I've never seen a Kate Hudson flick before. I enjoy Garry Marshall's sitcoms o.k. but I just borrowed this from my library due to my running out of things to borrow. I would have been happier if Joan Cusack had been used in a bigger and wackier part but I agree with others that she was needed, in her nonzany part here, to carry it. -- Although IMDb doesn't make an issue of DVDs' bonus features being quite another matter than how good the original film was, that's my whole point here -- that the director's commentary is very good. I have been in film societies; I have studied film-making a bit (though, no, I'm not a filmmaker.) I have borrowed many DVDs and listened to their bonus tracks. Some have been illuminating for showing that the directors and producers had no understanding of film-making (which explained why the flicks were as bad as they were.) Some filmmakers seemed sharp but were unwilling to do more than toss out a tiny tidbit here-and-there, leaving most of the commentary tracks blank. Actors' tracks are often interesting but of course not educational. :) The vast bulk of DVD alternate tracks seem like the participants were forced to speak and wouldn't spend one second more than the two hours (or whatever) to think about what they were saying. -- However Garry and the writers put plenty of effort into making rewatching this movie and watching alternate takes and deleted scenes to be fun! He throws in lots of funny cracks of about the level of his TV shows' and movies' humor but I'm sure that makes the average people happy, and I enjoyed them, too. In between those he (and the writers) told lots of stories about making the film, of the sort you hear on (some) other DVDs. On top of all that, he explains WHY they did lots of things and made lots of the decisions (discussed in more depth than typical DVD comments of simply "this scene was cut because it wasn't needed.") Surely this'll be the most the average person has ever heard about film-making, yet Garry kept it interesting. I wish more DVDs had bonus features like this, rather than their usual tossed-off fluff.
Review of Raising Helen
