Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a quick peek at the DVD for one of my favorite films from last year, Steven Spielberg's MUNICH.
I hate to start a review on a movie I like so much with a rant, but it has to be said. It's been something that's been boiling up inside me for over a year now and I gots to let it out. Please bear with me.
This has to do with the way the studios are releasing DVDs. I have really, really come to hate the dual release of the single disc "Just the Movie" edition and the double disc "Special Edition" edition. Universal is especially guilty about doing this. In theory I don't mind this. The "Just the Movie" edition being much cheaper than the regular special edition. However, these special editions don't have any more extras than you'd imagine a decent SE release would have, yet cost substantially more than your average, non-dual release SE.
For example, MUNICH is a pretty well stocked DVD. It's not overstuffed with deep insight into the movie (I really wish Spielberg would start doing audio commentaries for his films), but it has a good 80 minutes of behind the scenes docs with Spielberg walking us through the entire production and many specific aspects of the production. However, there is a total of 80 minutes of extra features, all of which (save one Introduction by Spielberg) are only on the expensive 2 disc set.
I don't like this trend and I don't want to see it continue to whatever the next format will be. I can't bring myself to fork over the extra $5-$10 on most of these SEs and I also don't want to spend $16 to just get the movie by itself, so I've gone without on some titles that I'd love to have in my collection.
Also, the "Movie Only" editions seems to have really shitty-ass covers. Case in point:
So, sorry about that rant. I just hate that the studios are trying to disguise raising prices on DVDs with an average amount of special features by throwing a different, no-extras version out at the price that most people pay for the regular edition and gauging the fans who actually want the extras associated with the DVD format.
On with my thoughts on the MUNICH DVD... Like I said above, the MUNICH 2-discer has a good amount of extras. The documentaries are well-put-together by the long-time Spielberg collaborator Lourent Bouzereau and his team and delve into all aspects of the film. Spielberg spends a lot of time himself addressing probably the harshest criticisms about the factuality of the film, but telling us what we undisputedly know happened. We know the original novel has been in print since 1984 and has never been discredited. Attacked, yes, but never proven wrong. We know for sure the operation, a retaliation for the Munich Olympics massacre, did happen and the people died in the way they are described in the film. He does go into saying that there's a lot of gray area there and he doesn't pretend the film is a documentary, but a story based on something that actually happened in history.
More interesting are the looks at the actors and how they approached their roles. We first see it in the 13 minute documentary called THE MISSION, THE TEAM. Every actor from the team (Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Hanns Zischler, Mathieu Kassovitz and Ciaran Hinds) as well as the minor characters, like Geoffrey Rush and Lynn Cohen (Golda Meir) and some words from Tony Kushner, screenwriter.
The other docs are called:
MUNICH: MEMORIES OF THE EVENT
MUNICH: PORTRAIT OF AN ERA
MUNICH: THE "ON SET" EXPERIENCE
MUNICH: THE INTERNATIONAL CAST
MUNICH: EDITING, SOUND AND MUSIC
My favorite bits in here have to do with the way Spielberg shot the film. The reason the film worked so well for me was that it felt like a classic Spielberg film in execution. The way the camera moves, the cinematography, the lenses used... the overall feel of the flick. And the docs tell me that was due to Spielberg wanting to give the film a very '70s period feel, not only in front of the lens, but in the way that lens is used to capture the set design.
Now if he'll make sure to bring that same ethic to INDIANA JONES 4, I will be a very happy geek...
I would whole-heartedly recommend the Special Edition of this film if it were the only edition and could be picked up for $19.99 or under. The movie itself is worth that. If you're a fan of the film at all, you'll want to see the behind the scenes stuff, so if you have the money to spend on the $25 SE, it's worth it. The movie held up on my repeat viewing as well.
So, that's about that. The flick comes out tomorrow, so check them DVD shelves. Now I'm off to finish my prep for London. Be back soon!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
