BY LARRY CARROLL | At one point on the two disc Awards Edition DVD for A Beautiful Mind, Director Ron Howard states that, "this DVD is useful to support the feeling that you're having, that you're experiencing this with (mathematician and hero of the film John) Nash and beginning to understand Nash's journey." It is a wonderful DVD worth owning because it does indeed serve this purpose. Once you are familiar with the film, Howard wants to introduce you to the real John Nash, as well as himself and Producer Brian Grazer, the men behind the curtain. By the time you've finished watching the many hours of material heaped on to these two discs, you feel like these three men have spent the last week sleeping on your couch, chit-chatting with you.

The best part of the DVD, unfortunately, will make you realize how dumb you really are. In Meeting John Nash, we see footage of the man himself, discussing his theories and calculations with the same ease that we'd talk about last night's episode of Friends. In parts of the segment he is talking to Ron Howard, who sits there and nods his head in agreement, but whose eyes betray that he has no more of an idea what this man is talking about then any of us. Not only does this featurette give you a respect for Nash's brilliance, but it also makes you appreciate Howard's efforts in taking material this difficult for a layman to understand and transforming it into such an entertaining film.

Virtually every DVD that is put out nowadays has the mandatory "deleted scenes", but often what you end up getting is pointless, brief little moments that never should have been shot in the first place. That isn't the case here, however; the excised scenes are for the most part well worth viewing, and there are several that will make you wish Howard had left them in the film. The best of these is a sequence with Nash riding a bicycle in figure-eight patterns while graphics on the screen attempt to show us what's running through his brain; another, in which Nash dreams of a nuclear explosion destroying his wife, is startlingly violent even presented as it is (without special effects). Howard offers an optional commentary on the scenes which clues you in as to why they were cut, and his stories add to the scenes, such as during one at a hospital when he points out his father playing a mental patient and talks about how he had to call his Dad and tell him his scene had been cut.

One of the reasons why this DVD works is because Howard and Grazer are secure in their success with the film, and aren't afraid to now show the strings behind their puppetry. Accepting the Nobel Prize in Economics gives us the real footage of Nash receiving his honor, and also shows us how ridiculously dramatized the event was in the film. Also present are pieces on the creation of the age progression makeup, special effects and musical score.
One of the more high-profile featurettes, entitled A Beautiful Partnership: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, frequently teeters on the edge of being too self-congratulatory, but it still manages to entertain by shining a light on one of the most successful director-producer partnerships in Hollywood. For anyone who's ever wondered what a Producer does, here you get to see what a successful Producer does, which is even better. Grazer and Howard discuss exactly when the set should be visited and under what circumstances, as well as how the two go about finding material, what they do when one feels more strongly about a script then the other, and Grazer reveals that he almost used a different Director on Mind.

The rest of these jam-packed discs would take up far too much space to fully analyze - features on the development of the screenplay, the casting of stars Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and storyboard comparisons, as well as the making-of featurette Inside A Beautiful Mind, the theatrical trailer, the Oscar night reactions, production notes, biographies and filmographies and two fine commentary tracks (one by Howard, the other by Oscar winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman).

As if all that's not enough, the disc even has a link to a website where you can find additional materials, and is promised to be updated with new stuff every week. All in all, this two disc set will please both those who want to know every tiny detail as well as the ones looking to casually enjoy the typical "behind the scenes" glossed over special. You'll never hear me complaining that a DVD gives its consumer too much material, and this is certainly one that leaves nothing to be desired.

The film itself looks beautiful, presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen and featuring subtitles in English and Spanish and dubbing in Spanish and French. The sound is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.

GRADE: A

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