STUDIO: Universal
RELEASE DATE: September 30, 2008
STARRING: Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Russell Brand, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, and Jack McBrayer
WRITTEN BY: Jason Segel
DIRECTED BY: Nicholas Stoller
FEATURES: Deleted And Extended Scenes
Line-O-Rama
Drunk-O-Rama
Gag Reel
More From Crime Scene
Video Diaries
Feature Commentary With The Director, Producers, Writers And Stars
Visual Commentary
Picture In Picture
Karaoke
Blu-ray Live Enabled

Forgetting Sarah Marshall continues the impressive streak of quality comedy that has been produced by the house that Judd Apatow built. What this crew of regular collaborators has accomplished is beginning to rival some of the best cinematic comedy groups of all time. It reminds me of the streak of movies that Mel Brooks made in the '70s or the comedies that wore the National Lampoon banner in the '80s. Judd Apatow produced the great Freaks and Geeks and underrated Undeclared and, starting with 2004's hilarious Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, released a series of direct hits to the funny bone that includes The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Pineapple Express. Three of the best of that impressive list have been released on Blu-Ray this week under the banner "The Ultimate Unrated Comedy Collection" and Universal continues the pattern set by the standard version of these DVDs - they're awesome. The standard two-disc, unrated versions of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up were among the best of their individual years. Now those releases have been perfectly transferred over to Blu-Ray, enhanced with U-Control (where you can watch the featurettes picture-in-picture), and joined by a matching release in the unrated version of Forgettiing Sarah Marshall, one of the best Blu-Ray releases of the year.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is about a poor musician named Peter (Jason Segel), who gets dumped from the public spotlight by his TV superstar girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell). Trying to leave the memory of Marshall behind, Peter heads off for a vacation and happens to stumble into Sarah in the lobby, accompanied by her rock star boyfriend (Russell Brand). Instead of running for the hills, Peter decides to try and have fun with his famous ex-girlfriend and her more famous new boyfriend at the same luxury hotel. He flirts with the super-cute concierge (Mila Kunis) and makes friends with other workers that include Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd. 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer plays another hotel guest with some honeymoon problems and Superbad's Bill Hader plays Peter's good buddy offering support back at home.

Putting "From the Guys Who Brought You The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up" above your title might have set the bar a little too high for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. How I Met Your Mother and Freaks and Geeks' Jason Segel's screenplay for Marshall is excellent and the whole cast is great, particularly Mila Kunis, but living up to those two award-nominated movies might have made the film feel like a letdown. The big problem is that director Nicholas Stoller pushes forward his comedy a little too generically. (Don't underestimate what Apatow the director brought to the other two movies hitting Blu-Ray this week or what David Gordon Green did for Pineapple Express.) Stoller films and paces Marshall a bit too much like a sitcom, making it more of a three-star film than the four-star movies that the Apatow factory has released in the past. The funny thing is that a let down for the Apatow team is still better than most comedies released this year.

The Blu-Ray release is a beauty. The Apatow films have all been given the unrated/super-extras treatment by Universal and Marshall doesn't break the pattern. The video and the audio on all three of the releases hitting Blu-Ray are good, bordering on great, with 1080p 1.85:1 Widescreen pictures for Marshall, Knocked Up, and Virgin and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks on all three. I'll probably reach for The Godfather or Iron Man before one of these titles to show off my HD TV and surround sound but, if you look closely, these are surprisingly bright, clear, vivid pictures and flawlessly mixed soundtracks. The special features are the real draw. You probably already own Virgin and Knocked Up and know that those are bursting at the seams with extras. They've all been transferred to Blu-Ray and Marshall has been given the same treatment. A lot of these movies are improvised, which makes for extensive extras. How extensive? How about 2.5 hours of deleted and extended scenes? If that's not enough, "Line-O-Rama", which offers different, improvised jokes is pretty great. A gag reel, montage of a drunken night of Segel's, footage of the show-within-a-movie "Crime Scene", and video diaries of over 20 days of shooting should keep you busy for days. The commentary that features Stoller, executive producer Rodney Rothman, producer Shauna Robertson, writer/star Jason Segel, and cast members Bell, Kunis, Brand, and McBrayer is excellent. The cameraderie that has clearly developed with this team of talented people comes through loud and clear. Exclusive to Blu-Ray, you can watch the commentary track as it was being recorded and actually sing along to six songs, karaoke-style performed by Russell Brand. His music is supposed to be kind of annoying in the movie, so singing along may be for hardcore fans only, but the visual commentary and picture-in-picture make Blu-Ray the clear way to go with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The best reason to upgrade your copies of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up to Blu-Ray is U-Control, the Universal feature that allows you to go behind-the-scenes during the movie. Universal is offering all three titles in "The Ultimate Unrated Comedy Collection" for around $70 at most outlets. It may seem a little steep, but we're talking about roughly a day's worth of extras when you factor in commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, and the movies themselves. It's a great comedy release for all Blu-Ray fans. You'll laugh for years to come.