Buy one, get one free
An interesting thing I've noticed in TV commercials: In spots for the video game Batman: Arkham City, the 1994 movie Batman Forever is being offered as, essentially, a bonus feature. Buy the game and the Schumacher flick is yours to download and keep in the cloud... if you haven't torrented it already. I'll admit that video games aren't really my bag, but that has more to do with my upbringing, where they were banned, than with any assumptions I hold regarding their artistic merit. I'm no Roger Ebert. Theoretically, I think video games could be art, but I still think it's unfortunate to package a feature-length film as an extra on something that's not even a movie.
First, because I'm not sure how much use the players of Arkham City and the pleasures (interactivity, control) I'll assume it brings will have for the very different pleasures of a film (surrender to spectacle, rubber nipples on batsuits.) Second, because it seems vaguely insulting to sell a separate creative enterprise as the superfluous add-on of another. My favourite DVD extras are those, like documentaries or commentaries, that comment on the work itself. Even when manufacturers throw in another film as filler- God bless public domain- it's usually at least an earlier, silent version of the same story. I don't know. I just have this vague dread that it's setting a bad precedent. And that I've spent too much time worrying about a movie that features Jim Carrey in Spandex.
