HOME   News   Reviews   Adv Search   Features   My DVD   About   Apps   Stats     Search:
  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • English: Dolby Digital Surround
  Subtitles
    English - Hearing Impaired
  Extras
    Garage Days (Rental)
    Fox Searchlight/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 101 mins . MA15+ . PAL

      Feature
    Contract

    Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
    Meet the band.
    It might seem strange that the next step in the career of director Alex Proyas, after the dark sci-fi visions of The Crow and the brilliant Dark City, would turn out to be an unpretentious comedic flick about the trials and tribulations of a fledgling rock band in Sydney. But while the legion of fans he picked up with his two international movies might be sitting around scratching their heads in puzzlement, those who’ve followed Proyas’s work for longer will know it makes perfect sense. His first feature film was, after all, a visually rich piece of low-budget cleverness called Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (currently unavailable on home video but long overdue for a DVD release). At the same time as that film quietly popped its head into arthouse cinemas, Proyas was well established as a music video director; he made nearly 100 of the things before retiring from the field a decade ago. And so Garage Days, with its affectionate parodying of music industry excess, its video-clip-informed style and its sense of playful experimentation, turns out to be a flamboyant statement of intent; Proyas isn’t about to let himself be typecast as That Guy You Hire When You’re Doing Dark And Surreal Fantasy.

    Garage Days loosely follows the experiences of a young, unnamed rock band, but don’t think for one second that this is going to be one of those embarrassing American-style success-against-the-odds stories. In fact, very little close attention is paid to the band’s music (which is rarely heard in the film) and the story instead focuses on their relationships with each other as a group of friends, and the challenges they face are more of a personal nature, the unashamedly over-the-top silliness of the music world around them providing the backdrop. Lead singer and guitarist Freddy (Kick Gurry, best known for Looking For Alibrandi) is the glue that holds the band together, his boundless enthusiasm and determination to get his songs heard on stage only matched by his boundless lack of enthusiasm for the relationship he’s having with best friend and band bass player Tanya (Pia Miranda, best known for, err, Looking For Alibrandi). That isn’t helped by the sudden realisation that he’s in love with the band’s biggest fan (well, okay, their only fan) Kate (Maya Stange, who was definitely not in Looking For Alibrandi). Kate’s been going out with the band’s troubled guitarist Joe (Brett Stiller), who’s been having an affair with an even more troubled girl with a thing for razor blades. And keeping morale up in all the wrong ways is drummer Lucy (Chris Sadrinna), whose answer to almost everything lies in the shape of a designer-drug pill.

    The risky thing about making a movie set around the music industry in Australia is that the target audience won’t “buy” the realism of it all. That’s not a problem here, despite the fact that our four band members look and sound vaguely out of place as musicians. The reason for that doesn’t become clear until late in the film, and we certainly won’t give anything away here; suffice to say that Proyas - who wrote the movie with legendary Australian rock clever-person Dave Warner - has a few surprises up his sleeve.

    Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
    ...and Zippo fuel is brilliant as conditioner. Want a light?

    The visual style of the film is remarkable; after an admirably gentle start that allows us to get to know the characters a little, Proyas happily plunges into bouts of surrealism, symbolism and outright silliness at a moment’s notice, pulling out a few music video tricks and making full use of the power of digital effects and computer-based editing. Yet this visual rollercoaster ride never overwhelms the story or its participants, as was the case with the opening section of Baz Luhrmann’s effects-laden Moulin Rouge. Everything serves the story - and bear in mind that the story is largely very funny and decidedly tongue-in-cheek. There’s some seriousness here as well, but it’s well handled - the generally goofy mood of the film needed some gravity to round it out as a story, and it gets exactly that. There’s also a none-too-subtle statement being made here about the demise of Sydney’s live music scene and the rise of the dreaded pokies, which will leave viewers in other Australian cities feeling quite smug - until they realise that they’re quite possibly next.

    The only real problem here, and it’s a minor one, is the use of rock music on the soundtrack. There’s simply too much of it - for a good portion of the running time it seems like every slice of dialogue is being underlined by a fragment of a song, and rather than using the music to invoke a mood Proyas often uses the songs’ lyrics to expand on the situation at hand. Nothing wrong with that, of course - it’s done very effectively in places - but the sheer volume of instantly-recognisable classics here gets distracting after a while, like someone listening to a compilation album but unable to settle on any one song for longer than 30 seconds. That said, there’s no criticising the choice of songs themselves, even if it does feel like someone’s mind was on the chart performance of the soundtrack CD.

    Proyas has said that he used to play in a band when he lived in Newtown, where Garage Days is set. The film's story is, of course, fictional - but the way it’s told and the affection with which it’s done gives Garage Days the look and feel of a chaotic, nostalgic daydream based on the memory’s version of reality. It works beautifully; this one's a treat.

      Video
      Audio
      Extras
    Contract

    Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
    Ah, crap. I hate exploding necklaces.
    This rental-only release of Garage Days arrives in video libraries in Australia just as the film gets a theatrical release in the US. A typically bare-bones Fox rental, the 101-minute movie is squeezed onto a single-layered DVD, but few will complain about the picture quality on offer. This is an absolutely stunning video transfer that really captures the vibrant visuals and flamboyant colours of the movie, whether it be the warm natural tones of daytime Newtown or the cold, grainy dream-world of the characters’ slow-motion thoughts. There’s a real film-like look to everything here, the temptation to over-sharpen having been resisted. Some may have preferred a more clinical transfer, but to us this looks exactly like it should, and is easily one of the most lovely transfers so far this year. It looks even better on a progressive display, by the way.

    The only niggling complaint about the image on this particular disc is in the compression; the disc authors have sometimes had to compromise on background detail ever so slightly to make the movie fit on a single layer (which it just barely does). But these problems are so minor, and so rare, that we’ll only drop a single point off the video score in honour of those who spend way too much time looking at backgrounds. The film is, by the way, presented at its theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and of course is 16:9 enhanced.

    Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
    The birth of the short-lived art of pill-juggling.

    Audio is offered in two flavours - the theatrical Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and a two-channel matrixed surround mix which is not flagged as Dolby Surround but is most certainly encoded with it. The 5.1 mix is of course the audio of choice if you can decode it, and do be sure to bring along the biggest subwoofer you can find to properly slam the frequent LFE bass into your neighbours’ heads. This is a mix that’s perhaps a little more front-heavy than some may expect, but the surrounds are used intelligently. Fidelity throughout is excellent.

    There are absolutely no extras on this rental disc. Reportedly a commentary and some deleted scenes are planned as possible inclusions among the extras on the eventual retail release; let’s hope it’s not too far away.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=2758
  • Send to a friend.
  • Do YOU want to be a DVDnet reviewer? If so, click here

    Cast your vote here: You must enable cookies to vote.
  •   And I quote...
    "It works beautifully; this one's a treat."
    - Anthony Horan
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-NS300
    • TV:
          Panasonic - The One
    • Receiver:
          Sony STR-DB870
    • Speakers:
          Klipsch Tangent 500
    • Centre Speaker:
          Panasonic
    • Surrounds:
          Jamo
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Monster s-video
      Recent Reviews:
    by Anthony Horan

    Immortal Beloved
    "For two hours, this film will transport you..."

    Pet Shop Boys - Pop Art
    "A must-buy for Pet Shop Boys fans, Pop Art is also highly recommended for those who remember how good pop music could be in the ‘80s."

    Alias - The Complete First Season
    "One of the most addictive and entertaining US television series' in many years... Buena Vista's DVD set gets almost everything right."

    R.E.M.: In View - The Best of 1988-2003
    "Every home should have one."

    Queen Margot
    "A spectacular, enthralling masterpiece..."

      Related Links

     

    Search for Title/Actor/Director:
    Google Web dvd.net.au
       Copyright DVDnet. All rights reserved. Site Design by RED 5   
    rss