Secondary Audio

I’ve been spending a bit of time in my office hacking late at night (Lex is pulling double-duty between the Banc and a new dig in the city, so she goes to bed at like 7 or 8). When I’m doing a bunch of random things on the computer late at night I like to have something on the TV or DVD player in order to KEEP THE VOICES QUIET. Since I haven’t run a cable from the Tivo through the wall to my office I’ve been going through our DVD collection in methodical repetition. However, after the fourth or fifth viewing of The Birdcage you get a little tired of the same old dialog (OK, not for that one, but you get the idea).

Ahh, but well-produced DVDs posses my saviour; commentary tracks! Not having taken care to wait for that six-month-post-release-extortion by the studios on all of our library purchases, only about half of our collection is elite enough to have any special features (since when does the theatrical trailer count as a special feature?!?).

My favorite so far? Multi-person commentaries by the non-star/non-director people in The Mummy (you get the real feel for the shoot from the non-primadonas), anything director commentary by John Hughes (all of the background dirt on the movies that foreshadowed our high school years), and most of all, the group commentary on the Kevin Smith/View Askew movies (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, …). Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, and the film producer and historian have some hilarious stories/general debauchery for everyone. Kind of like a dirty version of Mystery Science 3000.

I think in fact after watching the whole five episodes of Smith’s New Jersey “trilogy” I’ve got to say that his earliest work is my favorite. Clerks, Mallrats, the first half of Chasing Amy, all hilarious. Kind of like Quentin Terrantino; Resevior Dogs is one of my all-time favorite movies, Pulp Fiction is fantastic, and it all went downhill from there (couldn’t even stand to watch the Kill Bill’s).

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