City Of Angels.
Warner Bros. / 1998 / 110 Mins / Rated M15+


MOVIE
Seth (Nicolas Cage) is an angel who comes to retrieve the spirit of newly departed humans. 

Maggie (Meg Ryan) is a heart surgeon  in a Los Angeles Hospital.

Maggie is doing a bypass on one of her patients when the patient dies. Seth comes to retrieve her patient, she sees Seth and he falls instantly in love with her. 

What follows is a strange romance between the two, but Seth knows he can never be truly be with her so Seth makes the decision to give up everything he has to become a mortal and be with her. 

I can't get more cut & dried than that. It's a good romance to watch with your better half but the ending is so predictable.

VIDEO
City of Angels is a standard Warner transfer, on the whole it is of high quality. There were a few MPEG artifacts present in the first 15 minutes of the film but things begin to settle down after that. The colors seemed spot on and the blacks were very deep blacks.

City of Angels is framed at 2:35:1 and is 16:9 enhanced.

This is a Dual Sided, Single Layer disc. Movie on one side, extras on the other.

AUDIO

A return to form by Warner Bros. The audio on this disc is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is of generally high quality. The surrounds are used quite effectively for the ambient city sounds and music and it pulls it off quite well. The .1 channel is used mainly to underscore the music. There really isn't any WOW sounding scenes in this one.

The dialog was easy to listen to and wasn't interrupted by and ambient sounds.

EXTRAS
There are a few extras on side B of this disc.  Firstly, the main extra is a making of documentary called Wrestling Angels which is quite an informative doco that sheds a little insight into the movie. Also on the disc is a short VH1 clip interview with Peter Gabriel and one with Alanis Morissette, these interviews are separate and are started a little like the Village Roadshow interviews but at least they don't stop every 2 seconds. Also there are some deleted scenes that you can play with or without commentary, although a full director's commentary would have been preferred.

Subtitles in English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Closed Captions.

FINAL THOUGHTS
A bit of a tearjerker. Get some tissues for this one. Recommended.

16:9 ENHANCEMENT DISC RATING

VIDEO:
AUDIO:
EXTRAS:
PLOT:
OVERALL:

REVIEW EQUIPMENT

Display: 48" Sony RPTV.
DVD Player:
Panasonic A350 Player using S-Video Cables.
Receiver:
Pioneer VSX-D508 Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround.
Speakers:
Accusound speaker system.

Copyright © 2000 by [Roger Ward].
Revised: 25 May 2000 00:04:06 +1100 .

DVD INFORMATION
Region Coding: Region 4
No of Discs: 1
OFLC Rating M15+
Running Time: 110 minutes
Case Type: Snapper Case
Release Date: 25/4/1999
Catalog Number: 16320
List Price: $29.95
Distributor: Warner Bros.
DISC SPECIFICATIONS
Disc Format: PAL
Disc Type: No Label
Disc Format: DS-SL
Chapters: 40
Macrovision: Yes
Manufacturer: WAMO
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS
Aspect Ratio: 2:35:1
Anamorphic: Yes
Film Format: 35mm
SOUND SPECIFICATIONS
Dolby Digital:

5.1 Surround

DTS: None
PCM Stereo: None
Other: None
Languages:


English
French
Italian
Subtitles: Yes
SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary: Yes 
Theatrical Trailer: None
Teaser Trailer: None
TV Spots: None
Dolby Trailer: None
Documentary: Yes
Cast & Crew Bios: Yes
Deleted Scenes: Yes
Music Videos: None
DVD Rom Content: None
Collectable Booklet: None
Scene Access: Yes
Animated Menus: None
Production Notes: Yes
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