Buy, rent or ignore?

“10,000 B.C.,” “Persepolis,” and “Definitely, Maybe”

By Paul Semel

Special to Metromix
June 24, 2008

 
Buy, rent or ignore?
Photos:
"10,000 B.C." "Definitely, Maybe" "Persepolis"
You loved the movie, what about the DVD?

Find out as we examine the extras on this week's best movie DVDs...

“10,000 B.C.”
Stars:
Camilla Belle, Steven Strait, Omar Sharif
Director: Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”)
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray
What we said: “May indeed last until the end of time, kept alive in drinking games and in history and geography classrooms on April Fool's Day.”

Extras: DVD: Deleted scenes and an extended ending.
Blu-ray: DVD features plus “A Wild and Wooly Ride,” a featurette on the real pyramids and how they recreated the film’s pre-historic animals; “Inspiring an Epic,” a look at how what we know about that time in Earth’s history influenced the movie.

Worth watching: The deleted scenes, some of which are actually interesting artifacts.
Worth skipping: “A Wild and Wooly Ride,” since this film is about as historically accurate as “The Land Before Time.”
Worth adding: Original trailers plus commentary from Emmerich and the cast.

Buy, rent, or ignore: Rent.


“PERSEPOLIS”

Voiced by: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve
Directors: Vincent Paronnaud (“Raging Blues”) and Marjane Satrapi
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray
What we said: “A strong contender for this year's foreign language film Oscar--and the only worthy competition for ‘Ratatouille’ in the animated film category.”

Extras: Commentary on select scenes; “The Hidden Side of ‘Persepolis’”; 2007 Cannes Film Festival press conference; animated scene comparisons.

Worth watching:
The animated scene comparisons demonstrate how the filmmakers used Satrapi’s original graphic novel like a set of storyboards.
Worth skipping:
The footage from Cannes. Press conferences are never interesting…even when they’re about something interesting.
Worth adding: Commentary on the whole film, instead of on only a few scenes—that’s just lazy.

Buy, rent, or ignore:
Buy.


“DEFINITELY, MAYBE”

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz
Director: Adam Brooks (“The Invisible Circus”)
Formats: DVD
What we said: "Very improbable, kinda corny and sweet as hell...a next generation 'When Harry Met Sally.'"

Extras:
Commentary by Brooks and Reynolds; “Creating a Romance,” making-of featurette; “The Changing Times of ‘Definitely, Maybe,” a featurette on how much work went into making sure the film fit the subtly different times it takes place in; deleted scenes.

Worth watching:
“The Changing Times of ‘Definitely, Maybe.” For a film that takes places in modern day, a lot more had to be done to fit the times than you might think.
Worth skipping: “Creating a Romance.” By now we all know how to make a romantic comedy. Plus it’s “Brought to you by Volkswagen,” and it’s kind of hard to get romantic in a Volkswagen.
Worth adding: A second commentary by the leading ladies, since it would give a female perspective on this romantic comedy.

Buy, rent, or ignore: Rent.


Other DVDs out this week:
— The combined talents of Joan Allen, Kathy Bates and Jessica Lange can’t save “Bonneville”
— See what Robert Downey Jr. was up to right before “Iron Man” in the high school comedy “Charlie Bartlett”
— Adam Carolla shoots for movie stardom in “The Hammer”
— Danny Glover stars in a drama set against the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, “Honeydripper”
— Colin Farrell reminds he can act in the hitman comedy “In Bruges”
— Enjoy the fantastic forest in “The Spiderwick Chronicles” (also on Blu-ray)
— As if it wasn’t already ’80s and campy enough, now there’s “Xanadu: Magical Music Edition”

Also released:
“Before the Rain” (Criterion Collection)
“The Eye 3”
“The Furies” (Criterion Collection)
“Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”
“Man of a Thousand Faces”
“Raising Jeffrey Dahmer”
“Step Into Liquid” (Blu-ray)

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