Trainwreck

Amy Schumer conquered TV this year with her stand-up specials on HBO and Comedy Central as well as her Emmy-winning TV sketch show, "Inside Amy Schumer." So it was inevitable that the uproarious comedienne would make some splash in features. But who knew that her first venture as writer and lead, "Trainwreck," would be the most hilarious film of 2015 and one of the smartest?

Schumer proves to be a wildly talented screenwriter who slyly fucks with traditional Hollywood movie gender roles. She's also an incredibly gifted actress.

Amy plays Amy, a writer for a lurid men's magazine known as S'nuff, where she and a staff of bozos must constantly please the outrageously cuckoo editor, Dianna (an unrecognizable and sensational Tilda Swinton), who likes the "prettyish" Amy and assigns her an article on Aaron Connors (lovable Bill Hader), a famous sports doctor whom she surprisingly finds herself falling for. Surprisingly, because Amy is a love 'em and leave 'em kind of gal.

The film refreshingly shows Amy as a woman who enjoys excesses, including but not limited to, drinking, recreational drugs and lots of sex, sometimes even with her current bodybuilder boyfriend, Steven (John Cena), who, in an early racy scene, climaxes inside Amy once he realizes that, "from behind you look like a dude!"

Amy has inherited her father's take on relationships. The opening scene has her dad (the irrepressible Colin Quinn) training his two young daughters to chant, "Monogamy isn't realistic." But her sister (a delightful Bree Larson) has gone the opposite route and is quite happy with her husband Tom (Mike Birbiglia) and his son, the wacky Allister (Evan Brinkman, who deserves his own sitcom).

"Trainwreck" provides a cornucopia of hilarity, including a "Working Girl"-ish Staten Island walk of shame, an homage to the masterpiece "Manhattan, followed by a personal dis of its creator Woody Allen, an outrageous sex scene involving the fabulous Ezra Miller ("My safe word is pineapple") and a tongue-in-cheek, movie-within-the-movie, "The Dogwalker," where Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei enjoy spewing double entendre.

Judd Apatow does a terrific job directing, keeping the action moving but, also, allowing certain scenes to breathe.

The only slight disappointment is the finale, where Amy takes a bit of a page from Olivia Newton-John in "Grease," for her guy, but the behind-the-scenes feature reveals her original penned ending had already been done and the idea for the current ending, not surprisingly, came from Apatow. Only a man would think the appropriate way to end such a subversive film would be in traditional manner!

The visual transfer preserves the 2.40:1 aspect ratio and looks as good as it did on the big screen. The sound is clear, which matters since it's a dialogue-heavy film.

The Blu-ray offers the original theatrical cut and an extended unrated version, where scenes last far too long and the pacing is much less swift. It does offer a fascinating contrast.

The Special Features rock! Universal has pulled out all the stops and given fans a treasure trove of goodies beginning with an 11-part, comprehensive 90 minutes of Behind-the-Scenes interviews and insights where we learn how well Schumer and Apatow work together as well as the fact that Schumer started out running her own theatre company and then moved to stand-up.

The disc also boasts 45-minutes of Deleted Scenes including a drunken debauchery montage where Hader ends up stealing a Central Park horse and a hilarious homoerotic moment involving a bunch of suburban husbands. Ryan Phillippe even shows up at S'nuff.

There are 49 minutes of terrific Extended/Alternate Scenes with more crazy/brilliant Tilda Swinton moments and an extension of the Ezra Miller seduction scene where we get to see his pleasure chest and learn what "Ass-caliber" is. We Need to Talk About Ezra...

The Audio Commentary with Apatow, Schumer and Kim Caramele (her sister and the associate producer) is enlightening and interesting since it was done before the movie's release.

A road-doc, "Trainwreck Comedy Tour," features many of the comics in the film on tour promoting it. And there is a 53-minute audio recording of the Comedy Central Radio Town Hall with Schumer and company.

The treats also include a few more featurettes and a 13-minute gag reel as well as an 8-minute "Line-o-Rama" segment that snips together some of the funniest cut lines of dialogue. Oh, and there's the full four minutes of insanity that is "The Dog Walker."

This is the type of Blu-ray presentation film fans pray for. Kudos to Universal for sparing no expense. And kudos to Schumer for existing!

"Trainwreck"
Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD
$19.99
http://www.uphe.com/movies/trainwreck