Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Harry Lime’s been here pretty much every day recently, the two of us working on our latest experiment, but he still took a little time to steal away and sneak a peek at this week’s DVD release of ICE AGE. Here’s what he had to say about it...
ICE AGE DVD REVIEW by Harry Lime
It seems like every DVD that comes out these days is a 2-disc set... even if the movie doesn’t demand it. I guess as long as they don’t start charging double, it’s okay. This kind of home video treatment is best when it’s a movie that’s heavy on visual effects or when it’s an animated movie. This is because there’s an assload of material generated for these kinds of films. Now that God has created the DVD format, it’s possible make a great portion of it available to the consumer to scrutinize at their leisure on their giant screen televisions.
I was really happy to get my hands on the new 2-disc DVD for the animated movie ICE AGE. In fact, I was so thrilled that I stripped off all my clothes and lit my balls on fire. Afterwards, while I was soaking my genitals in a vat of cold cider vinegar to bring down the inflammation, I went back on my vow to keep EPISODE II in my DVD player for the rest of eternity and popped in my new discs.
ICE AGE is a great family film that’s loaded with tons of artistry. The transfer looks fantastic, despite some criticisms about the fact that both the full screen and wide screen versions are on one side of a duel layer disc. There’s a heaping helping of extras on these two-disc, which is put together in a way that’s fun for kids and interesting for adults. The overall package is very similar to EPISODE II, which I found very comforting.
As I mentioned above, disc one contains both the wide screen and pan & scan versions of the feature film. Obviously, if you wish, for both of these versions you can listen to a commentary track with director Chris Wedge, who was cool enough to grant me an interview a couple weeks ago, and co-director Carlos Saldanha. Other audio options, aside from impressive 5.1 English track, includes Spanish and French language tracks in Dolby Surround. This is perfect for all of my illegitimate children in South America and France.
One of the real treats on disc 2 is Scrat’s missing adventure; an animated short entitled “Gone Nutty.” Not since the Roger Rabbit shorts from the late 80’s and early 90’s has there been a funnier animated offspring. I pray they make more of these. Scrat is the modern-day Wyle E. Coyote. I love this guy and the short is hilarious. Be sure and watch the clouds.
The other treat is Blue Sky Studios very first short film, “Bunny.” This haunting and lovely short was written and directed by Chris Wedge. If you’re an animation freak, even if ICE AGE isn’t your thing, this short film makes the disc worth having. I had never seen this wonderful film before and was blown away by it. The closing song by Tom Waits sums it all up beautifully. Like the feature on disc one, you can chose to watch it with director commentary.
The rest of disc 2 includes six deleted scenes, an HBO special, six production featurettes, teasers and trailers, and a feature that I found very interesting which allows you to look at three different scenes from the movie at four stages of animation: storyboards, 3D layout, un-rendered animation, and final render. One of these scenes, thankfully, is the opening Scrat scene. There’s also a funny John Leguizamo extra, which I thought was interesting despite the fact that his character Sid isn’t a murdering transvestite clown.
Well, back to tending to the blistered sack. It’s a damn good thing I have ICE AGE. The mere mention of ice brings me relief. I think I’ll swab myself with aloe vera sap then sit back and watch my DVD again. Wish you were here.
And with that, Harry Lime slinked away into the sewers and the shadows once more.
