Last DVD Bonus Features You Watched?

[PixarFan2006]

I watched a few of the features on The Wizard of Oz Ultimate Collectors Edition DVD.

The Wizard of Oz (1910) - This was in REALLY poor quality and was kind of laughable (Most notably, the costumes).

Trailers - I watched all of the trailers, which were kind of interesting. A few trailers seemed recycled from older trailers.

A Twister A Twister - This was kind of boring. It was nothing but shots of the tornado scene.

[Lazario]

I watched the alternate scene in Gremlins 2: The New Batch where the gremlins invade the theater.

I gotta do this, sorry...

The alternate scene from the movie version of Gremlins doesn't take place in the movie theater. It's the one that has the VCR/TV shorting out and the Gremlins are changing the channels, then in a western, John Wayne shoots them and returns things to normal.

[PixarFan2006]

I gotta do this, sorry...

The alternate scene from the movie version of Gremlins doesn't take place in the movie theater. It's the one that has the VCR/TV shorting out and the Gremlins are changing the channels, then in a western, John Wayne shoots them and returns things to normal.

That's what I meant.

[PixarFan2006]

Psycho (1960) - Theatrical trailer: I was surprised that this trailer was kind of long (around 6 minutes), but it was still interesting.

[PixarFan2006]

Star Wars Trilogy

Trailers - I watched all the theatrical trailers for all three films. I found them all interesting.

I also skimmed through the documentary Empire of Dreams to see how long it was (Over 150 minutes!).

I might eventually want to get the prequel trilogy on dvd.

[Cordy_Biddle]

Listened to the audio commentary for "The Best of Everything" which includes movie historian Sylvia Stoddard and original author Rona Jaffe. I had hoped the two would be in conversation but they were recorded separately. Jaffe (who sadly passed away a few months after the DVD was released) offers invaluable insights into the production; and Stoddard is always a pleasure.

[Escapay]

I don't have The Best of Everything on DVD, but do either of them discuss the short-lived 1970 soap opera on the commentary or is it limited to just the movie?

albert

[toonaspie]

No Strings Attached was a sheer delight too especialy when they discussed the voice cast and the model department, very immmerisve material.

Eh...I recently watched it again and just like the second time, I just didnt enjoy it all that much. Granted when they got into the technical stuff it was good but most of it to me was too much fluff praising the film and making comparisons to other Disney animation (stuff we've heard a billion times in past PE documentaries). I thought it was one of the weakest documentaries I've ever seen.

[Cordy_Biddle]

I don't have The Best of Everything on DVD, but do either of them discuss the short-lived 1970 soap opera on the commentary or is it limited to just the movie?

albert

No, I don't believe that is mentioned.

[Escapay]

Aw, that's upsetting. Not a lot of information is available on the soap opera and beyond the brief pages devoted to it in The Soap Opera Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, there's really nothing else.

albert

[Cordy_Biddle]

Aw, that's upsetting. Not a lot of information is available on the soap opera and beyond the brief pages devoted to it in The Soap Opera Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, there's really nothing else.

albert

Unlike the "Peyton Place" serial. Not only has it started being released on DVD, Sylvia Stoddard talks about the show's cast in great detail on the audio commentary for "Return to Peyton Place".

[Escapay]

Ooh, I'll have to give the Return to Peyton Place commentary a listen then! I can't believe I haven't listened to it yet!

I'm itchin' to get the Peyton Place DVDs, especially since the price is so right ($40 for 30-odd episode volumes!). Of course, it'll take awhile to collect ALL of them since there's 450 more episodes and two television movies that they still have to release!

albert

[Cordy_Biddle]

I'm looking forward to seeing the "Peyton Place" series too, but it will be a while before I'll be picking them up. Been on a real melodrama bent at the moment, with "The Best of Everything" and the "Peyton Place" films.

[blaing]

Just watched the "Johnny in Bollywood" episode on the season 2 set of "Johnny Bravo"

this was a special episode of Johnny Bravo made for Cartoon Network India.

Johnny has a bad hair day as a result of a hair gel endorsed by a celebrity, and goes to Bollywood to untame his hair.

[Barbossa]

Just finished watching all the special features for Star Trek.

The deleted scenes were interesting, especially the ones where Nero was being held in the pison by the Klingons. I thought the new mask-look to the Klingons was interesting. It's too bad this squence got cut from the final film as it fleshed out Nero's character a bit more. Hope the Klingons get some screen time in the next Trek.

[zackisthewalrus]

I watched some of the features on the Hyperion Studios bonus on the Snow White Blu-ray. It was cool to see some of the animated shorts in HD. There was a definite improvement when watching "Steamboat Willie."

I also watched the Rerun Van Pelt featurette on the new "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown" DVD.

[2099net]

Silent Hill 2 Disc Blu-Ray [FR]

I started out watching the film with Christophe Gans' [subtitled] commentary and a PiP of the movie without effects.

First of all, the movie without effects was very interesting - unlike the similar option on 300 which is mainly just background replacement. There's some green screen elements in Silent Hill, but also lots of subtle and not so subtle effects. But most interesting is how many effects were actually practical - from outdoor sets covered in "real" fog to monsters being humans in suits. Most of the practical shots are augmented with CGI, be it digitally created falling ash, composites of multiple shots to turn one monster into a crowd or just adding a pulsating, organic texture to said practical monsters.

From Gans' commentary its clear he's not an American director, and never will be. Not because it was in French (which granted is a big give away!) but because he's so open and candid. He discusses changes required by TriStar (basically more men - especially more Sean Bean) which he admits does hurt the flow and pacing of the film somewhat. He talks about Radha Mitchell initially not wanting to commit to the film (she was waiting to see how successful Melinda and Melinda would be) and as a consequence the two never really hit it off while filming - and he talks about Mitchell and Holden's different approaches to acting which caused more tension on the set.

A typical Hollywood/Studio commentary is full of "oh wasn't x wonderful" and "I'm so happy I worked with z". It should be noted, Gans never criticises the actors, and accepts some of the blame himself and he does praise their work where he's particularly impressed or proud of it. But the commentary track never becomes a "love-in" so typical of commentaries today.

As well as all this, we hear his views on the games (he makes a slight dig at the fans not likening Silent Hill 5 so much which is odd, considering most of what the fans didn't like was taken from his film!*), the difficulties of the shooting schedule (61 days, with upto 4 different dressings for each set!) and how time resulted in the ending being changed the day before the final day's shooting, and how the home video release had extra effects work on some scenes as there wasn't time to perfect them for the theatrical release.

Its a wonderful commentary, and I think being forced to read it as subtitles helped me to appreciate it more - its so easy to have a commentary track flow over you when you just listen. By reading you're forced to have almost 100% of your attention on the commentary track, and you take more in.

I've also explored about half of the other supplements. The best so far is Gans discussing Silent Hill 2 (the game) where he expertly pinpoints exactly what's so great about this game. From the information that he had it for 2 weeks but didn't want to play it - for fear it would dilute his Silent Hill 1 experience - to him animatedly and joyfully discussing the blocking and camera work of a cut scene and explaining how it goes beyond the language of cinema, I was totally hooked. He ends the discussion saying that he wouldn't make Silent Hill 2 into a movie - he couldn't do it justice. And after hearing him explain why, I tend to agree - nobody could do it justice.

I've also watched about half of the "proper" making-of (90mins, HD) which again is not your typical American making of. It's quite happy to discuss various legal and creative differences.

I've skipped in to and quickly around the other making of when I was first checking out the disc and its a more traditional documentary (60mins, SD). Iconicaly, given what we've learned from the commentary, it shows Mitchell in typical full-on PR mode telling us how she was hooked by her first read-full of the script she was sent and had to do the film as a result. Really?

I've still got about 5 hours of supplemental content to work through! I can honestly say this is my favourite Blu-ray release to date. Picture and sound is superb, but never, ever in my wildest dreams did I expect to be able to buy a Silent Hill disc with hours of supplemental content about the games and movie.

* I actually think Silent Hill 5 (Homecoming) is the second best Silent Hill game to day - bit of course nothing can top Silent Hill 2.

[Cordy_Biddle]

When killing time I often play a few bonus feature bits 'n' pieces, so yesterday I watched:

* some of the documentary from the 1933 "King Kong"

* "Seeing Stars": TCM's Robert Osborne interviews Dick Cavett (from the "Hollywood Greats" Dick Cavett Show box set)

[jlppr]

last bonus features i watched were the popumentaries found in popeye volume 1. soon i will be watching the special features of LOTR trilogy. i'm currently watching the movies, i have one more to go and from there special features of the extended editions

[ajmrowland]

I've been watching all the HD DVDs for Harry Potter, and as many of the bonuses as I could-minus some games and the now unusable DVD-ROM features on Chamber of Secrets DVD.

Did the PIP commentary for Goblet of Fire tonight. Interesting stuff about the music, Quidditch World Cup, and Voldemort is here that doesn't appear anywhere else, which is quite nice, actually.

Tomorrow: Order of the Pheonix.