“sex, lies, and videotape” – The independent film that helped revolutionize the independent film scene in the late 80’s and 90’s and introduce us to the director Steven Soderbergh. The film enters the HD realm and is definitely a solid Blu-ray release worth owning!
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TITLE: sex, lies, and video tape
DURATION: 100 minutes
BLU-RAY INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition (1:85:1), English, French Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Subtitles: English SDH, English, French
RATED: R
COMPANY: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: November 17, 2009
Written and Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Executive Producers: Nancy Tenenbaum, Nick Wechsler, Morgan Mason
Produced by Robert Newmyer and John Hardy
Music by Cliff Martinez
Cinematography by Walt Lloyd
Edited by Steven Soderbergh
Casting by Deborah Aquila
Art Direction by Joanne Schmidt
Set Decoration by Victoria Spader
Starring:
James Spader as Graham Dalton
Andie MacDowell as Ann Bishop Mullany
Peter Gallagher as John Mullany
Laura San Giacomo as Cynthia Patrice Bishop
Ron Vawter as therapist
Steven Brill as Barfly
In 1988, an independent film directed by newcomer Steve Soderbergh (who would go on to direct the films “Erin Bockovich”, “Traffic”, “Oceans Twelve”, etc.) would achieve prominence as the film was the spark that helped revolutionize the independent film movement in the 1990’s. Winner of the Palme D’or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, winner of the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, the indie film would also earn a nomination for an Academy Award and would be the beginning of a long, prosperous career for Steve Soderbergh but also the four main talents of the film: James Spader (“Stargate”, “Boston Legal”, “Pretty in Pink”, “White Palace”), Andie MacDowell (“Groundhog Day”, “Hudson Hawk”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), Laura San Giacomo (“Pretty Woman”, “Just Shoot Me”, “Saving Grace”) and Peter Gallagher (“The OC”, “Short Cuts”, “Californication”).
The film which cost about a million dollars to make, went on to receive critical success and earn $24 million in the box office. “sex, lies, and videotape” became a big hit for independent film studio Miramax Films and the film was selected and preserved by the United States National Film Registry in 2006 as a film that is “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and in 2009, to celebrate the film’s 20th year anniversary, “sex, lies and videotape” receives its first High Definition Blu-ray release.
“sex, lies, and videotape” is a film that kicks off with Ann Bishop Mullany (MacDowell) telling her therapist about not being happy that her husband John (Gallagher) has invited his old friend Graham (Spader) to their home. Frustrated, she talks about her uneventful life where she just cleans and when asked about her sex life, she feels that she doesn’t enjoy it. He does everything, she really is not into it. Meanwhile, her husband is having an affair with her promiscuous and wild sister Cynthia (San Giacomo).
When Graham arrives to the home of the Mullany’s, he has a friendly conversation with Ann but when John arrives, he starts belittling Graham of how he dresses and how he looks and how he was going to call the police on him, asking if he pays taxes and then asking him a question about his college girlfriend Elizabeth. But its evident that while John has become a successful lawyer, Graham didn’t follow that route.
As Graham looks for a home to live in, John asks his wife to help Graham out. It’s when Ann goes to his home and sees a camcorder and tapes everywhere. When she asks what they were, Graham tells her that he records and interviews women talking about their sexual experiences. Disgusted about what she sees, she leaves his apartment and tells her sister Cynthia (who then becomes curious).
Cynthia then goes to Graham’s home to learn why her sister was freaked out and she learns that Graham records women talking about their sexual experiences because Graham is impotent and needs it for sexual gratification.  Hearing that, she allows Graham to videotape her talking about sex.  And immediately, Cynthia tells her sister and John about what happened that day.
But things quickly change when Ann (who finds an earring under her bed) realizes her husband is having an affair and leads her to make a decision to also participate in Graham videotaping her. But through the experience of both women confessing on videotape, its when they learn about their themselves and make important, life changing decisions. But what happens when John finds out about what his wife did?
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“sex, lies, and videotape” is featured in 1080p High Definition (1:85:1). For the most part, the picture quality has a fine layer of grain but also shows quite a bit of detail as we can see the skin pores of Andie McDowell.  You can see the details of the characters quite clearly. The transfer is not perfect as I did see a few instances of dirt and even artifacting.  But I have to admit that this is the best I’ve seen of the film compared to its Criterion Collection LD and DVD counterpart.
As for the transfer, the same Interpositive Element from the original 35mm Camera negative which was used in the 1988 DVD was scanned 4K DPX Files, as a potential source for future remastering. The 2K files were color timed at Technicolor using the 1998 transfer as a color reference. Also, a substantial amount of dirt was cleaned up utilizing version 7 of MTI DRS and splice bump correction using Autodesk Inferno.
The audio of the film is presented in English and French Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The sound although lossless sounds very good. Dialogue is clear and understandable but at the same time, audio doesn’t utilize the surround channels as much as I was hoping for it too. But this is explained through the restoration special feature that Soderbergh felt it important to present this film with its original 1989 mix. The goal of the audio restoration was to remove any snap and pops throughout the film but focusing on audio being a front and center channel for “sex, lies and videotape” and minimal utilization of subwoofers and surrounds.
Subtitles are featured in English, English SDH and French.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“sex, lies, and videotape” comes with several special features new and old (some from the original Criterion Collection LD release) and are featured in High Definition or Standard Definition and in English Stereo.
- Movie IQ – Real-time movie information about the cast, crew, music and production via BD-Live.
- Commentary with Writer/Director Steven Soderbergh and Neil LaBute – A very good commentary that filmmakers and commentary fans will definitely enjoy. From the setup of a scene and learning from Soderbergh about his mindset of what he wanted to accomplish for the film plus comparisons to an Eric Rohmer film.
- 20 Year Reunion at the Sundance Film Festival – (3:26) Featuring Steven Soderbergh, Peter Gallagher, Andie McDowell and Laura San Giacomo for a reunion 20 years later at the Sundance Film Festival.   The group fields questions from the audience and more.
- Deleted Scene with Optional Commentary– (3:26) Director Steven Soderbergh sets up a deleted scene featuring Ann (McDowell) with her therapist.
- Steven Soderbergh on “sex, lies and videotape” trailers – (4:40) Director Soderbergh talks about shooting the theatrical trailer for the film. View Soderbergh’s trailer and the Miramax trailer.
- Steven Soderbergh on “sex, lies and videotape” – (8:22) Soderbergh talks about his influences in creating the film. About not utilizing nudity in the film and more.
- Notes on Remastering and Restoration – Text info. on what was digitally restores for the Blu-ray release.
When “sex, lies and videotape” was released, I can remember that I was thinking that this would be a bold film that showcased a lot of nudity. Of course, the film is not anything like that. But I felt that watching it now 20 years later versus watching it when I was in my teens, I felt that I have much more appreciation for the film more now than ever.
Soderbergh has went on to create many wonderful films since “sex, lies and videotape” but what has captured my attention about this film is his how he kept the film simple and concentrated on the details around the four characters.   He mentions in the commentary of his influence of Eric Rohmer (who created the popular films as part of his “Six Moral Tales”) and the long dialogue between characters. Maybe it made no impression to me back then but now, any director who can have their characters engage in dialogue with meaning and profoundness is wonderful.
Andie MacDowell was the surprising star because in the beginning, I thought she would be the typical jilted housewife but we see her character emerge as one that is confused to one that finally gains perspective. Laura San Giacomo did well in portraying the free-will Cynthia (which she would go on to do again in “Pretty Woman”), John Mullany (Peter Gallagher) was the ultimate sleezeball and for Graham (Spader), his character was mysterious and although the viewer doesn’t know exactly what had happen to him, it’s how the character was changed after changing the character he videotaped.
As the film itself, one can see how this independent film helped revolutionize indie films and allowing media coverage. Sure, we see independent films, arthouse films receive media coverage today but in the context of independent films getting seen by a wide audience, “sex, lies, and videotape” was definitely instrumental in being part of that small group of films that Hollywood would give a chance to.  And of course, without this film, we wouldn’t have awesome films by Steven Soderbergh such as “Erin Brokovich”, “Traffic”, “Out of Sight”, “The Good German”, “Che” and “Schizopolis” (although we can leave Soderbergh’s “Oceans” films out of the list).
As for the Blu-ray release, this is the best the film has ever looked and the restoration was definitely important for this 20th Anniversary release. The only problem that I have with this release is that if they were going to show that 20th Anniversary reunion, why not show the entire Q&A session? They show bits and pieces of it and that is my main peeve of this release. We are seeing more and more films given the anniversary treatment on Blu-ray with the reunion Q&A sessions featured in its entirety, I would have loved to see this Q&A at Sundance in full. Also, some of the features are from the original Criterion Collection LD from nearly 20 years ago, so quality is not exactly that great. But nevertheless, it was good to see Sony include that on this Blu-ray release.
Overall, for those who enjoyed the film or Soderbergh’s work will definitely want to add “sex, lies and videotape” to their Blu-ray collection. Although the film was once a Criterion Collection release (on LD), it was great to see this release have almost a Criterion feel with is restoration technique explanation and also amateur filmmakers will enjoy Soderbergh’s audio commentary as well. Definitely a solid Blu-ray release worth owning!