National Post, December 31, 2009
Extra! Extra!: Our film critic continues his rundown of lessons learned from 2009's DVD releases

Chris Knight

Last week's DVD column looked at some of the many amusing tidbits gleaned from a year's worth of director's commentaries, bonus features and making-of docs. In fact, there were so many items, they've spilled into this week's edition. All I can add to them is my New Year's resolution to watch even more discs this year than last, and to try not to nod off the next time I sit through a commentary by Dodgeball director Rawson Marshall Thurber.

We have ways of making you balk Quentin Tarantino says he had no qualms about showing his Second World War picture Inglourious Basterds to German audiences. "When it comes to World War Two, Germans are used to cringing," he says, adding: "If anyone has bringing-down-the-Third-Reich fantasies, it's the last couple of generations of Germans."

Paris, New Jersey When Nora Ephron learned it would cost half a million dollars to shoot in a Paris train station for half a day for a scene in Julie & Julia, she found a look-alike for a fraction of the cost in Hoboken.

Watch your language In The Linguists, scientist Greg Anderson notes an unfortunately named language, at least from English-speakers' perspective. Its name sounds like "beer-whore."

Warp-speed ad lib During a bar-fight scene in Star Trek, someone on the commentary asks if there are still glass bottles in the future. Director J.J. Abrams shoots back: "That's not glass, it's titanium crystal."

Egg-centric acting Robert Downey Jr. notes of his performance in The Soloist: "I don't like being still and I don't like observing. I feel like someone inserts a Denver omelette on my face when I'm not in action; and maybe that's more of a life issue that I'll be working on for the next several decades."

We're not all getting younger here ActorLanceE. Nichols made a brief appearance as a preacher in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and later came upon David Fincher filming in New Orleans' Wiltshire Boulevard. "You're still shooting this movie?" he asked. "I've done five other movies!"

Reese's effects A scene in Slumdog Millionaire in which a boy falls through a latrine involved covering the young actor in peanut butter and chocolate. "The effect when you're shooting is delicious," says director Danny Boyle. "You could lick that boy, he's so sweet-smelling."

Project Greenish Light Seth Rogen on writing Pineapple Express: "No one ever said, 'That's a good idea.' More like, 'OK, have fun with that.' " He also responds to critics who say the film starts and stops. "We just couldn't afford to have it go the whole time." He describes the movie as either the most expensive stoner comedy ever, or the cheapest action picture in history.

Will work for beer Rod Taylor, who plays Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds, says director Quentin Tarantino once surprised him on the set in Germany with several cans of Victoria Bitter, which you can't get outside Australia.

Misplaced in translation Courtney Hunt asked actors playing Chinese immigrants in Frozen River to say something insulting. "I still don't know what they said. I'm hoping it's not, 'We hate our director.' "

No Bond like an old Bond Director Irvin Kerchner on working with Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again. "We had to work with a Bond that was much, much older than all the other Bonds that had been used. ... [We] had to keep the stunts believable for a man who looked as old as he did. ... He's not killing people, if you notice."

Directors prefer blonds On a new release of North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock says blonds have a long tradition in cinema, "whose first heroine was a curly-headed blond named Mary Pickford."

Adder in the saddle Rowan Atkinson, star of Britain's TV comedy Blackadder, says he was taught to ride a horse by a member of the Swedish Olympic equestrian team, whom he notes may have been a bit overqualified.

Guggen-half To recreate the seven-storey Guggenheim Museum in The International, filmmakers built a four-storey section which they used once to represent floors one through four, and again as four through seven.

In the days before cellphones Woodstock attendees had to queue for two hours to use pay phones. "You ask for someone who doesn't exist and they don't accept the charges but they know you're OK so you cheat the telephone company," one crafty caller advises during the documentary Woodstock.

For Trekkies only In Star Trek, watch as the Enterprise flies past Saturn, and look at the space between the planet and its rings. It's the same shape as the uniform patch! They meant to do that!