Ah, Tuesday! New DVDs are out today! Let's see...what would I be blowing my paycheque on if there were a DVD emporium in Athabasca?
The big one out today is Transformers. As is the case these days, it's available in a single-disc, movie-only version, and a 2-disc special edition. The 2-disc special edition has a running commentary with director Michael Bay, and all the usual acoutremonts like featurettes detailing the making of the film, galleries of concept art, and the trailers and all that.
There's a second big one out today. That would be the 2-disc special edition of Grindhouse presents: Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated. This is, of course, the Robert Rodriguiz contribution to the Grindhouse double-feature. More crazy zombie action! For bonus features, you've got running commentary with director Robert Rodriguiz, a slew of featurettes about the making of the film, and, of course, all those missing scenes are back in the film!
Of course, Rodriguiz has cooked up some special bonus features. There's the "audience reaction track." This is audio captured from a screening of the film, so you hear all the screams and laughs that you would have heard in the theatre. There's one of Rodriguiz's trademark "10 minute film school" featurettes, where he shows you how he makes all his films by himself and on the cheap. And, this also has the fake trailer that Rodriguiz directed for the Grindhouse double feature, Machette. To date, it's the only fake trailer on DVD!
I've often said that one of my favourite aspects of DVD is how dead TV shows get resurrected in a "complete series" boxed set. And today, we get Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: The Complete Series.
You may remember, this time last year, Studio 60 was one of the most-hyped new shows. TV genius Aaron Sorkin, who gave us The West Wing, was going to take us behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-ish TV show. Many agreed that the pilot episode was brilliant, but it never found its footing, Sorkin could never figure out what the was about, it never caught on, and just kind of limped its way through its one and only season.
Anyway, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and will probably be picking this up. Sadly, the only bonus feature you get is a running commentary on that brilliant pilot by Sorkin and his director Thomas Schlamme.
And, even though this DVD doesn't come out for another month, there's something worth noting on the DVD for Live Free and Die Hard.
It was announced today that the DVD for Live Free and Die Hard will also contain the film in a specially formatted, compressed video file. What does this mean?
You can legally rip the DVD to your computer or portable video device (eg iPod). All you do is copy this specially formatted, compressed video file to the device of your choice.
20th Century Fox is hoping to do this on a lot of their future DVD releases. Die Hard 4 just happens to be the first.
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