Film

I am sure that most of you are aware of who Hannah Montana is. The series stars Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart, a normal teenager by day, and Hannah Montana, an international teenage pop star by night. The series has been a staple of the Disney channel for several years and has been widely successful, resulting in several hit albums and concert tours, one of which has already been released on Blu-ray.

Miley Cyrus is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus who previously was best known for his one hit, Achy Breaky Heart, who also happens to play Miley’s father in the series and this film. Needless to say, Miley is now beginning to grow up and is starting to become a bit too old in the tooth for the series. Accordingly, she has begun to make a move out from under the Hannah Montana character to make music under her own name. In some respects, this film is part of her plan to go out on her own, a first and very large step in that direction.

In the film, Miley is becoming a bit too big for her britches and needs to be knocked down an peg. While she was born in Tennessee, living in California the past several years along with her musical stardom has caused her to lose a connection with her roots. Rather than allowing her to go to New York for an awards appearance, her father tricks her and takes her to Tennessee against her wishes for her grandmother’s birthday party hoping that Miley will rediscover her roots. Naturally, she becomes infatuated with a local teenage boy and gets caught up in saving the town from a real estate developer, as Hannah Montana. It is in her old home and with her family, that she reconnects with who she is and what she really wants out of life.

The film is filled with many of the same characters from the TV show with the addition of Vanessa Williams as her agent and manager. While I found the film to be way too predictable and hokey for me, I have no doubts that fans of the series will love the film, as it is simply an episode from the TV series brought to the big screen, with a bigger production budget and a much longer running time. I can without a doubt recommend this film to fans of the TV series only. The rest of you may want to give it a pass.

Video

There is quite a lot to like about this look of this film on Blu-ray. The film features a very natural color palette filled with bright, bold and well saturated colors. Skin tones are excellent as well. The film also features deep, rich and stable blacks. Where the film comes up a bit short for me is in the level of detail and clarity, which I found to be a bit below average. The film is just a lot softer than I expected it to be, with smoothed over facial and background details. Even with the deep blacks, the film simply lacked the depth of the best looking encodes, looking flat in comparison, lacking that three dimensionality that one finds in the better looking Blu-ray encodes. In light of the bright and bold colors and deep blacks, this film would have ben a candidate for a 4.5 or greater score had it had better overall detail and clarity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t and a 4 stars score will have to do.

Audio

While I was a bit disappointed in the video on this release, I was more than pleased with the audio quality. From the very beginning of the film, I was struck by the overall fidelity of the sound which was smooth, rich and full. The dialogue track in particular, has excellent fidelity. The same is true for the use of the surrounds, which is quite surprisingly aggressive throughout for a teen or pre-teen comedy, providing an excellent sense of immersion, particularly during the concert sequences. In addition to having excellent overall sonics, the dialogue track is also well placed in the sound mix. While transparency, imaging and dynamics are not quite as good as the best sounding films I have experienced, they are all quite good in their own right, resulting in a very nice overall aural experience.

Special Features

Overall, I think that fans of the film will be more than happy with the extras included with this release. The release contains two other discs in addition to the Blu-ray version of the film, including a copy of the film on DVD as well as a digital copy compatible with Macs and PCs.

The extras for the most part are standard fair, consisting of deleted scenes, 7 music videos, a gag reel and an audio commentary with director Peter Chelsom. There are two sets of extras included in HD. The first is a featurette “I Should Have Gone to Film School” starring Jason Earles (Who plays Miley’s Brother in the TV series and the film) who takes you behind the scenes during the making of the film, interviewing the cast and crew and showing how films are made.

The second and frankly the best set of extras are entitled as a group “Find Your Way Back Home” where Miley and her family take you on a tour of her hometown. Also included in HD is a feature on the Hoedown Throwdown dance featured in the film, with the film’s choreographer showing you how to do the dance step by step. I can’t say that it made me want to get up and boogie though. Perhaps you will feel differently.

Final Thoughts

Disney sure knows how to deliver when it comes to the fans of their product. Hannah Montana: The Movie is no exception as it will surely appeal to fans of the TV series. However, fans of the series tend to be pre-teens and young teenagers, and that is where the appeal ends for me. Recommended for fans only.

While there are usually some bumps along the road to everlasting happiness during the film and plenty of tears, for the characters as well as the female audience members, all works out by the end of the film. Another characteristic of the chick flick is that most , if not all, of the men in the audience are wondering what the heck they are doing watching the film, a feeling I have had many times in the theater both at home as well as the cineplex. The subject of today’s review, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is just such a chick flick and a rather uninteresting one at that.

Film

When it comes to chick flicks, my wife is something as an expert, in that she really loves them. However, when she tells you a chick flick is a bad one, well, that is all you need to know. How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is just such a film. The film is based on the book of the same title by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. The plot is utterly predictable.

Andie (Kate Hudson) is a writer at a fashion magazine who writes a monthly how to column. When one of her friends is dumped yet again by a boyfriend, Andie inquires what she was doing to lose men so fast. When she advises Andie how she approaches men and quickly loses them as a result, she decides to write a column on what to do to drive a boyfriend away.

The column presumably is for those out there who want to drop a particular guy or for those who can’t keep a relationship going and want to improve their chances of keeping a man. In order to do the column, she will have to try out her advise on an unsuspecting subject, who she will at first entice and then attempt to drive away in 10 days. This is where Ben (Matthew McConaughey-yes he takes off his shirt yet again in what has become somewhat of a running joke in the film industry) comes in to the picture.

Ben has his own angle too. He is an ad agency executive who is trying to land the right to make a pitch for a new client outside his area of expertise and who is tricked into agreeing to make any woman picked for him to fall in love for him in 10 days fir the right to make that pitch (which involves (what else?) diamonds and lots of them). As it so happens, the woman who is picked for him is none other than Andie, with totally predictable results. Gee, I wonder how this one is going to end? While there are several unbelievable moments in the film, the most incredulous of them all is the fact that the Knicks are playing the Sacramento Kings in the NBA finals. The Knicks! Not likely any time soon.

I found this film lacking in interest and a curious lack of on screen chemistry between the two leads. The plot is predictable and not very cohesive. The book the film is based on is fairly short and really needed to be fleshed out to form the basis of a film. Having the male lead plotting to do the reverse of the female lead was not the way to go here IMHO. I did not enjoy this film and more importantly for a “Chick Flick”, neither did my wife. You may want to skip this one entirely. Recommended for fans only.

Video

I must say that I was really surprised by the overall look of the film as I was expecting more. The film features a nice natural if a bit subdued looking color palette with nice flesh tones. Blacks are just OK. Where this film really left me cold was in the area of detail and clarity. This is a soft looking film, which is especially noticeable in the area of facial detail which I found to be rather lacking. Fine facial details such as skin pores and blemishes appear to have been smoothed away, most likely by using a soft focus technique rather than the application of digital noise reduction. This lack of facial detail is even more apparent in the scenes with all women. The scenes with all men are a tad sharper with more facial detail, but not by much. I can only imagine that this was deliberate on the part of the filmmaker, to perhaps hide some of the more visible flaws of the female cast members.

The entire film has that soft edge to it which results in an image that appears almost fuzzy and very flat, lacking the level of clarity and depth that we have come to expect with high definition in general and Blu-ray in particular. Needless to say, I was disappointed with video presentation on this release, although I am rather certain that it is the result of the cinematography rather than the encode.

Audio

While I was disappointed with the video, I can’t way the same about the audio, as it was pretty much what I expected it to be for a romantic comedy. As I had expected, the film features a rather simple sound design with much of the sound field emanating from the front three speakers only with little use of the surrounds. The surrounds only come to life occasionally, with the most effective sequences being the scenes which occur at the NBA finals between the Knicks and Kings at Madison Square Garden, where you are placed right smack dab in the middle of the crowd. While these scenes were very immersive, the rest of the film wasn’t.

The rest of the sound had OK fidelity but was nothing spectacular, with little in the way of dynamics. However, transparency and imaging were good, although far from reference. The dialogue track was well recorded and well placed in the mix, such as it was. I would describe the sound of this film as being pleasant which, come to think of it, is not undesirable at all.

Special Features

The best thing I can say about the extras included here are that most are in HD. The extras feature an audio commentary with director Donald Petrie as well as deleted scenes with an optional commentary by Mr. Petrie as well. Also included is the music video, “Somebody LIke You” by Keith Urban. Also included is a featurette “How to Make a Movie in 2 Years” which feature interviews with the authors of the original book describing how the book and the film came to be as well as interviews with the film’s producers.

Also included is a featurette “Why the Sexes Battle” which features interviews with behavioral experts on the dynamics involved in male/female relationships. The final featurette is entitled Girls Night Out which features authors Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long discussing their book once again.

All of the featurettes are presented in HD. All in all, there really isn’t all that much here. If you are interested in more about the origins of the book, check out the first featurette. The rest, feel free to skip.

Final Thoughts

How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a so-so film with so-so video and audio that I found, overall, to be disappointing, even for a “Chick Flick”. Recommended for fans only.

Film 

Frankly, High school Musical 3 was better than I thought and at least as good as the original. The same cast of favorites from the first two films are present, Gabriella, Sharpay Troy, Trevor and Ryan along with some additions to the cast. This film finds them in their senior year dealing with more pressing issues such as going away to college and leaving the comfortable confines of high school, long time friends and embarking on the journey of life. It is often difficult at that age to have to make your own choices and follow your own path rather than the path set out for you by your parents or what you think you they will want you to do rather than what you think is best for you. In dealing with these issues, HSM3 is a little more mature than the first two. Yes, the same bouncy and rather formulaic and homogenous music that permeated the first two films is back here in spades, but the overall tone of the film is a tad deeper than the first making for a more enjoyable film. If you have middle school or teenaged kids as I do, you will no doubt be forced to watch this film. Don’t worry, you may even enjoy it.

Video 

HSM3 is encoded with AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1. At first glance, there is a lot to like about this transfer. The film features and bright and bold color palette with colors that are well saturated and natural looking, especially skin tones, which are quite pleasing to the eye. Black levels are good as well although not as deep and inky as the best looking Blu-Ray encodes I have seen, resulting in an image of good although hardly reference level depth and three dimensionality. However, while this encode does has its high points, it also has one rather large failing and that is with detail. The image simply lacks the level of detail that one would expect from such a new film. In particular, the texture of the actors’ skin seems rather devoid of texture, blemishes and the like, looking a bit smoothed over. The same is true for distant shots which lack the clarity of the better looking Blu-Ray releases, looking a tad hazy in comparison. It would be great had this release included the best of all worlds, bright and bold colors, deep blacks, top notch detail and clarity but it is what it is.

Audio 

HSM3 includes a lossless audio track encoded with DTS HD Master Audio in a 5.1 channel configuration. As was the case with the video, the audio encode has a lot going for it. Effective use is made of the surround speakers which are very active during the film, especially during the many musical numbers, filling the room with a wall of sound. Bass response is good as well, giving the musical numbers a solid foundation. I thought the overall sound quality of the film to be fairly good with good imaging and a nice sense of transparency. However, where the encode and the sound mix in general came up short was in the area of fidelity, especially the dialogue track which was a bit thin and harsh for my tastes. When cranked up to reference levels, the sound led rather quickly to listener fatigue, lacking the richness and smoothness that I have characteristic of most other DTS HD Master audio tracks I have listened to. This is not the track that you will want to crank up, no matter what your kids may think.

Special Features 

As one would expect, HSM3 is chock full of extras. However, for me, the most significant extra is the DVD edition of the film included with the release. This gives you the option of being able to play the Blu-Ray addition at home enjoying the high def picture and sound, while being able to take the DVD on the road with you and playing it on any portable DVD player or laptop. This is a bonus as it will enable you to watch the film on a bigger sized screen than you would be able to with the digital copy that is also included that is compatible with both Macs and PCs. It will also enable you to share the film with friends and play it anywhere where a DVD player is available. I wish that all Blu-ray releases, or at least major titles, where released with a DVD copy, to encourage more consumers to purchase the Blu-ray title and help grow the format. One of the features that I really enjoyed with the late HD DVD format was the combo disc which had a DVD copy on one side that you could play in any DVD player. The approach taken by Disney here seems to be the Blu-ray answer to the combo disc. Hopefully, it will be one of an increasing number of releases to feature this extra feature.

The rest of the extras are rather mundane, including a feature on Senior Awards and new cast profiles. Also included is a feature on cast goodbyes, deleted scenes, bloopers and a sing along. The release is also BD-Live enabled which includes a bonus photo feature. I will admit that I am not a huge fan of extras in general and prefer to watch and enjoy the film and leave the extras until later. None of the extras presented here really grabbed me. Then again, I am not in high school. Your kids may feel differently. However, the inclusion of the bonus DVD ediition of the movie fully justifies the score that I have given the extras in and of itself. Hopefully, we will see more of the same on more future releases.

Final Thoughts 

While I enjoyed the film, my opinion may have been skewed by the fact that watched it with my high school aged children. I would recommend the film for any families that are familiar with the first two films and enjoyed them. The rest of you may want to consider renting the film first before purchasing.