Plot: What’s it about?
Swingers showed up right in the middle of the 90’s, a decade known for the prominence of Independent filmmaking. While the story and message are both universal, this movie brought about it in a whole different way. At the time, Vince Vaughn and Jon Faverau weren’t "Moviestars" in any way shape or form. They met on the set of Rudy where both played parts. In fact, Faverau evidently lost a lot of weight, because it wasn’t until a few years later that I realized he was the same guy! Swingers can be credited with many things, among them the return of swing music (which may now only be starting to subside) and the term "money". You can’t miss it, as it’s featured prominently throughout the film. But in a nutshell, it’s about relationships and finding your dreams (in this case it’s a bunch of aspiring actors who move out to Hollywood to try and make it big).
Mike (Jon Faverau) has been out in California for some six months now. He’s a comedian, but not very funny to others, and has left his girlfriend of six years behind him in New York. She’s now with someone else and it’s tearing him up inside. Mike’s career isn’t taking off like he thought it would, and on top of all that he’s not letting his social life get past the fact that his true love isn’t with him anymore. His best friend, Trent (Vince Vaughn), is the typical California party boy. He’s loud, annoying and somehow manages to still get women. He’s Mike’s anthesis…and his best friend. While trying to cheer Mike up, they go to Las Vegas and try to have some fun, but eventually wind up back in L.A. doing the same old thing. The trouble is that to Trent, life’s just one big party and to Mike, life is trying to find the right woman to spend time with. Throughout the whole ordeal, Mike confesses in his friend Rob (Ron Livingston–the "Office Space" guy) who has also moved out to sunny California on the premise that he’ll make it big someday.
Don’t let the cover art fool you, Swingers is about how men and women deal and relate with one another. Hell, they actually have some pretty good advice in there! Though they party, get drunk and get in fights, no one ever actually has sex. And that’s the thing, with a title called "Swingers" you might expect some more; but it’s just not there. This is a love it or hate it film, and I fall in the first category (a friend of mine recommended it to me when it showed up on home video, saying that I reminded him of Trent because of all the bad things I did to women…)! The music is good, and maybe if you’re in a Frank Sinatra kind of mood, then it’ll rub you the right way. The thing is that it’s a really original movie, no Hollywood special effects and no predictable plots. It’s about life, based on Faverau’s own, and you can learn a thing or two if you really try. Highly recommended.
Video: How does it look?
The entire time the DVD format has been around, Swingers has long been my reference point for how bad a movie can look on DVD. The artifacting on most scenes makes it almost un-watchable (though I did, again and again) and the 1.85 images was poor at best. Well, the good folks at Disney have given Swingers a new anamorphic transfer and though its an improvement, it’s still not all that great. This is good and bad. What’s good is the fact that the transfer is much more vibrant and alive than before, the colors are strong and though there’s not a lot of edge enhancement, the image seems very fuzzy at times. The detail in some scenes is really good, but for the most part it looks kind of fuzzy, as if the camera was out of focus or something. While the budget was minimal (read: the transfer will never look top notch), this is the best it has looked to date. Short of a High Definition transfer, we won’t see this looking any better than it already does.
Audio: How does it sound?
Swingers will also never be remembered for its audio presentation, either. Featuring the same Dolby Surround mix that accompanied the original DVD, the sound is moderate at best. The dialogue sounds a bit whispy at times, and though the surrounds do kick in (they’re mono) at certain points during the movie, they’re not that well pronounced. For the most part, it’s a good mono mix but that’s really ok. The action on the screen will occupy most of your attention and this once again proves that audio isn’t the most important thing out there. If you liked the sound on Clerks, then this is what you can expect here as well.
Supplements: What are the extras?
As part of Miramax’s "Collector’s Series" line, which hasn’t gone away like so many other trendy Special Edition titles we’ve seen, we can expect some modest supplements. Well, we get them here in the form of two audio commentaries. First up is the pretty straight-forward commentary by Director Doug Liman and Editor Stephen Mirrione. They talk of the production, getting the movie made and financed and how it was to shoot on such a small budget and such. Much more entertaining is the "Illustrated Action Commentary" where Vince Vaughn and Jon Faverau are given a white pen (think "Monday Night Football") to write on the actual movie while it’s being played. It’s a cool feature and they make good use of it. Faverau, being the writer, has a lot to say about the film and Vaughn is entertaining as well. These two make a good team! A documentary is up next, though it’s divided up into four different parts. The first is "Art Imitates Life: Writing the Story" which obviously tells of how Swingers came about and how it was influenced through the events in Jon Faverau’s life. Next is "Life Creates Art: Getting Swingers Made" this tells of how they got the money, found the director and got all the right elements together to actually get the movie set up and produced. "Life Imitates Art : Swingers Culture" tells about the cultural phenomenon the movie was and how it almost single handedly brought back "swing" music. Interviews with the cast and crew comment on it as well. Lastly, we have "Art Creates Life: Life after Swingers" this is pretty self-explanatory. The interviews show how surprised the actors were when it became such a hit on home video (Faverau admits "…when it arrived on home video, I became a star"). All in all this is a good look at the entire process of the film being made and its impact upon society.
Next up is a fictional trailer for a movie called "Swing Blade". At the time, there was mucho Oscar buzz surrounding Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade and this is a hysterical look at the combination of that movie and Swingers. None of the actors are the "real deal", but it’s a pretty funny concept seeing Karl from Sling Blade dressed up and telling the women that he likes "French Fried Taters"…Next up are some deleted scenes, five in all. The footage is from the "dailies" and it’s kind of raw. The scenes are "Speakeasy Kinda Thing", "The Hockey Game", "Vegas Kiss", "Vegas Girls Trailer" and "Drunken Diners". Also included is a Swingers media gallery featuring a couple of posters, some marketing promotional items (bumper stickers, matches and coasters) and such. Lastly, we have some cast and crew bios. Surprisingly a trailer isn’t on the disc (or if if was, I couldn’t find it), but if you’re even a casual fan of the movie then you’ll want to run out and grab this edition as it renders the previous one moot.
