Neil Gaiman's A Short Film About John Bolton

A rare instance of a DVD's extras outweighing the featured program, Neil Gaiman's A Short Film About John Bolton is a mostly one-note half-hour "mockumentary" about the titular reclusive, tight-lipped, and somewhat nervous artist Bolton, interweaving fake interviews, a gallery showing of his work (menacing, voluptuous, female vampire nudes), and day-in-the-life footage of the artist popping into a pastry shop, culminating in BBC interviewer Marcus Brigstocke's visit to the artist's subterranean studio, where he discovers that Bolton's protestation that he merely waits for his subjects to "come" to him is terrifyingly literal. A mildly entertaining spoof of, among other things, pompous art gallery owners and Blair Witch Project-style filmmaking, acclaimed cult writer Gaiman's (The Sandman, American Gods) short film ultimately feels like a minor lark, nothing more. Oh, but the extras! The 10-minute "making-of" is more fun than the "short film" itself (and points out which art gallery attendee is the real John Bolton), and there's a commentary track with Gaiman and Brigstocke, but the real gem here is a 104-minute 2000 author reading live from Portland's Aladdin Theatre, in which Gaiman reads his wonderful short stories "Chivalry" (about a widowed English matron who purchases the Holy Grail for a song in a secondhand shop, and then is hounded by Sir Galahad, who's been on a quest for the damn thing for an awful long time) and "The Price," as well as a pair of excellent poems (one about reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" to his daughter; the other a sidesplitting, rhyme-reaching ode to fellow SF writer Martha Soukup), a funny essay/experiment on the effects of alcohol on writing, and the Swiftian satirical piece "Babycakes." Gaiman's fans will no doubt embrace his film with the same fervor as they do his writing, but a larger number will enjoy the rousing, pitch-perfect reading included in the extras. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)