I HEART HUCKABEES on DVD
by Andre Soares
David O. Russell’s (unfunny) comedy about existentialists, hedonists, and assorted neurotics, i ♥ huckabees (pretentiously "pronounced" i heart huckabees) has been out on DVD since February. The film is a muddled mess that wastes all the talent involved. The cast includes Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Isabelle Huppert, and Jude Law. Tippi Hedren, the woman all birds hated in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), also makes an appearance, and so does Schwartzman’s real-life mother, Talia Shire.
Russell does have something to say in i heart huckabees. Too bad his message is rendered meaningless by the amateurish set up.
Features (single-disc):
- Picture: Anamorphic widescreen - 2:35:1; full screen, with pan and scan
- Audio: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby 2.0 Surround), Commentary (Dolby 2.0)
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Closed captioning
- Audio commentary by director David O. Russell
- Audio commentary by David O. Russell, with actors Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts
List price: US$27.98.
Features (two-disc special edition):
- Picture: Anamorphic widescreen - 2:35:1; full screen, with pan and scan
- Audio: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby 2.0 Surround), Commentary (Dolby 2.0)
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Closed captioning
- Audio commentary by director David O. Russell
- Audio commentary by David O. Russell, with actors Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts
- Film production featurette
- The Charlie Rose Show interview with David O. Russell
- 22 extended and/or deleted scenes
- 5 outtakes
- Photo gallery
- Infomercial (long version)*
- Behind the scenes of the detectives’ infomercial
- Jon Brion’s "Knock Yourself Out" music video
- Music video commentary
- Behind the scenes of "Knock Yourself Out"
- Featurettes about the film’s production design and costume design
List Price: US$39.98.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment release.
* Following a preview screening of i heart huckabees in San Francisco, David O. Russell distributed a number of DVD "infomercials" to the audience. Those consisted of scenes in which two of the film’s characters, existential detectives Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), host a television talk show with Amherst College professor of religion Robert Thurman (Russell’s former professor and father of actress Uma) and UCLA quantum-physics expert Dr. Joseph Rudnick. On the show, the experts discuss the properties of the tenth dimension, and the scientific and spiritual meaning of
the universe. They also push their books.
I HEART HUCKABEES On-Set Blowup Parody
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The Bette Davis Collection DVD Set
The Greta Garbo Signature Collection DVD Set
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