After working together on A Cinderella Story (and the Lizzie McGuire series that shot her to tween stardom), Hilary Duff re-teams with director Mark Rosman for the "inane" romantic comedy The Perfect Man. It was deemed by critics to be considerably less than perfect and it hardly caused a ripple at the box office.
Girl Talk
Duff and Vanessa Lengies (who plays best pal Amy) appear in most of the 13 deleted scenes, which play like cheesy ads for acne cream; "Ohmigod, he's, like, totally checking you out!" and, "He is über-cute!" and "She is in DBM" (deep bummer mode), etc. Meanwhile in the blooper reel, the über-cute Ben Feldman shows us he ain't quite über-smart when he asks Duff, "Do you know what the word ambidextrious means?"
Making up the bulk of the extras package is a host of throwaway featurettes. In Mom & Me, Heather Locklear admits that playing Duff's mother wasn't the most flattering offer she's had, yet she still seems in denial about those deepening wrinkles: "Sometimes I think, 'Isn't she my contemporary?'" Still, Locklear has some kind words for Duff in Hangin' With Hilary where everyone assures us what a peach she is. Duff returns the favour in Hangin' With Heather and even the eponymous 'perfect man' Chris Noth gets a shout out in Chatting With Chris.
There's more evidence of what a nice girl Duff is in On The Set With Hilary. Between takes, she plays thumb wars with Noth and reveals her secret stash of cookies and crisps, but at just five-minutes long, it's hardly an all-access exposé. Elsewhere she shows us the various comedy clapperboards employed by camera assistant Cylvan. Well, at least the cast got a laugh out of it...
The Perfect Storm
Ready, Set, Soak is the closest we get to an actual insight into the filmmaking process. Cameras go behind-the-scenes during the climactic sprinkler scene, which provides some logistical problems although it's hardly on a par with Titanic. Mostly it just involves putting plastic bags over the cameras - and, in the end, they still got wet. Other special effects include Locklear armed with an icing gun in The Sweet Arts (although it's top baker Bonnie Gordon who takes most of the credit for those multi-tiered cakes). And in keeping with the Living TV vibe, Queer Eye's Carson Kressley (Lance) trawls through the wardrobe trailer with utterances of "sassy!" and "drabsville!" in Getting The Perfect Look.Director Mark Rosman and producer Adam Siegel try to get us back on the subject of filmmaking, but don't quite manage it in the feature commentary. Apparently the biggest challenge they faced was getting audiences to buy the fact that Locklear couldn't get a man. Later, they talk about having to cut Kressley's improvised dialogue because it was too rude and we learn that Noth does a pretty mean Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.
In summation, it's scattered as a tweenie doll's brain cells, but this DVD will probably be of some amusement to ten-year-old girls.
EXTRA FEATURES
