The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
d. Terry Gilliam
c. John Nevelle (The Fifth Element), Eric Idle (Life of Brian), Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead), Oliver Reed (Gladiator)
Release Date: April 08, 2008
One of the unfortunate loses with the dissolving of the laserdisc format was the special edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Lost in the poor DVD treatment was the commentary by Gilliam and deleted scenes. I would assume the commentary track would provide interesting. The film was part of the reason Gilliam found it nearly impossible to secure financing for a number of future films. Following the production problems, Gilliam failed in his attempts to make Time Bandits II and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. He was also turned down in his attempts to make Watchmen and was rejected by the studio to direct Harry Potter despite being J.K. Rowling’s first choice. Gilliam considered Munchausen a fiasco but in the commentary for Tideland admitted it was one of his fan’s favorite films. In April, the film will finally receive a 20th Anniversary Edition both on DVD and Blu-Ray. It will include commentary with Director Terry Gilliam & Co-Writer/Actor Charles McKeown, ‘The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen’ Documentary, Storyboard Sequences with All-New Vocal Performances by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, Deleted Scenes and a special Blu-Ray exclusive Marvelous World of Munchausen Enhanced Graphics & Trivia Track.
“Why, why, why! Because it’s all logic and reason now. Science, progress, laws of hydraulics, laws of social dynamics, laws of this, that, and the other. No place for three-legged cyclops in the South Seas. No place for cucumber trees and oceans of wine. No place for me.”
That’s about it for this week. I’ll finish off the column with a look at the art for the 2-Disc Special Edition of There Will be Blood. 
16 comments
I am sorry to say it but the entire "Special Edition" column has become such a faint shadow of its former glory that it is really a waste of time running it. It is obviously not a passion for Shawn so if nobody else wants to give it a shot, let it go, man. Let it go.
I dunno about "shadow of its former glory," maybe it's just not the season for sweet box sets and the like. I know I always enjoy the Special Edition.
I'm with Patrick. I look forward to this column every week.
I read both SEs every week. The Coming Soon version is meant to be short and not as all-encompassing as the Monday/Tuesday column.
Munchausen rocked! I'll be picking this up.
"That's about it for this week?" Uh, what about the INDIANA JONES cover art? The announcements of THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, THE ORPHANAGE, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, and XANADU? Really have to agree with Kirk on this one.
did myers87 do that there will be blood dvd cover art? i thought he only spared us with sequels.
Yeah, I've noted a big drop in quality since the "new guy" took over. Just dumping titles into a "Other things to spend your money on" list that isn't even linked kinda sucks. This is CHUD, a movie site for the brilliant. Where are the cult films? The porn? The classics? I used to compare SE with Harry's Picks and Peeks (which is invariably late). Well, late or not these columns have taken a nosedive in quality, merely relaying the "Big" releases and not showing much love for the smaller stuff I assume most of this site's fans would be interested in. Let me guess: next week NCFOM is on DVD. That'll be the big news, right? Having said all this, that was my first look at the BM artwork and special features. So good job on that.
I'm with Kirk. In days of yore this column was required reading. Now I only read it if I happen to notice. The best you can do is ONE DVD release? I mean the "There Will Be Blood" cover is sweet, but this column isn't just a shadow of it's former self. That would imply there was some part of the former self still around. It's gone from being essential reading to "Why am I even bothering?"
This site has very much become the Devin Masturbatorium now.
CHUD is rapidly moving down the list of "Sites I visit every day" and, like I just did with Digg, may very well drop off the list entirely.
The points are valid, Shawn. The Special Edition used to be cool. Don't be like Owen and ignore criticism. Something needs to change. Have fun. Get creative. But if you don't have anything to say….
I guesse from the silence, we're stuck with the status quo. Booooooooooooooo!
Ok. I'll bite. The main complaints seem to be me not bringing you cult films, classics and only bothering with the BIG releases. I'll answer that: The column this talk back is under is the Coming Soon column and not The Special Edition, so it has nothing to do with the conversation as I created this column last year to talk about upcoming releases you might not know about, not releases everyone knows is coming. As for the Special Edition itself, this week I talked about a Jean Claude Van Damme movie a Steven Seagal movie, the re-release of C.H.U.D., the special edition of 12 Angry Men and a killer clown movie. Last week I talked about The Last Emperor Criterion and a low budget horror movie called Bone Dry. The week before I talked about the Blu-Ray release of Run Lola Run and the newest Noah Baumbach movie. I go through every release each week trying to find something original and out of the mainstream and usually find a few good ones to talk about. I also talk about the bigger releases like No Country for Old Men and while I don't talk about the re-release of Mrs. Doubtfire I still show the special features because there might be someone out there who cares about it. Finally, I list as many of the releases as I can find under the Also Coming list. If you think by doing all this means I don't try and don't have a passion for the column, you are mistaken. I don't know for sure, but within the three levels of the column I think I list more movie titles than anyone else before me listed because it doesn't matter if I think the movie is important or not. I've been writing the column for over a year now and put a lot of time into it and give you as much informetion as I can find, so while I will listen to criticism, the criticism on this Coming Soon page seems a little off.
Shawn, just ignore the trolls.
I don't think legit critism is trolling. Thanks for responding to the people, Shawn. Just want to encourage you to bring the flavor. Make the column personal. That's whats interesting. Don't just list movies. Discuss them. I could talk about Munchausen for hours, and it's not even essential Gilliam.
CHUD was built on snark and film discussion. Always listen to sincere criticism. Don't be so thin skinned. Just get better.
I can't wait to see tomorrow's column. The best advice I saw here was make it more personal. That's what we want! The "CHUD-touch", that ineffable "something" that brings us back here day after day, year after year.
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