Reviewer's Rating 4 out of 5
Blue Crush DVD (2003)

Girl power meets surfing extreme style in the attractively filmed "Blue Crush", which comes to a DVD packed with extra footage.

TECHNICAL FEATURES

Picture With the sights on offer here, you can tell that care has been taken to showcase all the natural beauties on offer... that's the waves, not the ladies of course!

Sound This movie tries hard to immerse you into surfing culture. The 5.1 sound mix excels in glugging water effects that make it sound like your room has been plunged into the sea.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Audio Commentary One Director John Stockwell brings son Casper along for the commentary ride, as well as producer Rick Dallago. A lot of the discussion is about the technical problems in making this film. John goes into considerable detail without boring, and clearly treated the making of the movie as quite an organic process by taking on board ideas as they went along during the shoot.

Audio Commentary Two Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sanoe Lake make up a feisty audio track, with Michelle in particular not afraid to speak her mind. Her main problem was with the scene where her ass gets grabbed, while all three didn't enjoy the vomit scene.

The Making of If you understand surf speak like, "If I saw a big stack coming", then you'll be right at home with this featurette, which has interviews with pro female surfers like Rochelle Ballard and Kate Skarratt.

Deleted Scenes Eighteen minutes of footage is here for you to explore. Some of it clearly is better left out of the movie, but the additional surf footage is always interesting to watch.

Filming "Blue Crush" Technically this film wasn't much more advanced than mounting cameras on boogie boards with the operators left to swim for the shots. This called for great timing with a degree of luck, and you can see some of the hair-raising waves the cameramen had to bob about in here.

The Female Surfing Revolution The sport of surfing has been male-dominated until recently, but a wave of girls are breaking in and earning respect by being every bit as good as the boys. Proof is in this featurette.

Wipeout Want to see some of the greatest surfers around wiping out? Here's a sequence to gawp at, especially when some of these tumbles result in some nasty injuries.

Riding the Waves The cameramen dictated the shots when out in the water, and what couldn't be used in the film turns up here with optional commentary from the lead female stars.

Skateboarding Why, it's more extra footage! This time it's of skateboarders, so there is a little variation, although you could argue that they're stretching the special features a little thin here.

"Blue Crush" Promo Now this is not a trailer for public consumption, but rather, as John Stockwell explains, a promo made for the benefit of the studio so they could see what happens when you spend every day on the beach.

Surf Fashion Or rather, an excuse to see Sanoe Lake try on some surf outfits.

The World of Surfing Haven't understood a single word on the DVD? You should have checked out this section on surfing lingo.

Additional Extra Features Somehow they found more to put on this disc, including a music video, trailer, and DVD ROM features.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Chapters: 20
Ratio: 1.85:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Tracks: Multiple languages
Subtitles: English and multiple languages
Captions: None
Menus: Animated, with music
Special Features Subtitles All of the special features come with subtitles apart from the music video.

This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.

End Credits

Director: John Stockwell

Writer: Lizzy Weiss, John Stockwell

Stars: Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Sanoe Lake, Mika Boorem

Genre: Drama, Romance

Length: 104 minutes

Cinema: 04 April 2003

DVD: 04 August 2003

Country: USA