Sheena Easton Movie:

		List Price: $29.99		Label: Paramount Salesrank: 36979 Released: June 9, 2009
		Our Price: $13.92
		Used Price: $10.96
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
Adrian Lyne buffs the premise of Honeymoon in Vegas to a fine gloss in this yuppie melodrama that poses the conundrum of whether the loving husband of an equally loving wife will accept $1 million to allow his wife to spend one night with a billionaire who looks like Robert Redford. All the cynics please take a number and form a line at the right. Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson play Diana and David Murphy, high-school sweethearts who marry and who are doing very well — Diana is a successful real-estate agent, and David is an idealistic architect who has built a dream house by the ocean — until the recession hits. Suddenly, David loses his job, and they can't make the mortgage payments. Dead broke, they borrow $5000 from David's father and head to Las Vegas to try to win money to pay the mortgage on their house. At first, they get $25,000 ahead — but inevitably the house always wins, and they end up losing it all. While Diana is in the fancy casino boutique trying to lift some candy, she is spotted by billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford), who is immediately attracted to her. John invites Diana and David to an opulent party, and it is there that John offers David $1 million for a night with his wife. David is wracked by this moral dilemma, but Diana finally makes the decision on her own, with ensuing consequences for their ideal marriage and their bank account.

Indecent Proposal [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Author of the Novel Supports the Movie
2009-08-02 - People keep asking if I'm okay with Paramount's rendering of my novel "Indecent Proposal" (ComteQ Publishing, Paperback). After all, a number of changes took place from my page to Hollywood's screen -- and, it is customary for the novelist to be fashionably upset at Hollywood. But I'm happy with the result.

Liberties were taken. This is true. But the main elements of my novel were kept intact -- temptation, sin, regret, redemption, forgiveness. In other words, Hollywood skimmed the surface, but with glamour.

After all, the billionaire (in the novel) is an Arab sultan, and the couple he tempts and traps, well, the guy is Jewish and his wife is high-class Gentile, somewhat like Grace Kelly. You'd expect Omar Sharif for starters, not Robert Redford.

In her review of the MOVIE for The New York Times, Janet Maslin paid tribute to the theme of the book and the movie as being "powerfully seductive." I'm okay with this and I'm okay with the Times' Sunday review of the BOOK (originally published in 1989), which, in part, runs as follows:

Of a "Jewish writer and gambler, who makes a bargain with the Devil (a handsome oil-rich billionaire.) The struggle between these two embraces a number of primal issues, the sanctity of marriage versus the love of money, the Jew versus significant non-Jews such as shiksas and sheiks, skill versus luck, materialism versus spirituality, Israel versus the Arab countries, the past versus the future, and the religious world versus the secular one."

Times' BOOK revieweer Barbara Raskin goes on to say, "In precise, almost clinical language, Mr. Engelhard tracks the changes Joshua [Kane] and Joan go through after receiving their ungodly offer. Suspicion, jealousy, anger, second guessing, pain and fear begin to torment them as they struggle with his and hers temptations -- It's her body and his soul on the line."

I believe that the movie captures all that, though yes, for the conflicts in politics and culture and for the depths of emotions there is always and still the book. That does not change. A novelist's task is to find the human heart. Hollywood is about box office.

Surely I would have cast it differently and surely I would have been happier if Hollywood had stuck to my novel as is. But Hollywood is seldom completely true to the novel ("Gone With The Wind" a notable exception) and I understand why. One art form is about pictures, the other is about words.

Beethoven would not dare tell Picasso how to paint his Third Symphony. Each artist, in his own medium, must be allowed to find his own vision. This is obvious but it must be said, a movie is a movie and a book is a book and both have their challenges and their merits.

Yes, when I dealt with these "primal issues" I was surprised that the title roles would be taken by Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. If I had qualms, these were dispelled at the grand opening when it struck me that all this stardom and a $40 to $50 million budget all happened from words I wrote on the kitchen table.

(I have this notion that we all face temptations every day, some big, some small. This one, on love and money, is big.)

I am always ready for people to knock the movie. People do this for a reason, which I will explain at a later time, perhaps in a blog. I have a theory about this. I was lucky with the reviews of the book. The Times' wrote: "Is this book fun to read? You betcha." The same goes for the movie, now especially in this Blu-Ray format.

Thank you for listening -- Jack Engelhard, the authorIndecent Proposal





Blu-ray: Nothing added from the DVD version and picture quality is a mix bag during certain scenes
2009-06-11 - Author Jack Engelhard wrote a political/romantic and dramatic novel about a Jewish family in hard times and a billionaire Arab who offers a million dollars to sleep with the wife. A film that delves deep into Arab-Israeli conflict. The rights for the novel was purchased but the film adaption would be closer to home for the US and changed to relate to American audiences.

Directing the film would be Adrian Lyne ("Flash Dance", "Fatal Attraction", "Jacob's Ladder" and "Unfaithful") and the screenplay for the film was written by Amy Holden Jones ("Beethoven", "Mystic Pizza" and "The Relic") and produced by Sherry Lansing ("Fatal Attraction", "The Accused" and "Black Rain"). "INDECENT PROPOSAL" was successful at the box office as it brought in over $266 million worldwide despite its negative reviews and even winning the Golden Raspberry Awards for "Worst Picture", "Worst Screenplay" and "Worst Supporting Actor".

The film is about David (Woody Harrelson) and Diana Murphy (Demi Moore), a couple that have been in love since they were teenagers and very much in love as adults. David is an architect and Diana is a real estate agent and for Diana, she wanted David to pursue his dream of building their home near the beach.

The couple move forward and have their dream home built but then the market crashed, America was in a recession, Diana was not able to sell any new homes on the market and David lost his job due to budget cuts. Behind in bills and needing to pay $50,000 on the home they just built, decide to borrow $5,000 and gamble and hope to win money in Las Vegas.

On the first night there, they do just that. David is able to win up to $25,000 and while he gambles, Diana goes through elegant shops at the Hilton and looks at a few dresses and wonders how she would look in one of them. John Gage (Robert Redford) who sees the young woman is fascinated and offers to buy the dress for her but Diana shoots back that the dress is for sale, not her.

As the Murphy's celebrate the night with romantic, passionate love with their money scattered all around them, they start betting it all over again but this time, no results. David and Diana lose all of their money.

While walking through the casino, David sees John Gage and learns that he is a billionaire and bets $10,000 per gold chip when he gambles. John sees David and Diana so happy but he asks if Diana could join him quick to give his next game good luck. And this time, betting a million dollars. David roots for his wife and Diana reluctantly goes to John and blows a kiss to the dice and Gage wins.

In support of Diana for helping him out, he offers a room at the posh hotel and everything on the house on him. While checking out the room, Diana gets the black dress she was trying out the day before as a gift and both are invited to a party.

While alone, John offers a hypothetical question to David. If people can be bought for a million dollars. In this case, what if he offered a million dollars to the couple for one night with his wife. Both Murphy's say they would tell the person to "go to hell".

But John is serious. He makes his offer and tells them for one night with his wife, they would be set for life with a million dollars.

During the night, both David and Diana agonize over the situation. One night, one million dollars and they can eliminate their problems. So, the two decide to do it.

But what are the ramifications to agreeing to such an indecent proposal?

VIDEO & AUDIO:

"INDECENT PROPOSAL" gets its first treatment on High Definition with a 1080p transfer on Blu-ray. First, the good news. The good news is that certain scenes that incorporate the outdoors and sunlight look great and vibrant. There are some low-light scenes where blacks are deep and picture quality looks quite nice. Now, the bad news. Those scenes are just a few, "INDECENT PROPOSAL" has probably one of the worst high grain I have seen on a film on Blu-ray. There is one scene where Diana is teaching English to a class and the scene is so full of grain that she nearly becomes hard to see at one point. During the opening scene, with David sitting down near the beach and you see fog all around, high level of grain and color banding. Not sure if the Las Vegas scenes were stock but those were quite grainy as well. Some scenes looks as if it was muted by digital noise reduction (DNR) and so some scenes look quite soft.

Overall, good and bad quality is all over the place. Some scenes are great but some scenes are absolutely terrible. The positive factor is that the scenes don't last that long but I don't think I've seen picture quality this uneven for a Blu-ray release.

As for audio, the film gets an English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD transfer (French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital). This film's soundtrack is front channel driven. Dialogue is clear and understandable which is important. When there is music, John Barry's ("Madagascar" 1 & 2, "Chaplin", "Peggy Sue Got Married", "The Cotton Club") musical score does come alive and actually, really enjoyed the musical score. But this is not a film to expect any rear sound or subwoofer usage.

The casino scenes which are filled with people and sounds of the casino which I was hoping to hear come alive through my speaker system, was just average. I was hoping to hear the ambient noises all around me but it seems that everything was front channel driven. There is a brief scene with the rain pouring down, which sounded quite nice from the front channels but overall, this is a dialogue driven film.

Subtitles are featured in English, English SDH, French and Spanish.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

"INDECENT PROPOSAL" features commentary by Director Adrian Lyne. The commentary was done for the 2003 DVD release and Adrian sharing his thoughts on the making of the film, from the love making scenes to how Las Vegas has changed since filming the movie and interesting enough, confesses that there are many things he disliked about the movie but did enjoy the performance of Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. But this is a commentary that is filled with long pauses at times. But Adrian Lyne is a director who is known to tell audiences on his audio commentary that he has a bad memory and will do his best to remember things. If it was this difficult ten years later, perhaps I'm glad that he didn't do a revised commentary 16 years later.

JUDGMENT CALL:

"INDECENT PROPOSAL" was an interested film when released in 1993. These were the times when "Lifestyles and the Rich and Famous" and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire" was on television, "Pretty Woman" was a successful rags-to-riches film, magazines showcasing the glitz of their metropolitan cities, the glitz of big business were at its high point and people just delved into wanting to know the lifestyles of the rich and people knew the names of the top supermodels of the time.

When the film came out, critics felt the notion that the rich would take advantage with those in financial need was preposterous. But compared today where America is in hard economic times, I sometimes wonder if this film would have done better today than in 1993. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if these situations happen frequently in the world. Also, it would have been interesting if the film were adapted today would be an exact adaption focusing on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But if there was one fault of the film, was this portrayal of a perfect couple hitting hard financial times and the character of David just going a little overboard that his wife had sex with another man. Afterall, he did agree to it but then he decided not to and it's too late. Share some of the blame, it was a joint decision and why he takes everything out all on her is just a bit too much.

I felt that Demi Moore was just enjoyable to watch and she did a wonderful job with her character. Robert Redford was absolutely suave and for Woody Harrelson, at the time, it showed us that the actor had more to give than what we saw of him on the television show "Cheers".

If anything, I was a bit put off by the uneven picture quality of this film. Some scenes were just downright ugly and makes me want to go back to the DVD to see if it was that bad or the Blu-ray 1080p HD Transfer just elevated the grain. "INDECENT PROPOSAL" was not the prettiest transfer I was hoping to see on Blu-ray and the lack of any special features but a commentary was a bit disappointing.

In the end, I did enjoy the film and considering the time the film was released. Was it really preposterous for a financially strapped couple to accept such an indecent proposal? Especially compared to another popular film where a multi-millionaire would hire a prostitute to be with him for a week? Probably not.

Overall, "INDECENT PROPOSAL" was an enjoyable film that probably makes better sense now that the country is in an economic recession and people watching it again will probably find how powerful of a film it is now than what it was back in 1993.

Indecent Proposal - Blu-ray Info
2009-06-09 - Version: U.S.A / Paramount / Region Free
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / AACS
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Running time: 1:56:58
Movie size: 35,111,368,704 bytes
Disc size: 37,323,680,523 bytes
Total bit rate: 40.02 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 31.95 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 3159 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3159 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / Dolby Surround

Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Number of chapters: 16

#Audio Commentary with Director Adrian Lyne