Now it’s NORMAL LIFE on DVD
The localized library keeps building in number as productions of all shapes and sizes make their way to DVD. Thanks to some not-very-lazy Sunday afternoon browsing, C-U Blogfidential discovered that CNGM Pictures finally released their drama NORMAL LIFE during the week of September 28 as a two-disc set using Amazon‘s CreateSpace program. The announcement posted on the group’s Web site details the product, which features the full-length movie with commentary on Disc 1 and extras on Disc 2. Filmed at and near Illinois State University in Normal a few years ago, NORMAL LIFE follows the improbably named student/musician Orpheus (played by writer/director Marc Muszynski) as he works through the polarizing nature of “the college life,” yearning to take on the real world more sooner than later. The film also stars Nick Mikula, Caitlin Barlow, Brian Wohl, Annie Rix, and Kim Pereira.
Muszynski joins producers Mikula, Wohl, and Michael P. Noens (who seems to have taken up the CNGM reins in Chicagoland as his original partners move on to different pastures) during the commentary, while the second DVD features “a segment called ‘Creating the Eris Song’ … an Outtakes Reel, ‘Page to Picture’ featurette, plus a number of extended or cut scenes.” Since NORMAL LIFE, the “not-for-profit” micro-budget studio from the north suburbs has been rather prolific. For instance, no less than four recent productions appeared last month at the Naperville (IL) International Film Festival: the feature OFF-LOOP and the shorts THE GIRL IN THE OTHER ROOM, THE PAST AND PENDING, and the wonderfully-titled GNOME MAN’S LAND. Also, an older CNGM co-production called WHITE ROOM, about a disc jockey (played by Jonathan C. Legat) who learns of his wife’s infidelity while snowed in at the college radio station where he works, will become their first nationally distributed title when R-Squared Films streets it on Tuesday, December 1.
Look to CUBlog in the coming weeks for more on the NORMAL LIFE DVD. We also will backtrack and review several other 2009 releases by the New Year, including RAMPAGE, THE SHOWDOWN, THE TRANSIENT, and THE GARBAGE MAN!
~ Jason Pankoke