Love Stinks
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Cast: French Stewart, Bridgette Wilson, Tyra Banks, Bill Bellamy
Extras: Commentary track, Production notes, Trailers
Rating:
A film with French Stewart in the lead can hardly be expected to be serious or even satirical. The actor from the incredible “3rd Rock From The Sun” TV series is expected to be play the somewhat dimwitted personality he is showing us every week in the series. As such it was safe for me to expect “Love Stinks” to be a rather shallow, though entertainingly funny movie, and it did not really disappoint.
The version of the movie Columbia TriStar Home Video is presenting on this DVD is presented in a 16×9 enhanced widescreen version. The film print that was used is very clean without grain or any defects. The compression is very good without distracting artifacts and with a great level of detail. The transfer appears to be a little soft at times, but is great looking nonetheless with good color delineation and a solid black level that gives the picture a great sense of depth.
The disc contains an English Dolby Surround track without any other alternative language tracks, certainly due to the fact the film is making its debut on this DVD day and date with its initial VHS release. The disc contains subtitles in English, French and Spanish however to compensate for the lack. There is also a commentary track on the disc, featuring the movie’s writer/producer/director Jeff Franklin together with his stars French Stewart and Bridgette Wilson. The commentary track has a light-hearted nature throughout and is at the same time quite informative. The trio is able to point out many subtle things in the movie and especially director Franklin recalls a great number of technical details that influenced the production while Stewart shares a large number of anecdotes and offers many amusing remarks and observations. At all times during the commentary the three manage to keep a very personal and funny note, making the commentary quite enjoyable.
We have seen romantic comedies aplenty in recent months, and while some of them are quite good, more of them are pretty bad. Despite its reputation, “Love Stinks” is not a bad genre entry at all. While one can certainly argue the intellectual unpretentiousness of the film, there can be no doubt that it contains a number of funny moments and great laughs.
