听 After success with About A Boy, writer/director Paul Weitz stuck with the father-son theme for the "warm and witty" In Good Company. Newcomer Topher Grace plays Dennis Quaid's precocious young boss and the guy who's sleeping with his daughter (Scarlett Johansson). It's a recipe for laughs that scored highly with critics and sold more than double the tickets of Quaid's recent big budget outing Flight Of The Phoenix.
Down To Business
Seven behind-the-scenes featurettes are brief but engaging and convey a feeling of camaraderie on the set. In Stars, Quaid admits that his character Dan is "very much like me," but in Getting Older makes sure to point out that, "He's two years older than me and I take solace in the fact that they had to age me to play it." Meanwhile Topher Grace is just happy to be there. As he humbly explains in Youth, "This role should have gone to someone much more famous than me." Although he doesn't say it, Grace is actually referring to Ashton Kutcher (his co-star on That 70s Show) who ditched the project citing "creative differences" and opted for The Butterfly Effect instead. Way to go Ashton.
It's possible that Kutcher was put off by Paul Weitz's unusual working methods and porky odour. "I start the day by rubbing bacon fat through my hair," says Weitz in New York Locations. Ignoring this bizarre admission, cameras follow him through the city streets as he directs Johansson and Grace in a couple of exterior scenes. It's a particularly gruelling shoot for Johansson who must pass herself off as an ace tennis player, but wields the racket like Julian Clary swatting a fly. Sadly this production diary is too short at just over three minutes long.
Cameras also follow Weitz into the editing room where he was forced to shave almost an hour off the original 165 running time. With a cup of coffee in hand, he dictates from the couch to editor Myron Kerstein as he attempts to trim down the final scenes where Grace and Quaid get the upper hand on their former employers. Elsewhere the featurettes Story and Real Life talk more about the film's central theme of corporate culture vs moral values.
Downsizing
A good portion of what ended up on the cutting room floor is presented on this DVD (with optional commentary by Weitz). There are ten deleted scenes in total (running at just over 16mins) that mostly expand upon the relationships between the lead characters and the supporting players. Perhaps the funniest of the lot is a sequence where Quaid quickly colours his hair in the executive washroom only to have the dye trickle down his face during a boardroom meeting.
Grace joins Weitz for a laidback yet instructive feature commentary. Although Weitz admits to being "very writerly", he's also enthusiastic about the language of film and gets surprisingly technical when explaining some of the camera set-ups. He admits to ripping off Spike Lee for a pull-out/zoom-in when Grace's character is dumped by his wife and also references Sergio Leone for the office showdowns. Of sitting across from Quaid on his first day of shooting, Grace confesses, "I had the biggest migraine headache, I was so nervous."
While the featurettes are short, there are plenty of them and together they offer a wealth of insights that make In Good Company a great investment on DVD.
EXTRA FEATURES
