(Breakfast Club, Curly Sue, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, Sixteen Candles, Uncle Buck, Weird Science)
Producer:
John Hughes and Tom Jacobson
Screenplay:
John Hughes
Music:
Ira Newborn
Cast:
Buck Russell: John Candy
Tia Russell: Jean Louisa Kelly
Maisy Russell: Gaby Hoffmann
Miles Russell: Macaulay Culkin
Chanice Kobolowski: Amy Madigan
Cindy Russell: Elaine Bromka
Bob Russell: Garrett M. Brown
Marcie Dahlgren-Frost: Laurie Metcalf
Bug: Jay Underwood
Pooter-the-Clown: Mike Starr
In 1989, Uncle Buck
was one of the last films John Hughes directed that was actually funny,
while keeping up the pace we came to expect from him, before he concentrated
on mainly writing and producing films that revolved around 'cute' kids and
less about the comedy.
At the Russell household, parents Cindy (Elaine Bromka) and Bob
(Garrett M. Brown) are called away back to their home town of
Indianapolis after Cindy's father has a heart attack, much to the annoyance
of teenage tyrant Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly) who never wanted to leave
and is so upset it just manifests itself as a silent rage. Her younger
siblings, Maisy (Gaby Hoffmann) and Miles (a pre-
Home AloneMacaulay Culkin), are too innocent to be so nasty.
Hired for the job of housemaid is Bob's brother, hence the title,
the effervescent Uncle Buck (the late, great John Candy who died in 1994 while filming
Wagons East). He's got problems of his own with his job - or rather a
lack of one, his girlfriend Chanice (Amy Madigan), a drunken clown
named Pooter (Mike Starr), an eccentric neighbour, Marcie
Dahlgren-Frost (Laurie Metcalf), plus new nemeses in the form of
scowling Tia and her boyfriend Bug (Jay Underwood).
The only slight downer is when all the tension built up during the film
is dissipated by a schmaltzy American ending when everything works out fine
and everyone learns to be a better person. All together now... aaah(!)
Presented in an anamorphic widescreen ratio of 1.85:1, this is the first time
the film has been available on a home format in the UK in anything other than
a fullscreen ratio. While this is very welcome, there are plenty of UNwelcome
artifacts in all the bright scenes. I presume this was the only master
Columbia TriStar could find. It's preferable to a fullscreen one, even though
it would be open-matte.
The average bitrate is 5.93Mb/s, briefly peaking above 9Mb/s.
The sound is still only Dolby Pro Logic, as it was made, but there are
still scores of impressive sound FX dropped in such as the bowling ball
incident, the dog lick and, last but not least, Buck's classic car.
Dialogue comes in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish flavours.
Extras :
Little going on here. No trailers, just Filmographies for
John Candy and Amy Madigan and several pages of Production
Notes.
A Universal-via-Columbia DVD so we have the usual few chapters (16 this time,
in keeping with the Region 1 DVD) and subtitles 14 languages :
English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Swedish, Finnish,
Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Danish and Bulgarian.
The main menu is static, with a look to it akin to the front cover.
The film is just as funny as I remember, but the lack of extras makes it a
difficult recommendation at full price, especially as at least two video
trailers were classified on October 24th, 1989.
Uncle Buck was a 12-certificate in the cinema, for what I'm sure was
as a result of a single f-word being present. The subsequent video version
was a 15-cert as the 12-cert hadn't been permitted for video releases at the
time, but when this widescreen version was submitted to the BBFC for
classification on October 2nd, 2000, they allowed it to have a 12-certificate
again without any cuts and it has the same running time as the video release.
As I write, however, I can't find the f-word in the film. Can anyone tell me
where it is?
DVD Trivia: A short-lived TV series, starring Kevin Meaney
in the titular role, spun-off from this film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
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
