Easter Eggs

[zedz]

Another one on Gate of Flesh: During the credits from the interviews section, an arrow will appear on the right side of the screen, push 'enter' and there's about four silent minutes of books and Japanese texts and sketches that must relate to the film somehow.

This must be the weirdest easter egg so far. It's more like eight minutes of panning across and zooming in on details from Suzuki's personal, annotated copy of the Gate of Flesh script (which he brandished during the interview). Long lingering shots on his handwritten annotations (and a few rough sketches), but all unsubtitled. This is probably a treasure trove of insight for a fluent reader of Japanese, but for the majority of us, simply mystifying. Adding to the oddness is the fact that the footage is not actually silent: you can hear the crew walking around the room and occasionally muttering to one another.

If anyone literate in Japanese can give us some idea of what we're looking at, this would be most appreciated!

[Narshty]

Go to deleted scenes on the Bad Timing disc, highlight the main menu button and press up. The cursor will disappear and pressing enter will play the easter egg of the Rank film logo that was taken off the film.

Curiously, on the UK disc, the Rank logo is right there at the start of the film.

[Anonymous]

Time to break the silence on this one. I can't keep it to myself any longer. Check out W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films and open the disk on your hard drive and go to Video_TS VOB File (474,392 KB). What you will get is my favorite Criterion 'Easter Egg' hands down: a 13 minute trailer for the Asia Pulp Cinema (asiapulpcinema.com) catalog without sound. You will see the Criterion and Janus logo followed by a brief color bar blip and then a disclaimer for the mature content in the clips to follow. With titles like Zero Woman, The Ninja Dragon, Weather Girl and many others including anime clips, the content contains much in the way of flesh being peeled back from faces and gratuitous sex clips. It's really not what you would deem typical Criterion content. I'm sure this means I'll never get another question answered again but what the hell, here's the response to my query some time ago:

This seems to be the result of an authoring mix-up. This "easter egg"
was
never intended to appear on the disc and should be disregarded. Sorry
about
the confusion.

Best,
JM

"Disregarded?" And now for my silly editorial that you can dismiss at will: It reminds me of a pirate signal ala Videodrome, crossing over from the low to high archival aesthetics. It's lack of sound reinforces its taboo credentials. It also raises the question whether 'easter eggs' have to be intentional or not. As archives intermingle in the realm of new media, the low and the high, the foreign and the domestic, and the taboo and the conventional may all find new spaces to digitally co-exist. As far as I can tell, ALL the discs have this 'easter egg' and you cannot access it from the main menu much like the consciously suppressed Seven Samurai restoration demonstration. It's interesting how new media is developing a cultural subconscious.

P.S. if anyone can get a comment from asiapulpindies.com about this, please let me know.

[colinr0380]

In case anyone missed it, if you go to the screen on Samurai Spy and press "up" on "main", you get a snippet of Shinoda talking about Tarantino.

[zedz]

Talk about a dead thread! Have there really been NO Easter Eggs on the 2006 releases?

Well, there are two on Equinox:

On the Dennis Muren Interview screen, navigate up from 'Main' to enjoy a Jimmy Crack Corn moment.

On the David Allen Appreciation screen, navigate up from 'The Magic Treasure' to waste your time completely.

[colinr0380]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but there is an easter egg on the disc.

Go to the subtitles page & click above the "on/off" button where it says "subtitles" and you get 5 posters [2 Italian, 3 Asian] of the film.

[kieslowski]

On the Kicking And Screaming disc, go to the Deleted Scenes menu, press left when you're on the Play All option, so that Deleted Scenes is highlighted, then press enter to get an extra very short, somewhat odd deleted scene.

[Narshty]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but there is an easter egg on the disc.

Go to the subtitles page & click above the "on/off" button where it says "subtitles" and you get 5 posters [2 Italian, 3 Asian] of the film.

For what film?

[tryavna]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but there is an easter egg on the disc.

Go to the subtitles page & click above the "on/off" button where it says "subtitles" and you get 5 posters [2 Italian, 3 Asian] of the film.

For what film?

Fists in the Pocket.

(Look at the "Post Subject" in the header of the individual post.)

[pauling]

Wow! No easter eggs for almost two years? Well, there's one for Blast of Silence: on the main menu, go to 'trailer' and press down and the bullet hole will be highlighted at the top and by pressing enter you can view another comic-strip that influenced the film. Cool little film, by the way.

[Person]

There surely must have been easter eggs on more Criterion titles in the last two years.

[Hofmeister]

Easter Eggs for the sake of Easter Eggs. in Dr Genessier's Clinic: Medical Charts, find the original American poster for Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus and navigate up to see a couple of additional posters (Polish and French - both pretty cool).

Thanks for providing this pointer, zedz. I agree that the Polish poster is pretty cool, as most of Starowieyski's designs are*, but it's not for Les Yeux sans visage. It's for Franju's 1962 film of Thérèse Desqueyroux, as is plainly legible on the poster:



Isn't it serendipitous that the poster should depict a face without eyes?

*For more of Starowieyski's work, see http://www.poster.com.pl/starowieyski.htm.

[zedz]

There surely must have been easter eggs on more Criterion titles in the last two years.

On The Naked Prey there's a tiny two-minute feature in which Paul Giamatti talks about his first viewing of the film. You get to it from the menu screen with his story reading (to the right of "Play", if I recall).

[ebkaram]

I don't think I've ever seen a mention of the Easter egg on Unfaithfully Yours. If you click on the Sandy Sturges interview on the Main menu, and then click the Up arrow on the interview menu, there's a segment of her reading from her late husband's autobiography.

[Narshty]

There are two alternate audio tracks on the Robinson Crusoe on Mars trailer. The first is the original tie-in theme song for the one (not the same as the Victor Lundin one elsewhere on the disc; this one is much jazzier), and the second is an interview with "the #1" fan of the film. These apparently have been imported intact from the laserdisc.

[bigP]

There's a hidden deleted scene available on Loves of a Blonde. Simply move down to the subtitle option on the main menu and hit enter. A page appears with some text explaining (along the lines of...) that on some releases on VHS and in some theaters this deleted scene remains intact within the film, but, the definitive print that criterion used as their source does not feature this scene. Then just hit play scene, and away you go.

[Matango]

On the CC website, a deleted scene is mentioned in the list of extras for Loves of a Blonde. Seems strange that they buried it like that.

[Bloody Benten]

Has anyone looked on the reverse side of the cover sleeve on their Schizopolis DVD???

[Tribe]

I found one on Chungking Express. Go to the Supplements menu, when the cursor is aligned with the US Trailer click up with the directional arrow of your remote. You'll see a tiny directional arrow appear...click on the that and another trailer will appear. Not sure if it is the original Hong Kong trailer or what, but it is a different trailer.

[colinr0380]

tenia has found an easter egg. I've assumed from the description that it is from Louie Bluie but please let me know if this is incorrect.

By the way, there's some hidden commentary by Zwigoff in the 2nd page of unused footage.
You have to go up with the remote to highlight the 2 "o" from footage.
He discusses it for about half an hour.

[Venom]

Walker: Highlight the A of the logo on the main menu for director Alex Cox reading through and commenting on some reviews.

[tenia]

tenia has found an easter egg. I've assumed from the description that it is from Louie Bluie but please let me know if this is incorrect.

It is indeed. I posted it in the Louie Bluie topic, but forgot that the topic was for both Crumb and Louie Bluie (and didn't know that an Easter egg topic existed, sorrty for all that).

[editman]

I found one on Chungking Express. Go to the Supplements menu, when the cursor is aligned with the US Trailer click up with the directional arrow of your remote. You'll see a tiny directional arrow appear...click on the that and another trailer will appear. Not sure if it is the original Hong Kong trailer or what, but it is a different trailer.

I gather it'll be the same Hong Kong trailer that is available on the Miramax DVD.

Seems that it's only on the DVD version though, not on blu-ray. (If it is I don't know how to get to it.)

[zedz]

I assume that Criterion won't be putting any Easter Eggs on their BluRays, if only because the menu format they've developed doesn't really allow for it.

[editman]

Drag. Another reason (excuse) for double dipping?