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I-See-You.Com
R2 - United Kingdom - High Fliers Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin & Samuel Scott (19th June 2013). |
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The Film
 Sometimes movies are produced, put out into the market and just never get picked up, they live in some sort of limbo that keeps them from seeing a sort of release for years. Sometimes they never see the light of public release outside of film festivals, others they gather enough of a following that they finally see what happens and become the foundation of cult cinema. But of course there are others, ones with large enough names to live in this neutral zone for a short time where they may or may not see a real release and then reemerge later as an out of nowhere dvd. And that’s about all “I-See-You.Com” (2006) really is, but I’m not even sure if it deserved this new life it’s been given on DVD. The film opens with Harvey Bellinger’s (Beau Bridges) parole hearing after spending some years in prison for blowing up his own home, framing most of the story in his plea to the parole committee as to why he was driven to that destructive act. Apparently it started after his marriage to his childhood fantasy Lydia Ann Layton (Rosanna Arquette) whose son computer savvy son Colby (Matthew Botuchis) begins an internet website based on a secret camera he has hidden in his step sisters room. Soon the voyeuristic site is a hit, earning Colby $17,000 a week and giving him and girlfriend Randi (Shiri Appleby) the idea to wire Colby’s entire home with cameras creating an online reality show based on the odd exploits of this family. Many of the problems are rooted in Eric Steven Stahl and Sean McLain’s predictable and monotonous script. Loaded with far too many ‘timely’ jokes based on the film’s 2001 setting, like expecting laughs for Enron jokes, is just the beginning of the film’s problem. The film is put together with a laugh-track in mind as each comedic beat allows you far too long to laugh and when none of the jokes are falling, there’s just dozens of awkward silences and bad pauses. So much time is spent talking about how Botuchis’ character has predicted the internet video boom there’s no real meat to the plot. But of course the acting can’t go much further, and it even brings the movie further down. Botuchis’ character of the hipster-nerd is annoying enough, but combined with his terrible acting it’s painful to watch him for ten minutes, let alone the full hour and a half runtime of the film. The rest of the cast is equally bad, or at least unimpressive. Bridges and Arquette don’t seem really committed to the movie, as they shouldn’t, and the other names that pop up in the cast are lackluster at best. Building this bad acting off of a terrible script gets even worse as the cast tries to deliver all of the knowing/wink-wink jokes that just plain aren’t funny. Overall, “I-See-You.Com” is fairly disinteresting and feels like it was made to try and capitalize off of the teen sex comedy resurgence of the early 2000’s, but just fell too late and too far off the mark. I think they tried to bury a message in the film about the whole 15 minutes of fame sparked by the internet, but it just doesn’t come through and isn’t worth caring about. Bottom line: the acting is bad, the writing is bad and it’s just not fun to watch in the least.
Video
High Fliers release "I-See-You.com" on dvd in the United Kingdom at a slightly cropped 1.78:1 aspect ratio which has been anamorphically enhanced. The picture quality is strictly average throughout. There are many facial close-ups in the movie, and although detail can be good during these moments, there is a loss of sharpness in the blacks, particularly with Matthew Botuchis' and Shiri Appleby's darker hair. There are some minor, yet noticeable, compression artefacts - and these become more obvious during the occasional moments that CGI is (poorly) used in the feature. Colours rarely pop, but at the same time they don't feel washed out, and there are signs of edge enhancement. I'd have expected better for a recent film with a reasonably well-known cast, but it's certainly passable.
Audio
Two audio tracks have been included: - English Dolby Digital 5.1 - English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo I opted for the 5.1 track and it was adequate. On the plus side, I didn't notice any audio dropouts that Jeremiah reported to be present on the R1 release, but outside of that, there's nothing here to really praise. The feature is dialogue driven with very little opportunity to fully utilise the surrounds or LFE, though we do get a little push for the score when the occasion requires it. Dialogue is always clear, but sounds flat, with a lack of directionality. There didn't appear to be any scratches or any other signs of damage. Overall, the audio remains true to the movie - it has no imagination. No subtitles are included.
Extras
Just a few start-up trailers for other High Fliers releases: - "Days of Glory" (2:07) - "Danika" (1:56) - "Sleeping Dogs Lie" (1:47)
Overall
Film reviewed by Jeremiah Chin. A/V and extras reviewed by Samuel Scott.
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