Saturday, March 22, 2008

My 150th Post, what COULD it be about?

Examining the special features of the Enchanted DVD ultimately wind-up as a fun and informative tease. The blooper reel is the same paltry two minutes that showed-up on Youtube a couple of weeks ago so no surprises there. The deleted scenes aren't wildly interesting just a lot of script padding that the story made apparent earlier. There is a nice moment where Nancy effectively "rescues" Edward towards the end but it's so brief as to be inconsequential. The real meat of the disc is the look at three of the major set-pieces of the movie; Happy Working Song, That's How You Know and the ballroom.

My respect for Kevin Lima and his collaborators has increased exponentially after watching these bits. Looking at Happy Working Song reveals an enormous amount of the number was done with practical effects. Especially fun was seeing the rig that Adams had to wear when the birds put the dress around her as well as the self-propelled sponges and soap bars. Good stuff. It also comes off as a testament to A-Dubs acting abilities in that she's reacting to a whole lot of nothing so well in the CG shots (suck it Lucas). In the That's How You Know section you get to see the AD nightmare that is a massive on location musical number. It's especially cool to see the experience of some of the older dancers in the number (some are veterans from West Side Story and Mary Poppins). Sadly there is no in-depth examination of the awesome Marsden fist in mouth move. In fact there is no Marsden to be found in ANY of the special features. Boo! Mega-boo as well to the "hidden" (just click the Mickey Mouse logo) special feature that amounts to an add for the Blu-Ray edition of the movie (which has more features). While I'm glad that Disney has embraced the medium I don't understand WHY they couldn't include it on BOTH versions.

My request to Disney in future editions: Two commentary tracks one with Kevin Lima and Bill Kelly, the other with Amy Adams and James Marsden. A spot the Disney reference pop-up branching feature and most importantly a look at the cut "Enchanted" number that was to be sung by Marsden and Menzel. There I've said my piece. Now to re-watch the movie...a billion times.

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