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The Movie:
One of the most memorable teen comedies of the 90's, "Clueless" was the jumping off point for Alicia Silverstone's career, making the actress the latest "It Girl". Although Silverstone has had some bumpy patches since, "Clueless" still stands out as a bright and funny teen comedy that's clever and sharply, smartly played.
Silverstone plays Cher Horowitz, a Beverly Hills teen queen who runs her school, working her way around undesirable grades and hanging out with her best friend Dionne(Cher states, "We're both named after great singers of the past that now do infomercials.") After uniting two of her teachers - which results in better grades for her and fellow students - she and Dionne set her sights on Tai (Brittany Murphy), a new student who is just about as far away from the kind of fashion-concious, popular crowd that can be found in every hall of their school.
All that done, Cher realizes that she hasn't found anyone for herself. So begins the search for "the one", but her "one" may be the one she least expects. Silverstone's performance as Cher is a real highlight; she's self-obsessed (she walks down the street thinking about her worries, and stops to wonder if they have something in the clothing store window in her size), yet she's sweet and sweetly oblivious to some of her lesser qualities. Silverstone is also surrounded here by a terrific supporting cast, including Stacey Dash, Dan Hedaya (as Cher's father), Donald Faison, Wallace Shawn, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd and others.
Ten years later, "Clueless" seems a little dated, but still remains hilarious throughout much of its running time. Silverstone's performance is her best, and the film's witty one-liners still get laughs.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Clueless" has recieved an anamorphic "makeover" from Paramount and it looks great throughout. The image consistently does justice to king of cinematography Bill Pope(Army Of Darkness, The Matrix)'s work. The picture is consistently clear, sharp and boasts fine detail. The bright colors look vivid and eye-popping throughout, looking well-saturated and accurate. Flesh tones are accurate and for the most part, lovely. Even the darker scenes contain a very pleasing amount of information.
There are one or two short instances of shimmering and a tiny mark or two on the print used, but for the most part, "Clueless" looks great and praise to Paramount for delivering another very good anamorphic transfer to a catalog title. The aspect ratio is 1.85:1.
SOUND: "Clueless" contains a great soundtrack full of pop and alternative rock tunes and it sounds great here, sounding clear, full and with nice definition. The performance at the party by one of my favorite bands, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, sounds especially strong. The rest of the movie is mainly focused upon the dialogue, which sounds clear and clean; easily heard and never sounding thin. The presentation is in Dolby Digital 5.1.
EXTRAS: Oddly, we don't get a commentary from director Amy Heckerling, Alicia Silverstone or anyone from the movie. We do, however, get a series of new featurettes. "The Class of '95" is the first piece included, and it runs a little less than 15 minutes. Writer/director Amy Heckerling and other members of the crew talk about working with the actors, casting and trying to piece together the ensemble cast. The piece is a mixture of new and old interviews, with Murphy, Heckerling and others providing new comments. Unfortunately, we don't get to hear any new thoughts from Silverstone here (she couldn't have been that busy to not offer a few memories here.)
"Creative Writing" takes a look at the origins of "Clueless", which originally started as an idea for a TV pilot, then went into a feature script called "I Was a Teenage Teenager". Although it spent a lot of time floating around, the script finally got into the right hands and was rewritten to be something of an update to "Emma". Writer/director Heckerling discusses how the movie ran into a lot of resistance, before going into turnaround and then ending up at Paramount.
"Fashion 101" looks at the style of the movie, as well as the costume design of the picture and how the movie's fashion had an influence on viewers. Silverstone's character alone had 50+ costume changes in the movie, according to the featurette. "Language Arts" takes a look at the dialogue/slang in the movie, "Driver's Ed" talks about the difficulties in filming (and shows raw footage) the freeway sequence while on a freeway that wasn't closed for them and "We're History" offers some of the cast and crew offering some brief thoughts on making the picture and recall the thrill of watching audiences reacting well in a screening of a movie. Finally, we get a tutorial for the "Suck N' Blow" game (the piece filmed on-set in 1995) seen in the movie, promos for other Paramount titles and two trailers for "Clueless".
Final Thoughts: "Clueless" is a little dated in spots, but it remains a fast, entertaining and often hilarious teen flick, with a great performance from Silverstone. This new DVD edition once again provides fine video/audio quality, and the difference here - several new featurettes - are enjoyable, but don't have a lot of repeat viewing value. Fans may want to rent this from Netflix or pick this up on sale, but casual fans can probably stick with the prior release.
Film Grade
The Film A-
DVD Grades
Video 92/A
Audio: 87/B
Extras: 83/B
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