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I was almost completely unfamiliar with Patton Oswalt before watching this DVD, but now I’m practically a frothing-at-the-mouth fan. Known as one of the foremost voices in “alternative comedy,” Oswalt proudly carries the torch set down by the late Bill Hicks. Mixing social commentary with gleefully rude scatalogical material, Oswalt goes one further than Hicks with a kind of playful (but pointed) surrealism. One early routine on “No Reason To Complain” is a series of jokes about midgets, but but it’s too bizarre and silly to be offensive (”if you throw a midget into a tub of hot water, he turns into chamomile tea!”)–besides, it’s also tears-streaming-down-your-face hilarious. More sharply observant is a bit about the differences between conservative talk radio and NPR, in which racist right-wingers present themselves as rebellious by using hard rock intro music, while their liberal counterparts can only muster “a sad, lonely saxophone echoing in a sewer pipe.” Oswalt announces that he hates George W. Bush and the Iraq war (this once got him booed offstage in Pittsburgh, but the audience of fans in the DVD practically give him a standing-O), but he also hates hippies. “I’m a man without a country,” he says. There’s also a completely original take on one of the most overdone subjects of the last few years–Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ.” While Oswalt notes that he’s a “stone cold atheist,” he nonetheless gives Gibson kudos for having the balls to make such a violent, raw movie. Oswalt’s propsition for a similar movie he’d like to see just has to be heard to believed.

Now for the bad news: this was originally broadcast as a one-hour special on Comedy Central and was heavily bleeped and edited for television. While the “unrated” DVD eliminates the bleeps, it unfortunately saves the original format, bringing the main program down to just 42 minutes (that’s a lot of commercials!). It’s pretty obvious where the ad breaks were, and it hurts the flow of
Patton Oswalt No Reason

“Patton” is the story of General George Patton, a complex man who was religious and profane at the same time. This film isn’t a biography of Patton, but it does show him during WWII. Franklin Schaffner portrays Patton in a more objective manner than usual with this type of film. This is one of the few films where you will like and dislike the main character at the same time.

On to the DVD. The picture quality is excellent, but there is some age evident in the print used. This is an early 16:9 enhanced disc by Fox, though the packaging does not indicate so. There is a tad too much edge enhancement and it annoyed me, but it isn’t terribly intrusive.

The sound is a remixed DD 5.1 track. The surrounds get quite a bit of use, but don’t expect “Saving Private Ryan” type sound here. The soundtrack sounds a bit dated, and the ADR sounds obvious when it appears.

On Disc One, an audio essay by a Patton historian is included and runs about 81 minutes. It is not screen specific, nor is it a commentary, so kudos to Fox for not saying that it is. Trailers for “Tora! Tora! Tora!” “Patton,” and “The Longest Day” are included also. A French mono track and Spanish subtitles are included.

Disc Two contains a documentary on the filming of “Patton” which runs about 50 minutes. It was included on a previous LaserDisc release of the film, but given that it is on a separate disc, they could have lengthened it. An option to play the isolated score from “Patton” is included, which will run over the documentary if selected. Only about 30 minutes of the film were scored, so including the isolated score on Disc One would have left a lot of silence during passages.

Fox has a winner on their hands with “Patton,” with its good video/audio quality and fairly good extras. Dissmissed!
Patton Two Disc Collector