The 4:30 Movie, 2024.
Directed by Kevin Smith.
Starring Austin Zajur, Nicholas Cirillo, Reed Northrup, Siena Agudong, and Ken Jeong.
SYNOPSIS:
Kevin Smith’s latest, the nostalgia-filled Gen X crowd pleaser The 4:30 Movie, arrives on 4K Ultra HD in a nice Steelbook-plus-slipcover package meant, of course, to evoke an old VHS rental tape. It’s a nice little coming-of-age story, and this package also includes a Blu-ray and a code for a digital copy. The extras are a bit lacking, but it does come with a Kevin Smith commentary track, and those are always a blast.
I’m glad to see that Kevin Smith has pretty much embraced his Gen X brand. I realize that deep down inside, he may (no one knows this for certain, of course; hence the word “may”) want to make other kinds of flicks, but The 4:30 Movie is a great example of the kind of movie he makes that speaks to all of us who are a similar age.
Set in 1986 and loosely based on Smith’s own teenage experiences, The 4:30 Movie takes place in one day in the life of Brian David (Austin Zajur). He starts his morning with a phone call to Melody Barnegat (Siena Agudong) and an invitation to a movie at 4:30 that afternoon.
She agrees and he’s thrilled, because he made out with her in her pool the previous summer but was too nervous to go any further than that, even though she wanted him to. He hooks up with his two best buddies, the awkward but well-meaning Belly (Reed Northrup) and the slick Burny (Nicholas Cirillo), who are going to accompany him to the theater.
Their plans go awry, of course, as they contend with Mike (Ken Jeong), the hilariously over-the-top theater manager who seems to think he’s connected to Hollywood because of his job, and try to get multiple movies out of their single ticket purchases by sneaking in to other screenings. And, of course, Melody ends up unable to meet Brian for the 4:30 movie, so he and his friends need to rearrange the movies they will see so the pair can see a later showing of the film they’re planning to see together.
Along the way, Brian must come to terms with his relationship with Burny, who is always putting him down in various ways and keeps making snide remarks about Melody. If you think this plot has a John Hughes feel to it, you’d be right, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay. The 4:30 Movie is a nice little coming-of-age movie that speaks to many of us who were born in Generation X. Let me have a little nostalgia before I croak, okay?
Lionsgate has issued this one in a nice 4K Ultra HD package that also includes a Blu-ray and a code for a digital copy. The slipcover and the Steelbook are meant to evoke a VHS tape rental, which is a nice touch. (Side note: I still don’t understand the release of Alien: Romulus on VHS (yes, really). It’s one thing to make the disc packaging look like an old school VHS tape, but it’s another to expect people to actually buy a movie on VHS and watch it that way in the year 2024. I have been more than happy to leave VHS in the dustbin of history.)
I suppose I should comment on the image quality here, although any movie of a recent vintage is going to look great in 4K Ultra HD, and this release is no exception. A studio would really have to drop the ball in a big way to screw up the home video edition of a movie that was in theaters just a couple months ago, so rest assured that Lionsgate didn’t do that.
Unfortunately, the extras for this one are a bit lacking. First up a making-of, Going Home Again: The Making of The 4:30 Movie, that runs close to 23 minutes and gives a nice little overview of the production. That’s it for video-based bonus features, but I realize home video budgets are probably pretty tight these days.
The other extra is a commentary track with Kevin Smith. Fans know that the guy loves to talk and pretty much doesn’t hold anything back, so his discussion of The 4:30 Movie is full of all kinds of great information.
The theatrical trailer rounds out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook