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Just a reminder that Wonder Boys is being released today on both VHS and DVD (I believe only in region 1). The VHS is priced to rent, so you may have to wait a few months for the price to come down. The Ice Storm is also being released today on DVD. This is from Jam! Showbiz You gotta Wonder By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun HOLLYWOOD -- Curtis Hanson had been down this bleak road before. When his droll Wonder Boys failed to find its real audience in movie theatres, it mirrored his struggle with his classy police thriller L.A. Confidential three years earlier. "It is a gloomy situation," Hanson tells The Sun, "because of this need to market things in a simplistic way." That brings us to today's Wonder Boys release on VHS and -- even more critically to Hanson -- on an excellent, extras-loaded DVD (from Paramount Home Entertainment). "That's how we make the best of it," Hanson says of overcoming his frustration about the box- office results. "That's exactly how we take advantage of what's there." Hanson makes films that are complex, provocative, thoughtful and fun. As it turns out, that kind of movie appeals to audiences made up of the young, the old, both men and women and a mixture of socio-economic classes. The studios, says Hanson, cannot simply target a market and sell the film. In the case of Wonder Boys, Paramount Pictures so messed up the original release early last year, they re-released the film last fall with a new campaign. "I so applaud them for doing it," says Hanson. "People ask me if I'm angry about what happened. I answer, 'No.' I make the movie. They market it. That's what they're supposed to do. It's their money. That's what they should do. When they do it well, they benefit. When they don't, they pay the price." One price was delaying the VHS and DVD release of Wonders Boys from August to January and finally to this week. The delay gave time for the re-release and an Oscar campaign that turned into a mixed blessing. Wonder Boys earned three nominations, but not as best picture. Still, Hanson takes a long view. Wonder Boys stays alive on DVD, he says. "Without exception, everyone who has seen it a second time likes it better. The same was true with L.A. Confidential, in that case because of the DVD. People are seeing it multiple times, discovering new values in it, and it resonates with them in a different way each time. Movies should have that life." The DVDs of Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential are both widescreen. "If they don't see it in a widescreen format, they're not seeing it," says Hanson. "I'm very hostile to the pan-and-scan format, although I put a lot of effort into it. If I have to do it, I do it myself." What is missing from Wonder Boys is a feature-length commentary. Hanson is articulate, organized and thoughtful. But he is fearful of just sitting in a recording studio talking. "It's not that I don't believe in them. I just wasn't interested in doing it myself, just rattling on, blathering on. But I am very interested in the fact that the DVD will allow people to see the best home version, given current technologies." To enhance the film itself, Hanson created a series of scripted featurettes in which he explained the use of music, his casting and his strategy of shooting Pittsburgh as "a character" that mirrored the plight of the humans in the story. What he doesn't do is give away "the magic" of making a film by showing too much on set. "When Butch and Sundance jump off the cliff," Hanson says of George Roy Hill's 1979 classic Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, "I like to remember them landing in the river rather than seeing the shot where they land on the airbag. But that's personal taste." Hanson prefers a film class on a DVD, not a magic show. "That's a good analogy. It's a flattering one -- so I like it." |
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