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| Dvdivas
was founded by John Gabbard in 2000. It's purpose has been and
remains to be to provide you, the entertainment community with
the latest dvds and movie reviews. It will continue to be your
link to the most popular dvd movies. |
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"Party of Five"
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Reviewed
by: |
Wayne A. Klein |
| Genre: |
Drama |
| Video: |
1.33:1 Full
Screen |
| Audio: |
Dolby Digital
Stereo Surround 2.0 Languages: English |
| Languages |
English |
| Subtitles |
English |
| Length |
984 minutes
|
| Rating |
NR |
| Release Date |
5/4/04 |
| Studio |
Columbia
Tristar Home Video |
| Commentary:
|
By actors
Scott Wolf, Lacey Habert, Matthew Fox and creators Chris Keyser,
Amy Lippman on the pilot,"Thanksgiving" and "The Ides of March";
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| Documentaries:
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"A Look Back"
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| Featurettes:
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"A Family Album" |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None |
|
Interviews: |
Chris Keyser
and Amy Lippman |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
None |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
None |
| Music
Video: |
None |
| Other:
|
None |
| Cast
and Crew: |
Scott Wolf,
Matthew Fox, Neve Campbell, Lacey Chabert, Jennifer Love Hewitt,
Paul Devicq, Scott Grimes, Michael Goorjian |
| Written
By: |
Amy Lippman,
Christopher Keyser |
| Produced
By: |
Amy Lippman,
Christopher Keyser |
| Directed
By: |
Daniel Attias,
Lou Antonio, David Dworetzky |
| Music:
|
NA |
| The
Review: |
A soap opera without the suds, "Party
of Five" dealt with tragedy and the shift from adolescence
to adulthood in a mature, intelligent way during its run on
television. The Salinger children are dumped into the lap
of adulthood when their parents are killed by a drunk driver.
The children range in age from mid-twenties to preteen. The
youngest of the clan are forced to sacrifice childhood to
the acute awareness that life is finite giving up the sense
of invulnerability that most children feel until they reach
young adulthood. Each of the Salinger clan whether it be Charlie
(Fox), Bailey (Wolf), Claudia (Chabert) and Julia (Campbell)
must take on a responsibility well beyond their years. For
Charlie this becomes a particular burden as he has just begun
to taste the excitement of young adulthood and is forced to
give it up to step into the void left by his mother and father.
***
Unlike daytime or evening soap
operas, the situations the conflicts the Salinger's faced
were more grounded in reality. The fine ensemble acting and
top notch writing and direction of the series made it a stand
out during it's seven year run on Fox. It's a rarity to find
a drama aimed at teens that deal with themes of loss, drug
addiction, the conflicts within a family in such a mature,
level headed way. ---
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| Image
and Sound: |
The transfer
for these 22 episodes looks particularly good. It looks like
the original negatives were used for the DVD transfer and, although
it doesn't state that these are anamorphic transfers (which
means, unlike anamorphic aspect ratio which refers to the dimensions
of the picture, that the transfers were squeezed and then returned
to normal for display. The result is a higher quality picture
with more information), the presentation and clarity sure suggests
it is. The sound is presented in the original Surround stereo
format that the show was broadcast in and sounds pretty good
with good clarity, bass and tremble response. Some fans of the
series have grumbled that the original music hasn't been retained
for all the episodes. Unfortunately, I can't recall which songs
appeared in which episodes although that's entirely possible.
It could be due to licensing issues which is the same problem
that has held up "Miami Vice" on DVD. --- |
| The
Extras: |
We get a 9 part "documentary" which
examines the creation of the show, the pitch to the network
and its reaction from the fan base. Essentially, it's a series
of interconnected featurettes. Since it's broken up you can
visit each section and come back to it should you not have
time to watch the entire "documentary" back to back. Luckily,
the DVD producers were able to round up much of the cast,
production crew and others involved in the show for their
comments and observations about the series. ***
The second featurette "A Family
Album" covers much of the same ground as the beginning of
the "documentary" and the commentary on the pilot episode.
Nevertheless, there are a number of comments and observations
by the series creators that are unique to this particular
featurette. My suggestion is to not watch all of this back-to-back
as you'll feel as if you're watching the same material twice.
Finally there's an episode guide with a brief synopsis and
production credits for each episode similar to other series
like, "Babylon 5", "24" and "Dark Angel". ---
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| Commentary:
|
There's a
nice group commentary by most of the cast and the series creators/writers/producers
Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman. The combined commentary approach
allows for a bit more diversity and different points of view
about shooting the pilot, how the cast worked together, etc.
Curiously, the only cast member missing is Neve Campbell. Perhaps
she was unavailable for the commentary track. Either way, I'd
suggest to the producers that they have one or two cast members
do commentary on a couple of episodes vs. cramming everyone
onto a single commentary track for just one episode. While not
everyone will listen to the commentary tracks, for die-hard
fans it will allow them to watch the episode again with a fresh
perspective. --- |
| Final
Words: |
An intelligent,
well written drama "Party of Five" comes with a couple of extras
and a complete commentary track on the pilot episode. The boxed
set also comes with a episode guide for those who can't remember
what each episode was about by the title or guest stars. Columbia-Tristar
has done a really nice job on this boxed set for fans of the
series. Including a couple of extras also acts as an added incentive
to purchase the series vs. waiting to record it on DVD when
it's rerun (or watching old video cassette copies). |
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