Sorry for the delay in Day 6, folks! I had to fix the Latest Comments column, which went belly up on us and turned out to be a lot trickier to repair than it was to implement in the first place. Anyway, it's pumpin' away, knock on wood. So let's get into today's film, which is
Cheri from 2009, a neglected little gem still relegated to DVD-only status here in the US.
I get it if you guys are looking at me a little askance for this pick. I'd
avoided this movie for a long time, too. This came at a bad time in
Michelle Pfeiffer's
career: after her peak, but before audiences might've grown interested
in seeing her make a comeback. I only got around to it eventually
because it's
Stephen Frears,
who I'd hardly consider consistent, but who always at least has
potential; so it got stuck on my very long "one of these days" list. To
my surprise, it was great, and I had to have the blu-ray.
It's a smart adaptation of a pair of 1920s novels by the mononymous French author
Collette. Pfeiffer's on point here, but she's bolstered a lot by a killer supporting cast including the haunting
Rupert Friend, sure thing
Kathy Bates and a pre-
Star Wars Felicity Jones.
Cheri is its own thing, but you can definitely sense that this is by the same filmmaker as the great
Dangerous Liaisons, which also starred Pfeiffer, of course. And indeed, playwright
Christopher Hampton adapted them both, so this is a bit of a reunion. Unfortunately, there was no blu-ray. At least here in the States, it
was a DVD-only release.
Miramax released it a new release in
2009. But this film really deserves a blu, and sadly, Miramax holding
the rights is a bad sign. For a long time, I was trying to find an
affordable copy of the Australian blu-ray from Icon, because Australia's
the one naturally English-friendly country that released it in HD. But
it's been out of print for so long, all I could find were $100 copies
or some beat up ex-library disc. The only other edition is from a
company called Lumiere in the Netherlands, and I couldn't find any
reliable reports on it. Does it have forced subs or even a dub? Is it
1080i? Does it have the extras from the DVD? Well, eventually I gave
up and rolled the dice. Worst case scenario, it would make for a good
post on my site to warn you guys against it. So, is it any good? Let's
see.
 |
2009 US Miramax DVD top; 2009 Icon NL BD bottom.
|
Miramax presents
Cheri in
2.36:1, while Lumiere gives it to us in 2.35:1. The shift in AR results in a tiny sliver extra
picture along the top and bottom of the blu. Otherwise, it's another
standard case of the same master being used for both discs, which
especially makes sense this time, as they're concurrent releases. Same
colors, contrast, brightness, etc. But the HD boost is real. To the
people in that carriage have lips? Only on the blu-ray. Clicking back
and forth between screenshots, you can see the film pop to life. You
can tell Pfeiffer's wearing earnings on the blu, but not the DVD.
The
DVD gives us the English 5.1 mix in Dolby Digital with optional
English, French and Spanish subtitles. Lumiere bumps that mix up to
DTS-HD, but drops the optional subs if you needed 'em, only offering
Dutch ones. That's one benefit the Australian disc would've had.
The DVD actually had a couple light special features. There are two
brief deleted scenes and a short but otherwise rather good 'making of'
featurette that interviews the cast and crew on location. There's no film clips, so there's not a lot, but it's all quality stuff. Fortunately, the blu has 'em, too
(and yes, so does that Icon BD), albeit still in SD. It also has
the theatrical trailer, which the DVD neglects, and a couple of bonus
trailers.
So it turns out this Dutch disc is perfectly viable. I've been
burned before, but not this time. And it's a lot easier to find that
that Aussie disc. So I'll conclude Import Week 2025 with this firm
recommendation. But don't worry, I've got a couple big boutique new
releases for ya next.
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