The Squid and the Whale Jeff Daniels

Directed by Noah Baumbach
USA 2005

Noah Baumbach's ink-stained memoir is a heartbreaking and hilarious comedy of humiliation...

The literary craze for tell-all family memoir gets a unique twist in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, a film à clef that satirically dramatizes the disintegration of his parents' marriage. Tender, cruel, and very funny, Baumbach's fourth feature turns family history into a sort of urban myth. Although the Berkmans of mid-1980s Park Slope lack the quirky grandeur of the Glass family or the Royal Tenenbaums, they wander even more myopically in the land of literary metaphor. Tennis functions as a metonym for relationships; the search for a parking space is a free-floating trope. As the eldest Berkman son poignantly brags, both his parents have Ph.D.'s in literature.

Excerpt by J. Hoberman's review at the Village Voice located HERE

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Theatrical Release: January 2005 - Sundance Film Festival

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DVD Review: Sony Pictures - Region 1 - NTSC

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Sony Pictures - Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:21:03
Video	1.82:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.45 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 5.1), DUB: French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles	English, French, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Sony Pictures Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio 1.82:1 Edition Details: • Director Noah Baumbach audio comments on specific areas (51:44) • Behind-the-scenes featurette (9:55) • A conversation with director Noah Baumbach and film critic Philip Lopate (37:30) • Previews • 12-page liner notes essay with review from the L.A. Times and essay by David Denby DVD Release Date: March 21st, 2006 Keep Case Chapters: 12

Comments:

For a new film this is kind of an unremarkable transfer with poor bitrate. It is very dark, which I understand is how it appeared theatrically but it does exhibit some glossiness that I can't put my finger on. I assume the occasional light sepia tinting is also intentional. Subtitles are ghastly yellow and the advertised 'commentary' runs less than an hour to still images of the film - so it is not a commentary in the sense that you might expect. The 40 minute conversation with Baumbach is very good and the film itself is a near masterpiece - very highly recommended. GREAT film folks!

Gary W. Tooze

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