Homebody Chronicles
Those DVD extras take a lot of extra time
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
One hundred and twenty-five.
That's the exact number of DVDs I found in my collection on a recent day off.
Illustration by Jon Orque • The Honolulu Advertiser
Since it took me 3 1/2 years to get to 125 — yep, I was one of those true DVD believers who forked over $550 for a player back in 1997 — I don't consider myself a DVD addict. I mean, do the math. It's only .7 of a DVD a week. Instead, call me a sucker for all the supplemental material that film studios lavish on DVD releases because of the format's huge information storage capacity.
Director and actor commentaries. Deleted scenes. Outtakes. Special-effects creation sequences. Film documentaries. A personal look at Reese Witherspoon's acting process. Such "extras," or lack thereof, can make the difference between skipping the purchase of a movie I absolutely love ("Blade Runner" comes with production notes, and only production notes. Yawn.) and eagerly buying a flick I only "sort of" like ("The Rock's" two-disc package contains the film's Alcatraz premiere and Sean Connery's reference to director Michael Bay as a "f***head." Whoohoo!).
At best, extras offer the film buff in all of us intimate peeks into the creation of Hollywood's greatest movies straight from the mouths of the folks who make them. At worst, you get Piper Perabo dramatically discussing what it meant to be a bar-top dancer in "Coyote Ugly."
I reached a moment of clarity in my rampant DVD consumerism after blowing $27.99 on a two-disc, special-edition "Fight Club" set, drawn to its five director commentaries, 17 special effects documentaries, two dozen trailers and countless publicity materials. Even though I despise the movie.
Which is how I found myself counting my collection of DVD titles, 97.9 percent of which contained hours of largely unwatched extras. Clearly, a full day in front of the tube was in order. Not to watch entire films, mind you. But to "couch" from sun up until sun down cleansing myself of my supplemental materialism.
I imagined discovering the lost endings of "The Sixth Sense," "Clerks" and "The Exorcist." Finding the concert footage left out of the "Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense" theatrical release. Maybe I'd get Michael Bay himself explaining why "Armageddon" was so godawful.
My diary began at sunrise, one Saturday morning.
• 6:45 a.m., "Aliens": Director James Cameron — in a tacky-even-for-1986 black silk aloha shirt — reveals in an interview that his budget allowed only enough alien suits for six monsters to appear on screen at once. His shirt keeps reminding me of Winter Ball 1984 at Hilo High School. I hated Winter Ball 1984 at Hilo High School.
• 7:15 a.m., "Almost Famous": I scroll through six Rolling Stone articles written by director Cameron Crowe (my journalistic hero) as a teenager. All of which only prove that Crowe was a better writer at 16 than I am at 34.
• 8:15 a.m., "The Blair Witch Project": A 43-minute "fake" documentary is only slightly more fascinating than the "fake" film it references. Which is to say, not much. After an hour, I now know that Heather was an "A" student, Josh had a bad attitude and Mike, in general, was not very bright.
• 9:30 a.m., "Bring It On": "Pop Up Video"-style trivia spanning the length of the warring cheerleaders film reveals 2Unlimited's "Get Ready For This" as the most abused cheerleading song, and outs Samuel L. Jackson and Dwight Eisenhower as former cheerleaders. Rah rah rah.
• 11:30 a.m., "Armageddon": A whole disc of extras includes star Bruce Willis instructing other actors on what their motivation should be ... in a Michael Bay film ... with a killer asteroid.
• 1:30 p.m., "Being John Malkovich": Lunch and "An Intimate Portrait of the Art of Background Driving." The only documentary about actors hired to drive their cars past movie scenes you'll ever need to see.
• 2:30 p.m., "Contact": Director Robert Zemeckis reveals in a commentary how almost none of the skies in the movie are real. Kind of like Matthew McConaughey's performance.
• 5 p.m., "American Pie": I find out what was really in the tainted beer that Stifler drank and the number of apple pies assaulted by Jason Biggs. Don't ask.
• 7 p.m., "City of Angels": In one of two documentaries, Nicolas Cage whines about the robotic nature of his angel character. What, wasn't Matthew McConaughey available?
• 7:45 p.m., sunset: My girlfriend, Dawn, who I've promised to take to "A.I." in two hours, asks why I've yet to pass the "C" titles.
Only 116 DVDs to go. You do the math.
Derek Paiva is on vacation this week. He said he wasn't going anywhere special, so we can only assume he's somewhere near the "S" DVDs right now. He can be reached at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8005.
