Holes [P&S]

Director: Andrew Davis Andrew Davis

Overview

Andrew Davis' surprise hit family film Holes makes its way to DVD for the first time with this release. The film is presented in a full-screen transfer that has been formatted to fit a standard television screen (a widescreen edition with the same features was released simultaneously) and features an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and dubbed French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. The bonus features include a gag reel, deleted scenes, a music video, a making-of featurette, and two feature-length audio commentary tracks, one by cast members Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith, and Max Kasch, and another by director Davis and screenwriter Louis Sachar.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/23/2003
UPC:	0786936225495
Original Release:	2003
Rating:	PG
Source:	Walt Disney Video
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, THX-Supervised Mastering]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00

Special Features

Closed Caption; Gag reel; Six deleted scenes; Cast commentary with Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith and Max Kasch; "Dig It" music video performed by the cast; "On the set with Louis Sachar"; "The Making of Holes" featurette; Filmmakers' commentary with director Andrew Davis and author/screenwriter Louis Sachar

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shia LaBeouf	Stanley Yelnats
Sigourney Weaver	Louise Walker
Jon Voight	Mr. Sir
Tim Blake Nelson	Dr. Pendanski
Khleo Thomas	Zero
Henry Winkler	Stanley Yelnats III
Patricia Arquette	Katherine Barlow
Dule Hill	Sam the Onion Man
Eartha Kitt	Madame Zeroni
Jake M. Smith	Squid,Linda
Byron Cotton	Armpit
Brenden Jefferson	X-Ray,Actor
Miguel Castro	Magnet
Max Kasch	Zig-Zag
Nathan Davis	Stanley Yelnats Jr.
Siobhan Fallon	Stanley's Mother
Noah Poletiek	Twitch
Zane Holtz	Barfbag
Steve Kozlowski	Lump,Lump
Ski Carr	Guard
Roma Maffia	Carla Morengo
Ray Baker	Assistant Attorney General
Alex Daniels	Texas Ranger No. 1
Tom Brainard	Texas Ranger No. 2
Haleigh Ann Trickett	Young Warden
Rick Worthy	Male Officer
Mary Jo Mecca	Female Officer
Shelley Malil	Nosy Landlord
Rick Fox	Clyde `Sweetfeet' Livingston
Nicole Pulliam	Mrs. Sweetfeet
Michael Cavanaugh	Judge
Bruce Ramsay	Prosecutor
Shirley Butler	Mrs. Zeroni
Conrad Palmisano	Private Investigator
Damien Luvara	Elya Yelnats
Sanya Mateyas	Myra Menke
Ravil Isyanov	Morris Menke
Ken Davitian	Igor Barkov
Scott Plank	Trout Walker
Allan Kolman	Stanley the 1st
Louis Sachar	Mr. Collingwood
Eric Pierpoint	Sheriff
Brian Peck	Townsman in Classroom
Melissa Mitchell	Young Linda
Brooke Eby	School Kid
Gary Bullock	Prospector
Jeff Ricketts	Partner
Paul Norwood	Doc
Benny Manning	Stage Coach Driver
Jim Wilkey	Kissed Stage Coach Driver
Julian Reed Davis	Prisoner in Green Lake Jail
Talula Holt	Voices
Greg Cipes	Voices
Joel McNeely	Composer

Technical Credits

Louis Sachar

Andrew Davis	Director,Producer
Louis Sachar	Screenwriter
Lowell Blank	Producer,Producer
Alex Daniels	Stunts
Marty Ewing	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Larry Fioritto	Special Effects
Cathy Sandrich Gelfond	Casting
Amanda Mackey Johnson	Casting
Mike Medavoy	Producer
William Mesa	Special Effects
Louis Phillips	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Teresa Tucker-Davies	Producer
Paul Aulicino	Sound Effects
Paul Curtis	Sound Effects
Steve Nelson	Sound/Sound Designer
Bruce Stambler	Sound/Sound Designer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits/The Family Curse
2. Welcome to Camp Green Lake
3. Boys of D-Tent
4. The Legend of Kissin' Kate Barlow
5. Digging the First Hole
6. Stanley Yelnats the First
7. Yellow Spotted Lizards
8. A Letter to Mom
9. Onion Sam and Miss Katherine
10. Don't Mess With Caveman
11. Finding Something Special
12. The Deal
13. Miss Katherine's Revenge
14. Mr. Sir's Sunflower Seeds
15. The Warden's Recipe
16. Stanley Teaches Zero to Read
17. Zero Runs Away
18. Stanley Goes After Zero
19. Stanley and Zero Climb "God's Thumb"
20. A Cure for Stinky Feet
21. Zero Confesses
22. Kissin' Kate's Last Stand
23. One More Hole
24. Opening the Chest/End Credits

Menu

Side #1 --
   Bonus Features
      The Boys of D-Tent
      Digging the First Hole
      Deleted Scenes
         Play All
         Meeting Mr. Sir
         The Second Hole Is the Hardest
         Stanley Takes the Stand
         D-Tent Backup
         Letter for Stanley
         Stanley's Accident & the Warden's Pitchfork
      Gag Reel
      Audio Commentaries
         Cast Commentary by Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith & Max Kasch On
         Cast Commentary by Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith & Max Kasch Off
         Filmmaker Commentary by Director Andrew Davis & Author Louis Sachar On
         Filmmaker Commentary by Director Andrew Davis & Author Louis Sachar Off
      Music Video: "Dig It" by D-Tent Boys
      Register Your DVD
   Scene Selection
   Sneak Peeks
      The Lion King Special Edition
      Brother Bear
      George of the Jungle 2
      Finding Nemo
      Santa Clause 2
      Freaky Friday
   Set Up
      Audio Options
         English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
         French
         Spanish
      Captions
         English Captions for the Hearing Impaired
         Spanish Subtitles
         None
      THX Optimizer
         Audio Tests
            Play Test
         Video Tests
            Play Test
   Play

Editorial Reviews

A publishing phenomenon, Louis Sachar's multi-award-winning book Holes enjoys a fervent fan base that, like Harry Potter devotees, would not respond kindly to a film that took liberties with the source material. Outside of the slimming-down of the screen incarnation of hapless, cursed Stanley Yelnats IV (Shia LaBeouf), this film remains faithful to Sachar's complex, time-shifting story (thanks, no doubt, to Sachar’s authoring of the screenplay). Stanley, like all Yelnats men, has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After being wrongly convicted of stealing a pair of sneakers, he is sent to Camp Green Lake. There is no lake. There is nothing green about it. Instead, the camp is located in the desert, hundreds of miles from water. "You want to run away?" he is asked by the menacing caretaker Mr. Sir (Jon Voight, sporting a Jimmy Neutron-like pompadour). "You'll be buzzard food in three days." The residents, a ragtag group of delinquents, are charged with digging holes each day in the hot sun, risking encounters with rattlesnakes and the dread yellow-spotted lizard. Stanley begins to suspect that the warden (Sigourney Weaver, in a deliciously nasty turn) is actually looking for something beneath the parched desert sands. Director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) deftly grounds the fantastic tale, which also involves a vengeful fortune teller and a frontier schoolteacher turned notorious bandit (Patricia Arquette). Holes is one of the 2003's family treasures.

Barnes & Noble - Donald Liebenson

An intricate balancing act of subplots and flashbacks, author Louis Sachar's Newberry Award-winning novel Holes translates fairly well onscreen, despite occasionally falling off-kilter. Unerringly faithful to the book, Holes takes on issues ranging from racial discrimination to what constitutes true character rehabilitation without a trace of heavy-handedness. Sachar, who also wrote the screenplay for Holes, has a clear and touching respect for the ability of children to grasp a message without the aide of an adult-wielded hammer. Newcomer Shia LaBeouf communicates the palindrome-named Stanley Yelnats' quiet bravery surprisingly well, and the supporting cast -- particularly Jon Voight as Texas tough-guy Mr. Sir, and Eartha Kitt's mysterious Madame Zeroni -- adds a non-saccharine richness to this already deeply interwoven story. Without the help of chapters or narration, however, the multi-leveled plots of Holes are sometimes hard to follow, if beautifully shot, particularly for anyone who hasn't read the book beforehand. The roots of the Yelnats family curse and the future involvement of schoolteacher-turned-outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette) are explained in flashbacks which often appear frenzied and occur with a frequency that deters from the development of the present-day characters. Still, though some of the subtleties of Holes are lost in translation, the symbolism that connects Stanley to Madame Zeroni's descendant, Kissin' Kate's buried loot, and the camp warden's (Sigourney Weaver) mysterious goal (not to mention cure-all onions, spiced peaches, stinky feet, and deadly yellow-spotted lizards) comes together in an excellent coming-of-age story that both children and adults would do well with viewing.

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