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Waiting Blu-ray
Unrated and Raw Lionsgate Films | 2005 | 94 mins | Unrated | Jul 17, 2007
Waiting Blu-ray Reviewabsolute nonsense not worth seeingReviewed by Brandon A. DuHamel, October 24, 2007 Ever since 1998's There's Something About Mary, and the following year's American Pie were received with the much deserved box office success with which they were both lavished, there has been a seemingly never ending onslaught of so called "gross out" comedies. Waiting… is one of the many in this long line of comedies, and all it seems to do is to be gross with very little in the way of laughs.
Waiting… tries to be a smart comedy about twenty-something servers in a restaurant waiting around for life to begin. Somewhere in there is a movie trying to be Clerks, but Clerks it isn't. What it is, is a vulgar and annoying triviality with no stand-out performances from any of the actors starring that guy from Van Wilder, who was supposed to get people into the theatres to see it, I suppose, and Anna Faris of Scary Movie fame who might as well have been a mannequin, because I couldn't even figure out why her character was there. Video  Presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and encoded in the MPEG-4/AVC video codec in 1080p on this Blu-ray Disc release, the picture quality of this video transfer is nothing to rave about whatsoever. Though there are not much compression artifacts to speak of, it is the other issues that damage the quality of this transfer. The contrast is a bit too low and black levels are a bit too dark causing shadow details to get somewhat lost, flesh tones look rather unnatural, and there are definitely some scenes that show evidence of some edge enhancement and video noise, in particular the final party scene near the end of the film, and where there are flat colors such as background walls or dark shadows. Besides the aforementioned issues, the transfer is clean, but relatively dull looking, and slightly soft. Audio  Lionsgate have provided a well mastered and reasonably mixed 7.1 uncompressed PCM soundtrack in addition to a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtrack. The PCM soundtrack is clear, well balanced and easy on the ears, but making it 7.1 may have been completely unnecessary in this case as there is not much going on at all in the surround channels, and there is certainly not much in the lower frequency range to speak of. None of these things are surprising for a movie of this sort. In all, the soundtrack is good for what it is, but is really just an average soundtrack overall. With that said, dialogue is clear, crisp, well placed, and the soundstage is presented with accuracy. The midrange is well done, and high frequencies are never a nuisance. The alternative music on the soundtrack that pops up frequently throughout the movie sounds exceptional – better than most CDs available today – and works well within the confines of the subdued 7.1 uncompressed PCM mix. Supplements There are many extras on this disc, far too many to go into depth for each and every one within the scope of this review. I found most of the extras provided on this Blu-ray release to be unnecessary and repetitive in nature, as if Lionsgate were merely filling up the space in order to get people to spend their money with the enticement of more features, For example, the extra feature "That Little Extra" Producer's Documentary (standard definition; 4:3) which goes over the story of Waiting… and how it came into being through interviews with Writer/Director Rob McKittrick and co-producer John J. Anderson, is gone over again through interviews with the same people in another extra feature entitled The Works: All Access Interactive Video Commentary, which itself includes casting and screen tests, which another extra feature Side Dishez (high definition 16:9/standard definition; 4:3) also includes – do you see where I'm going with this? I found sitting through all of these extras monotonous, burdensome, and boring. There are other extras as well, including the original theatrical trailer (high definition; 16:9), alternate takes, outtakes, a cast and crew audio commentary and the Expanded Telestrator Commentary with Writer/Director Rob McKittrick and John J. Anderson, where they actually draw on the screen with a telestrator during the movie playback and even pause the playback at certain points and comment on every bit of minutiae concerning the film they can think of. There are still more extras on the disc, none of them worth even one viewing, much less repeated viewings. Final words Waiting… leaves me "waiting" for someone to refund me the 94 minutes of my life that it took for me to sit through this awful movie, and that's not even counting the completely pointless extras I had to watch. Unless you are a masochist, I suggest leaving this release on the store shelf where it belongs, because neither the movie nor the picture or sound quality is good enough to recommend a purchase or even a rental for this one. 
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