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Push play to reveal DVD extras
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times You don't have to be a film critic to appreciate the special features offered by DVD technology, but I have to admit it helps. It takes a higher dedication to cinema -- or at least to a particular movie -- than many film lovers possess to wade through the abundance of bonuses available on DVDs. Some people don't want to sit through The Godfather trilogy again while Francis Ford Coppola drowns out the dialogue with running commentary. Others can't imagine listening to a 30-minute radio broadcast from the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. They don't care if Clarice Starling's shootout in Hannibal can be viewed from various camera angles, then edited together at your whim. Creative details and historical data are for film classes, some believe, not home entertainment. Just plug in the movie. While you're up, give me that rotary dial telephone and turn down the eight-track player. And why is that VCR still flashing "12:00"?
Okay, that's an exaggeration. You're not that far behind the times. But movie audiences are getting smarter about the way films are made, their artistic heritage and their vitality beyond the screen. Those bonus features you're missing without a DVD player (or skipping if you have one) are a key reason why. The best DVD packages provide crash courses in the art of filmmaking and the creative instincts working behind the camera, especially through audio commentary tracks you can choose to hear instead of the soundtrack when the movie is played. Narrators are recorded while watching the movie, so their comments coincide with the action on screen. Certainly some commentaries can be accused of being too technical or dry for mainstream tastes. Ron Howard, for example, is a nice guy and a top-notch director but his commentary track for A Beautiful Mind could cure insomnia. I'll confess to abusing the fast-forward button whenever cinematographers or special effects designers narrate their work. Sometimes the mutual admiration or empty rhetoric among actors gets old. But there are gems to be uncovered. Among them: The cast of This is Spinal Tap staying in character and topping the movie's hilarity at times. Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh picking Mike Nichols' brain about how he made Catch-22. Coppola's passion for Italian-American and family themes in The Godfather trilogy. Candid producers revealing who didn't get hired for Speed. Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal joshing their way through a screening of Analyze This. Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich breaking down Citizen Kane. Behind-the-scenes featurettes are also common bonuses, although many have already been seen on Internet sites and cable TV channels. More ambitious DVDs include featurettes produced exclusively for the set, such as Richard Rush's oddly conceived history of his 1980 cult favorite, The Stunt Man. Some making-of material is exhaustive and some, such as nearly five hours of self-glorifying peeks at Pearl Harbor, is simply exhausting. Other common bonuses include preview trailers, storyboard sketches used in plotting camera shots, production notes, photo galleries and poster art. A quick scan of the DVD cover will let you know what's available. Any DVD that doesn't at least include the aforementioned features isn't worth owning, except for sentimental value.
From there, the only limitations of DVD extras are the producer's imagination and budget. Some bonuses become fanciful extensions of the movie, such as Wes Anderson's focus on the biographical doodles and character-defining paintings adorning the walls of The Royal Tenenbaums. A great concert documentary such as The Last Waltz can be embellished with previously deleted footage of the Band jamming with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Paul Butterfield, among others. The commercialism satirized by Fight Club comes into sharper focus, and Amelie becomes a film to be reconsidered after first rejection. Filmmakers often use the DVD format to show off what theatergoers missed, deleted scenes and alternate endings that sometimes change a film's pace or tone. Joy Ride, a tidy 2001 thriller, is given three alternative endings on DVD, including a 30-minute third act that was completely produced then scrapped in favor of an entirely different conclusion. Some extras take viewers deeper into subjects addressed by the movie, delving into a newspaper account and interactive timeline of the OK Corral gunfight in Tombstone or a video tour of Jack the Ripper's crime scenes in From Hell. Cameron Crowe's semiautobiographical Almost Famous is a great excuse to revisit his Rolling Stone interviews with rock 'n' roll legends. Not all extras are geared for adult tastes. Toy Story: The Ultimate Toy Box contains a feature allowing remote control users to take a 3-D animated flight through the two films' sets. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone did the same for the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with interactive games for Potterphiles to test their knowledge and navigation skills. Some child's play, such as Dopey's mineshaft maze in the Platinum Edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is too elementary to keep them entertained for long. But children wishing to sing karaoke-style along with Willy Wonka or study dinosaurs through video encyclopedias in Jurassic Park or Dinotopia can have a ball. DVD bonus features are so varied in content and quality, and their appeal so depends on the viewer's preference for a certain movie, that suggesting where new DVD users should begin is a futile exercise. First and foremost, pick a movie you want to watch without considering the extras. If you enjoy the show, it's more tempting to learn all about it. Do a little research on the DVD cover or Internet retail sites such as www.amazon.com to see what bonuses are available and on which version, since distributors are constantly fiddling with expanded editions of popular titles. For example, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring debuted recently with an interesting two-disc set, but a massive four-disc collection is due in November. The Times (in the Weekend section on Thursdays) and other publications regularly publish DVD columns spotlighting recent releases, taking them for a test drive and reporting the results. Log onto Web sites such as DVD Verdict (www.dvdverdict.com) and DVD Review (www.dvdreview.com) to find detailed reviews of practically all new DVDs, often archived so visitors can check what an old favorite offers. Above all, take time after watching the movie to explore your options. The menu button and directional arrows on the remote control are your friends. Some bonuses, like the movies they service, may be disappointing for one reason or another. But there's always something else out there that will inform, inspire or simply entertain viewers who search long enough. Just push play.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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