Tweet
Released by: Blue Underground
Released on: 11/15/2005
Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Bill Hunter, Wendy Hughes, Chris Haywood, Gerard Kennedy
Year: 1978
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Len Maguire (Bill Hunter) and Chris Hewitt (Chris Haywood) travel around Australia capturing the news as it happens for the Cinetone Company. In short, they're camera men out shooting footage for news reels, those little short films that were shown in theaters to get new items out to people before the advent of television. Len's brother, Frank (Gerard Kennedy), works for News Company International, a competing agency that's also in the news reel business, and because of some of Frank's less than ideal practices, there's a bit of rivalry between the two brothers, much to Len's dismay, who is quite insulted by his brother's behavior and rightfully so.
As Len's career starts to take off, it begins to eat away at his personal life. He's newly married but rarely sees his wife as he's always being carted off from one disaster to the next, covering brush fires and floods that require him to be away from home more often than his wife would like. While this is going on, Frank considers heading to the United States where he sees a future in television reporting. Len, on the other hand, is fully committed to his craft and doesn't intend to abandon the news reel format any time soon despite the looming threat of television on the not so distant horizon. Unfortunately for Len, television will hit fast and explode even faster, rendering his position obsolete almost over night.
Less a cohesive narrative and more a series of short stories put into one larger context, Newsfront is an interesting fictionalized account of a long dead industry, but one that was very important in its time. Directed by Phillip Noyce, who would later go on to helm Dead Calm and Clear And Present Danger, it's a little long and a little dry in spots but manages to be a pretty satisfactory watch none the less thanks to a great lead performance from Bill Hunter (of Blue Murder) and some clever direction.
Noyce keeps our attention by shifting from recreated black and white news reel footage to the events that unfold for the characters which is shown in full color. This makes for some interesting visual transitions that contrast the events in the story to the events that take place in the news. Some obvious care and attention to detail ensures that the movie always looks good, even when it's apparent that not a whole lot is actually happening in some scenes.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Supposedly the film was shown projected at 1.66.1, which would make Blue Underground's 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer slightly cropped but in terms of compromising the compositions created for the film, nothing looked too altered even if the framing on a couple of scenes looked just a little tight. Color reproduction was strong and there weren't any problems with print damage or debris save for a couple of scenes here and there that showed some moderate to heavy film grain. There's plenty of both foreground and background detail present in the image and overall, things look pretty decent on this release.
Even in the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix on this release, most of the action comes at you from the front and center channels, with the rears being used mainly to build up some ambient noise and some background music. Dialogue is clean and clear and it comes through free of any hiss or distortion, though those who have difficulty with Australian accents might lament the fact that there aren't any subtitles supplied. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track doesn't have the depth that the Surround Sound track does but it still gets the job done quite nicely.
First up is a full length audio commentary featuring director Phillip Noyce, producer and co-writer Dave Elfick and co-writer Bob Ellis with scene specific participation from a few of the performers from the movie including Wendy Hughes and Bill Hunter. This is a very detailed and informative look at how the movie was part together and what parts each of the participants played in the production. Noyce and Elfick have the most to say, covering the pre-production and post-production aspects of the movie but the others are able to cover their roles fairly well too.
Blue Underground has also supplied two featurettes for this release. The first one, The Last Newsreel, is an eleven-minute is a phoney newsreel that pretends to report how newsreel footage has proven to be valuable historical documentation over the years and how they need to be preserved. The second featurette, 1978 Australian Film Institute Awards Exceprts, is exactly what it sounds like - just under four-minutes of clips from the awards show where some of the cast and crew members take home the honors that year.
Rounding out the extra features for the release are some informative production notes that detail the history of the film, some DVD-Rom features (a study guide, a piece on the restoration of the film, and a collection of reviews), and the film's original theatrical trailer.
The Final Word:
Blue Underground has done a fine job on this release. Those with a penchant for journalism stories ought to get a kick out of Newfront and the movie is well made and well acted, even if it wasn't constant, edge of your seat excitement.