The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 Blu-ray delivers great video and decent audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Join the four best friends as they finish their first year of college and dive into a summer of excitement. Bridget (Blake Lively) journeys to Turkey on an archeological dig. Carmen (America Ferrera) plunges into the hectic, creative world of summer theater in Vermont. Lena (Alexis Bledel) discovers new love and old heartbreak at the Rhode Island School of Design. And in the Big Apple, Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) takes a big step in her relationship with Brian. Romance, laughs, tears and that magical pair of jeans that keeps the girls together even when theyre far apart all here in a heart-lifting second film based on Ann Brashares bestsellers. Its a perfect fit!
To me men are from mars, and women are from venus just does not describe the gulf between men and women's ability to understand each other. It's more like men are from pluto, and women are from mercury in my opinion. That could be best illustrated by my viewing Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with my best friend, and his daughter. She was totally captivated by this movie and my buddy and I just didn't "get it". But there were elements I did get. I have three buddies I have known since childhood, two of us living on the west coast, and the other two still living on the east coast. It has been tough staying in touch with the distance, marriages, kids, and jobs, but we have managed to do it. I also understand redemption, which in this movie really moved me. The one character I "got" was Bridget. Unlike the other young ladies whose issues revolve around boys, Bridget's issues were of a very personal emotional nature, and the boy was just part of the fallout from those issues. After that, I was lost as I have no idea what it is like to be a teenage (or college age) young woman. I was reminded of that by my buddy's daughter. "So, why the pants" I asked her. Everyone in the world knows a pair of jeans does not provide luck. She responded "the jeans were a symbol that kept them together, and the ritual of sending it is what kept them close and communicative". That lead to more questions, which led to more question, all of which she patiently answered. After the last question was answered, I still didn't get it.
Well somebody got this movie, as the first movie made $44 million dollars at the box office on a $27 million dollar budget, and the first pulled in $41 million take on a budget of $25 million. Both films garnered a 63% and 77% respectively on Rottentomatoes. The obvious demographic for this film was teenage and college age women, but obviously women all ages would probably enjoy this movie as well. I must admit, the last 45 minutes of this movie was pretty good, as I like movies where wrongs are made right just before the ending.
Sisterhood starts with our four young women coming across a pair of lucky jeans that fit them all. Carmen (America Ferrara), Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis Bledel), and Bridget (Blake Lively) have their own personality, one a little princess, another eye rolling and sarcastic, another is a tease to the boys, and lastly another who is as sassy as the day is long. They are about to break for the summer, going their separate ways with the promise to share the jeans to spread the "luck" around. It however appears the jean has lost its magic. Carmen (films narrator) attends Yale and works as a stage hand in the theater department. Carmen's hopes of visiting her friends are smashed, and she decides to join a Shakespearian theater company in Vermont with a friend Julia. While she is there, a British actor named Ian encourages Carmen to audition for a play, and to her surprise she gets a plum role, much to her friend Julia horror. As she rehearses the play, she begins to fall for Ian.
Bridget plays soccer at Brown University, but is interested in archeology. While on an expedition in Turkey, her instructor helps her understand that she is running away from her past, as she is still haunted by the loss of her mother to suicide. Her relationship with her father is terrible, and before she leaves Turkey she discovers a box of letters that her grandmother wrote to her, and father has kept from her. When she returns to the states she goes to visit her grandmother, who does not appear to care about anything, including her sick daughter.
Lena attends an art college in Rhode Island, and is there on a scholarship. Torn up after breaking up with her Greek boyfriend Kostos, she meets Leo, a male model hired to pose nude in her drawing class. They fall for each other, but Lena is still in love with Kostos, and her feelings are torn between the two of them. Lena however does not know what she wants, or who she really is at this point. Could this new relationship be a "rebound" relationship?
Lastly we have Tibby who is pursuing a film career as she attends New York University. She is not able to return home for the summer because she must re-write her screenplay, so she gets a job at a video store. She begins dating Brian, a Dragons Lair champion. When their relationship comes under stress, Tibby begins to wonder if she is ever going to be happy. She shuts down every time someone gets close to her, as she believes that those who are in love now will eventually be abandoned later. When Tibby turns to Carmen for sympathy, she is rebuffed as Carmen does not like the fact Tibby has been out of touch all summer.
Each one of the young women struggle with their own individual issues, while trying to keep their tight friendship together. It is not the jeans that will get them through their issues, but themselves as individuals, and collectively as friends.
Sisterhood travels on to the Bluray format in the form of a 1080p/VC-1 encoding framed at 1:85:1 aspect ratio that quite frankly looked pretty darn good. The source print looks to be in prime shape, as I could not detect any source related artifacts. Colors were bright, punchy, and vibrant, and well saturated with skin tones that looked natural and well detailed. The big shots of Greece looked incredibly detailed, sharp and three dimensional well back into the background. Blacks were deep and inky, and shadow detail was excellent, but sometimes pushed to a bit of crush. Whites were bleached white, without bluing or looking blown. The combination of deep blacks and white whites gave the overall picture quite a dynamic range. Film grain is fine, well controlled, and never objectionable during the entire film. Images were always naturally sharp without any trace of edge enhancement to be found. This is what high definition is all about.
Thank God Warner thought to include a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 encode on this title, even if it is more dialog driven than effects driven. With the focus on dialog, the surrounds and LFE channel are barely used, and while more surround support could have contributed more to each scene, the LFE was not really needed. Dialog was quite clean, so clean that you could hear the individual timbre and inflections of each character voice with ease. It was also well integrated into each scene, and did not sound like ADR mixed in with live audio like so many movies do. Occasionally the surrounds would kick in lightly which help to create a room tone, indicate a rooms size, or the sounds of outdoors. The only scene that used the 5.1 palette effectively came in the form of a dream sequence which featured a thunderstorm that had the surrounds, mains, and to a lesser degree the LFE really kicking. However most of the bass in that sequence came from the main channels, with the LFE providing support. Most folks would hear all of the bass coming from the sub, which would present a different audio presentation than I would get. Once again, this soundtrack is not going to fry your amps, or pop the driver out of your sub, but the mix fits the visuals excellently.
While the extras on this film are light, they are presented in full HD. Go jump off a Cliff (4 minutes) is a promotional look at the final cliff jumping scene. Gag Reel (4 minutes) contains the usual dialog and acting blunders found in most movies. Additional Footage (8 minutes) has Director Sanaa Hamri introducing each of the four scenes that had to be cut for pacing reasons. Digital Copy is included for playback on a computer or portable video device. The disc is compatible with both Mac and Window operating systems.
It is pretty obvious this movie is not directed towards men, and that is not to say men won't enjoy it. But gentlemen, if you want to make your wife or daughter very happy, buy or rent this movie for her. Almost every woman I spoke to about this movie loved it and the first one as well, so rent both and go out and have a beer with your buddies while she watches the movies at home. We have to get something out of this.
Warner Home Video has announced that they will release 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2' for Blu-ray on November 18th, day-and-date with the DVD release. This two disc set will feature a BD-25 with 1080p VC-1 video accompanied by a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack ...
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