Favorite Audio Commentary Quotes

I can't remember exact quotations, but Fincher has some fucking great comments in his commentary..

In SE7EN, during the gluttony scene, Fincher comments on how he always wanted the gluttony corpse to have a "giant cock".

In FIGHT CLUB, Norton begins to talk about how either Oprah or Rosie O' Donnell ruined the ending of FC on one of their shows, to Brad Pitt's obvious annoyance.  

And KISS KISS, BANG BANG has a fucking hilarious commentary track with Shane Black, Val Kilmer, and RDJ.  Kilmer acts like a semi-asshole and seems hard to keep focused.  

During the scene where Kilmer and RDJ jump into the lake after the car, RDJ gives Kilmer mad props for diving right into the freezing water on the first take, claiming that he only had to go up to his "titties", in the gayest voice possible.  Hilarious.  

My favorite moment in from the Seven commentary is Fincher bitching about, "Who the FUCK is George Christy!?  And why is he holding up my movie!"

Ben Affleck, the entirety of the ARMAGEDDON track.

My favorite would have to be from the Fight Club track.  Brad Pitt starts talking about the VW Beetle, and how they all agreed that it was just a way for the boomer generation to try to repackage something from thier youth (the VW Bug) to try to make it cool for a new generation, and how he was sick of that.  He went on to say how he hated anything like that and thought that each generation should find thier own symbols and make thier own mark.  After he was done, there was about 10 seconds of silence before Norton said something to the effect of, "I've actually changed my mind on the Beetle.  I kinda like em."  And Fincher added, "Yeah, thier not bad little cars..."  After a few more seconds of silence....Pitt just says..."You guys are dicks...." and leaves it at that.

Just a little correction.  Norton was the one who went off on the VW Bug tangent to which Pitt interjects with his basic approval of the new design.  Norton whines about, "You can't go back on this!"

The Armageddon commentary track is also where Affleck jokes about how these movies always have authority figures demanding to see THE BEST _______ IN THE WORLD! 

"Get me the BEST espresso machine in LA!"

And Willis' last-gasp "God bless America" after the end credits finish rolling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

And Willis' last-gasp "God bless America" after the end credits finish rolling.

I laughed out loud when I heard that.  It's literally in the final split second of the film.

Also on the FIGHT CLUB commentary:  when a phone number shown on-screen is revealed to be the office of CAA, Edward Norton snits, "Well, I wouldn't know that, because I'm not signed with those punks!"  

Jeffrey Combs, Bride of Re-Animator: "Well, this is all certainly leading up to SOMETHING!" That whole commentary is a scream.

The Superbad commentary- The whole argument between Jonah and Judd Apatow because they curse on the audio commentary because Judd brought his daughter there. Jonah was tired of correcting himself while a r rated commentary.

The best line was from Jonah while trying to make a point "A Maude! If I had a Maude!"

I think Jonah was saying if I had a daughter and brought it to the commentary  and Judd took exception to Jonah saying it instead of her. So yelled that out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil 

Jeffrey Combs, Bride of Re-Animator: "Well, this is all certainly leading up to SOMETHING!" That whole commentary is a scream.

Shit, I've never chased this up on DVD. Must fix.

Everything in the Cannibal the Musical commentary.

"Norton was the one who went off on the VW Bug tangent to which Pitt interjects with his basic approval of the new design.  Norton whines about, "You can't go back on this!"

Yeah, definitely Pitt. But I remember it because it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the movie is about on the part of Pitt. He wanks on about it as a piece of engineering, when the criticism was never about that aspect rather than it's symbolic value. It's telling because for a while there Pitt had a reputation as the dumb guy who's smarter than you think; being able to wax at length about many and varied subjects. But it just calls back the running joke in A Fish Called Wanda: "Apes don't read Nietzsche" - "Yes they do, they just don't understand it." Pitt desires to be more than the dumb, good lookin' guy and god bless him for that, because he gets a lot of good movies into production as a result. But he's a dumb, good lookin' guy. Norton on the other hand is too smart for his own good, and kind of proves it here because everyone is remembering/interpreting him as the bitch, when he's actually on-message with the film's themes.

I actually think that Pitt was intentionally taking the piss out of Norton's diatribe for fun.  There's something about his tone that seems to be spurred on by Ed Norton's objections.

In The Thing - The way Kurt Russell loses his shit during the Richard Dysart/Charles Hallahan transformation scene and just starts laughing hysterically is probably my favorite moment in any commentary track that I've heard.

Also, during Big Trouble In Little China, when Carpenter and Russell start going off on the ad campaign and how they were trying to sell it like the next Indiana Jones. They illustrate how stupid the ad campaign was and how it probably served to turn off audiences rather than bring them in.

Russell: Who is this guy? Who is Jack Burton?

Carpenter: Yeah... Who cares?

Russell: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Carpenter: Who gives a shit!

Russell: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Just golden.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I actually think that Pitt was intentionally taking the piss out of Norton's diatribe for fun.  There's something about his tone that seems to be spurred on by Ed Norton's objections.

I'd love for that to be true (as I've said, I'm not a hater). But I read that tone the other way. That he'd read somewhere (or been told by someone he perceived as intelligent) the exact facts he regurgitates on the commentary. He literally doesn't understand why the New Beetle deserves the smashing it got. His other comments bear that out: early on he says something to the effect of ""People who kick puppies, starving children being forced to mine uranium so we can have cheaper shoes  - these things piss me off" he's trying to be hip with the social commentary of the movie, but is either being bleeding obvious or missing the point entirely.

But god bless him all the same.

William Peter Blatty gushing about his love for the Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar on THE NINTH CONFIGURATION.

Michael Crichton praising Sean Connery for the actor's ability to eat convincingly in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY.

Jack Lemmon doubting whether anyone listens to audio commentaries on MISTER ROBERTS.

Tony Scott admitting that he cut the bathtub scene from TRUE ROMANCE when it started to give him "itchy bum."

Most of Abel Ferrara's bizarro stream-of-consciousness work on KING OF NEW YORK, but especially when Ferrara snaps at the moderator for asking him how he finds locations: "Whaddya mean how do you find these places -- ya go out and look!"

Kurt Russell's almost non-stop laughter during USED CARS, to what sounds like the frustration and annoyance of Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA: Russell mock-chiding John Carpenter for not having seen THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES.

David Cronenberg commenting seriously on James Woods' paranoia and the actor's tendency to refer to himself as "ol' Jimmy" (VIDEODROME).

Haha I gotta listen to that Videodome track!

My favorite: Bruce Campbell, right at the nasty crunch of the tree rape in The Evil Dead: "When did we lose the female audience? Right here."

Scott Pilgrim is filled with great ones, but my favorite is the Aubrey Plaza track. She tries to turn everything into a sarcastic joke, with mixed results. 

*on screen, Scott Pilgrim in the dream desert*

"What is this, The Mummy Never Came?"

*crickets*

"You know...prequel to The Mummy Returns?" 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nardo 

His other comments bear that out: early on he says something to the effect of ""People who kick puppies, starving children being forced to mine uranium so we can have cheaper shoes  - these things piss me off" he's trying to be hip with the social commentary of the movie, but is either being bleeding obvious or missing the point entirely.

 

But god bless him all the same.

Oooh, yea.  I do remember an odd vibe of pretentiousness he sometimes gave off.  Could be right.

Fellowship of the Ring extended edition commentary.  During the bit where they are sailing away from Galadriel, Rhys Davies is talking about Gimli's feelings for Galadriel, and he compares them to his own emotions when he first met Julie Christie. "She made our throats dry, she made us almost feel ashamed of our ugliness in the presence of such beauty."

The cast commentaries on the LOTR DVDs were great.  I wouldn't say they're my favorite anything, but I kinda love how insufferable Sean Astin sounds in them.  He often comes across as an obnoxious pseudo-intellectual in terms of the vocabulary he chooses to use.  It's not the actual use of 'big words' I mind.  I love that.  It just doesn't sound quite right coming from Astin.  This goes along great with the shit his co-stars give him about how pissy/finicky/fuddy-duddy he got during the production.

The increasingly stoned John Milius and Arnold commentary for Conan the Barbarian is a blast.

"I get laid a lot in this movie."

Larry Cohen admitting that he had to fire Robert Forster when the actor refused to stop chewing gum during scenes (GOD TOLD ME TO).

Actor Stuart Whitman's hilariously un-PC and libelous remarks on SHATTER. He claims the Shaw Brothers' catering service had no problem letting dogs wander in and piss on plates and utensils, describes the martial arts instructor as a "big fat Chinaman" who walked around with a card table and a roll of toilet paper, and says he told producer/director Michael Carreras that he would never push around these "little Chinese people" during a chase sequence -- but that he was perfectly okay having his stuntman do it for him! Whitman describing [original director] Monte Hellman's girlfriend at the time: "Delicioussssss!"

Kevin Smith during Chasing Amy: "Fuck DVD."

The most sheerly entertaining audio commentary I can remember is Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Andy Garcia on the Ocean's Eleven DVD. I remember being impressed with how genuine Damon comes across as being, what with his constant lauding of the then-unknown Casey Affleck and his on-the-money impressions of Jerry Weintraub. I haven't seen it in years but it's the only audio commentary I haven't heard recently that I actually have memories of hearing.

Also, the Steven Soderbergh/Neil LaBute commentary on the Sex, Lies, & Videotape Blu-ray is an incredible filmmaking insight-fest.

Oh god, in Two Towers  where he talks about the kid asking him to autograph a Sam action figure, and he wrote some profound "What is war?" slogan on it. While all around him these delightful images of Orcs being lovingly hacked to pieces by a director clearly gleeful about all this fantasy destruction he can inflict makes me giggle so much.

I love the hell out of those movies, but I never really feel in a peaceful anti-war mood when I finish watching them.