How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days – Blu-ray Disc Review

Tags: Adam Goldberg, Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Michele, Paramount, Shalmon Harlow, Thomas Lennon

has an average rating of 6.2 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
are mostly in Hi-Def
–
– 2003
– 115 minutes
– Paramount
–
This uses 32.8GB for the movie out of 39.3GB total.
Street Date: August 25th, 2009

Overall Verdict – Worth A Look

Buy it for $20.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Brendan Surpless —

The Movie Itself is directed by Donald Petrie (known for “Miss Congeniality“). Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) is the “How To” woman over at Composure magazine, the country’s fastest growing women’s magazine. With a BA from Columbia on her resume, all Andie needs is that big break in order to get the rights to write what she wants. When it’s suggested in a weekly meeting that she write up a “How To” article on “How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days” (after her best friend lost a guy in 10 days), she sets up to do exactly that. Enter Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey), an advertiser for a local firm that specializes in alcohol and sports. With their latest target being a huge diamond company, Ben exclaims that he could get ANY woman to fall in love with him in.. you guessed it… 10 days. With both Andie and Ben having their own set of playing cards, it’s up to one another to see who can get the other to fall fastest. What results is actually a fairly entertaining film that is full of a wide assortment of laughs, romantic awwwwwwwws and solid acting to appeal to really anyone.

What makes “Days” work is the connection that Hudson and McConaughey have. The constant bickering the two experience can certainly remind anyone of a relationship they have had either past or present. An interesting thing is in an included feature found on this disc, a discussion on why the Sexes battle is had. I personally think the sexes battle simply because the sexes are meant to give a sense of balance in life. By this I mean, a woman balances out the good and bad in a man’s life and vice versa. Without one another either a man or woman might feel like they don’t have a real sense of coordination in life. And that’s exactly what both Andie and Ben experience in “Days“. Even though each have their own agenda, they deeply feel inside that without the constant attention each pay to one another, their lives would not be the same. And even when both take each other to the absolute lowest, they still come back.

At first glance the type of relationship that Andie and Ben have (in the initial days) is the kind of relationship must dream of. The instant falling in love, looking into one another’s eyes finding yourself simply sighing at the thought of one another. A feeling like this gives a complete sense of everything life has to offer. Then the trouble and bickering starts. And both actors portray these emotions perfectly, adding in a sense of humor to the mix. Perhaps it’s more that McConaughey tends to always play this type of role in his films (heck take a look his last few movies), so he knows exactly how to act at this point in his career. But again and again he seems to be that type of character actor that we can’t help but like having that sense of charisma and style in each of his acting roles.

In closing, I’ll fully admit that I was completely shocked by “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days“. I expected absolutely nothing out of this film in the slightest sense. Thinking this would be yet another romantic comedy, I was pleased with what I found. Yes the film does run a bit long at some points, but overall the film is well worth checking out for either fans of the actors involved or really any looking for a good film to watch (recommended that you watch it with your significant other too)!.

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 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Filmed using Panavision Cameras and Lenses according to iMDB, “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” features a serviceable upgrade to the DVD counterpart;however, this transfer might not be the huge upgrade fans will be searching for. The film’s color palette consists mostly of brighter colors like yellows of Andie’s dress, the blues of the New York sky and the whites of Ben’s clothes. All of these colors do come off just fine with no instance of smearing or washed out colors. Even the darker scenes like that of the sequence where Ben runs back to Andie on the New York streets, looked good. Detail was okay but I expected a bit more here considering the film’s color palette. Don’t get me wrong detail was good but I expected more. There were little to no instances that showed any real depth (minus some of the wider shots of the city) nor any scenes that boasted a sense of “3-D” pop. Grain is kept in check while I only noticed a few blips on the film’s print. The print did seem to be in good condition minus these instances. All in all this earns a “4 Star Rating“.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. Akin to a wide range of other romantic affairs found on Blu-ray, “Days” features a rather front heavy mix. Dialogue is excellent with no instance of drop out. Most of the film’s effects do tend to stay toward the front. In fact rarely does the film’s sound-field ever open up to the rears, which was quite the same. We did have sequences where we think this might occur (like at the Knicks game) but a quick glance reveals that this was shot on a backdrop and everything (including crowd noise) was added in in post production). LFE is also rather absent as there are no real instances where bass would ever show up. We do get a few thumps here and there thanks to some of the film’s musical selections. While clearly not the high point of this presentation, the provided Dolby TrueHD track is serviceable for the material provided earning a “3 Star Rating“.

Bonus Materials are presented in a mixture of Standard Definition and High Definition with Dolby Digital 2.0 Sound.

• Audio Commentary by director Donald Petrie
• How To Make A Movie In 2 Years (HD)
• Why The Sexes Battle (HD)
• Girls Night Out (HD)
• Music Video: Here get the video for the song “Somebody Like You” by Keith Urban.
• Deleted Scenes

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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