Nothing chaps my hide more than getting a DVD of a film I really like and finding it's a bare bones edition with no special features. Or worse, the DVD is supposed to have special features but you come to find what you think are special features and what the film studio thinks are special features are two different things. Just for the record subtitles and foreign language tracks are not special features. Anyway, I was lamenting the sad bare state of some DVD's I own when I remembered something. Just because the DVD itself may be bare doesn't mean there aren't some special features floating around out there someplace for me to enjoy. You see I spend a lot of time on YouTube (probably more than I should) and throughout my far travels on that time sucking site I've come across many interesting treasures. Being the movie guy that I am most major finds I come across are typically regarded as holy grails for film nerds (i.e., workprint versions, lost deleted scenes and B-Roll footage). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E69eKPfS1ic The most fun stuff I come across are rare behind the scenes documentaries for movies. This is typically the stuff that has only been seen once (usually on TV) when the movie was about to come out but has since never been seen again. While the DVD for many of these films are bare as a newborns tush, the info and goodies contained in these hard to find docs for the films more than make up for what is missing. Watching stuff like this makes you wonder if the film companies who release DVD's without special features were just too lazy to round up all the behind the scenes segments the aired on TV. That would have been at least better than releasing a bare DVD. No crying over what could have been however. Thankfully we have YouTube so those making of specials long thought loss have been found again. I've found some of the best lost, hard to find, or unknown making of segments you never knew you always wanted to see. Please keep in mind that I didn't really have a point of origin to begin my search so I used my own DVD collection as inspiration for my searches. Hope you enjoy.
Caution: The nostalgia factor is very high with some of these. You've been warned.
10. Mortal Kombat: TNT Special Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ_28tG99Zw Yes, I own Mortal Kombat. Yes, I think Paul W.S. Anderson is very underrated. Yes, I think the Resident Evil movies are great. Lastly, I do believe Mortal Kombat is still the greatest movie ever made from a video game property. Sadly despite the landmark status of the film, every home video release (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray) has been devoid of special features. Thankfully the good people at TNT saw fit to produce a nearly hour long special detailing the making of the film for the TNT premiere of the movie. There are some great interviews and behind the scenes footage of the major actors rehearsing their kung-fu moves. The real treat here however is the rare look we get at a young hard working British director named Paul W.S. Anderson. Plucked from UK obscurity and given the reigns of one of the biggest productions ever given to a young director we see how this bright energetic filmmaker can thrive under pressure. Given how things turned out I'm not the least bit surprised he's still a big success.