It’s rare for a film to hit the video market these days without a cornucopia of DVD extras.
Gag reels. Deleted scenes. Director commentaries.
But are people actually watching them?
I typically have a stack of DVDs I need to watch in any given week, so I try to screen as many as possible while sampling the extras. Typically, that means suffering through scenes that deserved to be deleted, hearing commentary that’s more buttocks smooching than informative and seeing other information that doesn’t add to my enjoyment of the film.
There are, of course, exceptions.
Sometimes, there’s gold in them thar extras, like the extra scenes from “Borat” the DVD wisely included.
So … do movie fans devour these extras? Would knowing a DVD is laden with extras prompt you to buy rather than rent it, or even check the film out in the first place over a similar movie sans commentaries?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I never watch a DVD/Blu-ray with the commentaries turned on. And only occasionally do I go through the other extras. For example, I rented the first two Star Trek movies (TMP and Kahn) to introduce my daughter to before we went to see the new one this summer. (Yes, I know I should have just stuck with Kahn and Undiscovered Country, but I hadn’t seen TMP since I was a child, so I wanted to relive the craptacular event.) For TMP, I watched the extras because I wanted to see the original effects since they had Lucased the film. Another example is Bladerunner, but then that should not need any explanation. There are a few more, but I would say that I watch the extras on less than 2% of the DVD/Blu-rays I rent or own.
I usually watch everything – especially the documentaries. Sometimes, in a weird and perverted fashion, if I’ve seen the movie beforehand in the theater I’ll watch the documentary first.
I love all the extras, documentaries, featurettes,commentary,deleted scenes, extended scenes and the easter eggs.
The down side of the commentaries is I’ve lost respect for some actors after listening to them talk as themselves. Perhaps lost respect isn’t a correct description, just disappointed I suppose.
Devour it all, making sure to mock the fact “Original Theatrical Trailer” used to be touted as the greatest bonus feature. Only commentaries I’ve ever dug, though (and this includes the rare chance Scorsese will actually decide to do one), are Kevin Smith movies, Spinal Tap where McKean/Shearer/Guest are in-character (makes for a whole new movie), Stone/Parker movies, and The Matador track with director, Kinnear and Brosnan (you can smell the liquor on Pierce by the — hiccup! — end of it).
I took a film class as an elective my final year in college that also worked as a writing/English elective. Taught by a an English prof but was part of the entertainment studies programs for the school. We would watch movies in class and then have Q&A about various subject matters regarding those films. Then we would have a writing assignment to bring back to the next class. Watch the movie from beginning to end again but with the director/producer/actor commentaries on (and also all the way through the credits) and see if we were even close to reasoning why the film scene(s) was done the way it was.
Because of this class I still watch a second time with the commentaries on. But only if I enjoyed the film. And all the extras too.
I always try to watch the commentaries on flicks I like, if the flic has a commentary.
I in general don’t like the commentaries, but I like to listen to them anyways. Matt and Trey do great work, especially in the first season commentary, where you get a lot of background of how the project was born.
I liked most of the commentaries from the firefly episodes (especially “war stories” When alan tudyck says “you are doing a great act of being tortured for firefly, I’m doing a great act of being tortured in The Deer Hunter.” Alan and nathan were hillarious.
A commentary that I was so EFFING ANGRY for it not to have occurred is Tim Allen Tony Shaloub, and Sam Rockwell on gallaxy quest, that would have been hillarious.
As a Matter of fact, I hate the “movie” movies, scary movie, dance flic’ not another teen movie, and date movie, but on the back cover of date movie it advertises an “anti-commentary” by 2 film critics, and that’s why I eventually rented the movie (as a free bonus, during special offer) so that I could hear that commentary.
Stopped watching the movie about 5 minutes in, and went to commentary and I still love the line “I remember after my review, seeing a blurb for the movie ‘from 2 of the writers of scary movie’ and there were 8 writers on scary movie. You have no idea how much respect I have for those other 6 writers after seeing this movie.”
CLASSIC!
I think commentary is good, I wish it was done more often, but I also wish that the peole who make the decisions on commentary understood the basic nature of the film they are gonna be commenting on.
Kevin and Jay do a good job on the askewniverse, but jay’s stoned, and kevin is doing filler about the direction of a particular scene about half the time.
A good commentary on a beloved flic is greatly appreciated, but droning self absorbed inside baseball pap just makes me wanna break that directors monocle thing that you know they all own, cuz they saw it in an old movie 50 years ago (or do they still use those thingies?)
My favorite “extra” is the non-fiction documentary that sometimes accompanies “based on a true story” dramas. A good example of this can be seen on Breach the story of the finding out and arrest of Robert Hanssen.
A good director’s commentary still gets my attention, but few actually prove to be good.
Actors taking about themselves interests me not at all.
As a movie fanatic and filmmaker I love all the extras I can get. Whenever I can know more about the making of, or reasons behind, a film I devour it up. I love seeing behind the scenes documentaries. Retrospective docs I always enjoy. Commentaries are great when they work. Depends on who is doing it.
I will buy a DVD/Blu-ray for a film even if I only sort of like it if it has some extras I think I’ll enjoy. Sometimes you can learn a lot from a bad film. Even if it’s what not to do.