611 Being John Malkovich

[cdnchris]

I also don't get the Hodgman hate. Does it have something to do with the Apple ads? Granted I only know him from The Daily Show, where he is admittedly hit and miss with me, but I see the potential of the supplement being rather funny.

I'm hoping some of the other stuff from the DVD does show up, and I too was hoping for more, maybe even Kaufman appearing but I knew there was a slim chance of that, but it looks like a decent edition. Underwhelming from the listing but I could see the features being pretty good.

[Tom Hagen]

I don't necessarily dislike Hodgman, or Lethem or Gondry for that matter. I just fear that half of these supplements will end up being a bunch of (potentially amusing, possibly irritating) non sequiturs. I would have preferred some serious critical or academic treatment for this film instead. Or Kaufman.

[med]

That would be nice, but if Jonze really had a hand in this, he may have not wanted it. All the people claiming Criterion blew it on the extras are likely blaming the wrong party.

[swo17]

I hate to be overly critical, but MoC's Rock Hunter blurb does what I think CC's BJM one is trying to do infinitely better:

Unsold on celebrity? Congested with consumption? Addled by status? You're in The World, kiddo, brought to you by Frank Tashlin — "Because Someone's Got to Live in It." And now a brief word on our latest fine product, the one that gives you the answer to that nagging question: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Ladies and gentlemen, no-one does straight-and-narrow quite like Tony Randall, and we guarantee his turn as lovable ad-man Rockwell P. Hunter will leave you in so many stitches you'll be just silly with sc-HAH-rtissue! And speaking of tissue: once you see Jayne Mansfield bob and weave as starlet Rita Marlowe, the ambidextrous angel who takes Hunter under her "wings" to launch his agency into the $trato$phere, you too will coo her trademark "ooo"! But that's not all! You'll also get Ms. Joan Blondell, star of Nightmare Alley and of Opening Night, who rounds out the package as Ms. Marlowe's assistant and handler — as they say in Paris, quel package!

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? proves that love CAN be manufactured (how else could we get our Blu-rays in your hands??), and finds Frank Tashlin doing what he did better than everyone else: frank tashlin'!!! Trust us when we say we here at The Masters of Cinema Series are simply over-the-moon to be presenting Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? for the first time on Blu-ray anywhere on the planet!

[Jeff]

That would be nice, but if Jonze really had a hand in this, he may have not wanted it. All the people claiming Criterion blew it on the extras are likely blaming the wrong party.

Agree with this. It all smacks of Jonze's brand of humor. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if he intentionally swimminghorsed the cover just to be "funny."

[zedz]

I'm incredibly disappointed there are no features dedicated to Charlie Kaufman. The LEAST they could have done was include a writing credit to him on the atrocious cover. Whenever discussing BJM, Adaptation, or Eternal Sunshine I always think of it as a Kaufman film first and foremost. They always feel more influenced by him than by the director, in my opinion. I'm pretty sure he's given lectures on the writing of Being John Malkovich, so I don't think it's that he's unwilling to give insight or talk about it.

The problem with this is that credits on things like DVD covers and movie posters are generally contractually determined down to the last hyphen, so if Criterion wanted to credit Kaufman there would probably be another half dozen or more names (all with lawyers attached) that would need to be accommodated. (And that cover already fell out of the ugly tree, hitting every branch on the way down.)

[manicsounds]

DVDBeaver review

I wonder what exactly had to be edited out of the Michel Gondry commentary...

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Fifty-three minutes of commentary was a legal liability? Did Gondry spill all the dirt he has on Kaufman and Jonze or something?

[Tom Hagen]

The "legal liability" thing -- if that's what the menus or whatever actually say -- is probably just another inside joke.

[cdnchris]

The "legal liability" thing -- if that's what the menus or whatever actually say -- is probably just another inside joke.

I don't have it yet but if it is in the menu description I'm pretty sure you're right: it's just a joke. That's not something you would put on the menu if that was the case.

[manicsounds]

No mention of the 'page with nothing' or the Bjork song...

[mfunk9786]

I guess Jonze was the one who decided to turn this release into a big inside joke that we're not in on? Because if it was the producer assigned to it by Criterion, I hope he never gets to do anything else for the company.

[colinr0380]

I guess Jonze was the one who decided to turn this release into a big inside joke that we're not in on? Because if it was the producer assigned to it by Criterion, I hope he never gets to do anything else for the company.

It was probably that Ralph Spaulding guy. Criterion finally gave him another chance after his internship on the Beastie Boys set but he probably went wild again by asking more inappropriate questions and was put back on hiatus!

[manicsounds]

BDdefinition review

[cdnchris]

I guess Jonze was the one who decided to turn this release into a big inside joke that we're not in on? Because if it was the producer assigned to it by Criterion, I hope he never gets to do anything else for the company.

Looking through the booklet so far it's obvious Jonze was a heavy influence on the release. It even looks as though he wrote up the technical details about the disc, with about the only helpful note being that the colours in this release look closer to how they were shown theatrically. I haven't gone through any supplements yet but I'm now preparing myself to be very disappointed.

And no sign of the "there is nothing here" feature.

[cdnchris]

I haven't gone through any supplements yet but I'm now preparing myself to be very disappointed.

I think I'll have to take this back. This edition could have been pretty incredible and it's not, but the supplements all appear to be pretty genuine and aren't a series of in-jokes. The commentary is a bit odd and I want to go back and listen to it again (I admittedly had real issues with Gondry's accent) but it does sound like an honest track with Gondry talking about Jonze and company, as well as his reaction to the film. It really does sound like it would have covered the whole film and was probably cut down, but I'd almost say more for purposes of keeping it interesting. Jonze friend Jeff Buchanan is there to ask him questions. I'm also not sure if this part is for real but at the beginning Gondry states he was expecting to be talking about another film and seems surprised to be talking about this one. He doesn't state what film he thought he was supposed to be watching.

The Hodgman/Malkovich interview is pretty good and is also genuine. Hodgman makes a few joley remarks but it's mainly Malkovich talking about how he came to participate in the film and whether the film could have been made today. Also the extra where Jonze goes over old production photos is another mostly serious bit with Jonze just talking about the production. In all there was nothing tongue-in-cheek here, except for the booklet, which is all almost a complete gag.

Sadly the Jonze "puking" interview is gone, as is the "there is nothing here" and the piece on background driving.

[mfunk9786]

Sounds like I'll be buying back the DVD in addition to this release, just like I had to do when I realized that the new Ferris Bueller release dropped the John Hughes commentary

[swo17]

Why couldn't the guy who wrote this have been assigned to do the back cover blurb?

[med]

Credit to Lethem for accurately mimicking pompous, pseudo-intellectual rambling, but I found that piece pretty unbearable.

That said, I'll echo Chris and note that the extras on this release—at least those that I've watched thus far—have been sincere and not jokey. The Malkovich/Hodgman interview is particularly good; the Hodgman haters shouldn't find much to bother them. (Other than maybe his mustache.)

[mfunk9786]

He does a solid job, but there's also no reason that Donald Brown will be doing backflips either. It's pretty standard stuff in terms of the questions asked.

[manicsounds]

In the supplements there is a TV spot with http://www.jmincorporated.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, which I just checked and is a dead domain.
In addition, I also checked http://www.lacunainc.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Eternal Sunshine...) and it works, but just goes to the generic Universal Eternal Sunshine site, not the original Lacuna Inc site.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Archive.org has both websites archived:

http://web.archive.org/web/200102102317 ... rated.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://web.archive.org/web/201004180022 ... nainc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A few broken images, but mostly complete.

[swo17]

The movie got it wrong.