It was kinda fun...watching poor George's deteriorating predicament. I kept thinking of Monty Python's Black Knight.
The one character who lends any life to the affair (apart from a sexy nurse played by Katherine Cunningham-Eves, who looks like she should be caring for Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion) is Mandingo, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs of TV's old "Welcome Back, Kotter" (remember Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington?). Mandingo is a mysterious and creepy attendant in a red bow tie who may or may not be a major source of George's troubles. Where in the world has Hilton-Jacobs been all these years? His resume at IMDb shows he's been steadily active in television and films, but if his work in "Sublime" is any indication, he deserves bigger roles.
Anyway, I dunno. I predicted the outcome of "Sublime" about twenty minutes into the movie, and the rest seemed like filler. It was kinda fun, though, watching poor George's deteriorating predicament. I kept thinking of Monty Python's Black Knight, losing parts of himself as he fought on to the end. As far as "Sublime" went, I found most of it depressing, and I was just as glad when it was over.
Trivia note: Although WB marks one of their standard-definition editions of this movie as "Unrated" and the Blu-ray release as "Uncut," they are both 113 minutes, one minute longer than the R-rated rendering. I'm not sure if there is really a difference in the content of the SD "Unrated" and BD "Uncut" versions except in name. If there is a difference, it escaped me.
Video:
WB engineers transferred the Blu-ray picture in a 1080p/VC-1 format, the best thing about it being its size, a generous 2.40:1 ratio. Apart from that, things are fairly mediocre for high-definition. The image is soft and occasionally fuzzy or smeared, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. The overall tone can be overly dark and murky at times, overbright at other times, with many hues oversaturated, again sometimes for a surreal effect, sometimes not. There is also more visible grain than I would have expected to see, imparting the appearance of gritty roughness to many scenes. Object delineation is not quite in the top echelon of high-def reproduction, either, so, overall, the video is more than a little disappointing.
Audio:
Interestingly, this high-definition Blu-ray disc features an ordinary Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I have no idea why Warners went to all the trouble of producing a high-definition disc and then failed to include a high-definition audio track. What's more, I notice that several more upcoming WB Blu-ray discs are forsaking lossless audio as well. Nevertheless, we have what we have, and the DD 5.1 is clear and clean, with the background score enjoying some pleasant musical bloom in the surrounds. While it's true the sound doesn't do much more than convey music and dialogue, it does so competently. Every once in a while a spooky noise shows up in the rear speakers, too, like the flying of a bird late in the picture, and the deep bass comes through in a loud, thumping manner, both helping to bolster the movie's eerie mood.
Extras:
Among the main bonuses are an audio commentary by director Tony Krantz and writer Erik Jendresen; an extended rendition of the surgical-exorcism Webscast we see in the film, wherein a sociocultural anthropologist performs a so-called "live surgical exorcism" in the mountains of Peru; a meeting with the Devil, Mr. Death, in "The Shebeen Josie: Inside an African Juke Joint"; and a music video, "Have No Fear," by Bird York, who did the music for the film.
The extras wrap up with twenty-four scene selections, but no chapter insert; theatrical trailers for two other Raw Feed entries, "Rest Stop" and "Believers"; English as the only spoken language; French and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired; and WB's usual pop-up menus.
Parting Shots:
Although I'm not exactly sure who the audience is for these direct-to-video horror films, I suppose it's probably young males around 16-25 years of age, who have traditionally found cinema sex and violence a favorite mix. "Sublime" fits at least a part of the bill, attempting to say something meaningful along with the blood and gore. That its midlife-crisis theme doesn't say much that isn't already obvious and that it may not say much to 16-25-year-olds, anyway, is probably beside the point.
Anyway, I dunno. I predicted the outcome of "Sublime" about twenty minutes into the movie, and the rest seemed like filler. It was kinda fun, though, watching poor George's deteriorating predicament. I kept thinking of Monty Python's Black Knight, losing parts of himself as he fought on to the end. As far as "Sublime" went, I found most of it depressing, and I was just as glad when it was over.
Trivia note: Although WB marks one of their standard-definition editions of this movie as "Unrated" and the Blu-ray release as "Uncut," they are both 113 minutes, one minute longer than the R-rated rendering. I'm not sure if there is really a difference in the content of the SD "Unrated" and BD "Uncut" versions except in name. If there is a difference, it escaped me.
Video:
WB engineers transferred the Blu-ray picture in a 1080p/VC-1 format, the best thing about it being its size, a generous 2.40:1 ratio. Apart from that, things are fairly mediocre for high-definition. The image is soft and occasionally fuzzy or smeared, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. The overall tone can be overly dark and murky at times, overbright at other times, with many hues oversaturated, again sometimes for a surreal effect, sometimes not. There is also more visible grain than I would have expected to see, imparting the appearance of gritty roughness to many scenes. Object delineation is not quite in the top echelon of high-def reproduction, either, so, overall, the video is more than a little disappointing.
Audio:
Interestingly, this high-definition Blu-ray disc features an ordinary Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I have no idea why Warners went to all the trouble of producing a high-definition disc and then failed to include a high-definition audio track. What's more, I notice that several more upcoming WB Blu-ray discs are forsaking lossless audio as well. Nevertheless, we have what we have, and the DD 5.1 is clear and clean, with the background score enjoying some pleasant musical bloom in the surrounds. While it's true the sound doesn't do much more than convey music and dialogue, it does so competently. Every once in a while a spooky noise shows up in the rear speakers, too, like the flying of a bird late in the picture, and the deep bass comes through in a loud, thumping manner, both helping to bolster the movie's eerie mood.
Extras:
Among the main bonuses are an audio commentary by director Tony Krantz and writer Erik Jendresen; an extended rendition of the surgical-exorcism Webscast we see in the film, wherein a sociocultural anthropologist performs a so-called "live surgical exorcism" in the mountains of Peru; a meeting with the Devil, Mr. Death, in "The Shebeen Josie: Inside an African Juke Joint"; and a music video, "Have No Fear," by Bird York, who did the music for the film.
The extras wrap up with twenty-four scene selections, but no chapter insert; theatrical trailers for two other Raw Feed entries, "Rest Stop" and "Believers"; English as the only spoken language; French and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired; and WB's usual pop-up menus.
Parting Shots:
Although I'm not exactly sure who the audience is for these direct-to-video horror films, I suppose it's probably young males around 16-25 years of age, who have traditionally found cinema sex and violence a favorite mix. "Sublime" fits at least a part of the bill, attempting to say something meaningful along with the blood and gore. That its midlife-crisis theme doesn't say much that isn't already obvious and that it may not say much to 16-25-year-olds, anyway, is probably beside the point.
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.
[release]23655[/release]