Tadpole

Director: Gary Winick Gary Winick

Overview

The coming-of-age comedy Tadpole comes to DVD from Miramax. The image is presented in a widescreen anamorphic transfer, but keep in mind the film was originally shot on digital video. The audio is offered in Dolby Digital 5.1 with optional closed captioning. Bonus material is limited to a feature-length commentary with director Gary Winick. This disc offers a fairly reasonable presentation for a film that only received a limited theatrical release.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/21/2003
UPC:	0786936203981
Original Release:	2002
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Miramax
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:18:00

Special Features

Closed Caption; Feature commentary with director Gary Winick; Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound; Widescreen 1.85:1

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Aaron Stanford	Oscar Grubman
Sigourney Weaver	Eve
John Ritter	Stanley Grubman
Bebe Neuwirth	Diane
Robert Iler	Charlie
Peter Appel	Jimmy
Adam LeFevre	Phil
Alicia Van Couvering	Daphne Tisch
Ron Rifkin	Prof. Tisch
Kate Mara	Miranda Spear
Paul Butler	Prof. Sherman
Hope Chernoy	Samantha
Marcia DeBonis	Abigail
Debbon Ayer	Jean
Lee Brock	Charlie's Mom
Michael Conners	Man in Bar
Theo Kogan	Woman in Bar
Henry Hale	Le Gardin Waiter
Harry Kellerman	Tea Waiter
Hope Chernov	Samantha
Renaud Pion	Composer

Technical Credits

Heather McGowan

Niels Mueller

Heather McGowan	Screenwriter
Niels Mueller	Screenwriter
Gary Winick	Director,Producer
Alexis Alexanian	Producer
Marcia DeBonis	Casting
Jennifer Euston	Casting
Dolly Hall	Producer
Caroline Kaplan	Executive Producer
Ellen Lewis	Casting
Jonathan Sehring	Executive Producer
John Sloss	Executive Producer
William Cozy	Sound/Sound Designer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits: "Revealed by the Hand" [4:38]
2. She [6:29]
3. High Expectations [4:31]
4. Alleviating Stress [6:17]
5. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" [4:35]
6. "My Love, My Liver" [5:53]
7. A Novel Find [5:47]
8. "I Need Sideburns" [4:07]
9. A Revealing Dinner [9:37]
10. True Passion? [5:47]
11. Listening and Imagining [7:49]
12. "How's Your Liver?" [5:13]
13. End Credits [7:32]

Menu

Side #1 --
   Play Movie
   Captions
      English Captions for the Hearing Impaired
      None
   Sneak Peeks
      Kate & Leopold
      Serendipity
      The Importance of Being Ernest
      Project Greenlight/Stolen Summer
   Scene Selection
   Feature Commentary With Director Gary Winick
      On
      Off

Editorial Reviews

Charmingly sweet and literate, this sexual comedy of errors provides a far less forced J.D. Salinger update than the previous year's wildly praised The Royal Tenenbaums. With its muted digital-video palette and tasteful Upper West Side environs, Gary Winick's cinematic universe is as familiar as a Woody Allen classic. But the script, by Niels Mueller and Heather McGowan, proves equally at home in the poetry-steeped libido of a precocious teen as it does in the quiet contentment of finely appointed professionals. Sigourney Weaver buttons down, inhabiting a more thoughtful, less brittle variation on the upper middle-class matron she played so convincingly in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. John Ritter, meanwhile, continues his impressive string of character roles as the frumpy professor whose son rightly sees through his hollow domestic routine. In the title role, Aaron Stanford is a revelation, needy but grave and dignified, the gears turning almost invisibly behind his hungry eyes. But it's Bebe Neuwirth's wicked cackle and Broadway-honed comic acuity that give the film its friction and its warm sense of abandon. These characters live in a carefully circumscribed world of rent control and the right wine, but Neuwirth's vitality breaks through the exteriors and into the heart of the matter -- the crackle of longing that accumulates like static electricity and sometimes discharges at the wrong place and time. It's almost ridiculous to single out yet another performance after praising all of the principals, but Robert Iler shines, too, as Oscar's common-sensical comic foil. From its cast to its cinematography to its finely honed dialogue, Tadpole gets every little detail right.

All Movie Guide - Brian J. Dillard