Blog From The Bench

It is difficult for me to give an honest review of the content in Ariztical Entertainment's Intentions, so I hope any actors, directors, and other crew involved in the film will forgive me. Why? The technical quality of this screener is absolutely wretched.

DVD critics usually receive advance copies of the final product, but sometimes we get "check discs" or screeners. These can range from near approximations of the final disc's quality to unrestored bare-bones transfers. Even so, Intentions has shockingly bad visual quality. Aside from dizzying grain, the transfer had microblocking, macroblocking, and other forms of blocking that haven't been invented until now. I view DVDs on a projection screen, and in some cases the image was formed of vague blocks literally the size of my fist, so fuzzy and inscrutable that I couldn't determine what was being depicted onscreen. One love scene with a tasteful breast in silhouette resembled a ziggurat turned on its side, with a small hut at the top and hordes of square birds swarming around it.

Perhaps shock colored my experience, but Intentions didn't captivate me. Perhaps the way people "emoted" by tilting their heads a lot (or the lagging pace of the film) prevented Intentions from coming together. It's a shame, because the story is a low-key, non-obvious tale of sexual identity. Maybe the commercial release is better, and maybe you'll be able to enjoy the film for what it is, but my experience was not pleasant.