Night Watch: Designed Subtitles

Night Watch, the Russian horror film that outgrossed Spider-Man 2 and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King at the Russian box office, is now available to US audiences in a sleek DVD version that includes graphically designed subtitles. I'd heard about this and seen this clip, but actually experiencing the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that these subtitles enhance and interact with the film was great. The Horror Channel's review says it nicely, describing the treatment as "the most startling set of subtitles ever to grace a foreign film. Indeed, they are so artful and stylized, one wonders why no one ever thought to make subtitles part of the movie experience as a whole, rather than just slap standard white text throughout. (Co-writer/director Timur Bekmambetov has said that as soon as he realized he would have to subtitle the film, he immediately set about designing them.)" Perhaps this is a burgeoning new industry—imagine the typographic possibilities! Lots of fun to be had. [Thanks to Jason for the recommendation]