Twenty-two-and-a-half years after it’s theatrical debut, we are very pleased to announce the Blu-ray debut of Cameron’s second film, Singles. In addition to cover art that harkens back to the original theatrical poster, the blu is packed with tons of goodies including extensive deleted/extended scenes, complete live performances and more. Here are the details:
25 Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes including: The 16-minute “The Ballad of Janet and Dr. Jeff” compiling the entire relationship between Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman’s characters Extended Tracking Shot Opening Mime Club Fight What Would The King Do? No Games Eddie Haskell Redux and many more! 2 “complete take” extras with Bill Pullman and Tad 3 complete live performances from Soundgarden (“Birth Ritual”) and Alice in Chains (“Would?” and “It Ain’t Like That Anymore”) Gag Reel Theatrical Trailer The Singles Blu-ray will be released on April 7th, followed by the Vanilla Sky Blu-ray on May 5th (more on that coming soon)…
I could care less about the movie, it is all about the soundtrack for me... hopefully we get a shot at it here
Same for me!
2000: Manchester
2006: Dublin; Leeds; Arnhem
2007: London
2009: Manchester
2012: Manchester I & II : EV Manchester : Soundgarden Shepherds Bush
2013: Brad Manchester : Soundgarden Manchester
2014: Amsterdam I & II; Berlin; Leeds; Milton Keynes 2018: Berlin; London II; Boston II
Grain actually isnt a bad thing in the HD world. As long as it's 1080p and kept pure. The smoothing out of grain compromises picture quality. Its really viewer preference tho...
Grain actually isnt a bad thing in the HD world. As long as it's 1080p and kept pure. The smoothing out of grain compromises picture quality. Its really viewer preference tho...
Forgot to add the 1080i HDTV transfer I had seen was back in 2009. Searched for more online & found that there is a Singles 1992 1080p WEB-DL. I haven't seen this one. With only a download size of 3.65gigs.
The quality is still not that great. *Double click on the image for better detail.
When Cameron Crowe started shooting Singles in Seattle in March 1991, Nirvana hadn’t yet recorded Nevermind. By the time the film was finally released in September 1992, what had been an internationally renowned underground rock scene had exploded into the mainstream, and the buddies Crowe had called on to help him with the Singles soundtrack—including the members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains—were platinum-level superstars. Meanwhile, in summer 1992, the popular TV soap Melrose Place debuted on Fox, and two years later, the sitcom Friends became a hit for NBC. A trend was developing.
During the process of making and then refining Singles, Crowe heard over and over from his studio bosses at Warner Bros. that he was aiming for a niche that might not be big enough. He wasn’t speaking to the teenagers who’d loved his Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Say Anything…, or the older arthouse crowd inclined to go see a plotless, talky movie about relationships. Instead, he was targeting the kind of hip 20-year-olds more likely to be at a club than at the multiplex. What neither Crowe nor his backers had any way of knowing back in 1991 and 1992 was that American popular culture was about to reorient around young adults just like the ones in Singles.
Singles wasn’t really ahead of its time. If anything, the reason it’s more likable with each passing year is that it’s very much from its time. The film is ostensibly about two Seattle couples and their closest friends, and how they try to advance their careers, forge satisfying relationships, and become actual adults while still clinging to their college habits of hanging out at coffee shops and rock shows. But in 2015, Singles is really about the cordless phone with the expandable antenna, the wristwatch that stores phone numbers, the personal fax machine, the video-dating service, the soul patches, the Mudhoney T-shirt, the “safe sex” party, and the dozens of other products, fashion choices, and pieces of technology that keep the story stuck in 1991. It’s also about some aspects of being young and plugged-in that haven’t changed: hand-stamps at nightclubs, shouting at friends long after a loud concert is over, showing off an awesome record collection to a date, bonding over social activism, and covering apartment walls and corkboards with posters, postcards, and ticket stubs.
Singles did modestly well at the box office, relative to what was a low budget for a studio picture. But it didn’t become a sensation, even though the soundtrack—released three months before the film—was a huge hit. That lack of follow-through can probably be pinned on Crowe, who struggled to wrestle his scattered thoughts on courtship, city life, the emerging grunge scene, and youthful camaraderie into something like a story.
He focuses on four main characters: idealistic urban planner Steve (Campbell Scott); independent-minded environmentalist Linda (Kyra Sedgwick), whom Steve falls for; and would-be rockstar Cliff (Matt Dillon) and peppy design student Janet (Bridget Fonda), who live in Steve’s apartment complex. A few other neighbors and co-workers have significant screen-time, between cameos by Eddie Vedder, Tim Burton, and Crowe himself. But mostly, Singles tracks the on-again/off-again romances of Steve, Linda, Cliff, and Janet, and how they’re affected by juvenile game-playing and a general fear of settling down too soon.
Singles’ main issue is that Crowe wars with himself, sometimes seeming on the verge of making something loose and experimental before retreating to the unconvincingly straight. After some documentary-style footage of ordinary Seattle-dwellers in love during the opening credits, Singles starts with what’s more or less a short film about Linda getting duped by a sleazy lothario, and subsequently swearing off men. From there, it proceeds through what initially looks like a series of similar vignettes, occasionally narrated by the characters in voiceover, or in direct addresses to the camera. Though Crowe is a student of craft, as both a writer and director, his films typically keep cinematic and literary flourishes to a minimum. The same is ultimately true of Singles, which uses chapter-headings throughout, but largely drops the “sketches and short stories” approach in favor of more conventional romantic-dramedy beats.
But while Singles ends up being a mess as a movie, it remains impressive as a Crowe showcase. At the time, he was still proving himself as a filmmaker, with only a couple of produced screenplays and one well-liked directorial debut on his résumé. Singles is like a catalog of everything Crowe had to offer back in the early 1990s, from the detailed evocations of a place and time to the characters’ informed pronouncements about the state of popular culture. There’s even a climactic scene between Steve and Linda that plays like a first draft of the Jerry Maguire ending.
As is so often the case with Crowe, what mostly stands out about Singles is how sensitively and honestly it tries to capture the way people with deep convictions are inevitably headed for heartbreak. There’s real insight into human behavior in the studied casualness that Janet tries to adopt around the aloof Cliff, and in the way Steve tries to pretend he’s not wallowing in depression by plastering on a fake smile and saying, “I’m great! I read half of Exodus!” Crowe’s greatest gift has always been that he can write a scene of a young man on the make insisting, “Tonight I’ll be the super-me,” and a scene of a couple awaiting the results of a pregnancy test, and in both can get at how a veneer of cool thinly masks deeper anxieties. More importantly, he’s savvy enough about the cycles of life to understand how the first scene leads to the second. Special features
In a 1992 Rolling Stone article, Crowe published some of his Singles production diary, and wrote about the torturous process of slicing an hour out of his first rough cut, as the studio tried out different versions of the film—some more glib and funny, some more dramatic—on test audience after test audience. The main extra on the new Warner Bros. Singles Blu-ray is a collection of 25 deleted and/or extended scenes, featuring entire subplots that were lost, and characters who otherwise barely appear. There are no seeds of a better extended cut here, or at least nothing like the excellent “Untitled” version of Crowe’s Almost Famous. Crowe probably ended up with the best Singles he could’ve carved out of his lumpy mass of ideas. But the excised footage does offer a useful glimpse at the process of a writer-director in his early 30s, eager to squeeze all of his accumulated wisdom—and all of his friends—into every open space he could find.
Singles (Blu-ray) Warner Bros. // PG-13 // April 7, 2015 // Region A List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
It's been said that the reason many musical acts suffer from a "sophomore slump" is because the artist took all of their best ideas of the past decade and distilled it into one breakout masterpiece. Given only a year or so to craft a follow-up, it's not surprising that most artists falter. One can only speculate that something like this happened for writer-director Cameron Crowe when he was crafting the rom-com follow-up to his widely beloved 1989 debut Say Anything.... I'm a big fan of Crowe's films, so I don't say this to be petty, but the perfectly charming and watchable Singles from 1992 is still clearly a step down from the films that directly precede and directly follow it (the latter being Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous).
Singles attempts to be both more ambitious and mature than Say Anything..., which might be the problem. By setting his film in a Seattle single-bedroom-apartment complex full of unattached people (get it? singles occupied by singles), Crowe tries to offer up a wide-ranging portrait of the post-collegiate dating scene that tackles the topic of (older) young love from multiple angles. He continues to show a knack for pithy, quotable dialogue and well-observed behavior, but all his nicely executed scenes fail to cohere into a richly satisfying storyline, let alone four or five.
The main story involves young professionals Steve and Linda (Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick), who seem compatible but end up circling around each other, playing relationship games even though they claim to be sick of them. They get together, they split up, they try to be friends, they miss each other. Scott and Sedgwick make for an attractive but vanilla couple, which might be why Crowe counterpoints them with the more colorful Janet and Cliff (Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon). Cliff is a musician of questionable talent (although his band consists of three dudes from Pearl Jam, so he's got that going for him), and still Janet is head over heels for the dude. When Cliff admits that he kinda sorta wishes Janet was a little more... uh... busty, she heads right over to plastic surgeon Jeff Jamison (Bill Pullman) to schedule an appointment for augmentation.
Sheila Kelly and Jim True fill the wacky neighbor/best friend roles. Kelly plays Debbie, an insecure maneater who resorts to video dating to find her next guy. In one of the film's many fun cameo appearances, Tim Burton plays the pretentious would-be filmmaker who shoots Debbie's overstylized dating video. True's character Bailey meanwhile provides questionable advice to Campbell Scott's character while idealizing French culture (kind of like how the kid from Breaking Away really wanted to be Italian). Bailey's pretty fun, although most of his best moments hit the cutting room floor, and he essentially disappears somewhere in the middle of the movie (fortunately, this Blu-ray release offers the chance to see those scenes as a bonus feature).
One of the big selling points of the film during its initial release was its zeitgeist-friendly soundtrack of songs by Seattle bands. In fact, the soundtrack album was a best-seller months before the movie even hit theaters, on the strength of the Alice in Chains single "Would?," not to mention musical contributions from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Smashing Pumpkins, just as they were all hitting it big. Crowe has his characters attend shows where Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are performing live, but apart from these moments (and the aforementioned Pearl Jam cameos), the film seems oddly disconnected from the music scene it's spotlighting. Like (too) many aspects of the film, it's clear that Crowe is interested by this music but he's not quite sure how to meaningfully integrate it into the movie and develop it into a vital part of the story he's telling.
But let's get one thing clear. This film's reach typically exceeds its grasp, but Singles is never dull. The main cast is extremely appealing, while the supporting cast is filled with pleasantly surprising appearances by the likes of Eric Stoltz, James Le Gros, Jeremy Piven, Peter Horton, Victor Garber, Tom Skerritt, and even a pre-fame Paul Giamatti as an overly public displayer of affection. And Crowe's script, when it's not being too cutesy, is full of laugh-out-loud moments. More than twenty years later, certain aspects of Singles may have dated -- the hair, the clothes, the answering machines that eat mini-cassettes -- but the trials and tribulations of these young lovers still feels fresh and familiar enough to appeal to new viewers as much as old.
The Blu-ray
The Video: Outstanding. The AVC-encoded 1080p 1.85:1 transfer is spotless, crisp, and nicely saturated. It's got pleasing film grain, and no encoding issues or unsightly noise. Skin tones look accurate and life-like. Just a top-notch presentation.
The Audio: The main English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo mix is rich and satisfying. The live music scenes have significant heft but never get overwhelmingly bombastic. The dialogue and effects sound clean and clear. This is an excellent aural upgrade, even without a surround remix. The disc also offers lossy dubbed audio: French Dolby stereo, German Dolby stereo, Castilian Spanish Dolby mono, and Latin Spanish Dolby mono. Plus, the following subtitle options appear on the main feature as well as the bonuses: English SDH, French, German SDH, Castilian Spanish, Korean, and Latin Spanish.
Special Features: All of the bonus features are 4:3 SD. Presumably, these had been sitting around, waiting to be included in the long-promised DVD double-dip. Well... better late than never. The "complete-take extras with Bill Pullman and Tad" listed on the cover do not appear to be on the disc.
Gag Reel (3:17) - Wow, Campbell Scott curses a lot.
Complete Live Performances (14:12 total) - Full-length versions of the the live songs excerpted in the film: Soundgarden's "Birth Ritual" and Alice In Chains' "It Ain't Like That Anymore" and "Would?" Unfortunately, the sound is lossy and less present than the versions in the film, but this is still a cool extra.
Deleted/Extended Scenes (51:00 total) - The 2 deleted scenes featured on the original laserdisc and DVD versions have been bumped up to 25 clips total, ranging from a twenty-second throwaway moment to an entire extended sixteen-minute plotline where Janet starts an ill-advised love affair with her would-be plastic surgeon. There's definitely some wheat in this chaff, but how is it 2015 and no one thought to include a play-all option?
Trailer - Strangely, the trailer is cropped 2.35:1, even though the film is not.
Final Thoughts:
Singles is a strange and semi-satisfying rom-com that shows writer-director Cameron Crowe trying to stretch his wings a little bit. The result is uneven but highly entertaining, with plenty of indelible moments that will trigger instant nostalgia within viewers of a certain age. The HD remastering is outstanding, and the hour-plus of new extras are completely welcome. If you already love this movie, this edition is definitely worth a purchase. If you're a rom-com fan unfamiliar with this film, this disc still comes firmly Recommended.
After work I went over to Best Buy to pick up a copy. Best Buy Canada doesn't even have it in their data system. Not available. Only in USA Best Buy stores. Even though it's distributed by Warner Bros. Would of tried Future Shop but all their stores in Canada are closed. Called up HMV, they don't have it. So I went inside Wal-Mart. They don't have it either. Totally blows.
To the one's that scream "shop local", tell them to jump off a cliff. Shop online! Local doesn't have shit! How can I spend my money local if they don't even have what I am looking for?
Just found one cheap on Amazon for $18 CDN shipped, NEW from USA to Canada. Guess I'll wait. Can't believe this title isn't available in stores locally today.
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Standing in the Jersey rain… Posts: 14,430
Wasn't at the local Illinois Best Buy either. Sons of bitches!
Soldier Field, Chicago, IL 7-11-1995; United Center, Chicago, IL 6-29-1998; MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV 10-22-2000 ~PJ10~; Pepsi Center, Denver, CO 4-1-2003; Cricket Pavilion, Phoenix, AZ 6-7-2003; United Center, Chicago, IL 6-18-2003; Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI 6-21-2003; Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO 10-5-2004; The Gorge, George, WA 9-1-2005; United Center, Chicago, IL 5-16-2006; United Center, Chicago, IL 5-17-2006; Pepsi Center, Denver, CO 7-2-2006; Pepsi Center, Denver, CO 7-3-2006; United Center, Chicago, IL 8-23-2009; United Center, Chicago, IL 8-24-2009; Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC 12-4-2013; Key Arena, Seattle, WA 12-6-2013; iWireless Arena, Moline, IL 10-17-2014 ~No Code Show~; Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN 10-19-2014; Bradley Center, Milwaukee, WI 10-20-2014 ~Yield Show~; Pepsi Center, Denver, CO 10-22-2014 ~PJ24~: Wrigley Field 1 & 2, 2016; Safeco Field, Seattle Home Shows 1 & 2; Wrigley Field, Chicago Away Shows 1 & 2....
Comments
Singles Blu-ray – All the Details
Twenty-two-and-a-half years after it’s theatrical debut, we are very pleased to announce the Blu-ray debut of Cameron’s second film, Singles. In addition to cover art that harkens back to the original theatrical poster, the blu is packed with tons of goodies including extensive deleted/extended scenes, complete live performances and more. Here are the details:
25 Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes including:
The 16-minute “The Ballad of Janet and Dr. Jeff” compiling the entire relationship between Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman’s characters
Extended Tracking Shot Opening
Mime Club Fight
What Would The King Do?
No Games
Eddie Haskell Redux
and many more!
2 “complete take” extras with Bill Pullman and Tad
3 complete live performances from Soundgarden (“Birth Ritual”) and Alice in Chains (“Would?” and “It Ain’t Like That Anymore”)
Gag Reel
Theatrical Trailer
The Singles Blu-ray will be released on April 7th, followed by the Vanilla Sky Blu-ray on May 5th (more on that coming soon)…
2006: Dublin; Leeds; Arnhem
2007: London
2009: Manchester
2012: Manchester I & II : EV Manchester : Soundgarden Shepherds Bush
2013: Brad Manchester : Soundgarden Manchester
2014: Amsterdam I & II; Berlin; Leeds; Milton Keynes
2018: Berlin; London II; Boston II
Bootleg Reviews: http://pjbootlegreviews.blogspot.com/
"Is a new transfer going to be used for this release?"
"that's up to WB for this and Vanilla. We aren't involved in that aspect. We were lucky that new extras were commissioned for these releases."
..
I hope it's a new transfer. I've seen the 1080i HDTV broadcast of Singles a few years back. It wasn't all that good.
The quality is still not that great. *Double click on the image for better detail.
On Amazon Canada there is 2 versions ..
Import $19.13 CDN .. http://www.amazon.ca/Singles-Blu-ray-Import/dp/B00R4SM4P0/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425378290&sr=8-1&keywords=singles
Regular $15.12 CDN .. http://www.amazon.ca/Singles-Blu-ray-Import/dp/B00SNVLP48/ref=sr_1_1_twi_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1425378290&sr=8-1&keywords=singles
Still a bummer an audio commentary track is missing from this release.
https://thedissolve.com/reviews/1491-singles/
Singles by Noel Murray
When Cameron Crowe started shooting Singles in Seattle in March 1991, Nirvana hadn’t yet recorded Nevermind. By the time the film was finally released in September 1992, what had been an internationally renowned underground rock scene had exploded into the mainstream, and the buddies Crowe had called on to help him with the Singles soundtrack—including the members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains—were platinum-level superstars. Meanwhile, in summer 1992, the popular TV soap Melrose Place debuted on Fox, and two years later, the sitcom Friends became a hit for NBC. A trend was developing.
During the process of making and then refining Singles, Crowe heard over and over from his studio bosses at Warner Bros. that he was aiming for a niche that might not be big enough. He wasn’t speaking to the teenagers who’d loved his Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Say Anything…, or the older arthouse crowd inclined to go see a plotless, talky movie about relationships. Instead, he was targeting the kind of hip 20-year-olds more likely to be at a club than at the multiplex. What neither Crowe nor his backers had any way of knowing back in 1991 and 1992 was that American popular culture was about to reorient around young adults just like the ones in Singles.
Singles wasn’t really ahead of its time. If anything, the reason it’s more likable with each passing year is that it’s very much from its time. The film is ostensibly about two Seattle couples and their closest friends, and how they try to advance their careers, forge satisfying relationships, and become actual adults while still clinging to their college habits of hanging out at coffee shops and rock shows. But in 2015, Singles is really about the cordless phone with the expandable antenna, the wristwatch that stores phone numbers, the personal fax machine, the video-dating service, the soul patches, the Mudhoney T-shirt, the “safe sex” party, and the dozens of other products, fashion choices, and pieces of technology that keep the story stuck in 1991. It’s also about some aspects of being young and plugged-in that haven’t changed: hand-stamps at nightclubs, shouting at friends long after a loud concert is over, showing off an awesome record collection to a date, bonding over social activism, and covering apartment walls and corkboards with posters, postcards, and ticket stubs.
Singles did modestly well at the box office, relative to what was a low budget for a studio picture. But it didn’t become a sensation, even though the soundtrack—released three months before the film—was a huge hit. That lack of follow-through can probably be pinned on Crowe, who struggled to wrestle his scattered thoughts on courtship, city life, the emerging grunge scene, and youthful camaraderie into something like a story.
He focuses on four main characters: idealistic urban planner Steve (Campbell Scott); independent-minded environmentalist Linda (Kyra Sedgwick), whom Steve falls for; and would-be rockstar Cliff (Matt Dillon) and peppy design student Janet (Bridget Fonda), who live in Steve’s apartment complex. A few other neighbors and co-workers have significant screen-time, between cameos by Eddie Vedder, Tim Burton, and Crowe himself. But mostly, Singles tracks the on-again/off-again romances of Steve, Linda, Cliff, and Janet, and how they’re affected by juvenile game-playing and a general fear of settling down too soon.
Singles’ main issue is that Crowe wars with himself, sometimes seeming on the verge of making something loose and experimental before retreating to the unconvincingly straight. After some documentary-style footage of ordinary Seattle-dwellers in love during the opening credits, Singles starts with what’s more or less a short film about Linda getting duped by a sleazy lothario, and subsequently swearing off men. From there, it proceeds through what initially looks like a series of similar vignettes, occasionally narrated by the characters in voiceover, or in direct addresses to the camera. Though Crowe is a student of craft, as both a writer and director, his films typically keep cinematic and literary flourishes to a minimum. The same is ultimately true of Singles, which uses chapter-headings throughout, but largely drops the “sketches and short stories” approach in favor of more conventional romantic-dramedy beats.
But while Singles ends up being a mess as a movie, it remains impressive as a Crowe showcase. At the time, he was still proving himself as a filmmaker, with only a couple of produced screenplays and one well-liked directorial debut on his résumé. Singles is like a catalog of everything Crowe had to offer back in the early 1990s, from the detailed evocations of a place and time to the characters’ informed pronouncements about the state of popular culture. There’s even a climactic scene between Steve and Linda that plays like a first draft of the Jerry Maguire ending.
As is so often the case with Crowe, what mostly stands out about Singles is how sensitively and honestly it tries to capture the way people with deep convictions are inevitably headed for heartbreak. There’s real insight into human behavior in the studied casualness that Janet tries to adopt around the aloof Cliff, and in the way Steve tries to pretend he’s not wallowing in depression by plastering on a fake smile and saying, “I’m great! I read half of Exodus!” Crowe’s greatest gift has always been that he can write a scene of a young man on the make insisting, “Tonight I’ll be the super-me,” and a scene of a couple awaiting the results of a pregnancy test, and in both can get at how a veneer of cool thinly masks deeper anxieties. More importantly, he’s savvy enough about the cycles of life to understand how the first scene leads to the second.
Special features
In a 1992 Rolling Stone article, Crowe published some of his Singles production diary, and wrote about the torturous process of slicing an hour out of his first rough cut, as the studio tried out different versions of the film—some more glib and funny, some more dramatic—on test audience after test audience. The main extra on the new Warner Bros. Singles Blu-ray is a collection of 25 deleted and/or extended scenes, featuring entire subplots that were lost, and characters who otherwise barely appear. There are no seeds of a better extended cut here, or at least nothing like the excellent “Untitled” version of Crowe’s Almost Famous. Crowe probably ended up with the best Singles he could’ve carved out of his lumpy mass of ideas. But the excised footage does offer a useful glimpse at the process of a writer-director in his early 30s, eager to squeeze all of his accumulated wisdom—and all of his friends—into every open space he could find.
Singles (Blu-ray)
Warner Bros. // PG-13 // April 7, 2015 // Region A
List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
It's been said that the reason many musical acts suffer from a "sophomore slump" is because the artist took all of their best ideas of the past decade and distilled it into one breakout masterpiece. Given only a year or so to craft a follow-up, it's not surprising that most artists falter. One can only speculate that something like this happened for writer-director Cameron Crowe when he was crafting the rom-com follow-up to his widely beloved 1989 debut Say Anything.... I'm a big fan of Crowe's films, so I don't say this to be petty, but the perfectly charming and watchable Singles from 1992 is still clearly a step down from the films that directly precede and directly follow it (the latter being Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous).
Singles attempts to be both more ambitious and mature than Say Anything..., which might be the problem. By setting his film in a Seattle single-bedroom-apartment complex full of unattached people (get it? singles occupied by singles), Crowe tries to offer up a wide-ranging portrait of the post-collegiate dating scene that tackles the topic of (older) young love from multiple angles. He continues to show a knack for pithy, quotable dialogue and well-observed behavior, but all his nicely executed scenes fail to cohere into a richly satisfying storyline, let alone four or five.
The main story involves young professionals Steve and Linda (Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick), who seem compatible but end up circling around each other, playing relationship games even though they claim to be sick of them. They get together, they split up, they try to be friends, they miss each other. Scott and Sedgwick make for an attractive but vanilla couple, which might be why Crowe counterpoints them with the more colorful Janet and Cliff (Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon). Cliff is a musician of questionable talent (although his band consists of three dudes from Pearl Jam, so he's got that going for him), and still Janet is head over heels for the dude. When Cliff admits that he kinda sorta wishes Janet was a little more... uh... busty, she heads right over to plastic surgeon Jeff Jamison (Bill Pullman) to schedule an appointment for augmentation.
Sheila Kelly and Jim True fill the wacky neighbor/best friend roles. Kelly plays Debbie, an insecure maneater who resorts to video dating to find her next guy. In one of the film's many fun cameo appearances, Tim Burton plays the pretentious would-be filmmaker who shoots Debbie's overstylized dating video. True's character Bailey meanwhile provides questionable advice to Campbell Scott's character while idealizing French culture (kind of like how the kid from Breaking Away really wanted to be Italian). Bailey's pretty fun, although most of his best moments hit the cutting room floor, and he essentially disappears somewhere in the middle of the movie (fortunately, this Blu-ray release offers the chance to see those scenes as a bonus feature).
One of the big selling points of the film during its initial release was its zeitgeist-friendly soundtrack of songs by Seattle bands. In fact, the soundtrack album was a best-seller months before the movie even hit theaters, on the strength of the Alice in Chains single "Would?," not to mention musical contributions from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Smashing Pumpkins, just as they were all hitting it big. Crowe has his characters attend shows where Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are performing live, but apart from these moments (and the aforementioned Pearl Jam cameos), the film seems oddly disconnected from the music scene it's spotlighting. Like (too) many aspects of the film, it's clear that Crowe is interested by this music but he's not quite sure how to meaningfully integrate it into the movie and develop it into a vital part of the story he's telling.
But let's get one thing clear. This film's reach typically exceeds its grasp, but Singles is never dull. The main cast is extremely appealing, while the supporting cast is filled with pleasantly surprising appearances by the likes of Eric Stoltz, James Le Gros, Jeremy Piven, Peter Horton, Victor Garber, Tom Skerritt, and even a pre-fame Paul Giamatti as an overly public displayer of affection. And Crowe's script, when it's not being too cutesy, is full of laugh-out-loud moments. More than twenty years later, certain aspects of Singles may have dated -- the hair, the clothes, the answering machines that eat mini-cassettes -- but the trials and tribulations of these young lovers still feels fresh and familiar enough to appeal to new viewers as much as old.
The Blu-ray
The Video:
Outstanding. The AVC-encoded 1080p 1.85:1 transfer is spotless, crisp, and nicely saturated. It's got pleasing film grain, and no encoding issues or unsightly noise. Skin tones look accurate and life-like. Just a top-notch presentation.
The Audio:
The main English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo mix is rich and satisfying. The live music scenes have significant heft but never get overwhelmingly bombastic. The dialogue and effects sound clean and clear. This is an excellent aural upgrade, even without a surround remix. The disc also offers lossy dubbed audio: French Dolby stereo, German Dolby stereo, Castilian Spanish Dolby mono, and Latin Spanish Dolby mono. Plus, the following subtitle options appear on the main feature as well as the bonuses: English SDH, French, German SDH, Castilian Spanish, Korean, and Latin Spanish.
Special Features:
All of the bonus features are 4:3 SD. Presumably, these had been sitting around, waiting to be included in the long-promised DVD double-dip. Well... better late than never. The "complete-take extras with Bill Pullman and Tad" listed on the cover do not appear to be on the disc.
Gag Reel (3:17) - Wow, Campbell Scott curses a lot.
Complete Live Performances (14:12 total) - Full-length versions of the the live songs excerpted in the film: Soundgarden's "Birth Ritual" and Alice In Chains' "It Ain't Like That Anymore" and "Would?" Unfortunately, the sound is lossy and less present than the versions in the film, but this is still a cool extra.
Deleted/Extended Scenes (51:00 total) - The 2 deleted scenes featured on the original laserdisc and DVD versions have been bumped up to 25 clips total, ranging from a twenty-second throwaway moment to an entire extended sixteen-minute plotline where Janet starts an ill-advised love affair with her would-be plastic surgeon. There's definitely some wheat in this chaff, but how is it 2015 and no one thought to include a play-all option?
Trailer - Strangely, the trailer is cropped 2.35:1, even though the film is not.
Final Thoughts:
Singles is a strange and semi-satisfying rom-com that shows writer-director Cameron Crowe trying to stretch his wings a little bit. The result is uneven but highly entertaining, with plenty of indelible moments that will trigger instant nostalgia within viewers of a certain age. The HD remastering is outstanding, and the hour-plus of new extras are completely welcome. If you already love this movie, this edition is definitely worth a purchase. If you're a rom-com fan unfamiliar with this film, this disc still comes firmly Recommended.
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/16156/singles.html
To the one's that scream "shop local", tell them to jump off a cliff. Shop online! Local doesn't have shit! How can I spend my money local if they don't even have what I am looking for?
Just found one cheap on Amazon for $18 CDN shipped, NEW from USA to Canada. Guess I'll wait. Can't believe this title isn't available in stores locally today.