Tweet
Released by: Blue Underground
Released on: 11/16/2004
Director: Susan Seidelman
Cast: Susan Berman, Brad Rijn, Richard Hell, Nada Despotovich, Roger Jett
Year: 1982
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Susan Berman plays Wren, a reasonably obnoxious young lady in her late teens/early twenties who really wants to start up her own band. Problem is she doesn't really seem to have what it takes to make that happen. Soon she meets a nice guy named Paul (Brad Rijn) who has just wandered into town from the midwest and sleeps in his van in a crappy old parking lot downtown.
Paul falls for Wren fast and hard and is pretty much willing to do anything for her right off the bat. Call it infatuation, call it puppy love, whatever you want - but he digs her something fierce. They eventually go out on a date but Wren just isn't feeling the same vibes, and she's far more interested in rock and roll bad boy Eric (played by real life rock and roll bad boy Richard Hell). Sadly for Wren, Eric is a user and a loser and really seems more interested in spongeing off of her more than anything remotely resembling a relationship.
Wren bounces back and forth between the two dudes for a good part of the movie, not really sure what to do about any of this. Eventually Wren gets put into the position where she chooses between the two men, and it affects her dismal life marginally.
A big part of the film focuses on Wren's self esteem issues - she's intent on making everyone believe that her life could be better if she wanted it to be even though in reality she's a bit of a loser, without much ambition. She's got her head in the clouds as far as her music career goes and the prospects in her life as far as the men she's hanging around aren't a whole lot better at first either. She uses people in much the same way that Eric does, though sees herself as a far better person than she sees him. In short, she's a bit of a bitch.
The film is almost completely character driven. The story isn't exactly intense or riddled with action and excitement and the film is more about the people in it than what happens to them. The characters, while not exactly a loveable group, are interesting though and all three of the main leads do a respectable job (Richard Hell was more or less just playing himself here).
Director Susan Siedelman would later go on to some acclaim with her directorial duties on the Madonna film Desperately Seeking Susan and the HBO series Sex In The City. I know this to be true because the packaging makes a point of splashing it all over the top of the box art.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Smithereens comes to DVD in a decent 1.66.1 anamorphc widescreen presentation preserving its original theatrical aspect ratio. The film was shot on 16mm so the grain and rough look inherent with that format sometimes is present and accounted for on this transfer. Detail and color definition is all over the place and varies from scene to scene, though thankfully the image is more or less free of edge enhancement of mpeg compression artifacts. Considering the low budget and low tech roots of the film, things look pretty good but don't go in expecting it to look like the latest Hollywood blockbuster because that isn't going to happen.
Three audio options are provided on this disc, a new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix, a Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Mix, and the film's original mono mix. There's not a ton of difference between the three tracks. All of them are pretty clean given the limitations of the source material and given that almost all of the action and dialogue takes place front and center, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to find that the rears in the 5.1 mix are mainly just used to fill in the space with some background music and ambient noise effects. Overall though, the film sounds pretty good and is free of any major audible problems. It's a simple track but it fits the movie just fine.
Susan Seidelman (and moderator David Gregory) gives a pretty interesting full length audio commentary over top of the film. Seidelman gives a lot of information on the preproduction that went into making the film happen, and explains a lot of the casting choices making mention of a few people, some famous and some not, who were also considered for a few of the roles in the movie. Whenever she seems to run out of things to say, David pops in with another question or two and the track runs along at a nice pace and never seems too crammed or too vapid.
There's also an interview with Susan Berman and Richard Hell entitled Desperately Seeking Susan And Richard that runs roughly twelve minutes in length. The two actors are interviewed at different times and don't actually appear on camera together, but they do talk about each other and what it was like to work with one another. They seem pretty fond on the film as the look back on it, and Hell in particular has some interesting recollections on how his character in the film eerily mirrored his own personal life (and problems therein) at the same time.
A still gallery of video cover art and promo art as well as the theatrical trailer round out the extra features section of this release.
The Final Word:
The Smithereens is a pretty decent counter culture snapshot of New York in the early eighties. The soundtrack is a lot of fun and while the performances border on hammy sometimes, they fit the feel of the story. Blue Underground's DVD looks and sounds okay, and the extras are quite interesting.