Christmas comes early.

Remember how I told you to hold off on buying Sin City on DVD because there was a better version coming out? Well, it came out yesterday.

Go buy it. Now. I'll wait.

Got it? Good. The first thing you notice upon opening it? It's got a full copy of the original "The Hard Goodbye" (Marv's story) graphic novel inside. Cool. After popping the discs in, you're treated to some of the coolest damn menus you'll ever see on a DVD. If you dorked out over this movie as much as I did, you'll get to find out exactly how everything was made. And I mean everything. How Rodriguez convinced Frank Miller to allow him the rights to the property, how he convinced Tarantino to do a scene shot on digital, how they convinced most of the actors to come work on an almost all-CGI movie, how they made the costumes and the props, how they filmed a movie where the actors were sometimes the only real thing in a scene, everything. Of course you've got the obligatory commentary tracks for the film as well. The only feature I would have liked that wasn't included was one that compares panels from the original comic to scenes in the movie. But that's a small request on a set as loaded as this. And that's just stuff on the first disc.

The second disc has the 4 stories separated into their own short movies. You get a few scenes here and there that weren't included in the theatrical cuts, but appeared in the original comics. Marv visiting his mom, more violent mayhem from Miho (and a particularly painful-looking end to Manute that was definitely not in the comic), stuff like that. Very cool, though I think the original cut of the movie will remain my preferred version. Another version of the movie is on this disc, the "All Green" version. It's the film without effects, only the actors and whatever live props were used (astonishingly few). It runs about 10x faster than normal, so it only takes about 10 minutes to watch. Very cool, and quite informative.

My favorite feature has been "Sin-chrono-City," if only because you learn so much about the characters and their motivations from it. It's an interactive map of Basin City, with Frank Miller voiceovers for every stop along the way. You can click on an area like the Tar Pits and find that it was created as an excuse to draw dinosaurs. Miho was a character at that location, so you can click on her to find out that she's not human, but actually a "good" demon in Miller's eyes. There's some absolutely fascinating stuff in here, like Hartigan being Dirty Harry if Dirty Harry was a cop in Basin City or Kevin being the "evil" demon counterpart to Miho's "good" demon. (Notice how neither speaks?) Miller shows that there's tons of stuff that proves that this wasn't a simple exploitation flick, but a movie with a LOT more going on thematically than its detractors would suspect. But you know what? I covered that ground already when I first reviewed it.

Not sure what else I can tell you, other than one of the best movies of the year got one of the best DVDs of the year. Sorry if you didn't listen to me and bought the barebones version back in August. Even if you did, this one is well worth the double-dip.

Ok, now where's our Kill Bill special edition?