Featured Blu-ray Review: The Point: Ultimate Edition
March 16, 2020
The Point: Ultimate Edition - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray
When I first got a chance to review The Point, my immediate thought was it’s a beloved classic. However, the more research I did on the film, the more I realized I was the only person I knew who remembered the movie. There are almost no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, for example. I was clearly wrong about the film’s popularity. Was I also wrong about the film’s quality?
The plot summary is going to be on the short side, because there’s not a lot of plot. The film is just 75 minutes long, including credits, and it starts with a prologue in which a father is trying to tell his son a bedtime story, but the son would rather watch TV. The story is about a village in which everything has a point, a physical point, including the people. That is until a boy is born, a boy called Oblio, who has a rounded head. Oblio is a great kid and everyone in town loves him, except one person, the Count’s Son. The boy hates Oblio so much that he tries to get him banned from playing Triangle Toss and challenges Oblio to a one-on-one match. When Oblio wins, he tells his father and his father goes to the King to get Oblio kicked out of town. You see, in this village, everything must have a point, because it’s the law. Since Oblio doesn’t have a point, Oblio, and his dog Arrow, are exiled to the pointless forest. At this point, Oblio and Arrow go on an adventure meeting a whole cast of strange characters learning a lesson along the way.
Before we get to the review of the movie, we have to talk about the remaster. The short review here is, “They tried.” The film is an independent animated TV movie from nearly 50 years ago. When they tried to remaster it, they realized some of the elements were too badly damaged to fix completely. Sadly, this includes some of the earliest moments in the movie, so the remastered edition doesn’t create good first impressions. That said, the movie is engaging enough that I stopped noticing print damage before too long, but I had to mention this in the review. The studio is very upfront about this issue, so it is not like they were hiding it.
The Point is directed by Fred Wolf, who has a style that is rather unique. A lot of people compare this movie to Yellow Submarine and it is hard to argue against that. It is a very trippy movie with a very stylized look and a very episodic plot. Like Yellow Submarine, The Point can’t survive on its own as a film and your enjoyment of the piece will depend heavily on how much you like Harry Nilsson’s music. I do prefer the Beatles, so I like Yellow Submarine more, but this is still a fun and engaging film. It put me in such a mellow mood watching it and with all of the chaos in the world right now, I needed that.
The extras begin with Nilsson on Screen, an hour-long documentary about the singer-songwriter and the number of film projects he was a part of. Up next is a three-minute stop-motion animated sequence that helped inspire the film. The Kid’s Got a Point is a 17-minute interview with Mike Longinland, who provided the voice for Oblio. Norm Lenzer, who wrote the screenplay, sits down for a 15-minute interview. Harry Nilsson’s son, Kiefo, and musician / arranger Bobby Halvorson sit down for a 16-minute interview on adapting the film. There are shorter three minute featurettes on Harry Nilsson and pitching The Point! There is a 13-minute making of featurette. Finally, there is a six-minute look at the legacy of the film.
The Point: Ultimate Edition combines a great movie with about twice as many extras as I was expecting. It is easily worth picking up and a clear Pick of the Week contender.
Video on Demand
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Fred Wolf, Harry Nilsson, Mike Lookinland, Norm Lenzer