Gag Reel? Gag Reel?

Film Trawling through old emails this morning, I found the activation confirmation for my original Screen Select account sent 28/2/2014. As Review 2004 records, the first three discs I received were Chain Reaction, The Gingerbread Man and Fallen Angels: Professional Man with The 400 Blows, Les Enfants Du Paradis and A Bout De Souffle soon afterwards and so it goes. There's not much more to be said about this that you don't already know about how the access to film in general has changed radically in the ten years since and how apart from the MARVEL films because of spoilers and the odd special case here and there because of spectacle (Gravity), I barely go to the cinema any more, but paradoxically feel like I have a much richer filmic experience.

When I do receive a disc through the post, most of the time about the only extra I bother with is the gag reel. Often these unguarded moments tell you more about the filmmaking process than the documentaries designed for that purpose and certainly about the personalities on set and who's giving a performance and whose playing themselves. This example for Clones is typical, especially the exchange between Natalie Portman and Lucas in which she's giggling through her disbelief in what he's forcing her to do in the name of an action sequence which, as has become legendary, was shot in pick-ups because it was felt there was a lack of something, something in that part of the film. No wonder she thought the whole thing was a set up. She seems like she's joking, but there's also one of those significant pauses ...