I haven’t listened to DVD commentaries in quite some time, possibly nearing in on ten years. I used to really enjoy them, and thought some of the best ones were for American Beauty, Fight Club, Good Will Hunting… What are some really good, modern ones, from movies that have been released in the last several years?
On EuroTrip the writers and the director proceed to get very drunk on the track and eventually invite their pizza delivery guy to join them on the track. Ok, not worth spoilering, but it was funny..
The Re-Animator one I really liked.
Spinal Tap, done by the leads in character.
Das Boot
Guillermo del Toro always does fascinating, educational, foulmouthed, and incredibly entertaining commentaries.
Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy are hilarious in the “Waiting for Guffman” commentary. Some good behind the scenes stuff.
You get a sense of just how autobiographical “Almost Famous” is with both Cameron Crowe and his mother on the commentary. It is hilarious when they recall specific conversations that were put in the movie. Even some of the most outrageous ones were taken from real life.
The DVD of Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog includes a musical audio commentary, called Commentary! The Musical!.
It had almost nothing to do with the movie it went with, and mostly was a musical ABOUT making the musical commentary, with lots of fun songs having nothing to do with what was going on in the movie.
I enjoyed that one, but I hope I’m around for the 10 or 20 year re-release when he can do a new commentary and tell us which real-life rock stars each incident in the film is based on (although the “I’m a golden god” was supposedly based on Robert Plant). And I imagine the scene of him being de-virginized was pretty uncomfortable to watch with his mother.
Joss Whedon’s commentary on the episode “Objects in Space” for Firefly is both entertaining and informative.
I think it’s the best hour-long episode of television ever and highly worth watching, first without the commentary and again with.
Agreed!!
The man pours his heart and soul into every movie he makes, and there are subtleties that you would never realize without his commentary (Pan’s Labarynth especially. That movie has a million layers.)
Robert Downy Jr.'s commentary in Tropic Thunder is in his character. Which makes sense because in the movie he says “I don’t come out of character until after the DVD commentary” (And Oscar nom :eek:)
The commentary for the mediocre action movie The Scorpion King is very entertaining. It’s the Rock doing a solo commentary, but he’s surprisingly funny. Admittedly there are a few sections of the movie where he’s all quiet like, usually scenes he had nothing to do with, but overall it’s a very good commentary.
The DVD commentary of Mary Poppins with Dick Van Dyke, Julie Andrews and Karen Dotrice (Jane Banks) was very interesting
Joss Whedon in Serenity.
I’ve seen the movie twice without the commentary and 10 times with it.
The DVDs have been out a while now but any Hong Kong Legends DVD with Bey Logan commentary is well worth a listen - especially the Bruce Lee movies. You can practically watch the film in your minds eye just by listening, he talks intelligently and interestingly about everything to do with the movie and movie making. There are never any pauses and it’s a real shame when the credits roll and it ends.
The other stand-out one for me is John Carpenter and Kurt Russell commentating on The Thing. Famous moment is the ring of a bottle on glass, they enjoy themselves so much watching it again and it really sounds like a meeting of old friends. Interesting and listenable.
The commentary in Darkplace, done in character and as amusing as the main program.
Gosford Park opened by eyes to the care with which Robert Altman made a movie. See the film first. The watch it with the commentary. My husband and I were riveted.
I thought the commentary for Atonement was excellent. Like certain other good commentaries, you learn a lot about the craft of filmmaking, while at the same time you come to see more deeply the physchological elements of the story and its characters.
Like JKellyMap, as much as I enjoy amusing commentaries, I also appreciate it when the commentator takes his job seriously. An example is director Mark Romanek’s commentary of One Hour Photo. For instance, he pointed out how he purposely framed Robin Williams in various scenes so as to suggest a photograph. I don’t know how successful Romanek was, but I enjoyed getting into the creative process with him. Another example of this would be David Koepp’s commentary for Secret Window.
I guess the opposite of this would be John Carpenter’s commentary for Ghosts of Mars, which mostly consisted of him and Natasha Henstridge eating pop corn and exchanging pleasantries (although I was probably the only person on earth who actually listened to the commentary).
Roger Ebert’s commentary on the film Dark City. By the way, it looks like there will be a Director’s Cut DVD coming out July 29th.
Must mention 2002’s Rules of Attraction
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