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Surfer, Dude: Special Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Anchor Bay Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (29th May 2009). |
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The Film
 Some directors will talk about their passion projects, or their dream projects that they have had an aching to put together for so long it pains them. Bound up in this passion is a profound enjoyment of the material and commitment to what they’re trying to produce. But this sort of passion isn’t exclusive to directors, it extends to writers, actors and just about anyone involved in a movie’s creation. When you look at “Surfer, Dude” (2008) it hovers somewhere between passion project and excuse project, a fine line between a sincere passion for the material and an excuse to indulge or pursue certain things while filmmaking for Matthew McConaughey. Fresh off of his hilarious role as Tugg Speedman’s agent in “Tropic Thunder” (2008), McConaughey’s role in “Surfer, Dude” is somewhere between his own public image and his character from “Dazed and Confused” (1993), all wrapped into what seems like a $6 million excuse for McConaughey to get high and have a giant topless party under the pretense of working (especially considering his Wikipedia page says he made less than $35,000 for the role). Steve Addington (Matthew McConaughey) is a stereotypical pro surfer bum, moving from place to place just based on the money he earns from random sponsorship opportunities, while taking time to party with his friends, sleep with hot beach women and get high between waves. However after coming back from a trip to Fiji, Addington finds himself in a dilemma as his contractual deals have become tied up by ex-surfer and now entrepreneur Eddie Zarno (Jeffrey Nordling) who wants Addington for use in his upcoming virtual reality surfing game as well as surf-based reality TV show. Addington doesn’t exactly like the videogames and commercial lifestyle that Zarno wants surfing to become and walks away from the project only to discover himself humiliated through some footage Zarno edited, his expense accounts shut down and his buddy/agent (Woody Harrelson) jailed. Stragely, the ocean decides to shut down on Addington as well, beginning an extended draught of waves fit for surfing and causing Addington to enter a sort of crisis in his life as everything he’s known gets stripped away. Whatever sort of crisis Addington seems to go through all comes with a hit of parody, trying to mix that in with a sense of sincerity about surfer culture, but in the end it can’t hit the mix where it’s either too annoying to be funny or too oddly comical to be taken seriously. McConaughey plays the surfer dude to a T, but the character almost wants to be the pretty boy version of “The Big Lebowski” (1998), but this surfer dude is not nearly dude enough for The Dude (or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing). Sure he smokes a lot of marijuana and sees his fair share of naked women, but it just seems like MaConaughey produced the movie out of a desire to get high and surf with his shirt off for the entire movie. But outside of the surfing and smoking there’s not too much more to be had, any kind of message in the movie is about the same you’ll hear from hanging out with your favorite stoner philosopher. The rest of the acting cast seems there just to serve McConaughey’s role, and never really move beyond that with appearances by people who are obviously brought in as friends to McConaughey to run along with the movie he is producing. However for the “Lost” (2004-2010) fanatics out there you get a suprising appearance by mister Ghost dad himself John Terry, AKA Christian Shephard, with some seriously long hair wearing a business suit and playing another father role. Overall, the surprise appearance of John Terry combined with a few funny lines and some ridiculous pool parties can’t make the experience too worthwhile. It may be enjoyable for surfers who just are looking for a movie to get high to, or for someone who just wants to see a shirtless McConaughey for less than an hour and a half, but there really isn’t much to the film beyond what you see on the cover: a vacant expression, a surf board, some waves and a moderately ridiculous title.
Video
Presented in 1.85:1 widescreen in 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 encoding, this Blu-ray shows off how even the cheaper movies shot on HD cameras can look really clean and clear on Blu-ray. The lighting isn’t always great and the directing isn’t terribly good either, but most of it comes through without any sort of technical problems with everything looking clean though not of the highest quality.
Audio
The English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track mix at 48kHz/16-bit gives the surfer soundtrack a full voice, all of the music is vaguely reggae or beach music and comes through clearly in tandem with the dialogue itself. There are no technical problems with any of the levels or balance in the sound, but it doesn’t quite have the crystial clarity and movement that I’ve come to expect from Dolby TrueHD. Optional English for the hearing impaired and Spanish subtitles are also available.
Extras
This 2-disc edition coems with a suprising amount of special features including an audio commentary, a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, 12 webisodes, a theatrical trailer, bonus trailers and BD-Live access. DISC ONE: First up is the audio commentary with actor/producer Matthew McConaughey. There’s a lot of pauses but he gives up some interesting points about the production of the movie, like the body doubles that were used for him, why they made certain points in the film and put it together the way they did, but he spends so much time sitting and watching the movie. Some of the comments he brings in sound exactly like his character in the film, which can be funny, but he talks so infrequently that it’s disinteresting. “Surfer, Dude: The Real Story” runs for 24 minutes and 48 seconds. This acts as the making-of featurette, speaking with all the major players in the film from inception and through production. There’s some cool footage of the casting process, you can spot Amy Acker auditioning for the lead female Danni role, along with discussions of the casting process in the back rooms. It’s a fairly well put together featurette on the making of process, in terms of bringing together some good behind-the-scenes footage, but since I wasn’t terribly interested in the movie, the process didn’t really grab me. The deleted scenes all run together unmarked in a set, with no real marks between different scenes cut and kind of jumping around the movie to different segments, running all together for 11 minutes and 17 seconds, including a dream sequence between Addington and April-May, different stumbling beach party sequences. Like the deleted scenes, the 12-part webisode series runs for 24 minutes and 35 seconds, acting a supplemental making-of to the feature. Each webisode only lasts for a couple of minutes, using some of the exact footage from the making-of that’s included on the disc, but putting some more focus into other places and centered on just crerating short snippets that move a lot faster than the longer featurette. The theatrical trailer runs for 2 minutes and 32 seconds. Bonus trailers on the disc are: - “Lower Learning” runs for 1 minute and 59 seconds. - “The Grand” runs for 2 minutes and 15 seconds. - “Sex and Death 101” runs for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. - “Anchor Bay Blu-Ray” runs for 59 seconds. - “Traitor” runs for 2 minutes and 11 seconds. - “Dead Space: Downfall” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Righteous Kill” runs for 2 minutes and 32 seconds. The disc also has BD-Live access for profile 2.0 players only. DISC TWO: This is simply a digital copy version of the film.
Overall
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