There was a similar thread on this a few months ago…
I’ll repeat my answer:
If you are a fan of 80s and 90s music from Manchester, England, you owe it to yourself to rent the DVD of “24-Hour Party People”, which tells the story of the scene from Joy Division to the Happy Mondays, centering it around Tony Wilson, the TV personality that started Factory records in order to record these bands. The real Tony Wilson’s commentary is transcendant.
Also, both sets of commentary on the Jackass: the Movie DVD are pretty good.
Also, the commentary to the Finding Nemo DVD is excellent, occasionally cutting away to separately filmed bits describing the development of certain scenery elements or script points
Everyone’s milage will vary. I happen to like technical commentaries where people get into the minutae of how a shot was done. At least they’re talking about the movie. Actors’ commentaries, on the other hand, generally drive me batty. Most of them run like this:
Actor #1: Oh, here’s that shot coming up. Remember? It rained that day.
Actor #2: Oh yeah. We had veal scallopini for lunch.
Actor #1: Ah yes, the famous veal scallopini! And look, there’s actress X.
Actor #2: Isn’t she just great? She was great to work with. Really great. I loved her in that thing that she was in.
Actor #1: Next time we see her we’ll have to ask her about the dishwasher and her pet gecko.
(both laugh hysterically, without further explanation)
Actor #2: Actually, she wasn’t supposed to be in this movie. But her agent is Y, who used to represent Z. He’s dead now. Anyway, she’s having lunch with her agent, at that trendy little Moldavian place…
Actor #1: The one that Spike Lee owns?
Actor #2: No, that’s closed. The other one… (etc. etc.)
I generally prefer commentaries by the director and the writer, ideally together. Scholarly commentaries for older movies usually don’t do it for me. They’re usually either prewritten non-scene-specific essays, in which case they should really be printed up as a booklet instead of delivered as a commentary (it would take you far less time to read the essay than to listen to it)–or they’re scene-specific but filled with bland generalities you probably already know if you bought the DVD (E.g. Ebert telling you again and again and again whenever there’s a deep focus shot in Citizen Kane.)
The most entertaining commentary that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the one to Blood Simple. It’s a typically elaborate Coen Brothers joke, a feature length parody of scholarly commentaries by “Ken Loring” of the “Forever Young Film Preservation Institute.” The “insights” on the car scene and the dog are priceless!
Another shout-out for technical commentaries; the whole reason I listen to the commentaries is to get a glimpse at the behind-the-scenes stuff, and things like “oh, it rained, and I got sick that night” doesn’t do much for me. The commentary for Men In Black was atrocious in that regard; a complete waste of time that had nothing more than Tommy Lee Jones going “Uh huh” for an hour.
Conversely, I enjoy the commentaries on the Pixar movies, because they manage to be informative and fun at the same time. Though, paradoxically, I didin’t really care for the way Finding Nemo’s commentary occassionally interrupted the movie to go to an extended piece – having that stuff available separately, without interrupting the movie flow, would have been better.
And a sympathy vote for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF. Any commentary where co-stars drop in and phone in during the movie gets props from me.
I’ll add another vote for LOTR:FOTR & TTT. It’s worth it just for Billy and Dom, they’re hysterical.
28 Days Later was really good.
There’s one episode of Buffy that had commentary with Seth Green that I enjoyed.
I’ve only recently stated listening to comentary tracks, so keep up all the good posts, it’s giving me a reason to dig throught the DVDs.
One that was so boring I turned it off was Pirates of the Carribean.
Japanese animation is starting to appear with “cultural notes” attached.
I love the information attached to Gensomaden Saiyuki. The story is loosely based on a famous Chinese epic (often translated with the title “Journey into the West”), and the background notes frequently talk about how the original story went.
The best commentary I’ve heard is Emma Thompson and Lindsay Doran’s for Sense and Sensibility. Thompson, as you may know, wrote the screenplay, and Doran was one of the producers. It’s probably most interesting from a writer’s standpoint, but there are humorous anecdotes about working with Ang Lee, extra-fleecy sheep, and a horse with severe gastro-intestinal issues. Listening to it is like going out for coffee with them and discussing the film.
Another great in-character commentary is in Jonah: A Vegetales Movie. The commentary by Larry the Cucumber and Mr. Lunt is hilarious - much better than the movie (which is one of my favorite movies I can watch with my 2-year old).
The musical 1776 has excellent running commentary by the authors of the play on which the movie was based. Among other interesting stories are why the musical number “Cool Considerate Men” was cut (it’s been restored to the DVD), the primadonna antics of Howard “Ben Franklin” DaSilva (who otoh was such a consummate professional that he made the B’way version’s opening night even though he’d suffered a massive heart attack earlier in the week [after opening night he went back to the hospital], and biographical commentary on many of the actors and the characters they portrayed.
I just saw Melvin Goes To Dinner last night, the commentary for that was good. It had Bob Odenkirk- the director and of Mr. Show fame- and the major cast members.
But it was such an incredibly good movie that I think that I would have liked the commentary regardless.
My all time favorite commentary comes from the director’s cut of the Coen brother’s Blood Simple. It’s narrated by some British guy from a film institute that you’ve never heard of, and as the commentary progresses, it becomes clear that he’s completely insane, with some sort of paranoid persecution complex about the Coen brothers and the studio that released the film. Highlights include the ridiculously complex set-up for a relatively simply shot of a conversation in a darkened car on a rainy highway (such as having to bolt the car to the ceiling and acting the entire scene in reverse) and the revelation that it was originally supposed to be an epic set on the Russian front of WWI, with Emmet Walsh in the starring role, but was “ruined” when the Coens re-edited the footage into a contemporary film noir in set in Texas. Funniest faux-commentary I’ve ever heard: better even than the Spinal Tap one.
Joss Whedon never fails to entertain, except when he’s plum out of things to say. His commentaries on all three of his shows (That’s Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, for all you unwashed masses) are very funny, but they do give insight into how he was able to do certain things or create certain moods. The funniest one that I remember, though, was the commentary he did with Nathan Fillion on one of the Firefly episodes (I think it was the pilot, “Serenity”).
While I love the commentaries in Simpsons and Futurama, after a dozen episodes they start to sound the same. It especially irks me when they bring in someone new, and they start to retell the same stories or ask “Isn’t this the first appearance of XX?”. Um no… that was last season and they spent 10 minutes talking about XX in the last DVD set.
I always rave in these types threads about the commentary for The Stunt Man. It’s actually made up of several edited together commenatries from most of the surviving lead cast and the director, who is the weakest commentator since he’s more than a little pretenious (hint: skip his pointless ego-trip filmed intro to the film itself) and insists on pronouncing the main character’s name in a way that gives away a plot device from late in the film. It sounds like different groups of people were in the room together at different times. Great stories from the movie like, pointing out when a stuntman broke his ankle during a sequence that stayed in the film. Or Peter O’Toole talking about how the director gave a bit part to a friend of his to make O’Toole feel comfortable on his first day of shooting by having him be greeted by a familiar face. Only a little technical detail, but interesting when it’s there.
Winter Kills - the commentary isn’t as good as the “making of” documentary, since the director repeats some of the best stories, but he does elaborate on some of the things that happened during the troubled production. Like various shut downs when the money disappeared or Anthony Perkins being hit with a real blackjack instead of the rubber prop one during an intense scene and remaining in character and nailing the scene despite the pain. The stories about Elizabeth Taylor being in the film, her tantrums, demands, and then husband John Warner’s arm playing a cameo in the film.
I think the worst commentary I’ve heard in a mainstream film was the one for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Besides Jason Mewes being wasted and wandering out during parts, Kevin Smith explaining obvious jokes and dropping the names of every extra in any shot who played a part in some other View Askewiverse film or worked at the Secret Stash comic shop at one time or another gets old. Although hearing him explain how his wife got a role as one of the theives all without ever using the the phrase, “I’m whipped,” was slightly funny.
I have three suggestions.
Roger Ebert on Citizen Kane.
If you don’t know why Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made, listen to this.
Tim Burton on Sleepy Hollow
I was suprised by this one. It’s a perfect mix of good stories and tech info about making the film.
Superman the Movie (two people do the commentary Director Richard Donner and Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz)
It’s really great. One thing is that they explain how the effects were done because there are no digital effects in the film. Plus the stories about the actors and everything is great.
Someone mentioned Bride of Re-Animator, the, well the first one is also pretty damn funny, with all of the actors sitting around and making fun of themselves. Who knew Jeffrey Combs was so hysterical? I like movies where it at least seems like everyone is having a good time.
One to avoid: PCU, with Jeremy Piven. He complains for at least half of the movie that the director didn’t let him improvise.
Pretty much any commentary with Sam Raimi is good. Resident Evil is fun and crude, and it further shows why I believe that Michelle Rodriguez would be a lot of fun to go drinking with.
Haven’t had the patience to watch many commentaries in full, but here are two I have sat through fully
Old School Okay, I was bored and had already watched it a handful of times. It’s got the whole cast and the director, and they’re pretty funny (and high, as I speculated at some point in another forum) most of the time, though they do go on a bit about Luke Wilson’s eyebrows. Meanwhile, he bitches about playing the ‘straight guy’ and says, in what is one of the funniest lines in the whole commentary, something like ‘Whaa? Y’all want to start a fraternity where?’ You have to hear it. Also, it is clear that every female cast in the movie is only there because the director saw her in something, developed a crush and found a way to finally meet her.
Sleepaway Camp is pretty bad but also (unintentionally) funny at times, much like the movie itself. The director seems to be watching his own work for the first time in years (as is the case in a lot of these commentaries, it seems. Sometimes I think they just grab these people off the street and put them in a room, recording whatever crap comes into their mouths upon viewing the movie for the first time since it was made). He keeps 'tsk’ing and saying things like ‘Oh, those kids shouldn’t be up there! That’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen!’ The best parts are when he and the lead try to pretend like they’ve made an Oscar-winner, not a low-budget horror about a trannie camper. She’ll insert comments like ‘See, that’s why it’s such a classic’ and they’ll ooh and aah over the acting skills of the guy playing the child molesting camp cook.
