So, Blind Date was my first Nico Mastorakis film and I really enjoyed it. This is a film that knows what it is and doesn't try to hide it, but with all the beauty of sun-drenched Greece and tons of beautiful people, it just works. The film is dripping with 80s atmosphere, from the hairstyles and clothing, to accessories like Walkman portable cassette decks (I really want that red one) and rudimentary video game systems. Joseph Bottoms appears on screen for the first time in an open jacket with a t-shirt underneath that reads "I ❤️ MY DENTIST". This being Greece, there are no Greek people with speaking roles, but there are British chavs running about the subway station and for some reason, an eminent American neurosurgeon who just so happens to be working on experimental sensory restoration procedures...in Greece. After his accident, Bottoms can see using a "super computer" (actually a glorified
[Show spoiler]Walkman
) in sketchy, hard to make-out outlines of objects, but that apparently translates to 99.9% accurate real-world vision even though he can't see colors or details. By the end of the film, his blindness has almost become a superpower and has enabled him to solve mysteries like a one-man Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode.
Of course, Mastorakis also peppers the film with a treasure trove of beautiful women, most of them in bathing suits or if not, frequently topless or nude. This includes Kirstie Alley, who is topless during a love scene near the beginning of the film and wears more than one open blouse showing off her cleavage. Lana Clarkson also models a number of sexy outfits throughout. Marina Sirtis is also onboard in a rather puzzling sequence of two scenes where her dialogue is completely muted and drowned out by the score. Why this was done is a mystery to me, though perhaps there was some sort of technical issue. Of course, there is also a cameo from a then-unknown Valeria Golino as another of the bathing suit models. And on it goes. Every time the movie threatens to start wandering, Mastorakis cuts to a well-lit scene showing the female form. It's genius.
Speaking of extras, I was all set to just get a taste of the documentary The Films of Nico Mastorakis (2002), which he originally produced for his DVD collection, but I found Mastorakis such an engaging narrator that I actually watched the whole thing all at once. Though I have a feeling he may sometimes be simplifying some things, Mastorakis seems generally sincere and honest in his recollections and he is fully aware of his standing versus Hollywood and quite self-deprecating. The documentary is very clip-heavy and sometimes Mastorakis just lets the footage play out without narration, but by and large, he has a lot to say, always interesting and most of it very kind, with the exception of one or two actors he hired who lived up to their less-than-great reputations. For whatever reason, the US Blu-ray of Blind Date only seems to include the first and longest part, but not the other three, so that should be reason enough to get the 88 Films disc. It is true that Blind Date is pretty much fully covered in the first part, including Mastorakis' infamous inclusion of the ungraded dailies of Kirstie Alley's love scene, featuring additional nude shots, but the parts are designed to go together, so it is great to have them all in one. The encodes are HD but are upscaled, since the source is 4:3 SD video.
The 88 Films disc also includes the "Original Trailer" in HD, an HD photo gallery, which also contains scans of the Playboy article on the film and accompanying nude photo shoot, featuring girls not nude in the film, including Clarkson and Golino. Rounding out the disc are two music videos, apparently assembled from the finished film footage and then put through digital effects. These are in SD and look blown up in 16:9.
Finally, in addition to the slipcase and a reversible cover, 88 Films also includes 4 erotic art cards, which are shots from the nude photo shoot in the extras.
The inclusion of the complete Mastorakis documentary (over 150 minutes long) in addition to all the extras on the US Blu-ray vaults this UK disc ahead by some distance. Our review of the US disc also mentions banding being present, but I saw none on the UK disc, so that is another advantage. The 4K-sourced master looks incredible and the lossless 2.0 track sounds great for such a low-budget feature. The film is perfect late-night fare and I will enjoy this disc many times in the years to come.
Wow, the "thanks" from today just popped up in my forum activity, so I went back here. It turns out I was really specific about the nudity in this film when I wrote that at almost 3:00 am one morning in February.
I think from now on, I will only post reviews of discs during the day.
But I still think this disc is excellent. It looks like the slipcase and art cards are still available, too.
The compression on the 88 release is superior to the Scorpion release. Horrible compression/banding found on the Scorpion is gone here.
I'm so happy with my 88 disc.
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Blind Date (1984)
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