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High School
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Anchor Bay Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (22nd September 2012). |
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The Film
 What the hell happened to Adrien Brody? I mean, really; he should be one of the big players in Tinseltown, and should’ve been nominated by the Academy for another one of his parts in the last decade—or, at the very least, played a part that was worthy of a nomination (even if it didn't actually earn him another Oscar). Yet, that’s not what happened. 10 years after beating out multi-award-winning nominees Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicholas Cage—who was in the running that year for his incredible, and totally out-of-character, dual portrayal of Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Spike Jonze’s “Adaptation” (2002)—Brody, who ultimately won the Best Actor Oscar against that formidable list of opponents and became, at 29, the youngest actor to ever earn the award, is receiving top billing in a small stoner comedy, where he plays—admittedly, rather brilliantly—a delirious drug dealer named Psycho Ed. It’s as if, upon winning the Oscar in 2003 for his portrayal of a Jewish pianist trying to survive during the Nazi occupation of Poland (and subsequent destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in which he was forced to hide) in Roman Polanski’s masterpiece “The Pianist” (2002), Brody kind of gave up on advancing with his craft. While another actor might have successfully cashed in on being flush with industry currency, and parlayed his little golden statue into landing even more substantial dramatic roles, Brody pulled a Cuba Gooding Jr., having already proved to the world he was an actor, and tried, and failed, to become a genuine movie star—an A-lister who could headline major studio blockbusters. If not as disastrously downward as Gooding Jr., Brody’s time in the spotlight was short lived, and his misguided attempts at playing the A-list action hero range from the not-totally-terrible (I actually enjoy his turn as the more erudite interpretation of the Jack Driscoll character in Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” (2005)), to the miserably miscast (see: “Predators” (2010)). But Brody’s attempts at comedy, usually in smaller-budgeted projects like “The Darjeeling Limited” (2007) and writer/director Rian Johnson’s underappreciated “The Brothers Bloom” (2008), are generally easier for a fan of the very talented actor (such as myself) to stomach. Brody's part in “High School” as Psycho Ed is not nearly as successful as some of his other comedic endeavors—but it is about the same caliber as his truly odd-ball cameo appearance as Salvador Dali in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” (2011), and thankfully it’s a little less brief. Ed certainly is Brody at his most unhinged, and one of the more eccentric characters the actor has embodied in the last few years (actually, ever). Although Brody receives top billing, neither he, nor the equally noteworthy Michael Chiklis, play the part of “High School’s” main character. Chiklis plays Dr. Leslie Gordon, the hardnosed school principal with a distorted moral compass, a role that he disappears into with eerie ease, and makes a formidable antagonist. The film is actually focused on valedictorian Henry Burke (Matt Bush), a goody-two-shoes with a full-ride scholarship to MIT, who makes the mistake of reconciling with his burnout former best friend Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette), and tokes up the day before a marijuana-fueled district PR disaster has Dr. Gordon drug testing the entire student body. To save his reputation, and extinguish any chance of his possible expulsion, Burke and a begrudgingly helpful Breaux (amusingly, his name is indeed pronounced “Bro”) hatch a plan to get the entire student body higher than Wiz Khalifa. Said harebrained scheme involves robbing the film’s Walter “Hisenberg” White of Mary-Jane, "Psycho" Ed, a child prodigy who, through a series of unfortunate events, became a pot-dealer after taking a hit from a PCP-laced joint in celebration of earning his juris doctorate in his early 20's. The two high school students are after Ed’s famed “Captain Sulu”, an extremely potent concoction with absurdly high levels of THC, sure to get the whole school more than a little buzzed. For you see, if the entire school is stoned, the results of the drug test will be nullified, and when he’s retested Henry’s system will be clear of any trace of illicit substances meaning he'll pass free and clear. What could go wrong, right? Everything, of course. Baking the pot into brownies, the boys switch out the entire supply of sweets for the end of year bake sale, and succeed in turning the population of their school into a mix of paranoid lame-brained losers and weirdly calm weirdo’s. But Gordon, the salutatorian out for Henry’s top spot named Sebastian Saleem (Adhir Kaylan), a team of drug testers, and one very angry Ed are onto their plan, and the boys could be found out at any moment, unless they work quickly to remedy the situation by whatever means necessary. Made independently, on a budget of $10 million, “High School” had its debut at the Sundance Film Festival way back in 2010. The raunchy "R" rated film toured the circuit for two years before finally getting picked up by Anchor Bay, who distributed the film in limited theatrical release last June. Despite decent buzz, most markets never got the film, and it’s essentially a direct-to-video title. Which is a shame, because, somewhat cliché though it may be at times, “High School” is, to my amazement, very enjoyable, and in certain aspects quite laudable. Director/writer John Stalberg Jr.—who makes his debut here, after a long career in music videos and commercials—is conscious of the clichés surrounding his film’s premise, and works wonders making sure this is not just another stupid stoner comedy. He plays fast and light with the material, making the requisite-but-welcomed references to everything from the granddaddy “Reefer Madness” (1936) to decidedly more modern kids-on-drugs films. (He seems to have a particular fondness for John Hughes. Then again, who doesn’t?) He also manages to craft a tale that is both cautionary and comically satirical; he acknowledges the potential evils of illicit drugs—throwing a few characters down the proverbial rabbit hole, into a bad, bad trip—but also seems to note the slight absurdity of over exaggerating such notions. What makes “High School” an unexpected pleasure most though are the characters—which are certainly archetypal, but in an amusing way—each brought to life by great actors. Bush and Marquette have a believably bromantic rapport that translates perfectly on screen. Is their dynamic similar to others seen in movies before—specifically that of Evan and Seth in “Superbad” (2007)? Yes, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the actors make Burke and Breaux likeable characters, who often do and say very amusing things. Brody—who is tatted-up, sporting a massive dread-locked beard and woolen Rasta-beanie, is delightfully cracked, his right eye twitching every time he asks his croaking frog “What?” to its similar-sounding ribbit—may only be in “High School” sparingly, is he’s great in the small doses that we get him. However, it’s Chiklis, playing Leslie Gordon like a creepier version of Ed Rooney, the principal from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986) (almost like he’s channeling the unsavory side of Jeffrey Jones’ real-life creepiness), who totally steals the show. With his affected speech, warped morals and totally un-Chiklis-like persona—dressed up in a too-tight suit, sporting a comb-over and thick wire-frame glasses—Gordon is one of the most unexpectedly excellent creations from any actor who’s ever gone as method as Chiklis seems to have with his character in this film. He disappears into the character; he looks, sounds, and acts nothing like the usually bald headed badass we all know Chiklis as. Also of note is Colin Hanks, playing the dopey vice principal Brandon Ellis not particularly keen on Gordon and his obsessive, Orwellian, dictatorial demeanor with students and staff. Hanks plays dopey doped up dudes really well, and his munchie-induced Cheez-It “shower” is one of the many great asides in the film. Look out for very brief cameos by Mary Birdsong as Gordon’s wanton wife, voice-of-Lisa Simpson Yeardley Smith as a computer science teacher with a very peculiar Bryan Adams fetish, a geeked-up Michael Vartan and a memorable Curtis Armstrong as two other equally odd staffers who get a taste of the brownies, and Mykelti Williamson and Andrew Wilson as Psycho Ed’s two perpetually zonked cronies. Walking the fine line between cliché and curiously conscious commentary, “High School” is a surprisingly funny film. One that I expected to be put off by from its familiar setting and subject but found myself almost endlessly amused with. Is it the end-all-be-all of stoner comedies? Perhaps not. But it’s certainly one of the better examples in the ever-growing subgenre, and a very pleasant surprise for a film that most will probably find for the first time on home video.
Video
With its clean, sharp visuals, I originally assumed “High School” was a digital production. Indeed, the film’s 2.40:1 widescreen 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 high definition presentation appears glossy and somewhat artificial at first glance. But, look closer—beneath the at-times startling clarity, the heavy oversaturated color-grading, and the sometimes oppressively dark black level—and you’ll find a fine layer of grain. Slight, and I think maybe a little reduced by filtering; the filmic texture is there, nicely retained along with the detail and sharpness of the original 35mm photography, almost completely undetectable by the unscrupulous eye. “School” is still pretty digital looking though, even with the very faint film grain, in part because the teal-and-orange color push and boosted contrast levels zap all sense of organic realism from the picture. Of course, the moments of intense, somewhat warped, stylization during any time the film is viewed through the eyes of the stoned students and faculty kind of does that too. The encode shows few signs of noise or compression artifacts, and the transfer is free of edge enhancement.
Audio
Explosions, helicopter flyovers, and hellish hallucinatory nightmares come to life with reality-distorting horror happen sporadically throughout “High School’s” 100-minute runtime and the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track (48kHz/24-bit) delivers when these brief moments happen. But those moments are few and far between, and most of the time the film is an unassuming, dialog-driven, trip. The Newton Brothers’ diverse score has nice clarity and depth, and effectively fills in the rear speakers during the gaps between the so-called “action”, as does the constantly chattering student body. Like the video, the audio track is good, but not quite great. The disc also includes a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround dub, and optional English and Spanish.
Extras
“High School’s” supplemental package includes an audio commentary, several deleted scenes, the original theatrical trailer plus bonus trailers. Per usual for an Anchor Bay release, the commentary is hidden in the audio set up menu, not the menu marked “Extras”, and could easily be skipped over because of that. The audio commentary with executive producer/director/co-writer John Stalberg Jr. is worth a listen. He gets right into it with a discussion of the script and the many references to other genre films, working with his excellent cast, The Newton Brothers’ score, and more. His track is engaging and informative, balancing anecdotes with technical filmmaking notes. The reel of deleted scenes (1.78:1/2.40:1 variable 1080p, 12 minutes 31 seconds) features a few notable highlights, but most of the material was wisely cut. The scenes are in various states of competition; the majority is presented without color-correction and before re-composition into the film’s finished 2.40:1 widescreen ratio (boom mics and in camera mattes are visible in many of the scenes). Deletions include material that would’ve clued us in on the film’s final reveal (and the motivations of the janitor who turns on Gordon in the end) much earlier, a great scene with Colin Hanks’ character doing an impersonation of Chiklis’ Gordon, a rambling soliloquy by Brody, a very Wilson-brother-esque dialogue from Andrew Wilson’s near-mute character, and several smaller, less essential, scenes that just reiterate ideas and jokes still present in the final cut. The original theatrical trailer is also included (2.40:1 1080p, 2 minutes 32 seconds). Pre-menu bonus trailers are included for: - “Jersey Shore Shark Attack” (1.78:1 1080p, 1 minute 47 seconds) on DVD and Blu-ray. - “Demoted” (1.78:1 1080p, 2 minutes 30 seconds) on DVD and Blu-ray.
Packaging
“High School” smokes up Blu-ray courtesy of Starz and Anchor Bay Home Entertainment. The film is encoded on a single layer BD-25, which is locked to region A. The disc is housed in an Elite eco-case.
Overall
In a nice surprise, “High School” is a very decent comedy—stoner categorization or otherwise—and one that’s filled with a lot of little gags and lines that add up to make the movie very fun. The far-more-than-decent performances from the cast, including a crazy Adrien Brody and Michael Chiklis like you’ve never seen him before, make it worth seeing, too. Admittedly, “High School” is not high art. But, I enjoyed it—much more than I thought I would. The blu-ray has solid video and audio, and a decent audio commentary, and is worth a look.
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