Coyote Ugly reminds me of films like Flashdance and Saturday Night Fever, of the underdog living in the big city doing dead end jobs, all the while in search of their dreams. The storyline of Coyote Ugly is very much that, centering around a pretty little waitress named Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo). A wannabe songwriter, Violet leaves the safety of her home with her father (John Goodman), to seek out her dreams all by herself in the intimidating New York City. After getting robbed and failing miserably to get any labels to listen to her demos, desperate and hungry, she takes a job at Coyote Ugly. Of course Violet has no idea what she is in for until her first night on the job. Coyote Ugly is no ordinary bar, it’s not just about serving up the drinks it’s also all about the show.
So begins our tale of Violet learning the robes and finding the confidence she needs to pursue her dreams. Yeah it’s not Shakespeare, but it’s a fun mindless little romp that I found I got caught up in. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Violet, played by Piper Perabo, is just beautiful. I would watch any movie of hers for those lips alone. Not to mention all of the women in this film are stunning, including a very young and thin Tyra Banks.
Now available on a blu-ray, the movie comes to us available in a special edition that includes both the theatrical edition and an unrated edition. There’s only marginal difference I could find between the two versions and could have been released instead as deleted and extended scenes. There are just a few extra minutes of the girls dancing on the bar and Violet shopping for outfits which is no big deal. An extended cut of the sex scene is nice but sadly Piper Perabo has a body double that cheats us out of all the good stuff. The one additional scene with the coyotes winning a softball game by “cheating” is a nice fun addition.
There are two commentary tracks and they both are pretty worthless. I’m a big fan of commentary but the ones with the stars is them just talking over each other with only a few little anecdotes and becomes a bunch of noise. The second is with director David McNally and uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer and they get so technical it seems like it can only be interesting to them.
Other bonus material includes these quick featurettes that make you wonder why even bother with them at all? They are really short and seem more fluff pieces then anything else. It makes you wonder why there are no featurettes on the real Lil or just on the real bar itself? There’s got to be some great little stories there but nothing at all available here in the bonus material. In fact, all of these extras have already been available on regular DVD since 2005.
Coyote Ugly is one of the films that can go down as a “guilty pleasure”. No it’s never going to win any awards and it’s not making any big strides in the world of cinema, but I can’t say I hated the film either. I’m always a sucker for a film on blu-ray and Coyote Ugly looks and sounds great. I’m happy to see studios are starting to release their catalog, but it’s unfortunate they aren’t taking a bit more time to add some bonus features that weren’t already available on previous DVD releases. Perhaps as time goes on they will find ways to utilize the format better and attack their archives for hidden little gems for future releases.
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