It hasn’t come out yet, but apparently the DVD for the musical Dr. Horrible will have commentary that is also sung!
Worst extras? The “interactive menu” that every fricking DVD comes with of course 
Best, I’m not too sure about, but a highlight of the commentary for Star Trek:The Voyage Home was William Shatner on William Shatner, explaining why, he, spoke, inthewayhedid.
I’m fairly sure not many people own The Beyond. If you’re one of the select few aficionados of the Italian zombie Z movie, however, the DVD commentary is one of the best I’ve ever heard.
The Pinky Carruther’s Unknown Facts track for Buckaroo Banzai
It explains some things about this “documentary”
Brian
Tom Clancy provides commentary on The Sum of All Fears. He makes a lot of smart ass comments about all the changes from the book. I didn’t like the movie at all, but it was fun to watch it with Tom’s commentary.
The worst I’ve heard were some Joss Whedon commentaries on Angel. All he did was talk about photography. I don’t know what a #7 or #8 lens is, and for the most part he doesn’t even explain it. Also, he spends a lot of time counting how many people are in each shot. (“Okay, there’s a two shot, then one, two, now three,” etc.)
Another real stinker is the 1st-season 30 Rock commentary by Lorne Michaels and his son, who apparently has some minor job on the show. They literally almost don’t say anything. There are long stretches of silence. When they do speak, it’s often nothing more than saying “that’s funny” or saying that some person was nice to work with. I don’t know how that track made it onto the DVD, but I guess nobody can say no to the boss.
Reminds me that I must check out the commentary on the Star Trek V DVD, William Shatner again with his daughter Elizabeth. They acknowledge the things that the fans were poking fun at when they first saw the film.
The Star Wars Original Trilogy commentaries needed less Ben Burtt and more Carrie Fisher.
The Ultimate Matrix Collection has two commentary tracks. One is by a trio of film critics who like the first film, but hate the the other two. The other is by Cornel West and another professor who enjoy the philosophical underpinnings of the entire trilogy. I now appreciate the series as a whole, while still believing it’s more than 50% crap.
Oh yeah, I’ve listened to that one. At one point (can’t remember the exact scene), it sounds like Clancy and the director are about to get into a fistfight over something. Clancy is doing a lot of shouting, and then, inexplicably, it’s all over, and they keep talking as though nothing has happened. I reckon they must’ve had to stop recording, calmed him down somehow, and picked it up again.
Ah yes. In fact, I dislike any commentary track that has very much dead air. If you don’t have much to say, do what Trey Parker and Matt Stone do for the South Park DVDs, and record a mini-commentary that only lasts a few minutes,
Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s movie Cannibal! the Musical has a directors commentary of them getting drunk and watching the movie
Warner Home Video’s five volumes of Looney Tunes Golden Collection (with a sixth and final on the way) have all sorts of great extras- rare cartoons produced for the government, commentaries (some of which feature archival interviews with directors and animators), music-only tracks, unused versions of opening music, various TV bits, and some more good stuff in that vein. Some of the finest extras around.
The same can also be said of Time-Life’s mail-order-only complete-series TV collections. Their Get Smart has a NBC Fall Preview with Don Adams in character, the Revlon shampoo ad with Barbara Feldon that caught the eye of the producers, TV ads featuring the characters, a Museum of TV and Radio panel, and similar. From what I can see, the same can also be said about the extras on Time-Life’s other TV sets- The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the upcoming The Real Ghostbusters. If they could untangle rights issue and/or music rights problems and still keep the sets in the $100-150 range, I’d love to see what Time-Life could do with other TV series that have high demand from fans (as these three did, according to Time-Life), like maybe WKRP, Wonder Years, Batman and the like.
John Rambo (Rambo IV) was a fairly decent movie, every bit as good as the first and night and day over the two shit bombs in the middle.
I thought it was a little disjointed, and I didn’t really get why Rambo agreed to help the missionaries in the first place. Then I watched the deleted scenes. His reasons made sense. His actions after the escape made sense. Everything made sense and actually gave some added depth the character and his actions.
All told, I think including the deleted scenes would have added something like 12 minutes and at least a half, possibly a full, star to my review.
I never watch commentaries. They drive me up a wall.
I listen to very few commentaries; I don’t really like listening to people yammer over the soundtrack about mostly inane things. Still, I did listen to the ones for Deadwood and Carnivale and thought they were pretty decent.
The Working with the Coens extra on the No Country… DVD is very interesting.
On the other hand, the commentaries on the NewsRadio DVDs are filled with useless chatter.
I’ve only watched the ones done with the actors (I don’t care for commentaries by the producer and the lighting guy), but they all talk all over each other, so much so that you can’t even hear what they’re saying, and in many of them, they spend the first ten minutes trying to recollect just what happens in the episode. It’s like they filmed the show and never watched the completed version.
“So which episode are we watching?”
“Is this the one where ABC happens?”
“No, I think it’s the one where XYZ happens.”
“Didn’t we do an episode where Matthew did ThisThing? I don’t remember.”
“I don’t know - is that what we’re watching?”
“I think this is the one where Bill and Catherine go to ThatPlace.”
“No, it the one where OtherThing happens. I think…”
It’s incredibly annoying.
I like commentaries that are funny, for the most part…where the people doing the commentating are cracking jokes and having fun. Sometimes it’s good with a lot of people in the mix and sometimes just one person can do it so well too.
The best “more than one person” commentary that I remember was the first Saw movie (by the writers/directors). Very interesting and funny stuff.
Worst “more than one person” commentary that I remember is tied by about 100. But ones that immediately spring to mind are Without A Paddle and seconding LOTRs. I thought there were just too many people on the LOTRs commentaries.
Best commentary for a movie I didn’t like: I didn’t really like The Grudge as a movie at all but, for some reason, one day when I was bored, I started the commentary on it and I found it more enjoyable.
The commentary for Gothika wasn’t too bad, I enjoyed it.
Now…single commentaries…
Best commentary done by a single person by far, I think, is The Princess Diaries. The director is so funny, yet he’s not funny just to be funny and he also doesn’t ignore telling us about the movie and interesting facts as they come up. I loved his style of commentating.
I also found the TV shows “That 70s Show” and “BTVS” to have good, single commentaries on the specific shows.
Worst commentary done by a single person was on Are We There Yet? Ugh, I couldn’t even finish it.
There’s millions more since I watch a lot of movies (from Netflix) and I usually watch the commentaries on them right after. But these are just the ones that stood out the most.
It’s been a long time since I watched it, but I remember the comentary for Excalibur being terrible. The main thing I remember is the director rambling about the green glowy light around the sword. A lot.
I love the commentary for UHF. It’s Al and Jay Levery (his manager and the movie director) for most of it, but they have Michael Richards and Emo Philips coming in at random points to do some commentary and they phone Victoria Jackson at the end. They mix in lots of little anecdotes about production and they talk a lot about how disappointing it was when the film flopped since Orion had such high hopes for it. During the credits, Al reads some of the bad reviews it got at the time, it’s pretty funny. The whole thing is really funny, actually. I almost always watch that movie with commentary on. Oh, the deleted scenes showing some of the tv show ideas that weren’t used are great, for example “Those Darn Homos!”
I really like the commentary for Garden State with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman. He’s totally crushing on her and it seems like they just have a really good time talking about the movie.
Blooper reels on any movie are always fun.
A, um, “friend of mine” bought one of the Hee Haw DVDs. They put one 60 minute episode on each DVD, for like $9. As if that’s not bad enough, the “Extras” are basically throwaways, consisting of links to the cornfield gags (that are already in the episode anyway) and a text list of guest stars for that year? That’s IT.
Kevin Smith does the best commentaries I’ve ever heard, with “Mallrats” probably being a personal favorite. When I heard it, I decided that no matter how lousy an actor he was, Ben Afleck will always win the “celeb I’d love to spend an afternoon with” award. He sounds so genuinely nice and funny.
Futurama commentaries come in second. It’s like watching the show with a group of friends who happen to have great insight into the creating process.
Best non-commentary extra: the show Spaced had a cute “looking back” documentary, that ended with the actors showing off the house they used to film in. After they leave, Tim and Daisy (the main characters you were hoping would hook up) come out of the house with their new baby daughter. I thought it was a very sweet extra, something they knew the fans would love.
Supernatural seasons one and two have the best gag reels ever. Season three has way too much of Jared and Jensen making silly faces at the camera, though I still loved the “Brokeback” section, where the guys hug, cuddle, and make declarations of love (“I love you!” “I love you too!” “Great. What?” “I miss your musk!”)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a pretty funny commentary. Val Kilmer does strike me as kind of a dick, though he does at least make fun of himself for getting so overweight. Plus, there’s just something about a couple of guys sitting around lementing that their movie tanked that ammuses me. I do not know why this is.