Yukon Sully Pet Peeve #37,492
No-frills DVDs. WTF? I was at my local Blockbuster last night, and noticed that the Robert Rodriguez-directed movie Sin City had just come out last Tuesday. I saw this movie when it was in theaters earlier this year, and while it wasn't exactly what I'd call an artistic masterpiece (unless you're talking strictly in terms of production design) it was an exceptionally entertaining film. It's exactly the kind of movie fan-boys go crazy for, one that creates a rich alternate world with it's own complex mythology, full of cartoonishly-vile bad guys, gorgeous women and swaggering heroes who are smart, physically confident and get laid a lot. As long as you have the stomach to handle the ridiculously over-the-top violence--this is a movie that features more than one castration, among other stomach-churning stuff--you can appreciate the ultra-noir atmosphere, the interwoven storylines and the hardboiled characters for the popcorn entertainment that they provide. This movie is like Pulp Fiction on Meth.
So you can understand why I was excited to see the movie released on DVD. You'll understand even better when I tell you that I'm a total junkie for DVD extras, particularly commentary tracks. Not the ones that feature bubble-headed actors yammering on in publicist-ese about what a honor and a privileged it was to be in a movie with their co-star so-and-so, and how he/she is a consummate professional and everyone was just great to work with and bah bah bah bah bah...... No, I'm enough of a nerd to love the commentary tracks featuring directors, writers, even sleaze-ball producers. Sure, they're mostly flaming egomaniacs, but at least they usually have something interesting to tell you about the movie. So when I got a hold of the Sin City DVD and turned it over to see what bells and whistles were included, I was hoping for some insight from Rodriguez, maybe a documentary on the movie's amazing look and incredible production value, perhaps some background information on the Frank Miller graphic novels that inspired the film. My only real fear was that there might be a commentary track consisting of two hours of babbling from Brittany Murphy.
So what bonus features did the DVD actually contain? One measly pathetic "behind-the-scenes featurette." Although I haven't yet seen it, on a DVD "behind-the-scenes featurette" usually means six minutes of vacuous interview clips from movie stars of the sort that you can see 24 hours a day on the TV Guide channel. If you're very lucky these interview snippets might be interspersed with a few shots of teamsters wrestling with props on a movie set.
Don't worry, I get that the reason they produce such bare-bones DVDs is the very reason they produce movies in the first place--to make money. Fans will buy or rent the bare-bones version now, but the studio knows full well that fans will also buy or rent the "Deluxe Edition", which will probably come out very conveniently just before Sin City 2 premieres in theaters and will feature all the aforementioned bells and whistles that should have been included the first time around. They'll get us both coming and going. We all understand this, and we will all continue to put up with it because we so love these shiny bits of escapist entertainment. The more I think about it the more pathetic it seems, not just on their end but on ours as well.
Sheesh, now I'm depressed. Maybe I should go read a book.
So you can understand why I was excited to see the movie released on DVD. You'll understand even better when I tell you that I'm a total junkie for DVD extras, particularly commentary tracks. Not the ones that feature bubble-headed actors yammering on in publicist-ese about what a honor and a privileged it was to be in a movie with their co-star so-and-so, and how he/she is a consummate professional and everyone was just great to work with and bah bah bah bah bah...... No, I'm enough of a nerd to love the commentary tracks featuring directors, writers, even sleaze-ball producers. Sure, they're mostly flaming egomaniacs, but at least they usually have something interesting to tell you about the movie. So when I got a hold of the Sin City DVD and turned it over to see what bells and whistles were included, I was hoping for some insight from Rodriguez, maybe a documentary on the movie's amazing look and incredible production value, perhaps some background information on the Frank Miller graphic novels that inspired the film. My only real fear was that there might be a commentary track consisting of two hours of babbling from Brittany Murphy.
So what bonus features did the DVD actually contain? One measly pathetic "behind-the-scenes featurette." Although I haven't yet seen it, on a DVD "behind-the-scenes featurette" usually means six minutes of vacuous interview clips from movie stars of the sort that you can see 24 hours a day on the TV Guide channel. If you're very lucky these interview snippets might be interspersed with a few shots of teamsters wrestling with props on a movie set.
Don't worry, I get that the reason they produce such bare-bones DVDs is the very reason they produce movies in the first place--to make money. Fans will buy or rent the bare-bones version now, but the studio knows full well that fans will also buy or rent the "Deluxe Edition", which will probably come out very conveniently just before Sin City 2 premieres in theaters and will feature all the aforementioned bells and whistles that should have been included the first time around. They'll get us both coming and going. We all understand this, and we will all continue to put up with it because we so love these shiny bits of escapist entertainment. The more I think about it the more pathetic it seems, not just on their end but on ours as well.
Sheesh, now I'm depressed. Maybe I should go read a book.
posted by Yukon Sully | 4:34 PM
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