Another disappointing commentary (mostly because I love the movie so much) was for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The commentary is with Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus. I didn’t know much about Schamus other than he collaborates with Ang Lee on most of his films as a screenwriter. I have much respect for that. But he seemed to dominate the commentary and was constantly making fun of Ang Lee and his directing choices. I think he was just giving his buddy a hard time but it seemed mean-spirited and left a bad taste in my mouth. Plus they didn’t talk nearly enough about the making of the film and the history of the story. And this film aches for that kind of treatment.
Cannibal: The Musical featured Try Parker, Matt Stone, and a number of the other cast members drinking whiskey throughout the commentary.
Trey covers his ex-girlfriend (She left me for a Waffle House Manager. Now I’m worth 2.6 million dollars), the key grip (“She had enormous…”), and the actual history of Albert Packer.
At the end everyone is drunk and leaves the recording studio for a strip club.
Depending on your preferences this is either ungodly funny or rather tasteless. I laughed more from the commentary than the actual film.
David Fincher + Brad Pitt = great commentary. Fincher just releases high quality DVD extras, that’s all there is to it.
I originally thought Se7en had the best commentary, until I heard Fight Club. Let me tell you, Morgan Freeman will put you to sleep faster than you can hit FFWD, but Helena Bonham Carter is pretty good.
The extras on both Fincher movies I listed are excellent as well. The behind the scenes stuff was fascinating, to me at least. I could watch that color correction sequence all day and night like a mental patient. Even the alternate commentaries are good; Chuck Pahluniak (sp?) and the screenwriter do a solid one as well on Fight Club.
True Romance, probably my alltime favorite movie, (so forgive my rose colored glasses) has a sweet and fun commentary with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. The Tony Scoot commentary is pretty solid. Possibly my favorite, though, is the “extras” commentary. All the tangental characters commented on their scenes, so it jumps from actor to actor doing the commentary through the whole movie. Excellent idea with excellent execution.
And finally, Kevin Smith does pretty good commentary. I’m fond of the Dogma commentary.
The commentary on the Clerks cartoon series is pretty good. They got shafted by the producers and have little, if any, legal recourse. So they bitched about what was going on and gave some insight into the making of the series.
-Tcat