DVD Monthly

Reviewer: Jordan Brown
Issue 101 March 2008

Chuck in hell.

The Lowdown: With each of his conquests moving on to immediately find true love, Charlie’s ‘curse’ sees him never short of a spot of nookie. When he meets potential soulmate Cam, ‘Good Luck Chuck’ has to find a way to break the hex or risk losing her to the next bloke.

Review: Jessica Alba throwing herself at you would seem like a dream come true for most guys. However, if getting it on with the smouldering temptress meant losing her to the next bloke she meets, you’d probably have a few reservations. As a result, it’s pretty easy for many of us to relate to the predicament that Charlie (Cook) is faced with. Unfortunately, while it’s a sound premise that, with a good enough script, could easily generate many a guffaw, Chuck tries to keep its end up by resorting to tepid, gross-out farce. As if the world needed more of that.

Still, there’s a bit of fun to be had in seeing Dane Cook clumsily trying not to lose the love of his life. From knobbing the most repellent woman he can find to almost scaring Cam off by showering her with sappy gifts, it provides amusing viewing that is even prone to moments of touching warmth. Unfortunately such flashes tend to lose their emotional clout when Dan Fogler’s shagging a microwaved grapefruit a few scenes later.

Despite its iffy comedic balance, it’s not a total waste of time. With a swarm of quality extras on the disc, the package makes up for many of the feature’s flaws. As great as the bonus booty is though, it’s not the disc’s best asset. That little honour goes to Jessica Alba’s continuing inclination to stand around in her undies like she did in Fantastic Four. Here’s hoping it becomes a habit.

FILM: 6 EXTRAS: 8

DVD Info:
Certificate: 15
Starring: Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler, Lonny Ross, Chelan Simmons
Directed By: Mark Helfrich
Distributor: Lionsgate
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, 7.1 PCM
Visuals: 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 97 mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: MarketME

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Writer Josh Stolberg, Producer Mike Karz, Director Mark Helfrich and Star Dane Cook
Music Montages
Alternate Scenes
Extended Scenes
Deleted Scenes
‘Karma Sutra’ Featurette
‘Polymastia – Multiple Mammaries’ Featurette
‘All About Penguins’ Featurette
‘Good Luck Chuckles’ Featurette
‘Frank The Penguin Actor’ Featurette
‘Eleanor Skepple’ Featurette
‘Real Life ‘Good Luck Chuck’’ Featurette
Ad Libs
Easter Eggs

Reviewer: Jordan Brown
Issue 101 March 2008

Ruling the roost.

The Lowdown: Fed up with her daughter Rachel’s rambunctious behaviour, Lilly drags the tearaway teen to her mother’s farm. Causing havoc in the small township, Rachel’s conduct is soon curbed by her grandmother’s oppressive rules. As she begins showing signs of change, the three women bond in a way they never imagined.

Review: Had Lindsay Lohan not pissed off producer James G. Robinson for allegedly being unprofessional and acting like a spoilt brat on set, I’d be commending her for a fine performance as unruly adolescent Rachel Wilcox. As it stands, it appears that the Hollywood wild child was just playing herself. Still, at least she’s believable. With Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman delivering the goods with their usual finesse as well, it all adds up to a convincingly-performed movie.

Unfortunately, there’s very little else to get excited about here. There’s nothing going on in the way of extras, the film is overly long and, worst of all, the story is nothing more than pretentious and predictable tat. It’s the age-old story of a family struggling to get along. In an effort to settle her daughter’s unruly behaviour, Lilly bundles Rachel off to stay with the one person guaranteed not to put up with her shitty attitude – Lilly’s mother Georgia. With a heap of ‘Georgia rules’ slapped on her, the girl finds herself not only forced to adjust to small-town life but inadvertently mending the strained relationship between her mother and grandmother too. Surprise, surprise indeed.

Despite its sappy, crappy storyline, it’s as well shot and well-acted as you’d expect from Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall, it’s just a shame he doesn’t go outside the lines once in a while.

FILM: 5 EXTRAS: 1

DVD Info:
Certificate: 15
Starring: Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, Lindsay Lohan, Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes, Garrett Hedlund
Directed By: Garry Marshall, 2007
Distributor: Universal
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 108 mins
Price:            £15.99
Film supplied by: MarketME

Special Features:
Scene Selection

Reviewer: Tom Leins
Issue 101 March 2008

Ready for bed?

The Lowdown: As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at their mother Ann’s deathbed, she regales them with a fantastic romantic yarn about a mysterious man named Harris who stole her heart 50 years ago. But is it a true story, or merely the results of a dementia and drugs cocktail?

Review: With a plot like this and a cast of acting luminaries, Evening certainly signals its intentions to tug on your heartstrings with both hands. Based on a novel by prize-winning author Susan Minot and adapted for the screen by Minot and Michael Cunningham, Evening certainly has the appropriate literary credentials in place to succeed. Sadly however, this overwrought, overcooked and inevitably overlong romantic saga offers less than the sum of its parts and falls well short of the standards set by Cunningham’s last Hollywood venture, The Hours, a book with which he had already scooped the Pulitzer prize.

If the cast list sounds familiar, then that’s because several of the principle actresses in Evening previously appeared in The Hours, notably Meryl Streep, Toni Collette and Claire Danes. Unfortunately, actresses of this calibre have been saddled with a painfully laboured script that is at pains to keep the storyline ticking over, despite most of the action taking place inside the failing mind of a dying lady. Depressingly, what we are left with is little more than a high-grade soap opera. In this case, the filmmakers’ big intentions don’t actually manage to correlate with big entertainment. The rather basic selection of special features (featurettes and deleted scenes) ticks a few boxes, but adds little to the overall package. Sadly, all in all, Evening is a star-studded mess, and one that is unlikely to entertain anyone other than bored middle-aged women who don’t really like films…

FILM: 5 EXTRAS: 5

DVD Info:
Certificate: 12
Release Date: February 18th
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Toni Collette, Claire Danes
Directed By: Lajos Koltai, 2007
Distributor: Icon Home Entertainment
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 117mins
Price:            £17.99
Film supplied by: Rabbit Publicity

Special Features:
Scene Selection
‘One Weekend By The Sea’ Featurette
‘Remembering Evening’ Featurette
‘Adapting Evening’ Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Icon Trailer Reel

Reviewer: Tim Isaac
Issue 101 Marsh 2008

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Down with Spain!

The Lowdown: Set later in the Virgin Queen’s reign than Elizabeth, The Golden Age sees the monarch in the midst of political and personal danger as the Catholic Spanish King Philip eyes her throne. While she begins to fall for Sir Walter Raleigh, the treachery of Mary Queen Of Scots sets England on course for war.

Review: It’s amazing how many critics who said they loved Elizabeth ripped into The Golden Age for being a 16th Century soap opera that screwed around with historical fact. Hadn’t they actually paid any attention to the first one, which did exactly the same thing, but had less money to do it?

They do almost have a point, as it’s one of those movies that’s spent virtually all its budget on set design and spectacle. The Golden Age is absolutely ravishing to look at , with stunning costumes and gorgeous sets, but it’s all so sumptuous that it sometimes gets in the way of the story. You’re so busy looking at Cate Blanchett’s 300th incredible wig and the magnificent settings, that you forgot there’s actually a drama you’re meant to be following.

It creates a world that’s more like a painting than a reality, which means it’s sometimes difficult to take seriously. It’s overwrought soap opera, but quite frankly if you’re going to make a soap about any monarch’s life, Elizabeth is the one to go for. Even if you don’t let your imagination run further than the historical record, Good Queen Bess life had more death, drama and intrigue than any soap writer could hope to get away with. And yes The Golden Age plays with the truth (at the time it’s set, Liz would have been in her 50s and Raleigh 20 years her junior), but as all historical drama is essentially the creation of myth, The Golden Age’s alterations aren’t that bad. After all, if Mel Gibson can win an Oscar for Braveheart, a film that is almost as fictional as Godzilla, The Golden Age ought to get some slack. And to be honest, anyone who watches this and thinks they’ve got a thorough understanding of British politics in the 1580s is an idiots. However if you want a full blooded, rather operatic soap of overblown treachery, romance and war, then The Golden Age certainly delivers. It’s just that, as mentioned, the production design does tend to swamp everything.

As might be expected, the costumes and sets get a good going over in the special features, with most of the featurettes more concerned with that than anything else. The four behind-the-scenes featurettes are all fairly interesting and add up about 40-minutes of decent viewing. Other than that there are eight minutes of okay deleted scenes and a good audio commentary from director Shekhar Kapur. It’s often difficult to tell from him whether he thinks his movie is merely a handsome soap or far more than that, as he seems to change his mind constantly. The Golden Age may not ultimately amount to much, but for a couple of hours it’s an entertaining slice of over the top royal antics.

FILM: 7 EXTRAS: 6

DVD Info:
Certificate: 12
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Samantha Morton
Directed By: Shekhar Kapur
Distributor: Universal
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 114 mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: Ocean Media

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Director Shekhar Kapur
Deleted Scenes
‘The Reign Continues: Making Elizabeth: The Golden Age’ Featurette
‘Inside Elizabeth’s World’ Featurette
‘Commanding The Winds: Creating The Armada’ Featurette
‘Creating The Towers, Courts And Cathedrals’ Featurette

Reviewer: Tim Isaac
Issue 101 March 2008

From Russian with love.

The Lowdown: When a teenager dies during childbirth, midwife Anna Kitrova hopes she can find a home for the baby by delving into the girl’s world. However her digging soon uncovers Russian Mafia boss Semyon and ‘cleaner’ Nikolai, which turns Anna’s life in an unexpected and dangerous direction.

Review: You never know quite what you might get from a director like David Cronenberg. While his early days were largely known for body horror films like Shiver, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly, he’s steadily moved away from experimental horror to more literary yet still unnerving places. Following the success of his Oscar nominated A History Of Violence, he reteams with Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises, a gritty London set tale about the Russian Mafia. And while Cronenberg may have lost his experimental edge, he’s honed his skills at telling complex stories and delivering movies that are dark, haunting and surprisingly blunt. There’s little done to soften the people in Eastern Promises – they are who they are, no matter what the audience’s sensibilities might be. However it is the fact that film refuses to pander to viewers that means many will find it tough to like.

However, those who allow Eastern Promises to get under their skin will discover a movie that’s likely to linger in your head for a long while, partly because some of the images are so visceral and partly because of what it suggests about human nature. It’s a shame then that the features are so meagre, as it’s the sort of film that could have done with a chunky ‘making of…’ documentary. Instead there’s the 10-minute ‘Secrets And Stories’ Featurette and another called ‘Marked For Life’, but that’s your lot. Even so, the dark and disturbing film is well worth a look.

FILM: 8 EXTRAS: 4

DVD Info:
Certificate: 18
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel
Directed By: David Cronenberg, 2007
Distributor: Pathe Distribution
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 101 mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: Premier PR

Special Features:
Scene Selection
‘Secrets And Stories’ Featurette
‘Marked For Life’ Featurette

Reviewer: Tom Leins
Issue 101 March 2008

Laugh, I almost died…

The Lowdown: Two brothers are hoping that their father’s funeral goes off with out a hitch. Unfortunately, as they can’t stand one another this doesn’t seem very likely! A rogue’s gallery of oddballs turn up to pay their respects, and a mysterious dwarf from their father’s past emerges with a dark secret… 

Review: After the decidedly underwhelming double-whammy of The Score and Stepford Wives, director Frank Oz is back on familiar ground with this very English farce. But does his slapstick Brit-com have the last laugh, or does it die on its arse? Neither really, as despite some wonderful comic moments, Death at a Funeral falls short of the comedy top-drawer. By all accounts, American audiences have responded to Oz’s movie much better than homegrown audiences, but then again, Americans do tend to love anything that can be described as ‘delightfully British’ whereas us Brits prefer our comic fare slightly bleaker. That isn’t to say that there aren’t some rib-tickling black comedy moments in this film, because there are. It’s just that the film seems to sag under the weight of its huge cast, and with everyone jostling for screen time, some of the gags lose their wicked edge.

 Like at some family gatherings, when everyone is looking over each other’s shoulder in search of someone more interesting to talk to, this film sometimes seems like it is looking over the audience’s shoulder desperate for another ‘shocking’ set-piece to entertain itself with, and you can’t help but feel slightly let down. Despite Death at a Funeral’s cruel intentions and sporadically warped humour, things feel too forced for it to be a classic Brit-com. The extras include not one, but two audio commentaries, the first with Oz himself, and the other with writer Dean Craig, along with Alan Tudyk and Andy Nyman who play Simon and Howard respectively. 

FILM: 6 EXTRAS: 4

DVD Info:
Certificate: 15
Release Date: February 25th
Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, Ewen Bremner, Daisy Donovan
Directed By: Frank Oz, 2007
Distributor: MGM
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 87mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: Premier PR

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Frank Oz
Audio Commentary With Writer Dean Craig and Actors Alan Tudyk & Andy Nyman
Gag Reel

Reviewer: Tim Isaac
Issue 101 March 2008

Still controversial after all these years.

The Lowdown: A serial killer is on the loose, murdering people involved in New York’s gay S&M scene. Det. Steve Burns is sent undercover into the world of leather bars and bondage to try and find the killer, but discovers that immersing himself in the gay subculture effects him more than he expected.

Review: Not many movies get picketed while they’re being made, but Cruising did. Many gay people felt the whole thing was derogatory and portrayed gay men as violent, perverted freaks and so they turned up to the set to try to disrupt filming. The result was that the filmmakers had to add a legend to the opening of the movie saying it wasn’t meant as an indictment of gay people. However whether it is or not is still tough to work out. The movie does in some ways make it seem as if being gay is disturbing and freakish, but that’s largely because all it explores is a particularly violent and subversive aspect of it. The ending particularly is difficult as it could be seen an extreme take on the nature versus nurture debate, playing with the idea of whether hanging around certain gay people won’t just make you gay, it could make you a killer too!

Underneath the controversy is a very effective movie, which is both a disturbing serial killer flick and also a psychological trip into the world of a man losing himself in New York’s leather bar scene. Whilst not the most expansive DVD package, the two featurettes are very interesting. While ‘The History Of Cruising’ takes a retrospective look at the making of the film, ‘Exorcising Cruising’ focuses on the protests and demonstrations that happened during filming as well as some of the more technical aspects of the film. Cruising is still a difficult movie, but it’s one of those films that packs a punch and certainly gets you thinking.

FILM: 7 EXTRAS: 5

DVD Info:
Certificate: 18
Starring: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox
Directed By: William Friedkin, 1980
Distributor: Warner
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 102 minutes
Price:            £12.99
Film supplied by: Noble PR

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Director William Friedkin
‘The History Of Cruising’ Featurette
‘Exorcising Cruising’ Featurette

Reviewer: Tom Leins
Issue 101 March 2008

Culture clash in East London.

The Lowdown: At the age of 17 Nazneen is forced to swap her small Bangladeshi village for a block of flats in London’s East End after an arranged marriage to a dull, older man. However, her 30-something existence is thrown into turmoil when she falls for impulsive, radicalised trader Karim.  

Review: Monica Ali’s wildly successful debut novel, Brick Lane, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize back in 2003, going on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies in Britain. After the film rights were inevitably snapped up, literary fans waited with baited breath to see how well one of the most talked-about novels of the last five years would fare when translated to the big screen. Thankfully, novice director Sarah Gavron has done a sterling job with her debut feature and fans can rest easy. There was plenty of speculation before Brick Lane was made as to whether Ali’s detailed novel would be better suited to a TV serial than a movie, but Gavron has opted to condense the novel’s more expansive scale down to a manageable 97 minutes of delicate East End melodrama. So, although the novel’s scope has been downscaled and may feel slight to some, it works very well in this format and avoids the trap of outstaying its welcome.

The cast is very well judged, with Tannishtha Chatterjee (Nazneen) and Satish Kaushik (husband, Chanu) especially convincing, and Christopher Simpson providing just the right level of energy and danger as Karim, the underwear salesman whose post-9/11 politics become increasingly charged. The special features offer plenty of further analysis with cast and crew interviews and commentaries and even a naggingly brief chat with author Monica Ali and fellow Anglo-Asian novelist (turned-screenwriter) Hanif Kureishi. All in all, a solid package.

FILM: 7 EXTRAS: 6

DVD Info:
Certificate: 15
Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson
Directed By: Sarah Gavron, 2007
Distributor: Optimum Home Entertainment
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 97mins
Price:            £17.99
Film supplied by: Optimum Releasing

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Director Sarah Gavron & Producer Chris Collins
Scene Specific Audio Commentaries With Cast & Crew
‘A Conversation With Monica Ali & Hanif Kureishi at the ICA’
‘Exploring Brick Lane’ Featurette
Interview With Sarah Gavron
Interview With Tannistha Chatterjee & Christopher Simpson
Interview With Satish Kaushik
Theatrical Trailer

Reviewer: Tim Isaac
Issue 101 March 2008

Jodie takes revenge!

The Lowdown: After her fiancé is killed and she is left for dead by a gang of thugs, New York radio host Erica Bain buys a gun and starts roaming the streets looking to take revenge. However her vigilante acts start to attract the attention of Det. Mercer.

Review: Whatever project Jodie Foster chooses to be in, you know it’s going to be worth a watch at least once. That’s definitely true of The Brave One, although the movie itself isn’t as good as Foster and co-star Terrence Howard are in it. The problem is that there’s a rub in the film between being a simple but brutal revenge story and wanting to be a deep, existential, vaguely arthouse journey for the main character. It was almost bound to happen when you match a relatively highbrow director like Neil Jordan (Breakfast on Pluto, The Crying Game) with a producer like Joel Silver (The Matrix, House Of Wax).

Foster and Howard are electric as an unexpected vigilante and the cop who gets increasingly close to her. However, in many ways the underlying movie is actually quite violent and relatively generic revenge flick, which thinks it has more important, cleverer things to say than it does (as many have pointed out, it wants to be Taxi Driver but ends up more like Death Wish), but Foster and Howard manage to rise above this. Sadly there isn’t much entertainment on the DVD beyond their performance as the features are very lightweight, with only a perfunctory 20-minute ‘making of…’ featurette and few deleted scenes. The Brave One is an entertaining if slightly flawed movie, but Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard are nothing short of brilliant.

FILM: 7 EXTRAS: 4

DVD Info:
Certificate: 18
Starring: Jodie Foster, Terence Howard, Naveen Andrews
Directed By: Neil Jordan, 2007
Distributor:
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 123 mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: Noble PR

Special Features:
Scene Selection
‘I Walk The City’ Featurette
Deleted Scenes

Reviewer: Tim Isaac
Issue 101 March 2008

Everybody wants to be a cat.

The Lowdown: The cats of a retired opera star are due to inherit a massive fortune upon her demise. However Edgar the butler has his eye on the feline’s fortune and kidnaps Duchess and her kittens. It’s now up to alley cat Thomas O’Malley to help them find their way home.

Review: While Jungle Book is often said to be Walt Disney’s last movie, he also approved the making of The Aristocats but died well before it was finished. It has to be said, his presence is rather missed as The Aristocats was the beginning of a run of Disney movies that weren’t quite up to what went before. It’s not bad, but doesn’t match like of Lady & The Tramp or indeed Jungle Book. Part of the problem is that it feels like it’s resting on the laurels of what went before by borrowing too heavily from. The posh cat mixed with an alley cat is basically a feline Lady & The Tramp, the music seems to be trying to turn Jungle Book’s ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ and ‘King Of The Swingers’ into an entire score, and the makers even use the voice of Baloo for Thomas O’Malley. It all kinda works, but just doesn’t have the life many of Disney’s other movies do.

While this is a Special Edition, don’t expect a mass of features. The release basically takes what was in the original 2001 DVD and adds a couple of interactive games and the deleted song, ‘She Never Felt Alone’. The result is that this is more a disc for Disney completists than a film you have to introduce your children to, especially as the superior 101 Dalmatians is out in early March.

FILM: 5 EXTRAS: 5

DVD Info:
Certificate: U
Release Date: 1970
Starring: (voices) Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Sterling Holloway
Directed By: Wolfgang Reitherman
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 78 mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: Consolidated Communications

Special Features:
Scene Selection
‘Virtual Kitten’ Game
‘Name That Instrument’ Game
‘She Never Felt Alone’ Deleted Song
‘Sherman Brothers’ Featurette
‘The Great Cat Family’ Introduced by Walt Disney
Disney Song Selection

Reviewer: Tom Leins
Issue 101 March 2008

Let me take you down…

The Lowdown: In the mid 1960s young Liverpudlian shipbuilder Jude crosses the Atlantic in search of his absentee American GI father. After a dispiriting encounter with his long-lost Dad, Jude hooks up with rich boy Max and heads to New York where they embark on a life of bohemianism and musical adventure. 

Review: The post-modern vogue for musicals based on the back catalogues of successful pop bands shows no signs of diminishing, but it seems like the trend may well have reached its zenith with Across The Universe, Julie Taymor’s brand new Beatles-fuelled extravaganza. It was only a matter of time before someone snagged the rights to the Beatles back catalogue, and acclaimed Broadway veteran Julie Taymor seems like a shrewd choice to helm such a film project. With a movie CV that comprises of Shakespearean epic Titus (1999) and arty biopic Frida (2002), Taymor has proved herself to be more than capable of handling weighty fare. Regrettably though, Across The Universe loses its way with its hopelessly cheesy, eager-to-please approach. Some of the wackier, more psychedelic musical interludes are truly impressive, but the whole endeavour is much closer to the mainstream than it is to the counter-culture it fawns over.

Jim Sturgess as Jude and Evan Rachel Wood as his love object Lucy are both likable enough, but it is Joe Anderson as Lucy’s Vietnam-bound brother Max who gives the over-long film most of its energy. The bonus features, which are spread across two discs, are generally well-judged, and include eight extended musical performances, a smattering of brisk behind-the-scenes featurettes, two slightly more substantial featurettes and an enthusiastic audio commentary from Taymor and music head-honcho Elliot Goldenthal. All in all, you can’t fault Taymor and co.’s intentions, but the end product is a distinctly hit and miss affair.    

FILM: 6 EXTRAS: 6

DVD Info:
Certificate: 12
Release Date: February 11th
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs
Directed By: Julie Taymor, 2007
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 129mins
Price:            £19.99
Film supplied by: DnA

Special Features:
Disc 1:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Director Julie Taymor and Soundtrack Composer Elliot Goldenthal
‘Creating The Universe’ Featurette
‘All About The Music’ Featurette
‘And I Love Her’ Deleted Scene
‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite’ Eddie Izzard Alternate Takes
Trailers

Disc 2:
‘Stars Of Tomorrow’ Featurette
‘Moving Across The Universe’ Featurette
‘FX On The Universe’
 ‘Extended Musical Performances’ x8

Reviewer: Lee Griffiths
Issue 101 March 2008

Thou shalt not laugh.

The Lowdown: Ten separate stories based on the Ten Commandments are woven together by narration from Jeff Reigert (Rudd), a man whose marital difficulties introduce the very sins Jeff is warning us against.

Review: Writer/director and founding member of the comedy troupe, Stella, David Wain has certainly had his thumbs in many comedic pies over the past decade or so. If you’re unfamiliar with the comedy styling of the Ohio born jokester, Wain’s second feature length effort (following Wet Hot American Summer in 2001) serves as reassurance that you haven’t been missing much.

Various sketches – some amusing, mostly lame – are messily thrown into the mix and held together by an increasingly annoying narration from Paul Rudd, whose rocky marriage becomes increasingly hazardous thanks to his delectable bit on the side (Jessica Alba). The marital chaos eventually breaks down any trace of narrative flow, which makes the journey feel a lot longer than 96 minutes. It’s a muddled affair, and even the impressive list of capable cast members (Adam Brody, Gretchen Mol and Liev Schreiber to name but a few) fail to bring any zing to the proceedings. The mixed bag of quirky comedy does at least cough up the comedy goods on occasion, and past the hit and miss feature, there should at least be one thing to tickle your fancy throughout the special features.

The amusing audio commentary may well keep the chuckles coming (which includes some “soothing jazz” and Dave’s parents), while the expansive list of additional scenes (clocking in at 55 minutes) provide plenty to sink your chops into. The interview doesn’t really give much away, though the episode of ‘Wainy Days’ (only a few minutes long) is a fleeting but fun(ish) addition to the package.

FILM: 5 EXTRAS: 6

DVD Info:
US Certificate: R
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jessica Alba, Winona Ryder
Directed By: David Wain, 2007
Distributor: City Lights
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 96 mins
Price:            £15.99
Film ordered through: USDirect.co.uk – 01484 325 605

Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Director/Co-Writer/Actor David Wain, Writer/Actor Ken Marino And Actor Paul Rudd
Additional Scenes
‘South-By-Southwest’ Interview With Ken Marino, Paul Rudd And David Wain
‘Wainy Days’ Episode
‘The Making Of The Ten’ Featurette
Exclusive Ringtones And Wallpaper
Trailers
Scene Selection