Truly Interesting Extras (1 Viewer)

Back in the day, I used to find the extras on a DVD interesting because it was something new that was a rarity to VHS. "Wow! Everyone always wanted to work with the other person and everyone became like a family during the filming. That's swell."
Then I was ruined by DVDs for older movies with stories of low budget trickery or troubled productions. eg. Alien 3 quad doc.
Now most of the extras I usually skip after the first minute because it is the run of the mill EPK stuff, but it doesn't say that there are still some truly original or just interesting extras out there on SD or HD. eg. Scarface's bullets and swears count, Insomnia's Commentary with scenes in order of the shooting schedule, or 300's HD-DVD blue screen PIP.
any suggestions on good HD or SD extras?

Supposedly the commentary tracks on Uwe Boll movies are quite entertaining as they often involve the writer trashing Boll for ruining the script, or Boll talking trash about cast member. But this would require sitting through a Uwe Boll movie, which is strongly recommended against by doctors.

One stands out to me. The Pinky Carruthers feature (sort of a pop-up-video thing) on Buckaroo Banzai is hilarious.

'Wonderland' is a passible true-crime drama about some 80's porn-related murders.

The second disc is actually FAR more interesting than the actual movie, due to a good doc on the murders, porn, and AIDs in the 80's.

This might be another case where a great exisiting doc convinced someone there was a movie in the story (similar to Dogtown and Z-boys), but the movie ends-up not being as good...

I actually think Wonderland is a pretty decent flick. But, yeah, the second disc and extras are quite good, not to mention extremely disturbing.

If you're into history channel type docs, the ones on the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones Volume One are veddy interesting IMHO.

The news and history type stuff, including a commentary by soldiers who fought in the actual battle, on the 3-disc edition of Black Hawk Down are great.

The Al Pacino version of The Merchant of Venice has a neat printable "teacher's guide" that talks about the history of the play. I think it might be available online as a PDF somewhere (look up my review in the archive -- there might be a link there).

The bonus content on the recently released The Jazz Singer is supposedly phenomenal.

The interactive mode, trivia track, and commentary on the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition is the cinematic equal to an annotated novel. It's almost overload if you have all three on at the same time since you're listening to James Cameon and William Wisher, reading the trivia track stuff (which points out the type of effect shots, locations, details), and watching for the branching feature "button" to pop up so you can watch a supplementary video.

The making-of documentaries for Psycho, The Birds, Ben-Hur, Gone with the Wind, THX 1138, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Wizard of Oz are all film lectures on a disc.

It IS phenomenal...and in many ways.

The documentary THE DAWN OF SOUND is exceptional, and worthy of a release on its own. You won't find it anywhere else, and it wasn't made for TV, although it's as good as the best I've seen on PBS or TCM.

It's worth the price of the DVD....

Equally wonderful is the 3rd disc entirely stuffed with 24 Vitaphone shorts from the late '20s. These could have easily fetched a $50 retail price and sold well with music and film buffs.

Warner has given us so many incredible extras on their releases that I think these efforts get taken for granted after a while....

I keep watching my JAZZ SINGER DVD set over and over again because there's so much great stuff on it.

Ditto to that. We are talking about the 1927 version right? Some very good stuff on that disc for film buffs including a ton of Vitaphone shorts (3.5 hours worth on disc 3) and an excellent doc on disc 2 about how the movies learned to talk. Well worth IMHO.

The 2nd disc of "The Devils Rejects" is pretty near a film school.

"Jersey Girl" has some pretty good extras too, lots of self mocking which is pretty rare. Kevin Smith always has good extras and commentaries though.

For extras, my favourite disk is "Se7en", the two disker. Worth it for the information on the color timing alone as you see in real time how they corrected the image. Amazing stuff.

Kevin Smith ALWAYS has great extras on his movie. The commentary tracks are always great (especially the ones with Affleck).

"Hot Fuzz" region 2 has some great stuff as well. All the web vignettes they did are both funny and interesting as it gives you a real taste of being on the set and how inexorably dull it can be. There's one in particular talking about weather, and the shot that lingers with me is everyone hiding under canopies etc... And Edgar Wright standing in the rain, getting soaked, with this look of grim determination on his face.

"Titanic", the historical commentary, is great too.

And while the movies get very little love, the extras on the 10 disk "Matrix" set are nothing short of fantastic IMO.

And of course it goes without saying the four disk "Lord of the Rings" releases are really the benchmark for DVD extras, and there's very little EPK fluff on it.

That "Jazz Singer" DVD... May have to pick that up. Don't care for the movie beyond it's historical importance, but all the extras just make me giddy with anticipation.

Definitely agree with Titanic and T2. Van Ling really knows how to make a DVD (and a Aliens powerloader).
Se7en was interesting as well. 4 non-boring commentaries and 96KHz stereo for the NIN song in the Opening credits breakdown. Who did that DVD? David Prior?

The extras on the 2-disc Big Trouble in Little China are great, including the easter eggs. Best hands down is the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell commentary.

Gilliamania: Don't forget the Criterion 3-disc edition of Brazil (now with anamorphic disc 1!) and the lengthy doc on the 12 Monkeys SE.

A new article from Variety about DVD extras and Special Edition features:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=20&cs=1