The House Bunny – Blu-ray Disc Review

December 16, 2008 – 6:23 PM - Posted by: Danielle Byington

Tags: Anna Faris, BD-Live, Beverly D'Angelo, Christopher McDonald, Colin Hanks, Dana Goodman, Emma Stone, Fred Wolf, Hugh M. Hefner, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kat Dennings, Katharine McPhee, Kiely Williams, Kirsten Smith, Monet Mazur, Rumer Willis, Sony, Tyson Ritter

has an average rating of 5.6 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
include over an hour of supplements & BD-Live
–
– 2008
– 97 minutes
– Sony
–

Overall Verdict – Recommended

Buy it for $26.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Danielle Byington —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself is directed by Fred Wolf, whose other directing credits including “Strange Wilderness“, and he has also been a writer for other comedic films such as “Black Sheep“, and “Joe Dirt“. the film is written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the female dual with writing credits for films such as, “10 Things I Hate About You“, “Legally Blonde“, and “She’s The Man“.

The film revolves around Shelley (Anna Faris), whom, left in a basket at an orphanage and never adopted by a family, grew up to be a very attractive girl, and found her own home and family at the Playboy Mansion, where the film opens. Shelley is sincerely thankful for her “family”, and after a night of celebrating at her 27th birthday party, she awakes the following morning to her breakfast in bed, which is accompanied by a letter from “Hef”, asking her to leave immediately. Very confused about “why?”, it is explained to her that it must be because of her age, because “27 in is like 59 in bunny-years”. Collecting her belongings, and being sent away in the stationwagon she come to town in, she lives out of her car for a night, until she is arrested for a couple of “complications”. Getting out of the courthouse, she sits at the curb to apply her makeup and over-hears the conversation of some college girls talking about a party. Following this lead, Shelley strolls onto a college campus and sees the Greek-houses as miniature Playboy Mansions. Walking into a sorority, she immediately declares that she wants to live there, and the sorority girl tells her how she must be “asked” to live there, and also actually be a student at the school. Continuing her curious stroll about the sorority house anyhow, Shelley encounters the house-mothers, where an aggressively passive Mrs. Hagstrom (Beverly D’Angelo), informs Shelley “this isn’t a brothel”, and another house-mother discretely advises her to try the Zeta sorority.

Stepping up to the entrance of the Zeta sorority, it is a bit unkempt, with a lawn of dead grass, and the “E” missing from their Zeta sign, and as Shelley goes to knock on the door and enter, the “Z” falls on her head, making for a later joke about always having ” ‘T’ and ‘A’ “. Shelley meets and greets with the girls of Zeta, who are a less physically attractive bunch, but are in need of a house-mother, and not just that; the girls need 30 pledges to keep the sorority house. Some of the very diverse, yet socially ungraceful girls include, Natalie (Emma Stone), the dorky red-head with glasses, Mona (Kat Dennings), the rebellious feminist, Harmony (Katharine McPhee), the knocked-up hippie-chick, and Joanne (Rumer Willis), the girl with a back-brace. This interesting group provides plenty of challenges for ex-house bunny Shelley, as their contributions to campus life, as well as the physical appearance of their Greek-house and themselves (not to mention their attitudes), earn a high maintenance make-over from Shelley, all in purpose to attract the student body’s interest and desire to pledge to Zeta; allowing the “misfits” to keep their sorority house.

Overall, the movie provides a lot of laughs, crossing past being a “chick flick”, and baring more “PG-13″ to “R” jokes from Faris and the rest of the cast. Speaking of the cast, Anna Faris and Emma Stone have a nice comedic chemistry between of them, and hopefully we will get to see more of them working together in films in the future; as well as the rest of the cast, particularly the “misfit” sorority girls, all portraying their unique roles well. As you can hear in the site’s interview with the writers of the film, the part of Shelley was written for Anna Faris, and just as they had in mind, it is more than suitable to see her portraying an ex-house bunny, with the superbly naive personality we often see in her roles, such as Cindy from the “Scary Movie” line. This movie is just extra icing on the cake for the expanding careers of the writers, and Frew Wolf, as all in all, the movie itself earns a “4 Star Rating“.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio. This movie was filmed with the Panavision Genesis HD Camera, and man does it ever show. The use of perfect lighting conditions throughout the film, which never renders the use of a HD camera’s weaknesses, really makes for practically visual demo material on Blu-ray. Audiences get perfect fleshtones, from the Playboy-tanned skin of Anna Faris‘ character (never appearing orange), to the fair skin of actress Emma Stone. The black level is close to solid, though not quite inky, though still helping to compliment the vibrant color palette, seen through out the film’s entirety, from the numerous skimpy outfits worn by Shelley, often involving vivid pink tones, the outdoors scenes making the grass in the lawns “pop”, the fiery-auburn hair of actress Emma Stone, and the scenes at the Playboy Mansion involving extras with platinum blonde hair. There is basically no digital noise visible, with the exceptions of dimly lit scenes such as Shelley‘s 27th birthday party, but still yet, the video quality is superb.

The detail in this High Definition release is abundant, from the strands of hair, especially the fly-aways in Anna Faris‘ blonde style, to the facial details in even semi-close shots. The detail is also nice in areas of production playing a large role int he film, from the set design, growing from a hand-me-down home decor, to girly-girl-glamour, seen in the landscaping outside of the girls’ Greek-house, to the interior selections such as the furniture, and not to mention the physical make-overs of the misfit sorority girls, in which the detail gives attention to the work of 9-person Makeup department for the production, and the costume designs by Mona May, whom with past work on films such as, “Clueless“, and “A Night at the Roxbury“, knew had to turn plain-Jane girls “hot”. There are no signs of Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) or Edge Enhancement (EE) filters used on this release, with its great clarity, and absolutely no signs of compressions, as it receives a “4.5 Star Rating” for video quality.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. The main elements in the audio presentation of this film’s content are the dialogue and the soundtrack. The dialogue is presented with clarity through out the film, primarily through the front center channel and sometimes the left and right. The soundtrack is basically the only element that works-out the audio format, with pop songs by The Pussycat Dolls, Boys Like Girls, and Avril Lavigne, baring a good balance within the soundscape, also making use of the rear channels, and some bass presence. There a couple of moments of ambient sounds making use of the rear channels, but aside from the film’s suitable pop music score, the movie’s content doesn’t possess an abundance of action packed sequences, but what is there does the film adequate justice, earning a “4 Star Rating“.

Bonus Materials are presented in High Definition and Standard Definition (HD supplements will be noted), using Dolby Digital 2.0.

• BD-Live is included, though information can not be concluded until street date for this Blu-ray release, and does require the user to be on a “Profile 2.0” Blu-ray Disc Player.
• Deleted Scenes (12 minutes) consists of 10 scenes; definitely worth a watch with at least a few laughs, especially the valet guy suggesting to Shelley that she needs a “yob“, and also a scene involving Shelley telling a story about how a psychic told her she and her cat were cousins in a past life, accompanied by a creepily realistic “meow” made by Anna Faris.
• Featurettes (53 minutes, HD) consists of 12 featurettes, all interviewing cast and crew discussing multiple points of the film’s production, and involving some “behind the scenes” looks at the making of the movie, including Anna Faris explaining how this was a physically demanding role for her off camera in order to stay in shape for the revealing wardrobe worn by her character, Katherine McPhee talking about how before the “misfit” girls get their make-over, the cast was wearing winter clothing in 102 degree weather in Burbank, California to suit the essence of the non-stylish girls, a featurette about the cameos made by Shaquille O’Neal, Nick Swardson, and Dan Patrick to name a few, and an interview with costume designer Mona May.
• “I Know What Boys Like” (3 minutes, HD) includes an introduction about recreating the song for use in the film, and a music video of the song as performed in the film.

Overall, the bonus materials should provide soon to be fans of the movie with adequate “behind the scenes” supplements and deleted scenes, spanning over an hour and mostly in Hi-Def, making for a nice touch to the release.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

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