Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

Gladys Leeman is the wife and mother of the richest family in Mount Rose. With no need to work, and naturally plenty of time on her hands, she runs the local beauty pageant. As you would expect, she wants her daughter Becky to win.

A documentary crew arrive and follow the preparations, actual pageant and post pageant events. They follow each of the contestants, their parents and the judges around the town getting their opinions, with some amusing moments. Gladys spends most of her time promoting her precocious daughter and the crew start to witness a number bizarre accidents happening to the other contestants.

We've become so accustomed to the many fly on the wall documentaries on television that the script was so believable. There are many great moments with cat fights, bitchiness, and a great scene where all the regional contestants had eaten the sea food resulting in multiple projectile vomiting.

The picture is just gorgeous. It is amazingly sharp and clear throughout the film. The channel separation is quite superb, but the surround is nothing special as it mainly dialogue based.

It is a great black comedy with a drop dead gorgeous picture. However, it is spoilt by the complete and total lack of extras, especially since the R1 edition has animated menus, trailer and an anamorphic transfer.