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The Best
Man is not a good "black film." Now before I get
us into some sort of race war, I want to provide some comments
about my view toward what I've seen up until this point. I'm
white, extremely white (Editor: I think the term is "vanilla"),
and while I've seen a bunch of great movies that centered
around black characters, I've always felt excluded in a weird
way. I know that films shouldn't be gender slanted, but I'll
be honest enough to admit that there are white films released
every week of the year. When film's like Friday, Soul Food,
or Waiting to Exhale came around, I was out of my element
even though they are all well-made films. Sure, I enjoyed
them but I also felt as though I was intruding on an inside
joke that I wasn't intended to hear.
The Best
Man is only the second time that I can remember where I didn't
see it as a "black film" and didn't feel that odd
sense of voyeurism. The first time this happened was in the
Denzel Washington/Whitney Houston film The Preacher's Wife.
While that film, and The Best Man, had almost exclusively
black casts, neither one makes that the central issue. It's
about their lives and their experiences. They're not "black
people" in these movies, they're just people and that's
where they transcend other films that get lumped together
as simply "black" films. So as I said earlier, The Best Man
is not a good black film, it's simply a good film.
The Best
Man is Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs), a writer on the verge
of making it big when his first book gets selected by Oprah
for her book of the month club. Based on the college exploits
of him and his friends, the book and Harper are ready to explode.
But when he has to perform his best man duties at his collage
buddy's wedding, the old group is back together and some of
them are not as pleased by their literary representations.
The Best
Man is funny as well as touching and shows the everyday lives
and relationships that everyone can relate to. Performances
are equally excellent with the standouts being Taye Diggs,
Nia Long and Morris Chestnut. Malcolm Lee directs the story
with a masterful eye for his story and never turns it into
something that its not. This is Lee's directorial debut but
he's got filmmaking in his family through cousin Spike Lee,
who produced The Best Man.
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
The anamorphic
widescreen picture is smooth with great use of the extra resolution
it contains. Colors are natural and solid with no bleeding
or smearing. Detail is great with excellent texture and depth.
Black level is excellent and shadow detail gets the job done.
The slightest amount of edge enhancement and compression pixelation
are visible, but rarely distract. This is a great picture
that won't fail to please.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
The English
Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 soundtracks both take advantage
of a great deal more creativity than I had expected. The front
soundstage is wide with great dynamic range. Although the
movie is predominantly dialog driven, it is also infused with
a variety of rap and R&B tracks. This is where the stereo
comes almost exclusively from but it is well mixed into all
five channels and the sub for a very engaging experience.
Surrounds get use out of the music and are used discretely
and effectively with that.
Differences
between the Dolby and DTS soundtracks are subtle but noticeable.
The DTS track has an extra layer of depth to it and the Dolby
Digital, by comparison, sounds restrained. There's a stronger,
tighter bass presence to the DTS also. The dialog isn't going
to reveal these differences, but the heavy music content is
where the depth and control of the DTS soundtrack is apparent.
The Dolby, when directly compared, sounds flat and limited.
Listen to Quentin playing the guitar at the opening of chapter
4 for a demonstration of DTS' expanded sound field over Dolby
Digital.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? The Best
Man has been given a generous serving of extras to go along
with the main movie course. Universal's Spotlight on Location
begins the supplements with an eighteen-minute look behind-the-scenes
including interviews with the cast and crew. A soundtrack
presentation also contains the videos for Maxwell's Let's
Not Play the Game and the Ginuwine, R.L., Tyrese, Case song
The Best Man I Can Be.
Trailers
are everywhere to be found on this disc with The Best
Man's original trailer available on the main Bonus Materials
page in non-anamorphic widescreen with DD 5.1 sound. The Universal
Showcase houses a preview of the upcoming Rob Cohen thriller
The Skulls with the same video and audio specs as The Best
Man's trailer. Five other trailers are found in the Recommendations
section with looks at Clockers, Do the Right Thing, EdTV,
Friends & Lovers, and Notting Hill.
Text-based
and DVD-ROM features round out the disc with Universal's
Production Notes and Cast & Filmmakers placed
next to each other in the Bonus section. More behind-the-scenes
stuff is also accessible from the DVD-ROM section.
All in all, a nice set of features for a disc that isn't even
a special edition.
Parting Thoughts
I'll be
recommending The Best Man to a lot of my friends and I'm recommending
it to you now. With all the extra content provided and the
great picture and above average audio available in both Dolby
and DTS 5.1, The Best Man is well worth your money.
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