Eurotrip DVD out TODAY!

The DVD Grades: Picture B+/ Audio B-/ Bonus B+
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Eurotrip appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Not too many problems popped up during this good transfer.

Sharpness seemed strong. The film displayed good clarity from start to finish. I noticed only the slightest hint of softness at times. No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, but some light edge enhancement cropped up on occasion. As for print flaws, I noticed a speck or two but that was it.

Eurotrip presented a warm and natural palette that seemed well reproduced. The colors consistently came across as lively and vibrant. I saw no problems with murkiness or bleeding from the tight tones. Blacks also came across as deep and firm, while low-light shots appeared clear and well delineated. Eurotrip just slightly fell short of “A” level and mainly looked great.

When I examined the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of Eurotrip, I felt it presented a very typical mix for a romantic comedy. The soundfield maintained a strong orientation toward the front speakers. They offered a good sense of atmosphere along with nice stereo imaging for the music. The effects stayed with light environmental elements and rarely ventured beyond that range. The surrounds added minor reinforcement of the music and effects - such as the sound of a train going through a tunnel - but never came to life more than that.

Audio quality came across as fine but unexceptional. Speech mostly sounded natural and firm, though some light edginess occasionally interfered. Music came across as lively and bright, with nice range and definition. Effects didn’t tax the mix, but they seemed clean and accurate, with no issues connected to distortion. Bass was fairly warm and tight, though it also rarely offered much range. Ultimately, the audio of Eurotrip was decent but unexceptional.

Despite the movie’s low profile, Eurotrip comes packed with extras. We find two separate audio commentaries; oddly, both feature the same participants. The first one is done “straight” and presents writers/directors Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, all of whom sit together for their running, screen-specific chat. They make this a good track. They cover quite a few topics. We learn about the cast and how they got all the guest stars to appear, and we also hear about the challenges and positives of shooting in Prague. Variations between different drafts of the script as well as differences between script and screen appear, and we learn all the additions made for the unrated cut. The guys also toss out many fun anecdotes about making the film, and this turns out to be a highly informative and entertaining piece.

For the second track, we get a ”Party Along” commentary. This means we hear from Mandel, Schaffer and Berg again, but the difference is that they turn watching the movie into a drinking game; whenever the movie depicts drinking, nudity or swearing, they must imbibe. Given the nature of the flick, that means they tank down the booze almost constantly.

Clearly they took a page from the famous commentary for Cannibal! The Musical, in which its participants got sloppy drunk. These guys don’t become quite so tanked, but they seem pretty loose by the end. They even order a pizza along the way. The track covers some of the same territory as the first commentary, but it includes a surprising amount of new material. Most of the time we hear little trivia bits and stories from the shoot. The participants remain fun and interesting, and this offers another fairly entertaining and useful discussion.

After this comes a Gag Reel. It lasts five minutes, 28 seconds and presents the usual goofs and wackiness. However, it also tosses in some behind the scenes pranks, which makes it a little different, but not much.

More unused footage appears in the deleted scenes domain. This presents 13 cut sequences for a total of 18 minutes and nine seconds of clips. Most of these fill out elements already in the movie, but they add some good material. The best of the bunch comes from either the complete “Hapi Jus” commercial or the extended bit that shows the continued humiliation of an arrogant French waiter. The latter’s very funny, though it clearly went on too long to make the movie itself.

We can watch the clips with or without commentary from Mandel, Berg and Schaffer. Apparently tuckered out after all their other commentaries, they seem somewhat subdued here, but they provide the appropriate information. They let us know why the scenes got the boot along with a few other relevant tidbits.

Even more cut shots come via the Alternate Ending. This runs two minutes, 42 seconds, and concludes the flick on a less happy note than does the actual finish. Unsurprisingly, this clip offers more optional commentary from the guys. They discuss the reasons they reshot the ending and didn’t use this one.

Two indexes appear after this. One details all 10 of the movie’s “Nude Scenes”, while the other covers the eight “Unrated Scenes”. Both are useful and a cool addition to the set.

For more details on the movie’s extended schlong-fest, we head to Nude Beach Exposed. This six-minute and 14-second featurette looks at the shooting of that sequence via movie snippets, behind the scenes shots, and comments from Mandel, Berg, Schaffer, and second AD Ben Howarth. A few decent tidbits emerge, but mostly we just hear about all the penises. Combined with the incessant shots of said penises, let’s just say I’ll never watch this featurette again. (And is it just me, or does it sound weird to hear the participants refer to “male penises”? What other kind are there?)

Another featurette tells us How to Pick a Director. In this 92-second piece, Mandel, Berg and Schaffer relate the way they selected who got the flick’s director’s credit. We also see the videotape of the selection process. It’s mildly interesting.

Eurotrip Bootleg goes for three minutes, 39 seconds. Berg, Mandel and Schaffer show up again and presents clips from an actual bootleg DVD they bought in New York along with their comments. It’s pretty useless but it’s also kind of funny.

Three elements pop up in The Music of Eurotrip. We get a sing-a-long version of “Scotty Doesn’t Know” that uses the standard onscreen lyrics/bouncing ball format. We also get a video for that song, but it’s the same as the sing-a-long minus the lyrics. Both present the movie footage of the band minus other film elements like Cooper’s exploits. Finally, we find a short ad for the Eurotrip soundtrack.

The Photo Gallery presents 53 photos, all of which show scenes from the movie and the shoot. No behind the scenes pictures appear, but we get some additional nudity and nice snaps of Trachtenberg in sexy outfits, so who cares? Production Notes gives us some nice information about the film. The notes provide a decent look at a few important subjects and seem fairly rich.

Another text feature shows up via the Script. It presents the entire text of the original draft, which means it includes lots of bits that don’t appear in the final film. That makes it a lot of fun to read and check out abandoned characters and subplots along with altered lines and situations.

Cast and Filmmakers offers the standard biographies. As usual, DreamWorks pour on the listings. We get entries for actors Jacob Pitts, Scott Mechlowicz, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester, Jessica Boehrs, Lucy Lawless, Vinnie Jones, and Fred Armisen plus director/writer Jeff Schaffer, writers Alec Berg and Dave Mandel, producers Jackie Marcus and Daniel Goldberg, executive producers Ivan Reitman, Joe Medjuck and Tom Pollock, composer James L. Venable, production designer Allan Starski, editor Roger Bondelli, director of photography David Eggby and costume designer Vanessa Vogel. The bios themselves don’t go much beyond the level of annotated filmography, but we sure do get a lot of them!

The DVD opens with a few ads. We get promos for Anchorman, Along Came Polly, Pitch Black and Envy. Surprisingly, despite the long roster of other features, the disc doesn’t include the trailer for Eurotrip itself.

Although I expected the usual crass and cheesy teen sex comedy from Eurotrip, instead I found a pretty fun little effort. The movie suffered from a few of those elements, but overall it seemed amusing and moderately clever. The DVD presented solid picture with decent audio and a very nice collection of extras. Eurotrip presents a likable and generally enjoyable flick that earns my recommendation.

Eurotrip DVD review

Smallville Yearbook!

Earthsea official Website

Season Finale of Smallville

The Smallville Season Two DVD

'Smallville's' Kreuk Is...

From Zip2it:

quote:

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"LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - For three seasons now on The WB's "Smallville" -- which concludes its current run on Wednesday, May 19 -- Kristin Kreuk has played Lana Lang, the object of Kansas high-school classmate Clark Kent's (Tom Welling) affections.
Love, though, has yet to blossom fully because Clark cannot reveal to Lana that he's a super-charged alien, one day destined to become Superman. But this year, Kreuk believes that Lana is moving beyond that.

"Her journey this year is great," Kreuk says, taking a break during filming on the show's sets in Vancouver, Canada. "She's on her way to being an independent woman, and I love that. In the beginning of this season, it was all, 'Clark, I will wait for you forever,' blah blah blah. And she's come to a point where she's like, 'Wait a minute, I've got to learn to stand on my own two feet and learn how to live my life on my own and be independent.'


"Clark will leave her, and she knows it. As much as she loves him, she knows it."
In many ways, Kreuk feels that the relationship between Clark and Lana is not a healthy one. "It's just really bad. He hurts her so much, and she does the same thing to him. The fact that he can't trust her and can't share with her, that matters.

"She's the type of person who goes, 'Here's my life, here's everything about me, here I am, accept me or don't.' And she just gives of herself. Clark holds all these things back, so she can't quite understand how someone can do that if they really love somebody."

But what if Clark did tell Lana? "In the comic books, he does," Kreuk says. "Clark tells her when she's ready. Judging from her reaction in the past to Kryptonite freak guys, she'd be accepting. An alien's kind of difficult to comprehend, and she's practical.

"She doesn't look at her friends and go, 'Hey, wonder if they're an alien.' She lives life not thinking about the paranormal. She lives her life thinking about emotional things. I think she'd be relieved -- angry at him for not being able to trust her, but ultimately she'd understand."

In the episode filming on this day, "Talisman" (which aired May 5), Lana has just learned that her business partner, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), has put their Egyptian Revival-style coffeehouse, the Talon, up for sale. At the same time, Lana is seriously considering heading to school in Paris. It's one step toward Lana deciding what she wants to be when she grows up.

"I don't think she has any idea," Kreuk says. "I've tried to push people to think about that. She's applying for design school in Paris. With the Talon, she's been doing interior decorating. The Talon, in my opinion, looks horrendous, but on camera it looks really great. But if you're in there, it's overwhelming.

"She's trying to figure out what to do. She's business-oriented; she's a practical girl. The more she's around Lex, the more I see that in her. She looks up to him in a lot of ways. She's trying to find her way. She likes to help people, it's just who she is. That's another thing that's interesting.

"She's like most kids in high school, going 'I don't know!'""

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Forsaken Trailer

Flare Magazine

Kristin is featured on the cover of The WB magazine, you can also find spoilers within the article on Kristin!

Thanks to Ian for the heads up!