The supporting cast of young Hollywood hopefuls includes future Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman and future Oscar® nominated director Todd Field but the best work is turned in by, of all people, Jami Gertz. A decade past her ingénue roles in Less Than Zero (1987) and The Lost Boys (1987), Gertz is cast in the unenviable role of the romantic third wheel, the John Howard part, whose serial humiliation is meant to codify the undying love of estranged spouses Paxton and Hunt. While Gertz's cell phone abusing sex therapist is meant as comic relief, her moment of sad awareness that she has lost Paxton's affection (as she is drenched by a baptismal summer rain) provides this "eye-popping, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat roller coaster ride" with one true moment of natural wonder.
A dozen years after the fact, Warner Brothers has treated Twister to a special edition, 2-disc DVD re-release. In addition to a digitally remastered transfer of the widescreen feature (letterboxed at the appropriate ratio of 2.35:1 and of course anamorphically enhanced), the package boasts some welcome (if not exactly overwhelming extras). The image of the feature is a thorough improvement over that seen in its 2000 DVD debut, with improved definition and sharper contrasts. Flesh tones and earth tones are now more pleasing and lifelike. From an audio standpoint, it's odd that the percussive DTS track featured on the 2000 disc is conspicuous in its absence here, replaced by an admittedly vivid 5.1 Dolby Digital mix that certainly will rattle your capodimonte. An audio commentary featuring director de Bont and visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier (rich in behind-the-scenes factoids) and a theatrical trailer accompany the feature on Disc 1, while Disc 2 offers a slew of short subjects. If a pair of History Channel docs on tornadoes feel filler-ish, the vintage HBO teaser First Look: The Making of Twister and the new 28-minute making-of featurette, Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited (in which we learn that Jan de Bont's biggest concern was whether Bill Paxton's hair would grow out enough to blow visibly in the wind), are more likely to offer fans of the film something they can really get swept up in.
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by Richard Harland Smith
