Today our growing panel of film pundits looks at DVD technology and some recent DVDS are given the once or twice over. Starting with my :
DANNY'S DVD DISSES - 10 SPECIAL FEATURE PET PEEVESDoncha just hate :
1. DVD's that don't let you skip trailers for other movies to get to the menu
2. Films that have their special features on a second one sided disc. There's no reason not to use both sides of one disc! Do we really need double disc editions of movies like Duplex or Eight Crazy Nights? I don't think so.
3. DVDs that are so packed with extras - documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews, etc. But for some reason don't include the original theatrical trailer.
4. DVDs that only include the original theatrical trailer as a "special feature".
5. Does anyone care whether a DVD has a "collectible booklet" or not? Ever hear anyone ever say anything along the lines of "man, the special edition of Goldfinger has an awesome booklet inside"? I didn't think so.
6. Chapter Selection listed as a "special feature".
7. Photo galleries and written bio/filmographies. Uh - we have the internet thank you.
8. DVDs that have special features listed in their menus but when you go there it says "for special features insert disc 2". I mean come on!
9. That off setting pause while a layer switches during play. Some discs its less notable than others but damnit it foreshadows another better format on the horizon I feel.
10. When directors talk about material in the commentaries that should be included on the DVD but isn't. For Example - Airplane! had a lot of outtakes re-inserted in it's network TV debut but it is stupidly absent from the DVD, Roger And Me showed on PBS with a half hour sequel of sorts - a short called Pets Or Meat in which Michael Moore follows up on what happened to the people presented in the movie. It feels like a criminal act not to include it on the DVD.
One final mention - the original Simpsons shorts from the Tracy Ullman show. Why weren't they part of the 1st season Simpsons DVD set? Why?!!?
Next New York based writer and sometime comedian
Bertie Shafer gives us some yaking about so-called "alternate endings" feature on a lot of them there DVDs :
THE END...OR WAS IT?Anyone with a casual interest in film knows that sometimes a movie has more than one ending shot. Sometimes as an afterthought but most of the time after initial test screenings were greeted with negative reactions.
Fatal Attraction is a classic example. In the original version Michael Douglas's adultery committing-ass is hauled off to prison after the suicide commiting crazy lady Glenn Close frames him for her murder. Wham! Right? But no - supposedly audiences couldn't take such a downer ending in which the supposed male protagonist "hero" is done in by his evil deed. No let's give it a more conventional slasher ending with Close assaulting Douglas and wife Anne Archer and with a cliched she's-dead-no-she's-not-dead mentality driving it and audiences will love it! Well actually they did. Fatal Attraction was a huge hit for Paramount even making the cover of Time Magazine so maybe they played their cards right. Actually adultery as a social issue in the news was the real factor behind it's success I believe so the ending would've resonated more in it's original incarnation I believe as well. The special edition Fatal Attraction DVD (Paramount) contains the alternate ending so all is not lost.
Shortly before that the remake of
The Little Shop Of Horrors was retinkered with to give it a happier ending in which Seymour (Rick Moranis) and Audrey (Ellen Greene) win the battle against gigantic killer plant Audrey 2 and run off happily to the suburbs and wedded bliss. The 1986 movie was based on the stage play that comically reworked the campy 1960 Roger Corman flick into a twisted '50's'sci-fi musical. The play on stage retained the original movie's ending in which Audrey 2 ate Seymour, his girlfriend Aubrey and everybody else then growing big enough to demolish New York and proceed to make a feast of the entire planet. There was even a song that accompanied this - "Don't Feed the Plants". Apparently test audiences disliked this ending and the happy ending was made and it was the only one ever after. To this day the original ending is a rare disc extra. A 1998 special edition of the film had it included but it was recalled (!) by David Geffen who hadn't given permission to use the footage to Warner Brothers. So don't look for it on DVD now but maybe it'll surface someday.
Also notable for being absent on what would be an excellent special edition DVD release is the alternate pie fight ending to
Dr. Strangelove. That's right - a pie fight in the war room. Not that I've seen it. Only photos of it on one DVD edition. Too bad - it would be so nice to view that footage. Also Oliver Stone talked of filming a different ending of
JFK in which Jim Garrison actually wins his case in court implicating one of the conspirators. Where the hell is that?
Of course you'll find as you click on the alternate ending feature in your DVD menu that some are not really alternate at all. In the case of
Thelma and Louise is an extended ending in which nothing different happens - it's just a different longer take. The conclusion of
Arlington Roadis only changed by the point of view shots of one character - the outcome and fates are still intact.
28 Days Later likewise is different only by the exclusion of a character in the editing. An alternate ending first and only is the 1984 board game inspired but Murder By Death retread
Cluein which 3 separate endings revealing different muderers were released theatrically simultaneously meaning you'd see a different ending depending on what theater you went to. The gimmick didn't pay off - the flick flopped and all video releases contain all 3 endings. According to the
IMDB a 4th ending was shot but never shown.
"They said to me on the phone 'you know if you had a happy ending on this movie we really think we could go through the roof with it - it would be a great cmmercial movie' and I said 'look that's the movie. The only reason I made the movie is because of the tragic ending otherwise I wouldn't have made the film" - Woody Allen on
The Purple Rose Of Cairo Nobody knows what the Woodman is talking about more than Terry Gilliam. The well documented struggles over his 1986 classic
Brazil make clear the implications of a comprised ending by committee. The alternate ending on the so called Sid Sheinberg version (he was the Universal executive that demanded changes to the film especially the bleak ending) caps an alternate movie in full. Butchered beyond the grasp of the intended thematic crux this Spielbergian "happy version" is sadly the TV version. Meaning its the only version a certain segment of the populace will ever experience. The horror...The Horror!
I started this piece on alternate endings as a list - something like Best Alternate Endings on DVD but I kept coming up short. Instead of a cool DVD curio the alternate ending feature seems more and more to say "artistic differences in view" or "compromises may seem bigger than they appear". Of course if the DVDs for such titles as Identity, Runaway Jury, or Matchstick Men had alternate endings that were actually good and less contrived I'd be more excited about seeing this feature in the menu. Nevertheless here's some of the most notable DVDs that have more than one ending to offer the discriminating viewer :
TO LIVE AND DIE IN LASE7EN - Not really an "alternate ending" - it's the test screening ending. I mean the same thing happens just with different shots.
AUSTIN POWERS : INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY - 2 endings labeled "original ending 1 and 2" on the DVD. Too bad neither is very good.
SPY GAMEUNFAITHFUL
FROM HELL
BANDITS
JOY RIDE - "4 shocking new endings!"
UNDERCOVER BROTHER - DVD box boasts "outrageous alternate ending!" Of course it was nothing of the sort.
NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE
COLD CREEK MANOR
ENTRAPMENTYeah - those last few entries were really going for quality control huh? You can see that the best movies (with a few exceptions) benefit by sticking with one definitive ending.
- Bertie Shafer
If you have any favorite or notable "alternate endings" that you'd like to share? Email the Film Babble fun bunch at :
cookieco@sprynet.comAgain here's
Sarah Warner with her unique brand of list fun. Enjoy :
You know my personal God Woody Allen gets dissed for a lot of reasons. One of which really always irked me - if his movies are supposed to be the epitome of "quintessential New York" where the Hell are the black people? So let me clear this up - there have been black people in the Woodman's films even back in the 70's. Here are the top 5 -
African Americans In Woody Allen Movies :1. Frank Adu - Love And Death : As the Russian drill sergeant in Woody's Tolstoy spoof Adu delivers a non-stereotypical authority figure who berates bumbling soldier Allen. Bootcamp follies ensue!
2. Annie Joe Edwards - Purple Rose Of Cairo/Bullets Over Broadway : Okay at first these seem like obvious Gone With The Wind maid caricature roles but Edward actually rises above that with A. Some of the best lines in the script and B. Then sense that she's the smartest person in the room.
3. Hazelle Goodman - Deconstructing Harry : Okay skeptics said something like "the first major black role in a Woody Allen movie and it's a hooker!" But damnit the character is written as a black womnecessarilyily - just a woman with a colorful past and realist approach. Goodman also appeared in Woody's 9/11 short-film shown at the Concert For NYC (2001)
4. Anthony Mason - Celebrity : Charlotte Hornets NBA player who makes a brief appearance as himself shows up protagonist Kenneth Branaugh before skirting off on another passing cloud.
5. Ties - Emme Kemp, Clark Gayton, Marcus McLaurine - Sweet And Lowdown : Many dismiss the back room scenes early on as token extra casting in Sweet and Lowdown but you gotta give Woody props for trying to assimilate into black jazz culture in some way even it feels like a throwaway background device.
Honestly I wanted this to be a top ten list but could only come up with 5. Whoa - maybe the Woodman's critics have a point!
Nah - I just think Woody writes what he knows and black culture or any other culture away from Jewish, NY, jazz-minded, etc. is a different world for him. But give him props for trying!
For Danny's Film Babble Blog this has been List Queen Sarah Warner
And now this editions DVD review corner :
COLD CREEK MANOR (2003) - Bertie Shafer's bit on alternate endings is apt in appraisal of this dud. The DVD has an alternate ending but it hardly matters considering that this is just another trip down the Shining/Cape Fear/Kalifornia predictable thriller path with even some Blair Witch and The Ring thrown in for some kind of measure. You know the story - well to do family moves out to the country to escape the dangers of the city but finds the supposed home of their dreams has a dark gruesome past. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone are the high powered long married couple who uproute their kids and careers and settle for a country mansion once owned by Stephen Dorfe. Dorfe immediately recalls Brad Pit's white trash murderer in KALIFORNIA. Dorfe's waitress girlfriend played by Juliette Lewis drives home that reference. Snakes mysteriously appear, clues to a possible murder conveniently pop up, and marital strife adds friction - wife Stone admits to coming close to cheating on husband Quaid in a EYES WIDE SHUT manner. There isn't an original bone in this old school creaky manor to be found! A number of critics were let down by the complete lack of supernatural elements and I agree - you might as well have an ancient Indian burial ground if your gonna have all these other cliches that are literally from Hell! Makes the formulaic and contrived WHAT LIES BENEATH look like ROSEMARY'S BABY
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Edward CallistanKeep on keepin' on. Film Babble will return...
It's frustrating making Oscar picks every year in the category of Best Foreign Film because of no access to the nominees. The films don't show in my area until months afterward (if they come to theaters here at all) or their DVD releases are way after the fact. The buzz was strong on this one - it won the Academy Award as predicted and it is thankfully making the rounds arriving here today. It is so welcome because THE COUNTERFEITERS is an excellent stirring World War II era drama about what has been called “the largest counterfeiting operation in history”. It begins in the late 40's with an infamous forger named Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) who while gambling in Monte Carlo with large sums of money flashes back to 1936 Berlin. In that turbalent time his success in the illegal trade is interupted when he is arrested by the police led by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow) and thrown into a concentration camp. He impresses his Nazi captors with his skills in art drawing romantised portraits of his guards which helps him avoid harsher treatment. He is transferred and brought up before the snooty Herzog again who places him in a select group of other talented print-minded prisoners is forced to forge in a special secret unit of Sachsenhausen called Operation Bernhard.
The accomendations, including actual beds and showers, are extremely appealing in this new deal but the concept of helping the Nazis flood the market with fake currency destroying Britain and America's economy is more than a bit troubling. A fellow forger with a reactionary agenda - Adolf Burger * (August Diehl) constantly sabotages the efforts to counterfeit the U.S. dollar as the Nazis turn the heat up creating a level of gripping tension that never lags. Markovics carries the movie with a stern furrow-browed brood intensely persuading us to Sorowitsch's cunning sense of survival. While not pretty this Austrian film is filled with what I can only describe as a lush grittiness - Benedict Neuenfels' cinematography, even with a limited pallette of greys and darkness, is as absorbing as the story. THE COUNTERFEITERS is a near perfect depiction of a true story, albeit with amalgams and slight embellishments, and a film that I really hope folks will seek out.
SMART PEOPLE (Dir. Noam Murro, 2008) Dennis Quaid is Lawrence Wetherhold - a haggard looking washed up widower professor at Carnegie Mellon University with a ne'er-do-well adopted brother (Thomas Haden Smith), a wisecracking Republican daughter (Ellen Page), and what he is told is an unpublishable manuscript. It is illustrated right off the bat that Wetherhold is a schlub. He doesn't take time to get to know his students - let alone learn their names and he double parks his car which gets it towed and him injured, getting knocked out cold jumping the fence trying to recoup his briefcase. Coming to in a hospital room he is greeted by Sarah Jessica Parker as his attending doctor. There is something of a spark between them so Quaid and Parker attempt to have what he calls a “face to face” meeting despite disaproval from his daughter and his being extremely embarrassingly 'out of practice' as he apologizes after their first disastrous dinner date.
The underlining question is - will Whetherhold get his groove back? The jaded faded writer/professor role has shades of Quaid's role in D.O.A. (he who crucially stated “publish or perish”) - another character who had to regroup to reclaim his passion and Thomas Haden Church seems to be macking on his former glory in SIDEWAYS - a fact the poster calls attention to with it's lime green and “from the producers of” plug. Then there's Ellen Page whose character is conservative with a 8X10 of Reagan on her bedroom wall and citing career steps from Dick Cheney but this character trait is just a disposable detail - it never comes up in any conflict or specified way. Her lines just come off like recycled JUNO: “I Appreciate the tip, Dr. Phil” and “suddenly I'm in an Afterschool Special”. It's her schtick and Haden Church's dubious deliveries in the first half that has SMART PEOPLE play like quirk by the numbers. The second half is more of a sober drama with introspection and pondering close-ups but the whole affair never rises above WONDER BOYS-light. Quaid does befuddled wonderfully and it's nice to see Parker as someone less neurotically obsessed with romance as her Carrie Bradshaw character on Sex And The City but this, as earnest as it is in some scenes, never really amounts to anything special. SMART PEOPLE was no doubt made by smart people but I wish they were smarter about making them interesting people. Then maybe I would give a damn about them.