'The Jerk' - High-Def Digest Review

[jed]

Peter's review of the 'The Jerk' is up. Almost thirty years on, Peter says this largely forgotten '70s Steve Martin comedy holds up quite well. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of this HD DVD release, which offers little more than a slight video upgrade over the 2005 standard-def remaster.

Full review here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/jerk.html

[noblekreed]

Although "Animal House" is considered a classic by many, "The Producers," despite numerous Oscar nominations, was never a blow-out critical or financial success, as it was considered financially something of a failure.

What you're seeing now is a bit of revisionist history with the production of the "The Producers" Broadway show. The great success of that musical has given the false impression that the film itself is considered a comedy classic by the general public at large, when in reality far more people have seen and loved "The Jerk" compared to Brook's forgotten comedy film.

Is "The Producers" an amazing comedy masterpiece? Of course. Is it a classic? Judged by any objective standard, the answer has to be no.

-Professor Roberta Pearson
The Institute of Film and Television Studies
University of Nottingham

[Spideybat]

Glad I didn't upgrade from my SD.

[vegasr]

Me too. I was planning to buy it. Going against the trend I try to buy anything from Universal because they are HD's exclusive studio. Plus the only disc I have had a problem with is CoM. I might buy it later for $12 but no more.

[Ph8]

Sicne I didnt have the SD version, and i wsnt expecting miracles, I didnt expect the source to be taken care of like the other classics...I am not going to complain we cant have a "perfect" HD version every time....

[MasterOB1]

Still buying...love this one and while not on par visually with a newer release, I'm sure it looks better than the sd.

[Paul H]

Received an e-mail from Amazon that my pre-order "The Jerk" HD DVD will be delayed until June 25, 2007! DVD Empire had it "IN STOCK" and "ready to ship" on April 17, the release day.

What's up with that?

[1080p]

Originally Posted by Paul H

Received an e-mail from Amazon that my pre-order "The Jerk" HD DVD will be delayed until June 25, 2007! DVD Empire had it "IN STOCK" and "ready to ship" on April 17, the release day.

What's up with that?

I received my copy this past Friday from Amazon.
It was shipped from a different location than the other parts of my order, and came a couple of days later than the rest.

As for the disc..

The PQ wasn't as bad as the review states on this site.
It did suffer from some noticeable film grain in some scenes mostly at the gas station scenes (Film source). There were a couple bits of dirt here and there (not so bad), but the colors were vivid. To me It looked as good as a film this old probably looked when it had played in it's theatrical release. It looked very film like.
I was pretty happy with Universal's treatment.

Funny movie and I give it a much better ratting then this review did.

[paulisme]

There's nothing wrong with the title "The Jerk" as is pointed out in the review. Perhaps today the word is used more to describe someone as "cruel" or "rude," but Webster also defines it as "an annoyingly stupid or foolish person," which is just what Navin's character is. If watch TV shows or listen to music from the 50's and 60's (the TV show "Leave it to Beaver" and the song "Come On" by Chuck Berry come to mind), you'll see that the latter was once the much more common definition.

[Spideybat]

I recorded this off Universal HD and was very pleased with it.

[1080p]

I'll say it again.. I didn't think the transfer was as bad as the review.
It was, to me very film like and yes it could have been better, i guess, but it was HD to me. Seen a whole lot worse.

[Arkadin]

I have gone back and forth on getting this many times. I just can't seem to pull the trigger. maybe I'll just go ahead and get it. It's a classic for sure.