NEW IN TOWN (Blu-ray; Lionsgate)

Mike LoManaco

Studio Name: Lionsgate (Gold Circle Films/Epidemic Pictures/Edmunds Entertainment/Safran Company)
MPAA Rating: PG
Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition; 16X9 Widescreen Presentation 1.78:1; Region 1 (U.S.) Release
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (tested at core 5.1 DTS)
Director: Jonas Elmer
Starring Cast: Renee Zellweger, Harry Connick, Jr., JK Simmons

SYNOPSIS:

A couple of things stand out immediately upon reviewing Jonas Elmer's New in Town after seeing it theatrically, and now on Blu-ray at home...JK Simmons' absolutely waste of talent in his role as a bumbling, idiotic-talking Minnesota "Podunk" and the truly delicious and sexy-looking Renee Zellweger in her short, short skirt suits and outrageously high stilettos. Man, is she cute in this...

Zellweger, coming a long way since the Jerry Maguire days, plays Lucy Hill, a sex kitten of a high powered executive living in chic Miami and newly assigned to analyze the future of her company's operations in the outskirts of Minnesota. She's got her eye on a promotion if she accepts and pulls this assignment off -- that is, go to this one-cow town and downsize the manufacturing efforts of the foods company she is comfortable working for in sunny Miami. A couple of clich

Mike LoManaco

NEW IN TOWN REVIEW CONTINUED...

VIDEO QUALITY: HOW DOES THE DISC LOOK?

Nothing special here. Lionsgate provides a 1.78:1 1080p transfer that looks good where it's supposed to, yet fluctuates between some softness and wispy veils of grain. Some images showed great pop and detail, then some collapsed into a plain vanilla softness; the beginning of the transfer is marred by a pasty, bland look to the characters and environmental shots -- but in all fairness, the bleak Minnesota landscape in the dead of winter didn't have a great deal going for it. Shot mainly in Canada, New in Town was somewhere in the middle in terms of video quality on Blu-ray.

The sequences in snow exhibited some extra noise and grain around the fine areas and there was an exhibition of it running in the background of these scenes; grain itself wasn't an issue, as it's kept at bay most of the running time (save for some moments it popped up in difficult lighting shots, etc.) but there were parts of this transfer that slipped into that "doesn't look like high definition here..." realm.

Scenes with Zellweger jogging on the beachfront in Miami looked superb, with the lush, almost neon-green of the palm trees showing good impact and the sun-lit beach behind her glowing in that HD radiance and clarity, although the blue sky in some of these shots were riddled with some noise and grain.

I don't think you'd be buying this for the video transfer, though. :what: I also found it quite humorous that Lionsgate's new marketing gimmick appears to be to include a moniker on the front covers of the BD boxes exclaiming 1080p/BEYOND HIGH DEFINITION!

This didn't look like high definition for the most part, let alone go beyond it...:rolleyes:

AUDIO QUALITY: HOW DOES THE DISC SOUND?

Another head-scratching decision by Lionsgate taking into consideration the market and genre here: a 7.1 Master Audio track is provided -- complete with the awesome new opening "Master Audio" logo clip -- but it doesn't offer anything in the way of any superb sonics given what it has to work with here.

Again, my system "dumbed down" the 7.1 track to 5.1, and ran the mix at the DTS core -- so I had two handicaps already facing me. Still, the track lacked tactile punch and required more master volume than usual to get immersed in it. On the plus side, surround usage was very generous, from the echo support for score and music to the swooshing of snow when Zellweger's car hits the ice bank to ambient effects depicting Connick, Jr. getting shot in the **** when Zellweger accidentally discharges her rifle during the hunting-with-the-boys sequence. There was an "issue" with the way score and music tracks on this mix were handled, though; it seemed the effects for music spread throughout the soundstage were in too much of an "echo" and it made some of the songs come off sounding flat and matrixed through the speakers. It's difficult to explain, but this may have been a combination of the mixing down effect from 7.1 to 5.1 to satisfy my arrangement coupled with the core DTS stripped from the MA stream.

SUMMARY:

A chick flick in almost every sense of the word, except the chick here isn't dolloped with Fendi and Bebe shopping bags; my wife enjoyed this in the theater and now at home, as well, but I didn't find anything to like about it. If this is your thing, give it a whirl. Fellas, you may get a rise or kick out of seeing the sexy Zellweger strut her stuff in her skirts and heels. :eek:

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Worth an evening's rental. We found this used online for just about what the used and new DVD was going for, so if you can do the same if your spouse liked/likes it, do what I did. But don't pay full price for this, please. :rolleyes: