Let’s face it: the SDMB is full of über geeks who watch DVDs just to listen to the ramblings of directors and Hollywood stars. But not all commentaries were created equal. So, let’s rate them. My three nominations are:
Best: The Beyond; it’s a not terribly wonderful Italian horror flick, but has a great cast commentary by David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl. Twenty years after the film was made, both of them just relive what must have been a bizarre but enjoyable cinematic experience. Honourable mention to El Mariachi.
Worst: Shakepeare in Love; cast commentary. Basically Gwynneth Paltrow gushing on about how wonderful everything was. Beyond boring.
Oddest: Goodfellas; there is a commentary by Henry Hill (the gangster the original book was based on) and the FBI agent who arrested him.
I found it odd that George Lucas didn’t mention the obvious CGI added scenes in ‘THX-1138’. I listened to the whole damn commentary specifically to hear what he had to say about them.
One of the best is Roger Ebert’s commentary about “Citizen Kane”. Very informative.
I also liked the commentary by Nicholas Myers and Malcolm McDowell for “Time After Time”.
Although it wasn’t horrible, the commentary by the kid cast of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” was mediocre at best. Basically the girls gushing about how they had a crush on the kid who played Charlie. And Mike Teevee is rather full of himself. No Gene Wilder.
Best - Brazil 3DVD set. Terry Gilliam is so enthusiastic and excited about the film even 20 years later that he talks a mile-a-minute through the whole thing, often still talking about scenes after the film has moved on. It’s like he wants to cram in as much as he possibly can. Beautiful.
Worst - Goonies. Getting together the entire original cast plus director to do a “roundtable” style commentary seems like a good idea, until you get 10 people all laughing, screaming, and shouting over each other for the entire commentary to the point where the microphones are distorting and you can’t even tell what’s going on.
Oddest - Mr. Show season one. The reassembled cast keeps trying to make the commentary “funny” by doing “kooky” voices. It’s not funny - at all.
Personal favourite: the commentary tracks on The Tomorrow People, an early Seventies kids’ TV show of quite stultifying awfulness … the commentaries, by the show’s “stars”, cheerfully acknowledge this, as well as describing what it was like to work on the show - and they include a lot of positively scurrilous gossip, plus plenty of waspish one-liners. Much more fun than the actual series. (The DVD producers actually made them a selling point, sticking “Contains the funniest commentary tracks on DVD!” on the box - which is probably exaggeration, but only probably … )
Personal least favourite: The Goodies, with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie saying “I think I remember this bit … (ten minutes’ silence) … oh. yes”, and similar.
Probably the most peculiar: the commentary on the “Drugs” episode of Brass Eye, which, as far as I can make out, is provided by a bunch of drug addicts watching the show for the first time … it’s the sort of thing Christopher Morris (Brass Eye’s creator) probably thought was a good idea at the time.
This Is Spinal Tap has a great commentary by the band members…in character. So you get to hear their reflections on the events of the movie from a few decades on down the road, as well as their complaints about how the director made them look bad. Why’d he have to show the ONE time they couldn’t find the stage?
I’ll second Roger Ebert’s on Citzen Kane, all also add his commentary on Dark City.
I also liked the discussion on Repo Man. I was blown away to find out that the scene where Miller discusses lattice of coincidence wasn’t even in the original script. It was written as a audition piece but was so good, they stuck it in the movie.
Don’t really have a worse one. If I get bored with the commentary, I turn it off.
My favorites have already been mentioned, Ebert’s on Citizen Kane and the in character commentary from Spinal Tap.
The worst that I’ve got in my collection is the for Fawlty Towers, especially the first season episodes. They have the director for the show all by himself. He slurps his tea, snorts, breathes heavily (probably a bad mic job), and at certain points seems to completely fall asleep, only to snort himself awake. They don’t readjust the natural audio volume in the long periods when he’s silent, so you can only follow the action via the captioning. Just awful in every respect.
Best *and * Oddest: Another vote for **This is Spinal Tap ** (Criterion Edition)
Honorable mention goes to the crew commentary (not director’s commentary) for Speed. Rather than the usual this-was-the-best-cast/crew/caterer-I’ve-ever-worked-with-on-the-most-important/sublime/meaningful movie-ever-made commentary, screenwriter Graham Yost is refreshingly honest about what it means to be a writer in Hollywood and that **Speed ** was not the most artistic movie ever made.
I’m fairly certain Joss Whedon is stoned out of his gourd while he rambles through “Objects in Space” on the Firefly DVDs. The stuff he’s talking about is… that kind of stuff, and he makes at least one offhand reference to toking up in a different episode’s commentary. There’s even a suggestively long pause midway through that would be the perfect place for him to hit the bong again.
Best: The commentary tracks to Firefly as a whole, with the one to “Objects in Space” as the cherry on top.
Oddest: The track to the director’s cut of the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple is, essentially, an homage to Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire in DVD commentary form.
The DVDs are available in the UK only, but they are Region 0 (PAL)
Another odd commentary track was on Bubba Ho Tep. Bruce Campbell in character as “The King”.
Best:Finding Nemo: They do a so-called “visual commentary”; The movie plays with regular commentary, and then at interesting parts they cut to little mini-documentaries explaining how they did various CGI effects and showing early prototypes of the scenes. It’s really cool, and I wonder why more movie studios aren’t taking advantage of the technology.
Worst: The commentary on “Second Reality” on the MindCandy DVD (which nobody besides me has even heard of) left something to be desired. The guy doing the commentary is one of the of the people who made the demo back in 1993, so I thought it would be really insightful, but he basically says “Yeah, this was fun to make, and the party was pretty cool.” It sounded like he didn’t even remember how they made the demo. Lame. Can’t think of any others, really. I usually enjoy commentary.
Personal favorite: The commentary for Monito, because it’s just my friend and I talking about how we made the cartoon.
WORST: Keira Knightley on the Pirates of the Caribbean commentary. She giggles incessantly and prattles on and on with her co-star (the “stuffed shirt” guy, Norrington in the movie) and comes across sounding like, well, a teenage girl. On one hand, I find it refreshing that she wasn’t trying to act mature beyond her years and that she was having fun. On the other hand, I don’t want to listen to her pointless babbling for two hours. (Hey, I teach high school–I get to listen to teenagers all day long!)
I forgot another one I really liked: the special edition DVD of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Hearing about how the movie was made and the difficulties made me appreciate it a lot more. I just couldn’t imagine working on that movie. I’d go insane.
Oddest: Another vote for Blood Simple. The commentary is pretty much a parody of DVD commentaries.
Worst: Big Trouble in Little China. The commentary consists of Kurt Russell and John Carpenter catching up on old times, how’s the wife and kids, that kind of stuff. Two guys having a boring, banal private conversation while ignoring the movie. They should have made them start over :mad:
Best: There are lots of good ones, but I think Mel Brooks’s commentary for Young Frankenstein is pretty good.
Uncategorized: I had to stop listening to the commentary for Alias season 1, because they were dropping spoilers left and right (followed by shushing from Jennifer Garner).
Best: Mallrats. It’s as funny if not more funny than the movie. You can tell Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck are friends, because Ben is being mocked the entire time. Worst: Pulp Fiction. It’s not a commentary, it’s a trivia track and it’s god awful. It seems like it was written by a first year film student. “This shot builds tension.” Explaining who Fonzie is. My favorite is “His name isn’t really Ringo, Jules just calls him that because he’s English.” It then explains who Ringo Starr is.
Bastards!
On one hand, I find it refreshing that she wasn’t trying to act mature beyond her years and that she was having fun. On the other hand, I don’t want to listen to her pointless babbling for two hours. (Hey, I teach high school–I get to listen to teenagers all day long!)