New DVDs: Buy, rent or ignore?

This week: 'Up' and 'Spread'

By Paul Semel

Posted November 9, 2009

Special to Metromix

You loved the movie, what about the DVD?

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

"UP"
Stars: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai
Director: Pete Docter ("Monsters, Inc.") and Bob Peterson
Formats: DVD, DVD/Blu-ray Combo
What we said: "Yet another Pixar film that's approximately 3 billion times better than almost all other animated movies."

Extras: DVD: Commentary by Docter and Peterson; “Dug's Special Mission” and “Partly Cloudy” short films; “The Many Endings of Muntz” and “Adventure is Out There” featurettes.
DVD/Blu-ray: DVD extras plus copies of the movie on DVD and digital copy; eight featurettes: “Geriatric Hero,” “Canine Companions,” “Russell: Wilderness Explorer,” “Our Giant Flightless Friend, Kevin,” “Homemakers of Pixar,” “Balloons and Flight,” “Composing for Characters” and “Married Life”; “Cine-Explore”; “Global Guardian Badge Game.”

Worth watching: “Adventure is Out There” shows the filmmakers hiking up mountains in South America, all in the name of research. It's way more interesting than watching them Google stuff and look things up on Wikipedia.
Worth skipping: “Global Guardian Badge Game.” Don't try to trick me into learning!
Worth adding: A second commentary by Asner, Plummer, Nagai and Peterson as their characters from the film.

Buy, rent or ignore: Rent.


"SPREAD"
Stars: Ashton Kutcher, Anne Heche, Margartia Levieva
Director: David Mackenzie ("Young Adam")
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray
What we said: "Feels more like the tale of a guy who's just a victim of being a jerk, coping with the horrible curse of being good-looking."

Extras: DVD: Commentary by Kutcher, Heche and Levieva; “Living the Dream: The Making of Spread,” “Behind the Scenes with Ashton Kutcher” and “The World According to Nikki” featurettes; trailer.
Blu-ray: DVD extras plus a picture-in-picture option “Urban Sprawl: Los Angeles in Spread.”

Worth watching: The trailer. There's just something satisfying about watching a film's trailer before watching the film itself.
Worth skipping: “Behind the Scenes with Ashton Kutcher.” The 97 minutes spent watching him in this movie is enough.
Worth adding: Mackenzie to the commentary. While director-only commentaries can be dull, this one needs the director to help out the actors.

Buy, rent or ignore: Ignore.


Other DVDs out this week:
— Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler fight the battle of the sexes, and everyone loses, in "The Ugly Truth" (also on Blu-ray)
— See how holiday family dysfunction is the same in any language with the Criterion Collection's release of acclaimed French dramedy "A Christmas Tale"
— See how one-time Beetlejuice and Batman Michael Keaton fares as a director with "The Merry Gentleman"
— Uma Thurman and Colin Firth star in a romantic comedy that never made it to theaters: "The Accidental Husband"
— One of Pixar's best goes hi-def with the Blu-ray version of "Monsters, Inc."

Also on Blu-ray:
"The General"
"Godzilla"
"Heat"
"Logan's Run"
"Near Dark"
"The Negotiator"
"Red Heat"

Also released:
"Ballast" (also on Blu-ray)
"The Echo"
"Enlighten Up!"
"Evergreen"
"Lake Tahoe"
"Pray the Devil Back to Hell"