They range in importance from monumental to catastrophic: the war in Iraq, the discontinuation of Ben and Jerry’s One Sweet Whirled, the fact that Ann Coulter is allowed on any television channel that’s not Animal Planet, and so on.
But none of those arguments is as epically, cataclysmically, hyperbolically compelling as the fact that Saw has a DVD Special Edition. Some DVDs will just never have the extra features they deserve. As much as I’d like Stanley Kubrick to explain just what he was doing – and dying is not an acceptable answer – when making Eyes Wide Shut, a commentary track just doesn’t look very likely. At least not without a Ouija board. But the fact that every movie gets a 200-Proof Special Limited Platinum Collector’s DVD With Extra Retsin is just unnecessary. Completely unnecessary. Kind of like Ashlee Simpson.
All of these decked out DVDs serve one purpose: They help the studios get you, the consumer, accustomed to the reality that a new, better edition of a DVD will be released immediately upon confirmation of the fact that you bought the old one. Then you’ll have to buy the new one. But I can’t help but be sad that many landmark films, from directors such as Roberto Rossellini and Akira Kurosawa, still have not found their way to DVD, probably because the shelves are so crowded with 47 different special editions of The Butterfly Effect, each with a separate alternate ending. Forget an alternate ending, that DVD needs an alternate movie.
But to return to my original question, does Saw really need a DVD edition with two commentary tracks, three making-of documentaries and Spanish subtitles? Between the Inquisition, the Franco government and the yearly spectacle of foreigners getting 90 mile-per-hour bull-horn enemas in Pamplona, haven’t the Spanish suffered enough?
And why include three laughably unnecessary making-of documentaries? Is there anyone out there who is going to teach themselves how to make a horror movie by using Saw as a model? That would be like building cars with the Corvair as your template. It would be like using Keith Richards as a role model for healthy substance intake. Which, I guess would be okay. If you were a Corvair.
In comparison, the DVD release of Chinatown has some short interviews with its creative principles and nothing else. No commentary tracks, no making-of documentary, no deleted scenes. It doesn’t even have a wind-up toy version of the scene where Roman Polanski slices Jack Nicholson’s nose off. I almost forget why I own the DVD. Oh yeah … because I like the movie. m
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