Primal Nutrition DVD Bonus Pack

I finally saw some good features again recently. But first! Master Formula and Primal Nutrition are my two health links this month. Blam, it's done.

Okay, now about Beowulf. First off, I should say I liked the movie, probably more than most people. Audiences didn't really know how to react to the movie. It was CGI, and we'd just been pumped full of five years worth of family-friendly goofy CGI movies. Then Beowulf charges up and decides to be about "eating, drinking, fighting, and fornicating" as director Robert Zemeckis so eloquently put it.

To the bafflement of critics and nay-sayers everywhere, the movie ended up with a PG-13 rating. Apparently the MPAA decided as long as everything was CG, it didn't matter if there were bodies ripped in half, naked bleeding corpses, heads bitten off, references to the female genitalia as "twat" and Angelina Jolie's nude body, nipples to buttocks. CGI's for kids, folks! Especially if it's 3-D, you're kids will look adorable in those little goggles!

Thus, people were confounded when they walked out of the theater, trying to explain what happened when Beowulf and Angelina Jolie "hugged" while naked.

But I loved it. It made a clear statement, delivered on action and fun, and the story had the essence of a grand tale, something rarely seen today.

But this blog isn't about the movie, it's about the DVD, and the DVD features were amazing. Zemeckis was completely candid with his biographer, showing the foibles and problems or the film, actors, directors, and technical side. The real brilliance of the movie was watching exactly how all the real life acting matched up to the CG. The way all the actors were pitted up with hundreds of little sensors, and a neon glowing set was created for computer mapping later. It was a real 101 for the graphic arts bunch, and I include myself in that bunch, I'd say required watching for anyone thinking of going into special effects.

There's no great standard, good format for television bonus features. Some shows put all the features on a seperate disc at the end, which means Netflix users have to order the extra disc as well (the same is true for Criterion Edition movies, damn you Criterion!). Other shows spread the features out over all 6 discs of the show, so you get little snippets, but there's no real guide or delineation.

But, the real problem with TV bonus features is the chronology. Modern television is filled with cliffhangers and plot twists. 34, Lost, Prison Break. Yes, Jack Bauer will save the day. And yes, they will break out of Prison. But I don't wan't to find out how, or who has to die for that to happen until I watch it on my DVD player.

Of course, I begin to listen to the commentary on the first episode of the first disc of 24, and Keifer Sutherland mentions every character that dies through the course of the next 23 episodes. Now what do I have to look forward to?

Also, one of the major problems with television, is so few TV shows survive to make it all the way to DVD that barely any shows ever bother with bonus material. Even if your movie sucks, you know there will be a DVD of it, so you can do some behind-the-scenes/bloopers sort of stuff. If you television show sucks, it never airs, and no one ever sees it.

Okay, now remember to stay on that paleo diet you've been telling yourself about, and keep reading every health blog in sight!

Remember Wynona Ryder back when she was cute? Or Christian Bale back when he was trying to be a young Jack Nicholson? Those were the days. Those were the days of Heathers, one of the first great dark high school comedies. A biting satire, and morbid as hell, Heathers is still a cult classic today.

But, what about the DVD commentary? Turns out it's pretty informative. The producer of the movie (he still has washboard abs today!) talks about pulling the whole project together, even though mainstream Hollywood didn't want to touch it. The writer talks about several different endings, most of which involved Winona biting the dust, but the director and the producer decided that was just a bit too dark, so they let her live for the final cut.

The DVD also includes the original script in page format, which is fascinating but a bit tricky to read on a television screen, plus you have to click through the still frames every page, which gets a bit annoying. But it's still cool to see the style of the original writing.

Okee doke, that's all for this month. Next month I'll probably write about the best antioxidant. After that I may talk about how to buy vitamin pills, or some such thing like that, but until then, keep listening to those commentaries!

I don't know how they greenlit a third film in this awful series, but what baffles me even more is the director of Transporter seems to be getting work all over Hollywood. The movies are awful, even by action movie standards. There aren't any funny lines, the action sequences are off the wall ridiculous, and for the life of me I can't remember what the plot was, who the villain was, or why anything was even happening for these two films.

But, as I've said before, this is not a movie review blog, it's a DVD commentary blog.

And the DVD commentary lives up to the standards of the movie.

The commentary is mostly Jason Stathom, and I believe the director might have been there as well, but he doesn't add anything to the commentary which is fitting, since he didn't add much to the movie. Stathom does all the talking, and what does he say?

He describes what's happening. Exactly.

He literally walks through each scene of the movie as its playing out and says what's going on...

"Right here I'm swinging an axe at this guy. And no I'm about to run down those stairs out to chase the guy in the street. In the next scene I get back in my car and call the bad guy on my cell phone. There it is, I just got in my car. Now I call the guy. Now its going to cut away from me...there. There's the bad guy."

I don't know what is worse, watching Transporter, or listen to Jason Stathom do the blow-by-blow. Probably the worst, is me taking the time to watch the DVD commentary.

Links are simple this week, orthorexia nervosa and people search private eye.

The Criterion Collection is one of the most respected publishers in the DVD industry. They go back to laserdiscs, including "making-of" documentaries on trilogies like the Godfather and Star Wars back when nobody watched "making of" documentaries. Today they have a long list of released classics in 2-disc collections. All the big names are on the list, but they also cover the cult, the silver-age indie, and a good amount of foreign cinema.

I recently watched the Criterion edition of 8 1/2. It was the first Felini film I saw, and I watched it back in high school. I remember being confused and mildly delighted. The second viewing was much better.

But I'm not reviewing the movie, I'm reviewing the Bonus Features!

There is a documentary in the bonus features about Felini score composer. The doc is 90 minutes long, which is unfortunate because the composer just didn't have a very interesting life. There's not much actual footage of the man, which leaves a bevy of stock footage of Rome during the 60's to be shown while the doc makers wax poetic at such a "complicated and yet simple man." It was awful.

As I plodded through the rest of the special features, I wondered what Felini might say if he had seen the dry, almost intrusively methodical information being doled out about his film.

Then I came to the interview section...

For the interviews, someone had placed a camera in front of some of the film's actors (now 40 years older), and just let them talk as long as they wanted.

One of the interviewees was the actress who played the wild woman, the one the "director" had a long time affair with. The actress was now aged, possibly 70, yet dressed in all the flair and make-up of her 30's. I was ready for silliness...

The woman smiled and began to talk of Felini. She did not talk about the director Felini, or the "Felini" with a capital "F." She talked about the man she fell in love with, the romantic she had a long time affair with, and a final love that was left unrequited. Her story was poignant and sad. You could tell Felini had broken her heart, many times even, yet she still loved him. And finally her story comes to the winter years where she eventually broke Felini's heart, and they parted ways. The woman had me in tears by the end of her interview, I wanted to go shoot a movie of her life. "My Life with Felini" it would be called and would be wonderfully artistic and obtuse and would be praised by a few art house critics and panned by everyone and seen by no one, but it would have been wonderful.

Finally, switching tracks, I also review health websites as well as DVDs and this months health websites are the buy vitamin website and the how to relieve stress website. They're both good, take a look at them.