddie Sweat was originally the narrator of the story, but it was changed to bible verse. Wallace talks about this more of a casual opening, he says they cut it because the audience is quick on the take. - “Memories” runs for 1 minute and 1 second, Chenery takes a walk down memory lane at her family home after her mother’s death. Wallace explains these moments were condensed already into other scenes of the film and so decided to cut them. - “Introduction” runs for 41 seconds, Secretariat is introduced to his new jockey by Sweat, Wallace felt it wasn’t necessary. - “Are you a Golfer?” runs for 1 minute and 52 seconds, Laurin takes Turcotte golfing, but he golfs poorly. Wallace explains he filmed it to see if magic happened, but it wasn’t enough to keep it in the final cut of the film. - “Seth Joins the Team” runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds, Seth Hancock joins the team, Wallace talks about needing to keep some of the heart hidden in the final cut. - “No Time to Rest” runs for 2 minutes and 27 seconds, Laurin leaves Turcotte on the jockey bench after the loss, Chenery hangs her head, but her husband shows up and they have a serious conversation. Wallace says it bogs down the story. - “Too Soon to Celebrate” runs for 1 minute and 47 seconds, Chenery talks to her husband and thanks him for bringing the kids, Wallace says that it may be too much to overemphasize how much Penny loves her family. The music video on the disc is “It’s Who You Are” by A.J. Michalka and runs 4 minutes and 2 seconds. Next is the "Secretariat Multi-Angle Simulation" feature that tries to simulate the different perspectives on the race: - “Jockey” goes from the jockey’s perspective with audio commentary by Jockey Mike Smith, and runs 3 minutes and 43 seconds. Smith talks about what it’s like riding a horse, spliced in with footage from the film. Then it gets comical, there is an absolutely ridiculous looking computer simulation of what the jockeys perspective could have looked like, it looks like a bad horse racing game for the Nintendo 64 or original PlayStation. I cannot describe how cheap it looks. - “Reporter” runs for 5 minutes and 9 seconds, and talks with Racing Reporter Brad Free, discussing the job of the trainer and how hard horses run, but it keeps throwing into the terrible looking simulation that reminds me of a computer game that I played when I was twelve. Free talks about what he saw from his perspective. - “Historian” runs for 3 minutes and 35 seconds, speaking with Preakness Owner Dennis Mills, giving a bit of background of the race and the Preakness and the historic importance of horseracing and the importance of the moment in the silly looking simulation. - “Spectator” runs for 4 minutes and 14 seconds, speaking with Michael Calderon, speaking to his own childhood seeing Secretariat at the horseraces. His claim to fame is the actual designer of horseracing simulation and videogames, but apparently the graphics in the horseracing genre haven’t advanced in a very long time. - “Actual Race” runs for 2 minutes and 12 seconds, using the footage of the actual race to show Secretariat’s race at the Preakness. Why they had everyone commentate on the silly looking simulation is beyond me when they had the actual footage of the race, the different perspectives that they claimed didn’t really do anything. Finally is “Discover Blu-ray 3D with Timon & Pumbaa” promo which runs for 4 minutes and 23 seconds, an infomercial for Blu-ray 3D. Bonus trailers on the disc include: “Disney Blu-ray 3D” runs for 1 minute and 25 seconds. “Disneynature African Cats” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds. “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. “Cars 2” runs for 35 seconds. “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure” runs for 2 minutes and 10 seconds. “The Incredibles” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. “Spooky Buddies” runs for 1 minute and 1 seconds. “The Lion King” runs for 1 minute and 23 seconds. “Fineas and Pherb: Across the 2nd Dimension” runs 22 seconds. DISC TWO: DVD The “Heart of A Champion” featurette repeats here, as do 3 deleted scenes “Memories,” “Seth Joins the Team” and “Too Soon to Celebrate” along with the director introduction and audio commentary on those scenes. There’s also the same music video from the Blu-ray, and the “Discover Blu-ray 3D” promo advertisement. The only new special feature is the usual “Dylan & Cole Sprouse: Blu-ray is Suite” promo advertisement that runs for 4 minutes and 45 seconds. This disc's bonus trailers are: “Disney Blu-Ray” runs for 1 minute and 8 seconds. “Disneynature African Cats” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds. “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. “Cars 2” runs for 36 seconds. “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure” runs for 1 minute and 52 seconds. “The Incredibles” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. “Spooky Buddies” runs for 1 minute and 1 seconds. “The Lion King” runs for 1 minute and 23 seconds. “Fineas and Pherb: Across the 2nd Dimension” runs for 22 seconds.
Overall
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