I'll be the first to admit that I can think of a lot better things to review than these so called 'Easter eggs', what with the boom in DVD reissues plus the long list of films that have just been calling my name (Last Dinosaur, Orca, my great unfinished Zardoz review, etc.), but the truth of the matter is that the prevalence of such an absurd idea almost demands I write a review. And when life -almost- demands something, I listen!

So for starters, what the heck is a DVD Easter egg??? I was as perplexed as the next man until only a few days ago when perusing through some message boards on the net I found that my recently purchased copy of Citizen Kane contained an Easter Egg. Hah! There are no eggs on my copy of Citizen Kane! After fiddling around with the menu a bit, I found I could select Rosebud the sled, activating some undocumented interviews. Reading through the before mentioned message board I found that many of the DVDs contained such 'Easter eggs'--that is, hidden material that must be accessed in goofy ways. I was not about ready to go through and see if I could select Billy Jack's hat, or Conan's glistening thighs -something about this just seems demeaning.

I can't say I've totally formulated what's wrong with it, but I see a fundamental difference between buying a movie and buying a video game (where hidden or unlockable options are common place). I mean, let's change the scenario around a bit and say that the lawnmower you bought last week has some lawnmower Easter eggs--maybe if you prime it 20 times in a row it unlocks the undocumented mulching option, or a secret compartment opens up, depositing a printed in-depth interview with the designers of your lawnmower. Hidden options were first added to video games to improve replayability, but it is the strength of a movie alone that is going to keep you coming back; and lawnmowers and 'replayability' don't even belong in the same sentence. In a similar move, hidden tracks on albums have been all but abandoned (I think the hidden track on REM's Green album was the last time anyone didn't think this was a stupid idea.)

Yet it seems that stupidity rules the day--more DVDs are now being issued with Easter eggs, requiring you to highlight various parts of your favorite character's anatomy or to 'following the white rabbit' (some sort of interactive geek-out adventure for people stupid enough to own a copy of The Matrix.) I can't imagine that hidden features sell better than documented features ('sure, on the surface this car looks only mediocre, but let me show you all the hidden features!'), and thus I'd be surprised if the manufactureres would ever be ballsy enough to hide anything significant on the disc (like the last 10 minutes of the movie!) It just turns the entire act into some sort of -well- amazingly faggy game for people who have nothing better to do than to twiddle with their remote controllers. Damn it! I'm an adult and I don't like people hiding things from me coz I'll probably be missing out on all the naughty stuff that can only be viewed when you watch the film in Portuguese with Thai subtitles and in mono. I can only hope that the administrator of this page hasn't hidden secret Easter eggs about me somewhere on here.

Thanks Chris! Still, you should know by now that I wouldn't stoop to something as silly as having hidden stuff on my page. Questions, comments, and hard boiled DVD Eggs can be sent to gleep9@hotmail.com. Try to figure out the secret way to get back to either the Third Movie or Main page.