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Does it ever annoy you when 98% of the interesting features on DVD's are taken up with clips from the film that you have already, or are about to watch. Okay, so maybe it's useful when the direct is explaining how he did a particular thing. What gets me though is the making of "documentaries". You get 7 minutes most of which is taken up by entirely needless clips.
Why do film makers feel the need to pack a DVD with pointless extras. I can name hundreds of DVD's with no interesting extras at all, all because they have been padded out to seem more than they really are. I would rather have a DVD with one well-thought-out feature than a 2 disc extravaganza with nothing even remotely good on it.
So what have we seen this year that's been innovative. For starters some of the re-releases are being given commentaries, which is great. Directors also seem to be more used to commenting on their films for the DVD market. It's now quite rare to see a DVD where the sole source of comment from the director is a two minute interview clip. Now we get the full-blown commentary. These range from the fascinating to the humorous. I'm waiting to see a Coen Brothers commentary because each of their films is fiendishly well-made and there's a lot that can be learnt from good directors. The re-release of the Three Colours trilogy saw director Kiewolski give a 15 minute "masterclass", where he disected a scene from each of the films. These revealed how much the director has to consider, which just cannot be portrayed through a commentary. Shrek was another landmark in DVD innovation. The games may have been poor but they did show some character. The most original feature this year was probably the audio-dubbing DVD-rom feature that came with Shrek. You got to record your own version of a Shrek scene, which is more fun than it sounds...
Shrek also showed the current trend to stick interesting feturettes on DVD's. Instead of a stuffy documentary, Shrek's creators went behind the scenes of the internationalisation of their film. It's fascinating to see how different countries associate different voices with cartoon films where subtitling is not really an option. Another great DVD was "The Nightmare Before Christmas" where a brilliant documentary with no padding was included together with Tim Burton's first two films. Now this is the type of stuff I want to see on DVD's.
The year has also seen many disappointments. The Coen's have yet to release a substantial DVD (first-time round), though the 2-disc release of "O Brother" might suggest that they are embracing the format at long last. I'm looking forward to "The Man Who Wasn't There" on DVD with lots of meaty extras. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the year, for me, was X-men. Sure it had pretty menus but overall it was a messy job with very little of interest. Equally Traffic provided very little of interest in comparison to Blow whose extras were informative and interesting.
Extras will never carry more weight than the film on a DVD. You will never buy a DVD solely because it has something interesting in the extras. However, if you're standing in a shop holding a copy of "The Big Lebowski" in one hand and a 2-disc copy of "Seven" in the other, it might be the factor that determines which you buy. Hopefully this will mean film makers really trying to do something interesting with the format. Instead of borrowing a promotional documentary of the film they might make their own. Instead of putting stills on the DVD they might put more obscure featuettes about the film's subject matter on. Hopefully we are approaching the point when films are made with the DVD in mind. Films like "Crouching Tiger.." covered their production costs from DVD sales alone and the format is expanding at an unexpectedly high rate. With this we should see more DVDs that don't follow the conventional route and this can only be a good thing. You might have noticed that static menu screens are almost non-existent now; well hopefully filler material will have ben eradicated by this time next year.
My awards for the best extras this year go to Blow for the documentaries it contained on the effects and history of Cocaine, even if the film itself descended into sentimentalism. Shrek's DVD-rom feature gets a mention for most innovative feature. And the other awards? Suggest your own..
Why do film makers feel the need to pack a DVD with pointless extras. I can name hundreds of DVD's with no interesting extras at all, all because they have been padded out to seem more than they really are. I would rather have a DVD with one well-thought-out feature than a 2 disc extravaganza with nothing even remotely good on it.
So what have we seen this year that's been innovative. For starters some of the re-releases are being given commentaries, which is great. Directors also seem to be more used to commenting on their films for the DVD market. It's now quite rare to see a DVD where the sole source of comment from the director is a two minute interview clip. Now we get the full-blown commentary. These range from the fascinating to the humorous. I'm waiting to see a Coen Brothers commentary because each of their films is fiendishly well-made and there's a lot that can be learnt from good directors. The re-release of the Three Colours trilogy saw director Kiewolski give a 15 minute "masterclass", where he disected a scene from each of the films. These revealed how much the director has to consider, which just cannot be portrayed through a commentary. Shrek was another landmark in DVD innovation. The games may have been poor but they did show some character. The most original feature this year was probably the audio-dubbing DVD-rom feature that came with Shrek. You got to record your own version of a Shrek scene, which is more fun than it sounds...
Shrek also showed the current trend to stick interesting feturettes on DVD's. Instead of a stuffy documentary, Shrek's creators went behind the scenes of the internationalisation of their film. It's fascinating to see how different countries associate different voices with cartoon films where subtitling is not really an option. Another great DVD was "The Nightmare Before Christmas" where a brilliant documentary with no padding was included together with Tim Burton's first two films. Now this is the type of stuff I want to see on DVD's.
The year has also seen many disappointments. The Coen's have yet to release a substantial DVD (first-time round), though the 2-disc release of "O Brother" might suggest that they are embracing the format at long last. I'm looking forward to "The Man Who Wasn't There" on DVD with lots of meaty extras. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the year, for me, was X-men. Sure it had pretty menus but overall it was a messy job with very little of interest. Equally Traffic provided very little of interest in comparison to Blow whose extras were informative and interesting.
Extras will never carry more weight than the film on a DVD. You will never buy a DVD solely because it has something interesting in the extras. However, if you're standing in a shop holding a copy of "The Big Lebowski" in one hand and a 2-disc copy of "Seven" in the other, it might be the factor that determines which you buy. Hopefully this will mean film makers really trying to do something interesting with the format. Instead of borrowing a promotional documentary of the film they might make their own. Instead of putting stills on the DVD they might put more obscure featuettes about the film's subject matter on. Hopefully we are approaching the point when films are made with the DVD in mind. Films like "Crouching Tiger.." covered their production costs from DVD sales alone and the format is expanding at an unexpectedly high rate. With this we should see more DVDs that don't follow the conventional route and this can only be a good thing. You might have noticed that static menu screens are almost non-existent now; well hopefully filler material will have ben eradicated by this time next year.
My awards for the best extras this year go to Blow for the documentaries it contained on the effects and history of Cocaine, even if the film itself descended into sentimentalism. Shrek's DVD-rom feature gets a mention for most innovative feature. And the other awards? Suggest your own..
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Most of the extras on DVDs never seem to go that deep. They are just token mini featurettes that tell you how and why an actor got the part and how much fun they had filming the thing.
What should appear on DVD extras is an in depth study of the history of a film. Often you have tons of extras and some nice mini documentaries, but do they really let you recapture the idea of the film or the hype surrounding it? Ghostbusters was a film heralded for its extras, but even that didn't really explain the magic behind the script writing and filming or the opening night.
There are so many pieces of film footage that you can use from the news or documentaries made for TV. Writers could be interviewed to discuss their motivation and inspiration (the American Beauty DVD has a good little documentary on this) and directors given more time to explaining all the problems they had filming and the way the film was accepted by the public and the media. This would add so much to the film.
Music videos are all well and good, but there should be more explanation as to how they were made or why the artist was chosen. There are so many more options open to create a good set of documentaries, other than the usual (but always welcome) special effects sequences. Crouching Tiger had a nice explanation of the music behind the movie, this should be made available on more DVD movies.
With so many good documentaries on TV, from the South Bank Show to in depth articles about the fans and the affect the movie has had on the world (Star Trek, Star Wars, Jaws, ET, Casablanca, Psycho etc) there is really no excuse in not producing something more substantial that would add weight to a film and allow future generations to view it as just another piece of movie making from their parents era.
What should appear on DVD extras is an in depth study of the history of a film. Often you have tons of extras and some nice mini documentaries, but do they really let you recapture the idea of the film or the hype surrounding it? Ghostbusters was a film heralded for its extras, but even that didn't really explain the magic behind the script writing and filming or the opening night.
There are so many pieces of film footage that you can use from the news or documentaries made for TV. Writers could be interviewed to discuss their motivation and inspiration (the American Beauty DVD has a good little documentary on this) and directors given more time to explaining all the problems they had filming and the way the film was accepted by the public and the media. This would add so much to the film.
Music videos are all well and good, but there should be more explanation as to how they were made or why the artist was chosen. There are so many more options open to create a good set of documentaries, other than the usual (but always welcome) special effects sequences. Crouching Tiger had a nice explanation of the music behind the movie, this should be made available on more DVD movies.
With so many good documentaries on TV, from the South Bank Show to in depth articles about the fans and the affect the movie has had on the world (Star Trek, Star Wars, Jaws, ET, Casablanca, Psycho etc) there is really no excuse in not producing something more substantial that would add weight to a film and allow future generations to view it as just another piece of movie making from their parents era.
The extras that I can't stand are the full length commentaries, on the occasional DVD they're intresting for example on the Ghostbusters DVD there's a commentary by Harold Ramis and Ivon Reitman which is intresting because they're joking around all the time and it doesn't get boring, but I hate these commentarys on discs that have nothing to do with whats actually being played of the film, you have the film playing in the background and you've got some guy randomly talking over it.
some extras are good by most of the time i can't be arsed to watch them plus some comentries seem so long.
the most important thing to me is to get the film uncut which is why i mainly buy region 1 DVD's as the uk seem to cut bits.
Also i hate the way some DVD's vary in extras to other like i got the region 1 of traffic but the region 2 had a hidden easter egg where a cast member ask's mrs douglas for her autograph which i wanted to see :(
the most important thing to me is to get the film uncut which is why i mainly buy region 1 DVD's as the uk seem to cut bits.
Also i hate the way some DVD's vary in extras to other like i got the region 1 of traffic but the region 2 had a hidden easter egg where a cast member ask's mrs douglas for her autograph which i wanted to see :(
Well the Being John Malkovich DVD is shoddy for extras.
Some trailers, tv spots and 2 clips from the film.
And a 2 minute "joke" interview.
What a punk.
Some trailers, tv spots and 2 clips from the film.
And a 2 minute "joke" interview.
What a punk.
Just found an amusing Spike Jonze site:
When Spike worked on the Beastie's "Sabotage", I guess he had planned for some underwater footage, but had no underwater camera. So Spike took the camera and figured it would be alright if he just put it into a clear trash bag... which actually didn't work, and the camera was ruined. Also, he had mounted a camera to a car that was supposed to drive down a hill at 80 mph, but when the car hit a lip, the camera flew off, and was broken too. It's kind of funny to think that Spike broke two $200 000 16mm cameras on a shoot for a video that was budgeted at $55 000.
He directed the brilliant "drop" by Pharcyde, which I had forgotten about. It's stunning video because it's played back to front, except it was planned that way so Spike got the guys from Pharcyde to do lots of stuff that would look really weird when played back to front, plus the song fits to lip movements, making it all the more weird.
He also directed and starred in Fat Boy Slim's "Praise You" as the group leader of those insane dancers.His most famous vido is Weezer's "Buddy Holly", which made it on to the Windows 95 cd-rom media section. Apparently he also produced MTV's "Jackass" series. And according to the BJM website Spike is rathe fond of his pranks, so it would not be uncharacteristic of him to feign being sick in an interview.
When Spike worked on the Beastie's "Sabotage", I guess he had planned for some underwater footage, but had no underwater camera. So Spike took the camera and figured it would be alright if he just put it into a clear trash bag... which actually didn't work, and the camera was ruined. Also, he had mounted a camera to a car that was supposed to drive down a hill at 80 mph, but when the car hit a lip, the camera flew off, and was broken too. It's kind of funny to think that Spike broke two $200 000 16mm cameras on a shoot for a video that was budgeted at $55 000.
He directed the brilliant "drop" by Pharcyde, which I had forgotten about. It's stunning video because it's played back to front, except it was planned that way so Spike got the guys from Pharcyde to do lots of stuff that would look really weird when played back to front, plus the song fits to lip movements, making it all the more weird.
He also directed and starred in Fat Boy Slim's "Praise You" as the group leader of those insane dancers.His most famous vido is Weezer's "Buddy Holly", which made it on to the Windows 95 cd-rom media section. Apparently he also produced MTV's "Jackass" series. And according to the BJM website Spike is rathe fond of his pranks, so it would not be uncharacteristic of him to feign being sick in an interview.
So it was a joke? :-D
Spike Jonze directed the Beastie Boys and Weezer videos.. so it's not like he's not prone to having a laugh.
Okay, having absolutely nothing to do with the current topic:
Has anyone watched the interview with Tom Hanks on the Castaway DVD?
Some guy called charlie Rose (I think that's his name is) is doing the interview.
And I must say this. WHAT A T**T!!!
He had NO idea what he was talking about.
He'd start talking to Hanks about the film, and then say 'that part in the film that was the key moment was when bla bla bla'. Hanks would then say 'no, I though it was bla bla bla bla bla'. And Charlie Rose would say 'oh obviously. That was the blatent turning point.' And I'd be sitting there thinking 'what the hell are you going on about. You've completely contradicted yourself. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'd like to shoot you in the head'.
Okay so maybe I didn't want to shoot him, but he was annoying me. :-D
And one more thing. This is a question about the interview with Spike Jonze on the Being John Malkovich DVD. Is it real? Or is he putting it on? First of all, I thought it was real, but then I watched 3 Kings and realised the guy was an actor so I thought maybe he was acting it.
Has anyone watched the interview with Tom Hanks on the Castaway DVD?
Some guy called charlie Rose (I think that's his name is) is doing the interview.
And I must say this. WHAT A T**T!!!
He had NO idea what he was talking about.
He'd start talking to Hanks about the film, and then say 'that part in the film that was the key moment was when bla bla bla'. Hanks would then say 'no, I though it was bla bla bla bla bla'. And Charlie Rose would say 'oh obviously. That was the blatent turning point.' And I'd be sitting there thinking 'what the hell are you going on about. You've completely contradicted yourself. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'd like to shoot you in the head'.
Okay so maybe I didn't want to shoot him, but he was annoying me. :-D
And one more thing. This is a question about the interview with Spike Jonze on the Being John Malkovich DVD. Is it real? Or is he putting it on? First of all, I thought it was real, but then I watched 3 Kings and realised the guy was an actor so I thought maybe he was acting it.
Ok, look forward to it......:-)
*Hit's report this post button* :-D
*Hit's report this post button* :-D
Okay Lee clips are excusable. What gets me is the DVD's where they find some crappy documentary they made for a movie-show, which is designed to sell the film rather than inform the viewer. Lots of them have annoyed me because I sit there thinking "why are you showing me clips of a film I have just watched? Show me something interesting for god's sake!".. But you do have a point, no matter how many times you see a clip of Bruce Lee doing something spectacular it doesn't get boring..
And MWA, I am finishing the NEO review now.. Should be up in half an hour or so.. It includes my patented reviewing technique.
And MWA, I am finishing the NEO review now.. Should be up in half an hour or so.. It includes my patented reviewing technique.
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