"all those boring layouts" means?? An idea becomes boring when its over used by the peoles..same thing is happening with these menus also. Everyone is following those same patterns again and again.
See those layouts and ask yourself y they are boring...study them deeply, figure out their problems and then try to do something new which is functional but not been created before. But dont think its that easy...
Break the rules but, be careful:)

I think too many people these days assume that screen generated design has limits and so everything should follow the same patterns.

A DVD menu can be what ever you want it to be, as can everthing else. Why cant a DVD menu be similar to that of a menu or contents found in a book or that of a restaurant menu.

My advice it just follow the elementry rules when designing something. What is it for, who it is aimed at, choose an appropriate typeface etc etc.

Forget waht existing menus look like. If it were me I would be thinking of creating a piece f design that works for the topic. The only rule you may have it the format, but even that can be broken.

Matt

I love the way the menu options are revealed in this menu design:

http://www.studiodialog.com/movies/ashes_snow_intro.mov

I couldn't agree more with you guys. But in a way it is always useful to have some good references (not necessarily from DVD menu's).
Thanks for the advise and the website.