DVD Commentaries

It depends I guess. I like it when directors do multiple commentaries, so they can have a laugh about, then go on a solo one or something and do it more seriously (ala Fincher on FIGHT CLUB). But when a director gets technical (Ridley Scott is great for it) it can rarely be beaten. I haven't been a fan of a lot of commentaries I've heard recently. ANCHORMAN's was particularly awful. The Simpsons and Futurama ones are good, because you do get technical info about the production, but they're always piss-funny.

That said, I love all the Carpenter ones I've heard. I know people who hated the BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA one because they hardly talked about the movie, but there's something about the Carpenter/Russell camaraderie that makes it irresistable to listen to.

I think that camraderie's the same reason I love the Kevin Smith roundtable commentaries, particulary Chasing Amy (with Affleck's Connery and Washington impressions) and Dogma (where they bust on Lee for not saying a thing).

Verhoeven is a nutty genius.

I've heard that the upcoming Fly 2 special edition has a motherfucking awesome commentary track.

"Cannibal: The Musical" has one of my favorite commentaires by Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Dian Bachar.

Beware of Eric Stoltz suffocating John Matuzak's dog.

Raimi is great on the Evil Dead movies. Fucking awful on Spider-Man.

Fincher provides interesting insight.

Affleck and Smith are comedy gold. (As long as Jay Mewes shuts the fuck up.)

I listened to a bit of Pirates of the Carribbean, and Gore Verbinski sounds like he mgiht be fun.

Worst ones I've heard are the Dawn of the Dead remake (welcome to the directors own masturbatorium), and Replacement Kills. (Fuqua starts by saying "What should I talk about?" Not a good sign.)

Edgar Wright on Shaun of the Dead and Spaced is great, too.

I really enjoy it when a director comes prepared for a commentary rather than just sit down and talk about whatever pops into his head. Sure those can also be fun, but more often than not they're rather dull and very little is explained other then what is on screen.

Two of my favourite examples for what constitutes an interesting and insightful commentary would be Bill Condon's commentary on 'Gods and Monsters' and Frank Darabont's commentary on the recent 'The Shawshank Redemption' DVD. Both men come fully prepared as avid DVD fans and recognize what makes for a good commentary and what doesn't work.

Guillermo del Toro's commentaries are always entertaining. Just the right mix of technical and humorous. Plus, it's always funny to hear him say "mother-fock" or "focking" about 200 times. It never gets old.

Ravenous has a good track with the director (Antonia Bird?) and Damon Albarn (who did the music). Two Brits, commentating on a low budget US movie that the studio pretty much buttfucked.

I personally liked the ones for "Narc", "Clerks: The Animated Series", and "The Punisher". The one for the "Dawn Of The Dead" remake irritated me. You can play a drinking game to that one. Just down a shot everytime they use the term "rock star". You'll be out before the birth scene.

I love commentaries, don't really have a favorite one to listen to but I love hearing anecdotes of things going wrong on set.

It's always more entertaining hearing about how they overcame something rather than just a cast talking about when their first or last day was.

Paul Greengrass delivers a superb commentary on 'The Bourne Supremacy'

Terry Gilliam is the master.

I was very disappointed with his commentary in comparison with Doug Liman's from ' Identity , his was one of the best I've ever heard.

Also phenomenal commentaries....

David Gordon Green & Paul Schneider, All the Real Girls.
Michael Mann, Heat and Collateral.
Soderbergh & James Cameron, Solaris.
PJ, Fran W. & Phillipa B., Fellowship EE.

I can top it. The Pirate Movie commentary, the director is like 80-90 years old, can't remember the movie, and talks about his career (which isn't interesting, and almost sounds like he's justifying his failed career). The interviewer is from Anchor Bay and wants to be really enthusiastic about the movie, but every question is never really answered. Even bad movies should have a good (if not better) commentary.

Scene-specific commentary is the only way to go, otherwise, why put it in the commentary in the first place. I hate the ones that sound like clips from previous interviews.

The Army of Darkness bootleg edition commentary is probably my favorite, next is Clerks or any Kevin Smith commentary.

Is Nick being serious about The Fly 2 commentary? I'd like a spurious reason to watch that film again. I preferred it to the first one when i was young. When i was young, you inderstand.

Commentaries, when they work can act as feature length documentaries. documentaries are usually talking heads cut with images to illustrate the points they are making and commentaries can be like this but without cuts and edits to keep the pacing up. I'm a big fan of commentaries.

John Mctiernan is a joy to listen to, especially on Predator. his humour is bone dry, he's obviously extremely intelligent and knowledgable and he gets into 'why' he did things rather than just 'how'.

Tarantino is great too. he certainly knows how to talk, is alwasy enthusiastic and, even though he goes off on tangents, always seems to come back to earlier points, so proving that he actually has something to say. for example, on resevoir dogs, where he goes on about why Tim Roth tells Harvey he is a cop - it's an untranslateable eastern concept of 'that which must be done' that many western audiences simply don't get. It's a great way to end the commentary.

Sommers on the Van Helsing commentary is fun to listen to (i listened to this purely as research for a chewer column. honest) - light-hearted, quick witted and, of course, utterly, utterly wrong.

Dead serious. I heard it's a classic, but specs haven't been announced yet so I'm going to wait and see. From what I heard it's loaded with funny anecdotes, jokes, and arcane references of all sorts.

That was it. "Rock star". I knew there was one phrase MASSIVELY overused that drove me crazy and ultimately led to me turning it off. EVERYONE was a rock star on that movie.

Too bad, as the extras on the disk are great. (And I liked the movie too. Probably because it's been so long since I saw the original.)

James Cameron's commentary on the Extreme Edition T2 disc is great. Cameron is supremely confident in his craft and filmmaking abilities, and since he knows how to basically everything on the set, he offers up very interesting tidbits and anecdotes.

Agree on the superior Liman track. Disagreed with many of Greengrass' observations, including his rationale for the shaky camera work.

I was actually disappointed with the Heat commentary - too much dead air time, too few details - perhaps there's a double-dip on the horizon with the feature including the deleted scenes and Mann more on top of things on the commentary. The tracks for Thief, with Mann and Caan, and Manhunter, are gold.

Speaking of gold, so is the commentary for Brian's Song w/ Caan and Billy Dee.

Weird Al does a great job on UHF. You can tell he's taking it seriously.

I love ED2, with Campbell taking the piss out of Ash most of the time.

UHF: Great track. Good "cameos" on it too.

The commentary on The Way of the Gun is great, it's the director Christopher McQuarrie (please direct a movie again soon) and his friend who did the score, Joe Kraemer. The track is very funny and informative. I often listen to the track and then watch the movie after or vice versus.

And anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger is fan-fucking-tastic, all he every says is "Yeah...I remember!", and "This is great, i love it!", man he must of done some serious coke in his hey-day.

The sometimes intolerable and screaming Paul Verhoven is great on the Robocop commentary if his broken english doesn't give you a headache.

Raimi, Campbell, Speigel and Nicotero - Evil Dead 2
Fincher - Fight Club (all)
Terry Gilliam - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Carpenter and Russell - Big Trouble in Little China
Takashi Miike - Audition (only during the final 20 minutes, but damned creepy)
George Romero - Dawn of the Dead (Ultimate Edition)
Dan O'Bannon - Return of the Living Dead
Zuckers and Abrahams - Airplane!
Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell - Bubba Ho-Tep
Jay Chandrasekhar and Eric Stolhanske - Club Dread

Stephen Prince does some of the best scholarly commentaries around. I mean, the fucker did a full-length commentary on KAGEMUSHA, a three hour film, with almost no empty spaces, and didn't even get winded.

That's a great commentary, but I usually find myself re-listening to Bruce's "King" commentary, more often than not. The insanity of it all is just brilliant... from the pills to the phones to the references to the making of the early Elvis movies.

Of course, I've yet to hear a commentary that Bruce was involved in that wasn't good...

- d

I swear my favorite commentary ever is the one mickey rourke did on the Angel Heart DVD. Well I mean the DVD lists it as a commentary but it's not even really scene specific commentary. It's more Mickey answering some questions while like 5 minutes of footage plays. It's great he smokes and pets his dog and answers everything so blind and half assed. The interviewers all serious "So Mr. Rourke did you do any research for this role?" Rourke: "No not really hell I was still pissed I wasn't a boxer and I only really got into acting to make a lil extra cash and I was just kinda sleepwalking through these scenes." I mean literally thats everything he said. I just recently watched the movie and I really enjoyed it and Rourkes performance it's just so odd to know that he put no thought into it.

The Lord of the Rings EE discs offer the best commentary I've heard. You get four separate tracks, all loaded with great stories, titbits, and an infectious love for the franchise.

I'm a huge commentary fan, and most of my favorites have been mentioned:

• Ridley Scott is the man. Alien, Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, Gladiator, all great commentaries. He is very informative and I find him funny, but his sense of humor is very dry.
• Fincher. I would have loved to hear him on Alien 3.
• Guillermo. Nicest guy in the business? I wouldn't know, but that's how he comes across.
• Gilliam. I bought 12 monkeys: SE to listen to him and he didn't disappoint.
• Funny that Robert Rodriguez hasn't been mentioned yet. Or did I miss it? Anyway, I can't wait to see what he says on Sin City.

I also like Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie (somebody already mentioned that he is great on Way of the Gun) on Usual Suspects. Tony Scott is almost as good as his brother, I'd definitely buy Last Boyscout with a commentary.

At this point, I also usually mention the joy of listening to hack directors who have made real pices of shit talking, usually without a clue as to how bad the film really is. Case in point: The Forsaken. Funny as hell.

I'm really surprised that people are praising the 12 Monkey's commentary track, as it was a huge disappointment for me. As I recall, almost the entire track was a retelling of the information that is already in the making-of documentary featured on the disc, and he almost never relates anything he's saying to what's happening in the movie, making the whole thing redundant.

Christopher McQuarrie has done two of my favorite audio tracks, The Usual Suspects and Way of the Gun. He does just the right blend of backstory, anecdotes, technical notes, and humor.

Anyone hear the Carrot-Top commentary in Rules of Attraction? It came out of left field and cracked me up as just some crazy dude watching a crazy movie he wasn't involved in.

I couldn't have said it better. my favorite disks have both the technical (usually the director) and the entertaining (usually the cast). LOTR is an example of my ideal blend, the only time I don't like it is when they say basically the same things in each commentary. Very annoying.

edit: usually, no matter how boring, I want to hear a commentary. That being said, M. Night Shyamalan should never, ever be allowed to comment on his movies again. I swear to god the caterer would have more insights. Don't get me wrong, I like his movies (I think unbreakable is one of the most underrated movies of the past 10 years) but that guy is just TERRIBLE, his commentaries are actually painful to hear. Given the choice, I'd rather listen to static for 2 hours.

Kevin Smith and Co. are always a blast. I couldn't believe how many times Smith and Affleck said the word fuck on the PG-13 Jersey Girl DVD.

Rob Cohen does a great one on Dragonheart.

Stephen Sommers has great energy on all his commentaries. He also has pokes fun a the films himself.

The Fight Club cast commentary is one of my favorites.

The Lord of the Rings EE commentaries are some of the best ever.

I also loved The Usual Suspects commentary, and thought the whole cross-dissolve argument thing at the end was clever.

I like having a beer and watching Pirates of the Carribean, because it feels like Verbinski and Depp are also kicking back with beers.

The film that stands out in recent memory as the biggest disappointment was Kershner on TESB. Imagine watching Ray Ramano doing stand up while you are sitting next to someone who is also Ray Ramano, who proceeds to tell you why everything is funny, and you'll get a good sense of Empire's commentary track.

I was going to skip smith because his fans/haters seem to be so exterme that I seriously expect a religion to emerge at some point.

My view is this: Wether you liove or hate his flicks, he's one sharp son of a bitch in commentaries or speaking tours. Smith (and sometimes friends) make for a somewhat unique example because (though I like most of his movies a lot) the commentaries tend to be much better than the movies they discuss.

Smith commentaries are definately in my top 10 for pure entertainment value.

No votes for the great Uwe?

One of my favorite commentaries comes from the movie Dark City (an incredible movie). Instead of the director or one of the actors doing the commentary, you have Roger Ebert doing it. From what I understand, Ebert was such a fan of the movie (it was his #1 pick on the top ten when it came out) that he asked to do the yack track.

Another good one was Joel Schumacher's commentary on the movie "8 mm". One of the funniest (unintentionally) is anything by Uwe Bole. He has a serious perpective problem.

I enjoyed the commentaries on the Firefly set by Whedon and company. I thought the Mel Brooks commentaries on Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs were reasonably well done. Harold Ramis discussing Ghostbusters was ok if memory serves. I love the Futurama commentaries. I’m currently working through the Home Movies Season 1 commentaries and they are entertaining if a bit odd. H. Jon Benjamin pretending to be in Ibiza was entertaining. Not directors, but I think you could sit Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan in front of any movie and you would get a great commentary.

I personally don’t like it when the commentaries of several people are edited together to make a whole. I vote for getting the people in the room and letting them interact.

Whoops, looks like I forgot to make my obligatory "Uwe Boll does the best commentaries EVAR!" post.

Seriously though, House of the Dead has the best commentary I've ever heard.

It was better than the movie.

Have you heard The commentary for "Alone In the Dark"?
Pure comedy gold.
I love in the HOTd commentaries where the two actors start doing impressions of Boll. Something tells me they don't have a lot of respect for their director.....
BUt my all time favorite film commentary remains what Joel,Mike, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot used to come up with. The news that they might be doing some new DVD releases is the best news, if it happens I have heard in a while.
As to more serious commentaries, Ridley Scott seems to strike a nice balance between anecdotes and technical details.
One of the more interesting commtaries was the one for "Black Hawk Down" where a number of the soldiers who were involved in the operation commented on the film.

I loved the commentary on Joy Ride with Steve Zahn. Apparently he throught they were going to edit his voice track and they didn't. There were times when he was actually making his own sound effects to go along with what was happening onscreen.

The Paul Giamatti/Thomas Haden Church commentary on Sideways is side-splittingly funny.

McTiernan's commentary on his The Thomas Crown Affair remake is sleep-inducing.