Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Swedish
Widescreen: 2.35:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras:
The Truth About Simon Pegg, Pegg-Cam Diary, Holy Moley! The Making of Big Nothing, Audio Commentary, Photo Gallery.
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Director:
Jean-Baptiste Andrea
(Big Nothing, Dead End)
Producer:
Andras Hamori and Gabriella Stollenwerck
Screenplay:
Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Billy Asher
Cast :
Charlie Wood: David Schwimmer
Gus: Simon Pegg
Josie McBroom: Alice Eve
Agent Hymes: Jon Polito
Penelope Wood: Natascha McElhone
Mrs Smalls: Mimi Rogers
Deputy Garman: Billy Asher
80-year-old Blind Man: Julian Glover
Emily: Olivia Peterson
Isabella: Sarah Edmondson
Call Centre Supervisor: Amber Rose Sealey
Max: Colin Stinton
Rev. Smalls: Mitchell Mullen
Oregon Undertaker: Paul Preston
In Big Nothing,
Charlie (David Schwimmer), is an unpublished author who keeps coming out with odd number-related facts as if he's an
autistic savant. Gus (Simon Pegg, right with Schwimmer) is a layabout who later refers to Charlie, due to his delivery of random knowledge,
as 'Rainman' and together they meet while the latter is working at the town call centre and the former manages to do such
a crap job that he gets sacked on his first day.
Gus' daughter is about to go blind from disease relating to eye-pressure, but he has a plan to blackmail a Reverend for
$100,000 for looking at illegal porn sites while at work. However, as the plan gets more complex and one of Pegg's one-night-stands,
teen beauty queen and waitress Josie (Alice Eve, below-right) demands to be in on the deal and ups the ante, the situation just goes
from bad to worse for the trio. Meanwhile, there's a sadistic killer on the loose called the Oregon Undertaker, and that plays a
very intriguing part in the proceedings.
It's difficult to say what follows because a series of events follow that, if I were to describe them, would rob the
film of its surprises, but I can confirm that there is great support from Mimi Rogers as the Reverend's wife, and
Natascha McElhone as Charlie's wife. Overall, Big Nothing is a comedy/drama with very clever writing that ties
everything together with great style and makes for a tale full of lies and deceit where the comedy isn't laugh-out-loud but
often nicely underplayed and it's more the black comedy variety, moreso than I was expecting. It's also a relatively short
film at 82 minutes and certainly doesn't outstay its welcome.
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic ratio, there are no problems with the picture and the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound
only really comes into its own for the music now and again, plus gunshots.
The extras begin with The Truth About Simon Pegg (2:45), in which David Schwimmer tours the set talking to the crew
and asking them, with a video camera - filming in 4:3, why they hate Simon Pegg so much - all in jest, obviously, although perhaps it has something to do with Star Wars?
Then, with the Pegg-Cam Diary (10:27), it's the other guy's turn to hold the video camera and more amusing mayhem ensues.
Surprisingly, Holy Moley! The Making of Big Nothing (14:03) is shot in 16:9 anamorphic with chat from the cast and crew
and from the 16:9 clips of the film it shows that, as it was shot in Super 35, that a decent open-matte print can be struck
if one of those TV channels like BBC, ITV or Five continue to be stuck in the dark ages by not broadcasting films in 2.35:1
when they've been filmed that way.
If an Audio Commentary is your bag then there's one here from the director, Jean-Baptiste Andrea, plus Simon Pegg
and Alice Eve. If not, or either way, then there's a Photo Gallery with 25 images.
The menu features music from the film with shots of the characters moving about, there are subtitles in English
only and the disc contains 16 chapters which fine for a film that only runs 77 minutes before the closing credits arrive.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
In Big Nothing,
Charlie (David Schwimmer), is an unpublished author who keeps coming out with odd number-related facts as if he's an
autistic savant. Gus (Simon Pegg, right with Schwimmer) is a layabout who later refers to Charlie, due to his delivery of random knowledge,
as 'Rainman' and together they meet while the latter is working at the town call centre and the former manages to do such
a crap job that he gets sacked on his first day.
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic ratio, there are no problems with the picture and the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound
only really comes into its own for the music now and again, plus gunshots.