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Guest House Paradiso (Blu-ray)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Powerhouse Films Review written by and copyright: Rick Curzon (12th August 2024). |
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The Film
 After a decade of honing their signature characters, Richie and Eddie, across TV and stage-show appearances, British comedy legends Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson (The Comic Strip Presents..., The Young Ones) finally gave the pair the big-screen outing which they truly deserved in the riotous, vomit-soaked entertainment that is Guest House Paradiso. When Mr Nice (Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead) and his family check in to ‘the cheapest hotel in Britain’ – run with maximum inefficiency and malfeasance by Richie and Eddie – it sets off an outrageous chain of events involving rubber underwear, a beautiful Italian film star (Hélène Mahieu), her abusive fiancé (Vincent Cassel, Irreversible), and a consignment of radioactive fish. Featuring a spectacular supporting cast, which also includes Fenella Fielding (Carry On Screaming!, Hammer’s The Old Dark House) and Bill Nighy (Love Actually), this slapstick tour-de-force is a latter-day classic of disreputable British comedy, which has to be seen to be believed.
Video
I saw the BBC's Bottom (1991-95) at the time but the feature film spinoff completely passed me by. It was only years later when my wife showed me the series again that I became aware of Guest House Paradiso; she wasn't a fan feeling it just became more OTT and grotesque (too much vomit gags). Thankfully, with this new Powerhouse presentation of Vinegar Syndrome's restoration, I got my chance. Unfortunately, the film just goes overboard and could've done with a much tighter edit. There are plenty of laughs but scenes do go on and on; not a total loss but really only for Bottom completists. The formula worked better under BBC constraints. From the booklet: Guest House Paradiso was scanned, restored and colour corrected by Vinegar Syndrome, using a 35mm interpositive. The film’s original 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks were remastered at the same time.This is a colourful film for it's time and especially when compared to many current mainstream Hollywood productions made digitally with flat, low contrast. The image is very strong and has been given a 4K restoration and looks wonderful throughout. Primaries are very vibrant (Richie wearing women's red underwear, Hélène Mahieu's dress) flesh tones naturalistic, occasionally ruddy. This is a stylised film with a slightly filtered, diffused look at times but the encode does a great job keeping the image stable with no colour bleed or delineation issues. Black levels are perfectly balanced with great shadow detail and no signs of crush. Contrast is well handled with lots of whites and highlights maintaining plenty of detail and no blowouts. There's no signs of digital tinkering and plenty of fine natural grain ('A'). 1080p24 / AVC MPEG-4 / BD50 / 2.39:1 / 89:54
Audio
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (48kHz, 24-bit) Subtitles: English HoH The 5.1 is the way to go as it expands the sound field impressively in violent moments (of which there are far too many) with exaggerated sound effects. The 2.0 requires ProLogic II to get surround activity and then it doesn't quite kick out like the 5.1 with a slight.y less dynamic presentation. Hard fo hearing subtitles are spot on as usual, getting 100% of the dialogue and nuance ('A').
Extras
"The Making of Guest House Paradiso" 1999 documentary (35:53) Vintage making off with plenty of nice B-roll footage from the set and interviews with the key players. Upscaled 1080p24 1.33:1 with lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (48kHz, 192Kbps). "Squalid Precision: Production Designer Tom Brown on Guest House Paradiso" 2024 interview (17:06) "All the Right Noises: Composer Colin Towns on Guest House Paradiso" 2024 interview (15:39) "Paradiso Pegg" 2023 interview with Simon Pegg (11:40) "Finely Tuned Madness: Editor Sean Barton on Guest House Paradiso" 2024 interview (7:51) 52:16 worth of new interviews recalling the making of this largely unloved film. The longest featurette has Brown discussing how he moved from having done television to film with Guest House Paradiso and a lively anecdote about how Edmondson informed him he'd got the job. He covers his approach to the design with some surrealist comical touches like how the Guest House had walls halfway through fireplaces etc. Most interesting how they had to make props and set walls out of rubber or foil so the violent action would be safer, but at other times sets could be real. Veteran composer Towns discusses his friendship with Phil McIntyre, his career, how he got the gig and the score. Pegg discusses his love of comedy growing up in the '80s, loving The Young Ones (1982-84) and The Comic Strip (). He also talks about how making the film was a great experience working with Mayal and Edmondson. Barton was a big fan of Bottom, hadn't done much comedy when he got the job editing Guest House Paradiso (he mainly edited thrillers) but was happy that Edmondson chose him to work on the film. He covers how editing was concurrent to shooting so if there wasn't enough footage he could feed that back to Edmondson daily. All in 1080p24 1.78:1 with letterboxed clips in 2.39:1 with lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (48kHz, 192Kbps) and no hard of hearing subtitles. Outtakes (9:11) A gag reel of cockups presented in 1080p24 2.39:1 with uncompressed English LPCM 2.0 mono (48kHz, 24-bit) with no hard of hearing subtitles. Theatrical Trailer #1 (1:55) Theatrical Trailer #2 (0:53) Theatrical Trailer #3 (1:00) Promos presented in 1080p24 2.39:1 with uncompressed English LPCM 2.0 stereo (48kHz, 24-bit) with no hard of hearing subtitles. Guest House Paradiso Image Gallery: Original Promotional Material (35 images) Solid HD gallery. 40-page liner notes booklet with a new essay by Jon Robertson, an archival on-set report, an archival interview with Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall, an overview of contemporary critical responses and film credits Excellent hard copy companion to the film is actually more interesting than the film itself; certainly adds great added value to the package.
Packaging
Not sent for review.
Overall
A largely forgotten and not terribly successful big screen spinoff from the classic BBC series Bottom (1991-95) gets the deluxe special edition treatment courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome's 4K restoration and Powerhouse Film's superb encode and extras package. Image and sound are very strong for the format, highly recommended for those so inclined ('A').
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