Christmas time was extra special for comedy fans, with the arrival of the Miramax Blu-ray release Extract on December 22nd, 2009.

Extract is a subtle indie comedy, something I would equate with the likes of Adventureland or even Juno.

In fact the cast of Extract includes players from both of the aforementioned movies.

On the Juno side, Jason Bateman and J.K. Simmons take the roles of the management in an extract manufacturing plant.

Bateman’s character Joel is very reminiscent of previous roles he has played, as he tries to manage his company and his home life.

Kristen Wiig from Adventureland is Joel’s wife, seemingly contented, though the two don’t share much affection due to Joel’s heavy workload.

On the surface things are going fairly well for Joel, until his stoner friend Dean (Ben Affleck) leads him down a road where he tries to set his wife up with a gigolo to allow him some guilt free indiscretion of his own with a new employee (Mila Kunis) that is in fact a con artist aiming to cash in on an industrial accident at the plant.

While it all sounds a little convoluted, the plot is quite fun and plays out honestly.

Extract was written and directed by Mike Judge, the man behind Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space.

One of the great things about Judge’s work is that most of his characters really are just regular folk that a lot of us can relate to.

The movie received a mixed critical reaction, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 63% and IMDb score of 7/10.

Extract also earned $10.8M at the US box office.

The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 22 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

Full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc can be seen at the details page for Extract.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 22.6 GB used and is coded for Region A.

The special features are a little sparse, with a selection of deleted and extended scenes, and a making of featurette Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe.

As a fan of the indie comedy and Mike Judge’s work, I found Extract to be an enjoyable movie and the Blu-ray release is another competent from Miramax.

The retail price is $39.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $24.49, saving 39%!

Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Extended Scenes
• Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe Featuette - The ingredients for a classic Mike Judge film

Synopsis:

The creator of Office Space, writer-director Mike Judge (Beavis And Butt-head), moves from cubicles to the assembly line with Extract - his outrageous return to workplace comedy, featuring a hilarious ensemble cast of quirky characters. About to sell his successful flavor extract company, life is almost sweet for Joel (Jason Bateman) until a freak on-the-job accident happens. Add to that his bored wife (Kristen Wiig), his laid-back, stoner best friend (Ben Affleck), a sexy con artist (Mila Kunis) who blows into town with dollar signs in her bedroom eyes, and a dumb gigolo - and life as he knows it turns sour. Filled with laugh-out-loud one-liners and raunchy comedy, Extract is 100% pure hilarity.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.