For
my money, TEXASVILLE ($20) is a very much-underrated sequel to
Peter Bogdanovich’s now classic, and critically lauded, THE LAST
PICTURE SHOW. TEXASVILLE, also directed by Bogdanovich, gathers
much of the original cast to tell a warm, funny and very human story as to
what happened to these very same characters thirty years down the line.
Life was certainly complicated for Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) and Jacy
Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) when they were teenagers and had a thing for one
another; now that both of them are middle age, things turn out to be ten
times as complicated.
In
the intervening years, Duane has gone from dirt poor, to wealthy oilman,
to twelve million dollars in debt. Thing are further complicated by his
somewhat open marriage to Karla (Annie Potts), as well as the romantic
exploits of their children, who fall in and out of love at the drop of a
hat. As For Jacy, she became an actress, moved to Italy and only returned
home to Texas to after the death of her son. As one might expect, the
sparks do fly when Duane and Jacy are reunited- however, rekindling their
romance is the last thing either one needs to further complicate their
already overcomplicated lives. The cast of TEXASVILLE also features
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW alumni Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman,
Randy Quaid, Eileen Brennan, as well as, William McNamara, Angie Bolling,
Su Hyatt and Earl Poole Ball.
MGM
Home Entertainment has made TEXASVILLE available on DVD in a 1.85:1
wide screen presentation that features the anamorphic enhancement for 16:9
displays. This a really terrific looking transfer of a movie that uses
natural lighting exceedingly well. Nicholas von Sternberg’s
cinematography has a warm glowing quality that shines rather nicely in
this presentation. The image is nicely crisp and has very good definition.
Colors have a natural level of saturation and are rendered without noise
or smearing. Blacks appear pure, whites are clean and the picture produces
more than respectable shadow detail. Dual layer authoring keep digital
compression artifacts well camouflaged.
TEXASVILLE
comes with a clean sounding Dolby Digital monaural soundtrack. It seems
odd that a movie release in 1990 would have a monaural soundtrack, but I
tend to doubt that TEXASVILLE had an exceedingly large budget and
the filmmakers had to cut costs somewhere. Dialogue is reproduced very
cleanly, with every word remaining completely intelligible. There is a lot
of incidental music on the soundtrack, which unsurprisingly sounds rather
flat in this monaural presentation. A French language track is also
encoded onto the DVD, as are English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The
basic interactive menus provide access to the standard scene selection and
set up features, as well as a theatrical trailer.
TEXASVILLE
is a wonderful little movie that reunites the cast of a classic film, thus
allowing fans to spend some more time with these old friends. MGM Home
Entertainment’s DVD release looks and sounds quite good and the price is
low enough that fans won’t have to think twice about plunking down the
money for their own copy.
For
my money, TEXASVILLE ($20) is a very much-underrated sequel to
Peter Bogdanovich’s now classic, and critically lauded, THE LAST
PICTURE SHOW. TEXASVILLE, also directed by Bogdanovich, gathers
much of the original cast to tell a warm, funny and very human story as to
what happened to these very same characters thirty years down the line.
Life was certainly complicated for Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) and Jacy
Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) when they were teenagers and had a thing for one
another; now that both of them are middle age, things turn out to be ten
times as complicated.
In
the intervening years, Duane has gone from dirt poor, to wealthy oilman,
to twelve million dollars in debt. Thing are further complicated by his
somewhat open marriage to Karla (Annie Potts), as well as the romantic
exploits of their children, who fall in and out of love at the drop of a
hat. As For Jacy, she became an actress, moved to Italy and only returned
home to Texas to after the death of her son. As one might expect, the
sparks do fly when Duane and Jacy are reunited- however, rekindling their
romance is the last thing either one needs to further complicate their
already overcomplicated lives. The cast of TEXASVILLE also features
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW alumni Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman,
Randy Quaid, Eileen Brennan, as well as, William McNamara, Angie Bolling,
Su Hyatt and Earl Poole Ball.
MGM
Home Entertainment has made TEXASVILLE available on DVD in a 1.85:1
wide screen presentation that features the anamorphic enhancement for 16:9
displays. This a really terrific looking transfer of a movie that uses
natural lighting exceedingly well. Nicholas von Sternberg’s
cinematography has a warm glowing quality that shines rather nicely in
this presentation. The image is nicely crisp and has very good definition.
Colors have a natural level of saturation and are rendered without noise
or smearing. Blacks appear pure, whites are clean and the picture produces
more than respectable shadow detail. Dual layer authoring keep digital
compression artifacts well camouflaged.
TEXASVILLE
comes with a clean sounding Dolby Digital monaural soundtrack. It seems
odd that a movie release in 1990 would have a monaural soundtrack, but I
tend to doubt that TEXASVILLE had an exceedingly large budget and
the filmmakers had to cut costs somewhere. Dialogue is reproduced very
cleanly, with every word remaining completely intelligible. There is a lot
of incidental music on the soundtrack, which unsurprisingly sounds rather
flat in this monaural presentation. A French language track is also
encoded onto the DVD, as are English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The
basic interactive menus provide access to the standard scene selection and
set up features, as well as a theatrical trailer.
TEXASVILLE
is a wonderful little movie that reunites the cast of a classic film, thus
allowing fans to spend some more time with these old friends. MGM Home
Entertainment’s DVD release looks and sounds quite good and the price is
low enough that fans won’t have to think twice about plunking down the
money for their own copy.
