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Extras! Extras! Read All About Them On ‘Jackass 3.5,’ ‘The Adjustment Bureau,’ ‘Sucker Punch,’ ‘Battle: LA’ and More

Streaming or downloading movies is a convenient way to rent a flick even though the picture and sound quality are not as good as Blu-ray, but those sometimes fun behind-the-scenes extras are not usually available digitally. To keep you spinning physical discs for years to come, studios are including innovative and often immersive bonus features on the DVDs and Blu-rays of your favorite movies and TV shows. Read all about this month’s best extras served up on shiny silver platters that take you beyond the feature presentations.

Jackass 3.5Jackass 3.5: The Unrated Movie: No, this isn’t the Blu-ray 3D version of the latest Jackass movie (late-to-the-party Paramount still isn’t onboard with the technology yet), nor is this Best Buy exclusive just an extended cut of the film. There is such a massive amount of trimmed footage on display here that one could almost make another movie. This will only interest hardcore Jackass fans, but the sometimes repetitive material is also some of the last we will ever see of the late Ryan Dunn.

 

The Adjustment Bureau: The coolest feature on the Blu-ray version is easily “The Labyrinth of Doors: Interactive Map of New York.” Just like Matt Damon in the movie, you can explore the Big Apple like a Bureau agent by leaping through one door to the next and watching either a snippet of the movie or a short clip of behind-the-scenes footage from that particular location.

 

Sucker PunchSucker Punch: Director Zack Snyder has a lot to say on the extended cut of his visually arresting action-fantasy flick via the Blu-ray’s “Maximum Movie Mode.” It’s like Snyder is in your living room with you for over two hours of informative picture-in-picture presentations as he discusses the movie’s special effects, slo-mo cinematography and signature look.

 

Battle: Los Angeles: This alien-invasion shoot-’em-up starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez already looks like a videogame, so it makes sense that the Blu-ray contains a 30-minute demo version of Resistance 3 that is playable on your PS3. The BD also contains a “Command Control” picture-in-picture commentary track featuring various interviews with the cast and crew about the production, which was actually shot in Louisiana—not Southern California.

 

Red Riding HoodRed Riding Hood: Alternate Cut: Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke didn’t pull in Twilight-sized teen audiences to her reimagining of the classic fairy tale, but the Red Riding Hood Blu-ray still has some features of note, including a strangely awkward picture-in-picture commentary with Hardwicke, Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons. The best bonus is the music video for Fever Ray’s “The Wolf”—the tribal song played during the village’s dance around the fire, which was easily the standout moment in the film.

 

Rubber: If you are game for a movie about a seemingly regular tire that comes to life and starts telepathically exploding people while on a murderous rampage in the desert, then you probably expect the supplements to be equally freaky. Well, you’d be right. Check out the interview with director Quentin Dupieux during which the interviewer is a male blow-up doll and all of Dupieux’s answers are backwards masked and subtitled, sort of like those “Red Room” sequences in Twin Peaks.

 

Superman ReturnsSuperman: The Motion Picture Anthology: This handsome set of all five Superman films is a must for Man of Steel fans, and Warner Bros. didn’t skimp on the Metropolis-sized bonus features, either. The set contains over 20 hours of supplements, the most interesting of which include the feature-length documentary “You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman,” George Reeves in Superman and the Mole-Men, 1940s Superman cartoons, a rare TV pilot, screen tests, archival footage and much more.

 

Sanctum: This soggy thriller about divers trapped in underground labyrinth of caves drowned with critics, but there are some extras of note that are actually more interesting than the film itself. “Sanctum: The Real Story” explores the terrifying real-life adventure that inspired the movie and is available on both the DVD and Blu-ray. The BD also adds “Nullarbor Dreaming,” a documentary that follows a team of cave divers and their fateful exploration of a mammoth cave system in Australia.

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