DVD Giveaway - Solitary Man
Ends Sep 12, 2010
Enter to win this DVD release starring Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Susan Sarandan, and Mary-Louise Parker.
Rating: Country: USA Release Date: August 15, 2006 Distributor: Sony Pictures Director: · Barry Sonnenfeld Cast: · Robin Williams · Cheryl Hines · Joanna "JoJo" Levesque · Josh Hutcherson · Jeff Daniels · Kristin Chenoweth · Hunter Parrish · Chloe Sonnenfeld · Alex Ferris Related Sites: ·IMDb: RV ·CinemaSpider: RV
Grade: A
I passed on seeing "RV" in theaters because, like many of us, I judged the film by its trailers. Now that I've had the opportunity to see the DVD, I'm really sorry I waited this long.
"RV" is a comedy on equal footing with "National Lampoon's Vacation" -- made possibly funnier by the inclusion of Robin Williams and Jeff Daniels. Williams ("Robots") plays Bob Munro, an executive with a soda manufacturing company whose office environment apparently modeled their policies after "Office Space", only with twice the sadism and none of the humor. Bob has been planning a vacation to Hawaii for his unappreciative family, but is told by his boss that he has to cancel it to instead give a presentation to a new soft drink company in Colorado that they are looking to acquire. With several young up-and-comers looking to fill Bob's shoes, it's yet another "do it or you're fired" situation for the put-upon Bob.
Bob's answer to having both the vacation and the job is to turn the trip to Colorado into an over-the-road adventure. He rents a huge RV and pulls up in front of the house as his way of announcing that he's changed his mind (and thus, all of theirs) about Hawaii, and they're going to go to Colorado instead. Having already heard too much from his wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines, Curb Your Enthusiasm) about how he puts the job before his family, Bob doesn't dare tell anyone the real reason for the change in plans. His daughter Cassie (JoJo Levesque, "Aquamarine", who's looking more like Lindsey Lohan used to every day) already hates her dad for no other reason than that she's a teenager, and son Carl (Josh Hutcherson, "Zathura") isn't all that crazy about the new plans either, as it interferes with his weightlifting schedule. But, given no other option, the family loads themselves aboard the "big rolling turd" and sets off on a road trip that starts out in disaster and slowly goes downhill from there.
After losing both the awning and the umbrella,
the Munros hunker in the rain wearing trash
bags. L-R: Josh Hutcherson, JoJo Levesque,
Cheryl Hines, Robin Williams
Along the way, they continually meet up with another RVing family, the Gornickes, headed up by Travis (Jeff Daniels, "Because of Winn-Dixie") and Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth, "The Pink Panther"). They're full-time RVers who homeschool their three kids, Earl (Hunter Parrish, Weeds), Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld), and Billy (Alex Ferris, The L Word). They're an overly trusting, extremely friendly family -- the polar opposite of the dysfunctional and broken Munros, and provide the perfect foil. Coming off at first as a family straight out of "Deliverance", the Gornickes are gradually revealed to the audience as being far more than they appear. Every time the Munro family finds itself in a crunch out on the road, you're only half a beat away from the Gornickes driving up and blowing their Star Trek themed horn.
There are a good deal of special features on this DVD, in addition to the track commentary with director Barry Sonnenfeld. There's a five-minute gag reel, introduced by Sonnenfeld who isn't afraid to voice the opinion many of us feel when watching these things -- does anybody who wasn't there at the time really care about these moments? A ten minute segment titled "RV Reveries" is a three-segment shot of how the filmmakers pulled off the three-song overlap that aptly demonstrated how each Munro is in their own world even when they're all in the same room together. There is one alternate scene and five lengthy scenes showin in a film-to-storyboard comparison.
A submenu of featurettes provides a focus on "Barry Sonnenfeld: The Kosher Cowboy" (ten minutes), "JoJo: The Pop Princess" (five minutes), a collection of memories from the cast and crew about their childhood road vacations in the eleven minute "RV Nation: The Culture of Road Warriors" (in which it is revealed that Jeff Daniels owns his own RV and drives it regularly on cross-country trips), a set of cast and crew recollections about working with Robin Williams in the five minute "Robin Williams: A Family Affair", and a four-minute 'making-of' segment on the logistics of creating a geyser of... well, the title says it all: "The Scoop on Poop".
If you like to find the Easter eggs on a disc by yourself, skip this paragraph, because I'm going to tell you where they are. There is one on the Audio menu. Click on the statue of the Egyptian jackal. You'll get a short segment with Robin Williams. There is another on the Scene Selection menu. Click on the rearview mirror for a half-minute with Cheryl Hines. On the Previews menu, click the RV sign and get a minute with Barry Sonnenfeld. And on the Featurettes menu, click the tamborine and get a forty-second clip with Kristin Chenoweth (although she is not in the bunny suit, which Williams promised in his segment.)
Audio on this disc can be set to either English or French, with subtitles available in either.
Previews on this disc include "Monster House", "Open Season" and "Zoom". Additionally selectable trailers include "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby", "The Pink Panther", "Are We There Yet?", and "Daddy Day Care".
