- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
- Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
- Rating: R
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD + Digital Copy)
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Blu-ray Release Date: February 8, 2011
- List Price: $29.98
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Purchase For Colored Girls on Blu-ray+DVD + Digital Copy Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
With For Colored Girls, filmmaker and playwright Tyler Perry brings together a virtual who’s who of black actresses in his film adaptation of the play by Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. The play is really a series of twenty poems, which play out sequentially, and, onstage, feature one woman known only by a color reading a poem. It deals with the state of being a woman, more specifically, a black woman, in the world today.
Perry has taken that series of poems, crafted a loose story around it and turned into a film. When you think of For Colored Girls, think of a musical, only one in which instead of song, people break out into poetry readings. The poems from the play are still included in the film, but this process doesn’t necessarily work that well.
In Perry’s For Colored Girls, the women are now given names and they are made to endure just about every terrible thing a woman could possibly go through – rape, child molestation, physical abuse, and botched abortions among those things. Although the performances by actresses such as Phylicia Rashad and Thandie Newton, the film’s lost souls, are strong, Perry terribly misuses most of the actresses’ strengths. Kerry Washington seems aimless, Whoopi Goldberg, one of the film’s broken characters, seems uncomfortable playing a religion-obsessed woman with a metaphorical hole in her heart and Janet Jackson, the well-off, business woman with a personal life falling to pieces, is just stiff in all of her scenes.
With all of that taken into account, For Colored Girls, with its endless series of sad, tear-bating poetry readings, is just a ponderous, melancholic film that, despite all of its pretensions to high drama and deeper meaning, ends up feeling like nothing more than a melodramatic public service message for safe sex.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
For Colored Girls comes with a strong AVC/MPEG-4 encodement that has rich midtones, strong detail that is extended well into the backgrounds, and good shadow details. Grain is very reserved, with a thin layer that is noticeable, but not distracting. Some softness creeps in occasionally that isn’t necessarily a byproduct of the transfer.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
This is another odd choice of film to receive a 7.1 lossless mix given the dialogue-driven nature of the material. Nevertheless, the mix is quite effective and uses the extra channels well, with some mild atmospheric effects and the occasionally audible discrete sound from the rear. The dialogue is clean and full and the plaintive score sounds lush, smooth and dynamic without overwhelming the dialogue.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
For Colored Girls nicely uses the capability of Blu-ray to offer some interactive supplements as well as high-definition featurettes on the film’s production.
The supplements provided with this release are:
- Span of the Rainbow (1080p/24) – An interactive feature presenting video, text, and photos that tracks the creation of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf from its origins through to the 2010 theatrical film release by Tyler Perry.
- Prism of Poems (1080p/24) – Poems from the film and book.
- Transformation: Movie Magic (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:14.54)
- Music For Colored Girls:
- “Main Title” Montage
- “La donna in viola” Montage
- “Sechita (A Senhora en Amarelo)” Montage
- Marketing Archive:
- Theatrical Trailer (1.85:1; 1080p/24)
- Living Portraits (1080p/24)
- Art Gallery (1080p/24)
- DVD
- Digital Copy for Mac and PC
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3.5/5]
Tyler Perry just can’t keep himself from the melodrama in any of his production and he seems to have a deep-seeded need to neatly tie up all of his characters’ personal issues. This unrealistic look at life and overbearing tendency towards sadness and preachiness seems more than ever at an all-time fever pitch on For Colored Girls. I have to say skip this one, even though the Blu-ray is actually quite a solidly done release.
Additional Screen Captures:
[amazon-product align=”right”]B003Y5H4ZM[/amazon-product]
Purchase For Colored Girls on Blu-ray+DVD + Digital Copy Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
Join the Discussion on Our Forum
i can’t help but wonder why, of all the scenes in that movie, you chose to post a screencap of a woman being raped? what was the thought process? how does that image of a naked man raping a screaming woman on a floor add to your review of the dvd’s quality? i just can’t decipher your point what with the dehumanizing brutality of the image.
If you have a problem with the content of the film, blame the director and the screenwriters, not me. The review is here (along with screen captures) both to represent the picture and audio of the transfer and to give a general sense of the film’s content. For example, if I review a slasher movie, I don’t limit myself to screen captures of only people smiling or having conversations at the mall, I show some of the gore. It’s also important to realize that this is fiction and not a documentary.
Thanks for your comments and your point of view. :-)