Clueless: Whatever! Edition
Paramount Home Video
Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya
Extras: Featurettes, Trailers
Rating:
A rather humorous and unconventional take on Jane Austen's novel "Emma", has director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Look Who's Talking) giving the story a newer, more modern twist with "Clueless". Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) is the ever popular Beverly Hills teen that spends her time shopping for the latest fashions, with best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) and ensuring that every aspect of her social life is painstakingly planned out. Hiding her own personal loneliness by assisting others with their relationships and finding "projects", like making over new student Tai (Brittany Murphy), Cher always seems to put her friends needs before her own, until love finds its way to her, in the form of her step-brother Josh (Paul Rudd).
Cute and clever, "Clueless" was quite the little breakthrough teen film, when it premiered some ten years ago. Although not quite as groundbreaking as films from earlier years such as "Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles", "Clueless" managed to introduce a new generation of teens to some rather interesting slang and adolescent vocabulary.
Paramount Home Entertainment re-releases "Clueless" to DVD in a new special edition titled the "Whatever! Edition" and does so with style. Presented in a new anamorphic transfer that is virtually free of any noticeable compression artifacts, with just a small portion that displayed some edge enhancement and visible, but very minor dust particles, which were few and far in between. Color saturation is first class, which was responsible for exhibiting true and natural appearing flesh tones, while showcasing the bright colors of the teenaged fashions of that time. Blacks were reproduced rich and deep demonstrating good detail throughout the films transfer, making for a pleasant, well-rounded presentation.
"Clueless" comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation (with the option of English or French 2.0 surround) that offers a conventional sound that is cautious at best. Offering a good balance and use of available channels, the provided mix could have benefited from slightly deeper bass, which would have helped the dialogue to achieve a more natural sounding presentation.
Special features boast a good selection of featurettes, including; "The Class of '95" a look at the cast, then and now. A creative writing segment with director Amy Heckerling on creating the world of "Clueless", a "Fashion 101" feature, "Language Arts" and a tutorial on "Suck 'N Blow". There is also a feature that includes stories from the cast and crew on the making of "Clueless" titled "We're History", with two theatrical trailers and various Paramount sneak peeks rounding out the added value material.
It's sure hard to believe that this film has reached its ten year anniversary and Paramount is celebrating that milestone with a cool special edition for fans.
