BLOOD SIMPLE - zany audio commentary
The Coen Brothers' first movie was Blood Simple (1984), a Texas noir where a lover's triangle and a greedy private eye lead to murder for all the wrong reasons. The audience knows what's happening the whole time, but the characters don't, which makes it very suspenseful. Most of the problems escalate from misunderstandings that could have been cleared up if any two characters had a heart-to-heart. As it is, everybody has the wrong idea about who killed whom, and why, which leads to even more problems. I first saw the movie in a film class at UGA.
There's a 2001 DVD of the movie, a "Director's Cut". I saw the movie enough times on videotape that it's kind of annoying the small cuts they made, which don't improve the film and leave out some good stuff.
But, there's an odd artifact on the DVD, a faux commentary. Supposedly by "film historian" Kenneth Loring, it's apparently scripted by the Coen Brothers and read by Jim Piddock, of those Christopher Guest mockumentaries. So it's sort of a mockucommentary. I finally got around to listening to it, and it's pretty funny.
It plays out like a British Cliff Clavin spouting Little Known (And entirely apocryphal) Facts about the movie.
The Coen Brothers don't do real commentaries; I think they feel the films should speak for themselves, and they apparently find some audio commentaries pretentious. But it's a pretty elaborate joke that they pulled, to write the script and have the actor read this commentary.
Unfortunately, this commentary isn't on the newer 2008 release of the DVD (which is the one NetFlix has).
It's the only thing of this type I can think of, besides a commentary on the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD done by Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis.
Apparently the Spinal Tap DVD has an in-character commentary, but that's sort of to be expected.
There's a 2001 DVD of the movie, a "Director's Cut". I saw the movie enough times on videotape that it's kind of annoying the small cuts they made, which don't improve the film and leave out some good stuff.
But, there's an odd artifact on the DVD, a faux commentary. Supposedly by "film historian" Kenneth Loring, it's apparently scripted by the Coen Brothers and read by Jim Piddock, of those Christopher Guest mockumentaries. So it's sort of a mockucommentary. I finally got around to listening to it, and it's pretty funny.
It plays out like a British Cliff Clavin spouting Little Known (And entirely apocryphal) Facts about the movie.
The Coen Brothers don't do real commentaries; I think they feel the films should speak for themselves, and they apparently find some audio commentaries pretentious. But it's a pretty elaborate joke that they pulled, to write the script and have the actor read this commentary.
Unfortunately, this commentary isn't on the newer 2008 release of the DVD (which is the one NetFlix has).
It's the only thing of this type I can think of, besides a commentary on the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD done by Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis.
Apparently the Spinal Tap DVD has an in-character commentary, but that's sort of to be expected.