RIC MEYERS: Slings and Extras
Another week, another pair of good examples as to how DVD extras can enhance, deepen, and illuminate a previous viewing experience…especially when the subject matter is show business itself.
First stop, north of the border, and one of Canada’s best television series. For years I’ve been enjoying Slings & Arrows, the tragicomedic travails of a Shakespearean Festival Theatrical Troupe. Created by some of the same folk who made the hit Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone, and The Kids in the Hall, it has been consistently engrossing in its three seasons (of six episodes each).
In the first season, we were introduced to the core cast as they tried to get the theater on its feet and mount a memorable production of Hamlet. Season two saw more complications amid the cast and crew as they battled the “Scottish Play (Macbeth).” Arriving on DVD this week is the third (and most say, last) season, in which a production of King Lear is the focal point.
The first two seasons set the bar high in terms of Shakespearean drama and human comedy, but this third season does not disappoint in any way. In fact, it manages to resonate the first two seasons as well as cap off the tales of once-institutionalized artistic director Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), the love of his life Anna Conroy (Susan Coyne), the troupe’s financial director Richard Smith-Jones (former Hall Kid Mark McKinney), and the ghost of the former artistic director Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette) … and, yes, you read that right.
In addition, each season features a new cast of actors who play actors who are brought in to star in the season’s featured play, and, if anything, the third time’s the charm. William Hutt, a beloved Canadian actor, stars as Charles Kingman, a beloved Canadian actor who takes on Lear in more ways than one (in fact, Hutt died shortly after completing his role as a dying actor playing a dying King). Playing the actress playing Lear’s honorable daughter is Sarah Polley, the luminous star of such movies as The Sweet Hereafter and director of the recent art house film success Away From Her (she’s also the daughter of Mark Polley, who has been featured in all three seasons of the show as one of the troupe’s supporting players).
Suffice to say that all three box sets of the series are worthwhile. Now, onto the extras on this latest, and reportedly, last season. There’s interviews with star Paul Gross (who you might remember from the Canadian Mountie at large CBS series Due South) and co-writer/co-star Susan Coyne. In addition, there’s bloopers, outtakes, deleted scenes, photo galleries, and even song lyrics, but what makes the extras extra special are uninterrupted, unedited, and extended sequences from the “final” production of King Lear itself, which take on additional dimension once you’ve seen the backstage drama that went into creating them.
I’m spoiled already. Seven weeks into this column, and I yawn when I see a DVD with only one audio commentary. It wasn’t even seven weeks when I succumbed to the Critics Disease, judging each new entertainment against the one I had seen the day, week, month, or year before.
So now I feel I could have been a bit more adamant about the editions charms, especially with this sites readers. Maybe I should have mentioned that the extras come in two categories: the film, and the comic book. And it is in this latter category where the glory of this version truly lies. There are new, lovingly created docs each more than an hour long on the history of the comic from the 1960s until today, and on co-creator/artist supreme Jack Kirby.
A few weeks back I was waxing enthusiastic about Sony Home Entertainment’s line of Columbia Classics Collectors Editions, especially The Guns of Navarone two-disc set. Well, it turns out that 20th Century Fox wasnt going to take that lying down, so they started peppering me with flicks young and old for the old ultra-violence (yes, that’s A Clockwork Orange reference, what of it?).
The Reno 911 squad is not through with you yet, however. There are three audio commentaries: an entertainingly informative one with director Garant and writers Lennon and Kenney-Silver, and then two more with the cast in character as the hapless Nevada cops they play on TV. It’s like watching three different takes of the same movie. The group then go on to make it clear that they probably could’ve actually made three different movies, or more, with the extended deleted/alternate scenes, which, as is their wont, last fifteen minutes or more, until the improv runs out or the cameraman drops from exhaustion.
This is not actually a sequel to the Bruce Willis films where he stars as John McClane. This is actually a secret sequel to Unbreakable, where Willis stars as invulnerable hero David Dunn. Somewhere between Die Hard 2 and 3, the characters switched places.
Yes, yes, I know. This is the week both the extended versions of the original Fantastic 4 movie and Ghost Rider are in stores. Fine, great, more power to them. And, yes, I realize that this website is called ComicMix, so, by all rights, what follows should be an in-depth, all-inclusive examination of every extra, Easter egg, and digital particle on both these comic book inspired phantasmagoricals.
These two-disc DVD sets other extras — audio commentary, behind-the-scenes, making-of, and a nifty character history for Ghost Rider; three audio commentaries, scads of featurettes (including one on comic artist Jack Kirby), loads of concept art, and even more stuff like that there for FF are squeaky clean and informative, but dont make these pics resonate the way the two-disc Pans Labyrinth DVD did. To paraphrase Monty Python, these discs wouldnt resonate if you put 5000 volts through them.
Poor Cynthia Rothrock. She’s the first gweilo (white devil) woman to become a major star in the golden age of the Hong Kong kung-fu film, then gets relegated to such sad junk as the China O’Brien and Lady Dragon series in America. But for anybody who wants to know what the fuss was about, and those, like me, who want to see Cynthia regain her rightful place in the top echelon of action stars, the two newest Dragon Dynasty DVDs are the ones for you.
Take, for example, Above the Law, Rothrocks’ second HK film (following the classic Yes Madam, which also introduced Michelle Yeoh to an awed Chinese audience) and Dragon Dynasty’s ninth DVD release. What, say you, I don’t remember Cynthia Rothrock in that fine, first, 1988, Steven Seagal movie!? Thats because Cynthia was in the 1986 like-named Hong Kong film, which was more generally known as Righting Wrongs, which would have made a much less confusing, more easily ordered, title for this new DVD.
The fights Corey crams this movie with are boldly conceived, incredibly played, and well worth watching, even studying, repeatedly, which is a good thing since clips of them are shown repeatedly during the interesting Special Feature interviews with Rothrock, Baio, and Canadian kickboxing champ Peter Sugarfoot Cunningham (who co-stars as one of the many killers). The packaging copy isnt through with you at just the confusing title, however. The good news is that the disc also features alternate scenes (although not one Rothrock mentions in her interview) and endings, which aren’t listed on the box. The bad news is that, while the copy maintains that the film is letterboxed widescreen, it ain’t.
It’s that time again. I’m back on my annual summer filmfest tour. My first, and favorite, stop is FanimeCon in San Jose (“By Fans, For Fans”) California, where my friends at Media Blasters showcased riches aplenty – some recent, one brand spanking new.
First, the good news: the mass of extras do nothing to lessen the impact of this literally unforgettable entertainment (although I almost hoped it would, given the intensity of the flick). They include a new 16×9 transfer, audio commentary with both the director and the manga artist/writer (Hideo Yamamoto), interviews with the actors and producer, and an illuminating on-the-set making-of doc.
Oh, you lucky consumers. This week, all the benefits of DVD watching have come to the fore with four classics that come in four different varieties. First, celebrate all ye cinema-of-the-fantastic fans, for two of the greatest science fiction and fantasy films of the 21st century are now out on disc but only one in a way that shows how superior the DVD format is to virtually every other medium.
Instead, go right to the Two Disc Platinum Series, which envelops the already magical, monstrous, mystical, and majestic film with gobs of film-enhancing extras. All too often, even when a DVD has loads of extras, they’re not really film-enhancing. They may be film-promoting, film-marketing, film-indulging, or even film-smoke-blowing, but it only takes a few of those to know the real deal when it comes around. Each of the documentaries included on the Platinum Edition make successive viewings of the film all the more enriching and enjoyable.
As a contributor (audio commentaries, on-camera interviews, liner notes, and packaging copy) to more than three hundred DVDs in America and Asia, I’ve always wanted a source for what ComicMix is now allowing me to do — review DVDs specifically on the quality of their extras (audio commentaries, makings-of, et al). When deciding upon which DVDs to buy and which to rent, that’s often the deciding factor.
More accessible and superheroic is Born to Fight (Dragon Dynasty [The Weinstein Co.] Two-Disc Ultimate Edition), which is flailing feverishly to get out of the shadow of Thailands most famous and popular action export (Thai Warrior, aka Ong-Bak). The same fearless stunt crew worked on both films, but the latter starred Muy Thai boxing great Tony Jaa, whos attitude and strength mirror Bruce Lee while his acrobatics and films crib from Jackie Chan’s homework.
