To further elaborate
They hated the film
Howyadoin,
I recommend John Boorman’s commentary from Excalibur. Very enlightening example of how a low-budget film doesn’t have to look like one. Some very funny stories, particularly one about Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren battling on the set, the result of a previous romantic involvement.
-Rav
Second that, and two other Russell-Carpenter movies, Big Trouble in Little China and Escape From New York also have commentaries by the two of them; the neat thing is that they keep forgetting they’re supposed to be commenting on the movie, and just start chatting, and possibly drinking.
George Romero’s offbeat movie Knightriders has a very enjoyable commentary track by Romero and some cast and crew, who obviously are like family with each other and have very fond memories of the summer they made the movie. (I’m waiting for the new two-disk edition of Dawn of the Dead, which should have commentary by Romero and Tom Savini).
Thirding; Dom and Billy are hilarious together.
I really enjoyed director Ron Shelton’s commentary track on Bull Durham; his comments ranged all over the place from particular favorite moments or line readings by the actors to the technical details of how scenes were shot to the decision-making process involved in creating a scene to scenes that he loved but had to cut. I never felt like I was in a film school lecture series, but I did learn a good bit about the technical aspects of film directing. The track with Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins was mostly just reminiscing about the shooting, which was sort of amusing, but far from essential.
I rented the DVD of Secretary this week, and ended up watching most of it a second time through with the commentary from director Steven Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson. Nothing terribly surprising about what they had to say, but again I came away from the experience having learned quite a bit about the thought process involved in making a film (Shainberg and Wilson were much more apt to call out particular scenes as having been inspired by or intended as an homage to scenes from classic films – not surprising, since they both seem to be film school products).
I also greatly enjoyed the cast commentary track on This Is Spinal Tap.
Eric Idle’s commentary on All You Need is Cash is fun, but in a lot of places there’s not a lot to say.
I should also put in a plug for the commentary on the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, about the Funk Brothers, the lengendary house band at Motown in the 1960s and early 1970s. The movie itself is fascinating, but there’s a whole ton of extra information and insight in commenttary track from director Paul Justman and project creator Allan Slutsky, particularly about the Funk Brothers who were alive when the project started but died before filming could begin.
I hate to be the guy who brings up Joss Whedon’s shows in every “What’s your favorite…” thread, but his DVD commentaries are always entertaining and frequently hilarious. The one that sticks out most in my mind is the one he did with Nathan Fillion for Firefly’s pilot, “Serenity.” You could really tell how much those guys liked working with each other.
I’m haven’t listened to many, but of those I have, the commentaries on Ravenous, taken as a whole, were pretty good.
I haven’t listened to the Firefly commentaries yet, but all of Joss’s commentaries on the Buffy DVDs are fantastic. My favorite is for um…New Moon Rising from S4. It’s Joss, Seth Green, and Marty Noxin, and Joss and Seth mock Marty the entire time and she’s completely oblivious.
Um, as for movies…I agree that Fight Club is great.
The commentary track for Pirates of the Caribbean by Jack Davenport and Keira Knightly is really funny.
As a computer geek and animation buff, I’ve got a soft spot for all of the Pixar movie commentaries.
Funniest commentary I’ve heard was the one for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF. Guest stars “drop by” during the commentary, and he phones(!) Victoria Jackson for her comments at one point…
Anything Kevin Smith. He and all of the other actors in the commentary are hillarious.
Also, Waking Life (great flick) has an excellent feature length text commentary that is very useful and informative.
Agree with Kevin Smith movies. All the ones I’ve watched have had funny and insightful commentaries.
Also, Donnie Darko. Two seperate tracks, one with the director and the boy that played Donnie, and then the other with pretty much all the other actors. Great movie, great commentary.
I liked Darren Aronofsky’s commentary on Pi.
If you ever liked New Order, acid house music, or any other music out of Manchester, England from the 70s to the 90s, you need to rent a film called “24-Hour Party People”. Watch the film (which is just great), then watch it again with commentary by Tony Wilson, the real-life TV reporter who is the protagonist character for the film. Lots of leftover hippy traces, but absolutely transcendant.
Cannibal the Musical With Trey Parker and Matt Stone and other cast members. Very enjoyable
Maniac/Narcotic another informative commentary on low budget exploitation films.
I Spit On Your Grave A very difficult movie to watch, however Joe Bob Briggs provides a very good commentary.
Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS Another difficult movie to watch, but it does have a fun commentary by Ilsa herself with a few others.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Also most of Something Weird’s commentaries are very informative, especially the ones by Dave Friedman, one of the last of the exploitation/sexploitation masters.
The only truly dissapointing one I have listened to was Ted V. Mikels [iThe Doll Squad*. Very dull unfortunately, with comments like, “oh don’t go in there…”
My favourite commentary, and one I’ve listened to repeatedly, is the Region 2 cast commentary to Dog Soldiers which seems to be the only one i’e heard which genuinely is a group of eople who genuine;y enjoy each others company deriving great pleasure from watching (and mockn) their movie.
As an afterthought I’ll second to recommendation for all the Evil Dead commentaries too.
By and large anything featuring a group recording instead of a duo or lots of seperate contributors recorded separately.
I second the vote for “Election.” Alexander Payne really breaks down his movie-making process and gives insight to a lot of the subtleties.
Sadly, the commentary for his first film “Citizen Ruth” was a lot less insightful. The four participants seemed to be really out of sync with one another.
Haven’t heard that one yet, but the one with director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp is pretty loopy, as you might imagine.
High point: When the scenes in the treasure cave come up, Verbinski grumbled how they had to keep dressing the set because the small treasure bits had a habit of disappearing during the day. Depp retorted, "Well, you hired 'em to be pirates.
The commentary on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is good. Not sure if the one on the currently-sold edition is the same as the original, but it really was quite informative and neat. You also learn some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits from Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface.
The Muppets From Space commentary is a lot of fun. You watch with the director, and Kermit the Frog, and Gonzo, and Rizzo the Rat. They appear as silhouettes, kinda like Mystery Science Theater 3000.
One from way back when that I thought was interesting was Disturbing Behavior. The DVD has about 11 deleted scenes on it, and in the director’s commentary, you can kinda hear him seething about the studio cuts and how they ruined his movie. He was absolutely right; leaving some of those in would have improved the movie greatly.
Speaking of that sort of thing, listen to the track for The Sum of All Fears if you want to hear the director and Tom Clancy nearly get into a fight. Clancy is pretty mean and hateful about stuff they changed from the book to the movie. I swear that at one point they must have stopped taping for a while and then come back later to record the rest.
The OP seemed to be doing “worst” as well, so here’s some of those: Dungeons & Dragons is absolutely atrocious. If you can listen past the end of the opening credits, you’re a better man than I. And the commentary track for Death To Smoochy is basically Danny DeVito reciting names of cast and crew members and saying what a great job they did.
Peter Bogdanovich’s commentaries for Paper Moon and Daisy Miller are terrific as is Tim Blake Nelson’s for his marvelous film Eye of God.