The 4:30 Movie Blu-ray Review
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, November 2, 2024
The eighties seem to be the new sixties or seventies, or whatever the
last decade to be revisited in a nostalgia fest of a film might have
been, at
least judging by the kind of hilariously simultaneous release of this film from Lionsgate and
1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever! from MVD Visual.
The 4:30 Movie is the latest quasi-
autobiographical effort from Kevin Smith, and it takes place just a few years after the retrospective from MVD, namely 1986, following a young male
named Brian David (Austin Zajur), a fill in for Smith himself, as Brian navigates those nascent teen years when hormones probably interfere with
rational thinking more often than not. It's always been kind of interesting to me how widely variant reactions to Smith's filmography can be, and not
necessarily (perhaps understandably) with regard to his more
outr� outings like
Tusk, but even his ostensibly "sweeter" films based at least in part on his own life experiences like
Clerks I-III Complete Movie Collection
. As Ken Jeong mentions in an interview included as a supplement on this disc,
The 4:30 Movie may be Smith's "most personal film
yet", and as such, my hunch is reactions will probably reflect how viewers responded previously to efforts like the
Clerks films.
Smith has a real ear for "authentic" sounding dialogue and believable if at times pretty eccentric characters, and both of those proclivities are fully
on
display in
The 4:30 Movie. The film begins with a rather charming little vignette on the phone (like, old style
rotary phones)
between Brian and his crush Melody Barnegat (Siena Agudong). Brian musters up his courage to ask Melody out on their first official date (the two
had
quickly kissed in a pool the summer before), and he is both surprised and overjoyed when she agrees to meet him at the neighborhood theater for
the
"4:30 movie". (One of the kind of cool "meta" aspects of
The 4:30 Movie is not just that its title stems from a daily television broadcast
Smith grew up with, but that he matriculated that title or at least showing time over to an
actual movie house that he purchased several
years ago in his native New Jersey.)
The rest of the film is basically a series of misadventures as Brian and his two best buds, Burny (Nicholas Cirillo) and Belly (Reed Northrup),
prepare to indulge in one of their favorite pastimes, namely paying for one movie at the multiplex, and then sneaking into several more, one after
the other. Burny is not especially happy that Brian has set up a later meeting with Melody, something that will hobble their "slate" of planned
viewing experiences, but other obstacles soon confront the trio, including manic theater manager Mike (Ken Jeong), who after a series of mishaps
ends up banning the three from his establishment "for life". Guess how effective
that turns out to be.
There may not be much actual
substance to this story, though it attempts to provide some insight into how a young man (boy, really) is
beginning to understand how to translate his dreams into reality. Instead, the film coasts on a considerable amount of charm and some occasional
guffaws in traditional Smith fashion. Some of the biggest laughs are actually almost throwaway lines, not necessarily building blocks of a well
constructed screenplay, including a couple of choice moments with Belly and especially manager Mike. The underlying story is unabashedly
predictable, but there's a sweetness to this effort that recalls some of Smith's best work (even if you're in the demographic that would question how
that delineation is arrived at). Performances are generally quite winning, and Jeong provides the film with the kind of over the top
performance that almost inherently conveys comedic energy, even if the writing doesn't always support things.
Speaking of probably less than hilarious writing and over the top performances, proving that manic emoting doesn't always redound to the benefit
of a film Rachel Dratch is on hand as Brian's mother, proving that she can indeed play a character more annoying than her home warranty
commercial psychic. Smith works in a few passingly funny cameos, including some in supposed trailers for films the boys sit through in anticipation
of getting to the main attraction.
Note: I was evidently at least a bit more fond of the film than my colleague Brian Orndorf. You can read Brian's thoughts on
The
4:30 Movie here.
The 4:30 Movie Blu-ray, Video Quality
The 4:30 Movie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. As of the writing of this
review, the IMDb doesn't really offer any substantial technical information, and none of the shots of cameras in the making of featurette on this disc
provided a clear view of brands and/or models, but in the completely unscientific category, I
did find an Instagram post by colorist Frederik
Bokkenheuser mentioning the film with tags for both Arri and Blackmagic cameras, for what that's worth. There is also a very brief interview with Kevin
Smith enterprising Googlers can find where he discusses how (speaking of Bokkenheuser) color timing played an important role in the look of the film,
along with what he terms the "halcyon glow" of 80s movies. This
does have a (digitally created) organic texture to it, and a just slightly
diffused feeling which I guess might be what Smith refers to as a "halcyon glow". The digital grain and diffusion can both make things look just slightly
fuzzy at times, though on the whole detail levels remain nicely intact. There's an almost elegiac burnished yellow tone suffusing a lot of the
presentation, as perhaps befits this nostalgic memory piece that is perhaps being viewed through rose (or saffron) colored glasses. Shadow detail is
also surprisingly good in some of the blue / purple lit interior theater scenes where the boys are catching a flick (or at least a trailer for a coming
attraction). Those trailers are typically intentionally distressed and as a result actually kind of look more like 16mm than 35mm.