PICTURE THIS – The Blu Review

THE FILM

Mandy Gilbert (Ashley Tisdale) is far from popular. Her overbearing father (Kevin Pollak) certainly doesn’t aid in her quest to rise in social status, well, until he gets her contact lenses for her birthday, along with the best video phone on the market. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. Mandy must use her new phone, or should I say “surveillance device”  to trick her father into thinking that she is at a friends house studying, rather than on a wild journey to a huge party where her crush is waiting for her.

As I have always said, films need to be taken for what they are. This is a cute, teen/tween film, and for that purpose it delivers. Plus, it was made for ABC FAMILY, so it is a made-for television movie. Kevin Pollak is great no matter what his role may be. As for Tisdale, she is a perfect teen/tween star. The movie is cute, and would be a fun addition to any sleepover. I am not going to go through and rip this movie apart with deep thought like I would with more hard hitting movies. That would not be fair. This movie is a lighthearted, entertaining teen comedy, and it accomplishes that message successfully.

The only thing in the story that I will frown upon is their rendition of SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT made famous by Pat Benatar. How many times must we suffer through bad covers before people realize that you do not mess with rock legends, or the songs they made famous!!!

THE BLU-RAY

The Blu-Ray itself is a bit of a letdown if you weight the package as a whole. The movie was originally released in 2008, so unlike the older movies that I am easier on, I expected the picture transfer to be a little better than what it is. The film is presented in 1.85:1n Widescreen, but the quality is less than sharp. The colors look fantastic! I was just hoping for a clearer image. Since the audio was created for a TV movie, rather than to blow the minds of viewers at home, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio was ok. Since there are no huge explosions or action sequences, the sound is pretty standard, so there is nothing to really write home about.

As for the Special Features, those were the biggest let down of all!

• THE MAKING OF PICTURE THIS is just under nine minutes, and can be enjoyable if you are a fan of the young stars. There’s nothing that special about it though. Sure, there are interviews with the young cast, but what they should have done is let Kevin Pollak loose for the entire thing! That would have made it enjoyable to watch!
• CELL PHONE CONFESSIONS ARGH! This one is just annoying! The cast are all suppose to “confess” things about their cast mates and the movie, but instead, it is just a waste of disc space where they spout off some sort of fluff! It’s not even clever or funny! On top of that, there is no way to play them all at once, so you have to click on each one individually. With each one being less than a minute in length, it is just plain annoying!
• GR8 SCENE-SPECIFIC TEXTING Two of the young stars from the film, Shenae Grimes and Lauren Collins add text commentary to a few of the scenes from the film. Not only do I find this pointless, but stupid! I am not an advocate of shortened text “speak” to begin with… so when I was given the option “Oblivious” because I would rather have the texts spelled out in English, I was slightly offended. First, a lot has changed with cellular phones since the making of this film. With a full keyboard, and unlimited texting included in most plans, there is no reason to shorten your sentences down so much. Remember pagers? Those little messages don’t look so cool now either, do they?
• THE MAKING OF SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! This little feature shows the girls recording the song before filming, as well them shooting the scene where they butcher this song. Why? Why would you ever do this? There is no way that anyone who worked on this film actually thought ‘Hey, this is a great version of this song!” or “It’s so good, let’s break it down and showcase it in the special features!”. I honestly have no clue how any of this happened. I am at a loss for words!

OVERALL Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars