February 01, 2005 - Coming out shortly after the passing of Ray Charles and anchored by a career-redefining performance by Jamie Foxx, Ray recently garnered half-dozen Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Director and Actor. To capitalize on its presumed nominations, the DVD is hitting the streets now and it's one of the most bewilderingly sloppy presentations imaginable, taking an excellent film and saddling it with a DVD that shows the format is only as good as the execution.

Covering about two decades of Ray's life, from when he started his career in the late 1940s until he kicked heroin in 1965, it avoids being just another glossy TV movie-grade biopic by presenting a fairly gritty warts-and-all look at the man behind the musical genius. Starting as a sideman whose own compositions were stylistically similar to Nat King Cole and Charles Brown, Ray struggled to find his own voice until he started combining gospel music with rhythm-and-blues. That may seem no big deal today, but was a major source of controversy in the 1950s.

As his career progressed and crossed over into white audiences, his womanizing and drug use took a greater and greater toll and he teetered close to losing everything that'd been built upon his iron discipline by being unable to control his inner demons. Facets of Ray's character -- by turns charming, warm, shrewd, duplicitous and downright chilly -- are masterfully displayed by Foxx. The actor goes beyond mere mimicry to make you instantly forget that you're watching the star of Booty Call and accept that you're seeing the young Ray Charles. It was in 2004 -- when Foxx did not only Ray but his also-nominated role in Collateral -- when Jamie Foxx became a formidable actor.

Also noteworthy is the exceptional supporting cast playing his band mates and the women in his life. Of special note is Sharon Warren as his mother, Aretha, who made her film debut- with barely any acting experience at all - and merited, but didn't receive a Supporting Actress nod. Her strength in what's frankly a rather hokey flashback device redeems these scenes. It's also amusing to see Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, Curtis Armstrong, all cleaned up and respectable as Atlantic Records honcho Ahmet Ertegun.

	-Universal Home Video The Ray Main Menu Screen

A major selling-point of this DVD is the Extended Version, which reintegrates 14 deleted and/or extended scenes that total nearly a half-hour. With only a couple of exceptions, they should've been left in the theatrical version to start with because the do well to deepen Ray's life and behavior. While cut for time (according to the commentary), crucial instances of Ray's musical growth and personal decline that elevate the picture another level got left out and that's too bad - they make a good film even better.

What's troubling, however, is how these deleted scenes are cut back in. If you select the Extended option (chosen by default), the movie rolls along normally until a pair of musical notes appear in the corner to indicate a deleted scene is about to occur. The picture freezes momentarily and then kicks over to new footage.

Unfortunately, the new footage is shown in non-anamorphic letterboxed full-screen. While the main feature is in 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the extra footage appeared to be 2.35:1 (due to the stretching of my widescreen TV). The sound is noticeably quieter and the image, while darker, has far better color quality.

	-Universal Home Video It was with great concern that they watched a smacked-out Ray jump on the piano and howl, "I'm Wanda the Ugly Woman!!!"

Even allowing for the confusing format nonsense, one of the "scenes" is actually a showcase of Foxx's profane ad lib skills which may've made for a nice outtake, has absolutely no business cut into the feature for it has the same brief segment playing over and over from a pair of angles. (I thought my player was skipping for a moment, that's how confusing it was.)

Overall, Ray in its theatrical form was a very good portrait of a complex artist in the seminal phase of his life and career and would warrant an 8/10 score, but the addition of the scenes for the Extended Version takes it to an even finer form and is the basis of my final score. However, to see the film in its best version requires the viewer to put up with an extremely flawed presentation. (This score is for the extended film itself, not the DVD's fumble.)

Score: 9 out of 10

	-Universal Home Video Check out this rock Ray gave- hey, where'd it go??