This is why I warned everyone back in September in the audio edition about buying the bare bones Sin City DVD. I knew a special edition would be on its way soon enough. And lo and behold, it is almost here. There looks to a fair amount of extras; some of which look pretty interesting, like the “All Green” version of the film - the entire film with only the green screen elements.

     Here is a list of extras that the special 2 disc DVD version of “Sin City: UNCUT, EXTENDED and UNRATED” will include (plus a complete reprinted first issue of Frank Miller’s THE HARD GOODBYE graphic novel):

DISC ONE:
Original Feature Film Presentation
Feature Commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
Feature Commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
Feature Commentary of Austin Premiere Audience Reaction
Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes
– A Hard Top With A Decent Engine: The Cars of Sin City
– Making the Monsters: Special Effects & Make-Up
– Trench Coats and Fishnets: The Costumes of Sin City
– Booze, Broads & Guns: The Props of Sin City
– How It Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to Make The Film
– Special Guest Director, Quentin Tarantino
Sin-Chroni-City Interactive: As the viewer watches Sin City, it becomes apparent that the characters and their stories are not isolated, but intertwined. It is also revealed that the timelines for these stories are not in synch—and yet not entirely independent. This interactive feature allows the user to get a timeline view of the happenings of Sin City. The user can see the overview schematic of the scenes in chronological order and then zoom in for more detail on any of the events.
Teaser and Theatrical Trailer

DISC TWO:
Robert Rodriguez DVD introduction

Sin City Recut-Extended-Unrated Feature Film Presentation (with 23 added minutes)

Full-length expanded cuts of each individual episode (“Customer Is Always Right,” “The Hard Goodbye,” “Big Fat Kill” and “That Yellow Bastard”) split out into short films – each with their own title cards and in their own complete form; viewers can watch separately and in any order desired.

15 Minute Flick School – See how everything was done, including the development of the look of the movie before there was financing, plus early screen tests, rehearsal tapes, final effects. Narrated and cut by Robert Rodriguez.
All Green Version – A high speed look at the entire movie with only its green screen elements.

The Long Take – A full uninterrupted 17 minute take during the filming of Quentin Tarantino’s segment. See what it is like to sit in the middle of a whirlwind of creativity while the camera is rolling. It’s an up-close and personal view of the directors and the stars as they do their creative thing.

Sin City: Live in Concert – The Sin City filmmakers, cast and crew head over to Antone’s restaurant one night after shooting “That Yellow Bastard.” Bruce Willis’ band and Robert Rodriguez’s band Chingon play a benefit show. Included are the full versions of Bruce and his band playing the song “Devil Woman” and Rodriguez and his band playing the “Theme from Sin City.”

10 Minute Cooking School: Sin City Breakfast Tacos – Discover Robert Rodriguez’s meal of choice during the long night hours of making Sin City. This featurette shows how to make Rodriguez’s grandma’s secret homemade flour tortilla recipe as well.

     So it seems Hollywood never learns. Despite years of lessons from Patrons like ourselves. Not only are they re-hashing another tired franchise (Rush Hour), but they seem to not understand why they’re going broke.

     From The Movie Blog comes this story:
New Line Cinema has agreed to pay Chris Tucker $20 million for his upcoming role in Rush Hour 3. Jackie Chan is slated to get $15 million. On top of this, they each get twenty percent of the box office returns. Now, on the surface you might say, “so what?” But here’s what…

     Hollywood is constantly kicking and screaming that they’re not making any money because of illegal downloads, etc. Well, let’s examine this. If Rush Hour 3 does really well - probably around $75 million domestically and maybe $150 million total world wide - then Chris Tucker gets a total of FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS, Chan will get forty-five million dollars. That’s a total of $95 million dollars. So right off the bat (not including all of the costs incurred for the making of the film, the director’s salary, the writer’s salary, the editor, the producer and the entire crew of hundreds) the film already has $95 million tied up in Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Let me say that again, CHRIS TUCKER and JACKIE CHAN!

     So the film may break even. Then the Hollywood community will scream bloody murder that the industry is going in the toilet because of illegal downloading.
WAKE UP MORONS!

     If anyone has yet to see the end (or the middle, depending on how you look at it) of the Star Wars saga with episode III: Revenge of the Sith, I highly recommend picking up the DVD today. It’s hands-down the best of the prequels and the DVD is so loaded with awesome features, it’s hard to put down.

     One feature in particular I felt I needed to mention: the hour and a half long documentary entitled “Within a Minute,” documents what exactly was entailed in making a single minute of footage during the climactic light sabre duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader. It simply amazing! I can’t believe the amount of effort and the number of people involved in just that one “little” snippet of film. If it took an hour and a half just to show us what went in to making it, imagine the amount of effort it actually took.

     Even for non-Star Wars fans (otherwise known by me as idiots, retards, outcasts, ingrates), this is something worth checking out just to better understand film making. It is wicked cool.

     ”Revenge of the Sith” will certainly be in my top 5 in my upcoming list of the best DVDs released in 2005. Rolling Stone magazine has already released their list in their December 1st issue. It is almost spot-on accurate.

Um, I think I might be able to bring myself to go see this one.

No release date has been set for the U.S. thus far.

Six, almost seven, trailers that you must see now:

King Kong
Munich
Three Extremes
Breakfast on Pluto
Superman Returns
The Ice Harvest
Lady in the Water - M. Night Shyamalan directs Paul Giamatti!

     All of these films look interesting to me. It will be fun to see if they pan out as good as they look.

Who doesn’t love Johnny Depp? If you don’t, then I don’t know you nor would I want to. His latest project, “The Libertine” with John Malkovich, sounds and looks interesting, but it’s also an artsy period piece. Doesn’t mean bad things, it just means that this type of film is not generally my cup of tea. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out. Here’s a brief synopsis of the movie, “The Libertine:”

     ‘The Libertine’ follows the adventures of John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, in London of the 17th century. He has a passionate romance with a young actress, Elizabeth Barry, and he writes a scurrilous play which lampoons the monarch who commissioned it, Charles II, leading to the Earl’s banishment and eventual downfall.

Here’s a quicktime version of the trailer over at Apple.
Official site is here - with hardly any content at all

     The last few years (and films) for Mr. Ford have been sub-par to say the least. Still, he’s a hero of my childhood/teenage years and I always get excited when I hear a new project is in the works. He’s recently been ranked at #35 on Premiere Magazine’s Top 50 movie stars of all time (too low in my opinion). From Indiana Jones to Han Solo to Dr. Richard Kimble and Rick Deckard, he’s an American Hero.

     His newest film, slated for release in 2006 is entitled Firewall; with other stars Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster and Alan Arkin. Warner Brothers has released an early synopsis of the film and you can see the trailer at their site. I’m sure the trailer will be available very soon in fabulous Quicktime at Apple trailers.

     Anyway, it probably won’t be the best film ever; it kind of looks like “The Net” mixed with “Patriot Games.” But Bettany, whom I really like, plays the bad guy in this one and my guess is he picked the wrong guy to steal identity from. Harrison Ford can be a real bad ass when he’s provoked, and one way to provoke a guy is to mess with his family.

     So although my expectations are low, I’m still excited and will see this one opening night. Still waiting for the big one though Harrison…. Indian Jones IV. The script has been approved by Lucas and Spielberg. Just waiting for schedules to mesh for shooting. Oh yeah!

     It’s not really anything new. A lot of people have been complaingin about it for years. Hell, I’ve been complaining about the Academy Awards in general for the last few years. Ever since “Shakespeare in Love” beat out “Saving Private Ryan” for best picture and I found out that the academy thinks “Annie Hall” deserved a best picture statue over the original “Star Wars,” I’ve been a critic of the Academy. It seems to get worse all the time, while the Golden Globes and even the MTV Movie Awards tend to get things right more often. But I’m not writing today to rip the academy for everything; today, it’s all about their desire to snub comedy year after year after year.
     Ask anyone in the movie making business and they will tell you that comedy is by far the most difficult to act out and create. Most anyone can look scared or sad or angry or surprised; but to get the timing and intricacies of comedy just right, requires something approaching genius. That makes comedy not only more difficult, but also extra special when it is delivered properly. Laughter is one of the toughest emotions to get out of a person. You can shock them, scare them and tug at their heart-strings quite easily, but laughter is much more difficult to attain. This is why I can’t understand why the academy has not awarded one statue for best picture to a comedy in the last 20 years (although 10 have been nominated).

     Here is a short list of comedy films, off the top of my head, that I feel should’ve at least garnered a nomination for best picture (a * denotes a golden globe nomination):
Best in Show (2000)
There’s Something About Mary (1998)*
Bottle Rocket (1996)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Airplane! (1980)*

Besides films, I think it is even more important and relevant to include comedic performances of actors for their roles. Here is another short list. These are actors that I think were shot down by the academy because it was a comedic role. Some of these actors have been nominated and even won Oscars for roles other than comedy. I list the name, the film(s) I think they should’ve been nominated for and sometimes other side notes (* = Golden Globe nomination, ** = Golden Globe win):

Jim Carrey (has been nominated five times for Golden Globes in a comedy, plus one for a drama. He won two of these. ZERO Oscars nods for anything!)
     - Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
     - Man on the Moon**

Mike Myers (numerous awards including 10 MTV movie award noms/wins)
     - Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Billy Bob Thornton
     - Bad Santa
     - A Simple Plan*

Brendan Frasier
     - Bedazzled

Jeff Bridges (Golden Satellite Award)
     - The Big Lebowski (Golden Satellite Award)

John Goodman (Golden Satellite Award)
     - The Big Lebowski (supporting)

Gene Wilder *
     - Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory *

Darren McGavin
     - A Christmas Story (supporting)

Steve Martin (5 Golden Globe nominations, ZERO Oscar nods for anything)
     - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels*

Jeffrey Jones
     - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off*

Chevy Chase
     - Fletch
     - Vacation
     - Christmas Vacation

Cameron Diaz*
     - There’s Something About Mary*

Bill Murray
     - Caddyshack
     - Rushmore* (and Golden Satellite Award)
     - Groundhog Day

Jack Black*
     - High Fidelity - here’s his noms and wins wins for this role; a *=win:
American Comedy Award, Blockbuster Entertainment Award*, Boston Society of Film Critics Awards*, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, MTV Movie Award, Online Film Critics Society Awards, ShoWest Convention USA*

Michael Keaton
     - Multiplicity (he plays 4 distinct characters and must act out the scenes without anybody actually there. He does it VERY well too. Preposterous that e wasn’t nominated)
     - Beetlejuice (won Oscar for best make-up)

Micahel Keaton (supporting)
     - Multiplicity (see above)

Jon Heder
     - Napolean Dynamite (received numerous other awards for best picture)

Paul Giamatti (if he’s not nominated for his supporting role in “Cinderella Man,” I’ll be forced to throw up)
     - Sideways (about 1000 awards and nominations for this role, ZERO Oscar nods)
     - American Splendor (nominated for Oscar for screenplay)

Kevin Spacey
     - Swimming with Sharks

     These are just the actors off the top of my head I can think of. As you can see, although numerous prestigious critics and award ceremonies honor comedy in so many ways, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chooses to not recognize or respect these magnificent films and performances. I don’t know why. If you play a mentally challenged person, you’re almost guaranteed a nomination. Likewise if you cry really well after being beaten by your ex-husband or having an abortion. If you play multiple comedic characters like Brendan Frasier in Bedazzled, Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, you are simply overlooked. Nevermind the fact that you put male fluid in your hair, thinking it is hair gel, to make it stand straight up at a fancy restaurant or the time you contorted yourself in such a way to fit inside a cardboard box while wearing a tutu and combat boots. These will simply be overlooked, even though they created a cultural icon and made hundreds of thousands of people laugh over and over and over again.

     A word about the MTV Movie Awards: I don’t take them very seriously, but I do like the fact that they give awards based on how the people vote. Granted, these “people” are screaming teenagers who don’t know shit from shin-ola, but it’s a good start. I also like the fact that they have interesting (and worthy of awards I think) categories like best fight sequence, best kiss, best new-comer or best on-screen duo, just to name a few.