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How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a tale involving Kate Hudson as a writer for a cosmopolitain-esque women's magazine, and McConaughey as a high powered advertising executive. Hudson writes the ÒHow ToÓ column in the magazine, and has had experience rattling off advice on ÒHow ToÓ just about everything. But then Hudson inadvertently comes up with the idea of a column entitled ÒHow to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,Ó inspired by one of her girlfriend's constant neurotic behavior that continues to scares men off. Her research? Finding a guy, doing all the things you shouldn't do in a relationship, and then making him leave her in ten days. She picks McConaughey. There are twists and turns to come, some blazingly obvious, some not so obvious, and many that are very amusing. The film does have the typically weak and predictable ending, but with a decent story and even a Babylon 5 reference, this is an curiously good Òchick flick."

Director Donald Petrie has had some success with slightly offbeat comedies like Miss Congeniality and Grumpy Old Men, and How to Lose a Guy is no different. Here again are many of the same silly elements from those two films, but at least Petrie has a great time here with a script penned by Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan & Burr Steers and based on the book co-written by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. That's right, it took five writers to hatch this one! This might not be entirely convincing enough for you to succumb to your girlfriend's demands and run right out and rent/buy it, not to mention all the bad reviews, but hey, it grossed over $100 million at the box office. So how can all those ticket buyers be wrong? How to Lose a Guy in 10 days isn't the next When Harry Met Sally, but as far as romantic comedies go, this one ain't too shabby.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Paramount presents How to Lose a Guy in an anamorphically encoded, 1.85:1 widescreen transfer. For a modern-day film, this disc looks very lackluster. Colors are fairly saturated and precise but not overly attractive. Detail, especially shadow detail, is average at best and blacks are simply below average with some murkiness here and there. Edge enhancement is mild and line delineation decent. Fleshtones are the high point in this transfer as they are accurately reproduced. I didn't notice and digital errors but there were far too many specs and scratches for a brand new movie. This transfer is passable, but nothing to write home about.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Following suit to the video, the audio presentation is also subpar. A Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that was recorded at 448 kbps is adequate for this film, but even for a comedy it isn't up to snuff. Surrounds sit around and twiddle their thumbs throughout most of the movie with the occasional score broadening. I'm not sure my subwoofer even received a .1 signal as bass is nearly nonexistent. The volume levels are consistent but seem to have been recorded very low. These complaints are more to do with the technical competence of the film itself than that of the folks putting it down on DVD, though worthy of mentioning they are. One thing I couldn't make heads or tails of was the occasional muffled dialogue on an otherwise solid center track. Again, passable, but nothing special.

There are also and English and French Dolby 2.0 surround tracks included, along with English subtitles and Closed Captions.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Paramount has included what would seem a fair amount of extras. First is a relatively interesting screen-specific audio commentary by director Donald Petrie. Petrie is a fairly funny guy and provides some nifty insights, although this is one of those commentaries where you forget it the minute it is over.

Next is Mapping out the Perfect Movie. This section looks like one big featurette that was cut into 15 selectable tiny, 2- to 15-minute vignettes but without any "Play All" option. Despite how asinine it is presented the material is worth taking a look at, as the producers, actors and director talk about the individual characters, the casting, production and story. Total running time for all of these selections is almost 50 minutes. Then there is Mapping out the Perfect Location, which again is several (9 total) selections. This section deals with the sets and locations where the film's action takes place. Some mildly informative stuff, but again without a "Play All" feature it too quickly becomes a remote control finger exercise. These 9e pieces run slightly over 2 minutes long on average and add up to a total of 19 minutes.

Next up are 5 deleted scenes presented in widescreen. This is the only extra that has a "Play All" feature, but of course it is the extra where it makes the least sense. Regardless, these scenes are only worth taking a gander at, at least with the optional director's commentary on. A music video is also included for Keith Urban's tune "Somebody Like You."

Finally, we have a trailer gallery for The Core and Tomb Raider II (both in non- anamorphic widescreen and Dolby 2.1) and the Indiana Jones DVD set.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

Like all Paramount titles these days, once again no ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts