I think a good audio commentary is probably the most exciting thing about DVD technology. If done right it can really add to the enjoyment of the film and teach you about the subtleties of film.
Unfortunately it’s not always done well. For instance I have been listening to the North by Northwest commentary by the screenwriter and it’s quite disappointing. He doesn’t say much and a lot of it is just biographical gossip rather than scene-by-scene analysis.
I am looking forward to the audio commentaries on Citizen Kane(Roger Ebert) and Godfather(Coppola). Any other recommendations?
I am looking for:
1)Scene by scene analysis with a focus on explaining film-making technique as opposed to celebrity gossip. Also the more talk the better since I can always turn it off if I have to.
2)Older “classic” movies (unfortunately these tend not to have audio commentaries) though I suppose any good movie will do.
Hm, hm, hm. Well, believe it or not, one of my favorite commentaries is the one for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Very entertaining and enlightening, and it talks a great deal about what they had to do to make their movie on a shoestring budget under less-than-perfect conditions.
If you want one that really goes into filmmaking technique, you should check out Criterion’s disc of The Seven Samurai. The commentary is done by a film expert/historian/somesuch, and he explains just about every angle and edit.
I find that Kevin Smith’s movie commentaries are always pretty darn funny and cool, so I’d recommend Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and also the Clerks Animated Series. You won’t find much celebrity gossip there, mostly because Kevin couldn’t afford celebrities, especially in his earlier stuff. He does mention the criticism he gets for using an endless string of two-shots…
But why limit yourself to commentaries about the art of film? For pure silliness, there’s always the “watch with Gonzo, Rizzo, and the director” option on Muppets From Space. Kermit’s there for a little while, too. They did similar stunts with the commentaries on Ghostbusters and Men In Black.
I actually really like Tim Burtons commentary on Sleepy Hollow. Not to technical but good.
The commentary on Say Anything is great. They talk for 20 min before the movie starts. (you see a little slide show of stills from the film)
The is a great commentary track on Dumbo from an animation historian who really goes into great detail on how the film was made and why it is done in the style it is.
I’ll second Ebert’s commentary on Citizen Kane, and I’ll add that his commentary for Dark City is also excellent. In fact, they’re the only audio commentaries I’ve listened to more than once.
There’s a great audio commentary on the “Bootleg Edition” of Almost Famous.
I’ve listened to Coppola’s commentaries for Godfather and Godfather, Part II, and liked them. Haven’t listened to the one for Godfather, Part III, but I hear it’s pretty interesting.
The Gosford Park commentary by screenwriter Julian Fellowes is excellent, though it’s all about the etiquette of the time period and the choices that were made for the movie (e.g., what kind of table settings they went with, who the still maid was, what kind of cocktails people drank at hunting parties in 1932) rather than strict film-making techniques. I found it fascinating and it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the movie, but YM, of course, MV.
On filmmaking technique and such, the commentary on “Ronin” (I’m hazy if that’s the title–a recent film involving some great car chases through Paris, and little else of note) was pretty interesting.
I’ll second/third Ebert–his commentary on “Dark City” really upped my opinion of him quite a few notches, and was cause for me appreciating the film even more.
Easily the best commentary I’ve heard is for This Is Spinal Tap with the 3 leads in character, riffing on old memories and how Marty DiBergi manipulated the truth about the tour that they didn’t think was too bad. Lots of improv and very, very funny.
From a technical point-of-view, Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham commentary is as good as any I’ve heard by a director. This was the first film he directed and he talks through all the basics in a clear-spoken manner. A terrific Film 101 primer.
The Boogie Nights cast commentary is very funny–just a lot of the cast hanging out together. Some drop in, some take off, and Mark Wahlberg even answers his cel phone and has a brief conversation.
I’ll second Spinal Tap, where the commentary is just about as funny (if not moreso) than the original soundtrack! Also, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai has an in-character commentary – with the director! And since the disc is priced to sell (i.e. a bargain), it’s worth picking up. Yes, he explains why the watermelon is there.
Of the Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell commentaries, I’ve only heard the Army of Darkness special edition, which is pretty funny until Ivan Raimi arrives. I’ve also got Timecode, which has two different commentaries by Mike Figgis, since the disc contains two complete takes of the movie (the one that was shot on DV in one continuous take). Both are good, and they avoid repeating each other.
Steven Soderberg’s and Lem Dobbs’s commentary on The Limey might be the best ever. They almost get in a fight! Anything from Soderberg is recommended by me.
The Singer/McQuarrie commentary on The Usual Suspects is also great.
Wes Anderson’s commentary on The Royal Tennebaums is interesting from a filmmaking standpoint.
The Ocean’s Eleven commentary from Brad Pitt/Andy Garcia/Matt Damon is pretty funny, with the trio taking lots of potshots at George Clooney.
Actually Monty Python and the Holy Grail has two great commentaries, one with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and another with John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin. One of the extra features on the bonus disc features Terry Jones and Michael Palin in search of all the castles and other locations where they worked 25 years earlier. Amazing how many completely different scenes were shot in the same room in one castle, and you’ll never notice it until they point it out. A good look at how a great movie can be made on a ridiculously tight budget.
[sub]hmm… think I’ll watch it now[/sub]
(Meanwhile, avoid Spaceballs. It’s just Mel Brooks laughing at his own jokes.)
Both Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness: Director’s Cut/Bootleg Edition are great.
I agree that This is Spinal Tap is the best. Each time you hear “I think he’s dead” you’ll laugh more and more This is one of the best DVDs as it includes a lot of extra footage that is as funny as what was in the original film.
Another good one is Goonies. It’s an audio/visual commentary, where the movie screen shrinks to show all the Goonies with director Richard Donner talking about the film. It’s a great piece of nostalgia, especially for someone, like me, who was a kid when the movie first came out.
The Evil Dead: Book of the Dead has very entertaining commentaries from Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi. Also, Mel Gibson’s commentary on Braveheart was wonderful, it was almost like he was sitting on the couch chatting with you while watching the movie.
Wolfgang Peterson Jurgen Pronchow’s commentary on Das Boot was the first and one of the finest Commentaries I ever heard.
The Written commentaries in MAD MAX Star Trek TMP and Star Trek II are also really good, they are superior to the audio tracks in giving little scene specific tidbits.
The Best still is This Is SPINAL TAP(He’s dead… She’s dead… they’re all dead.)
Wet, Hot, American Summer has a great commentary. Well, not actually commentary…more of a fart soundtrack. But it’s in the commentary section, so I guess it counts.
And the commentary for Connan the Barbarian is pretty fucking funny. It’s a lot of Arnold interrupting the director’s rants about how every woman in the film is so incredibly good looking with shit like “Look, that’s me on a horse.” Classic.
I’ll second the original Evil Dead. I didn’t particularly like Sam Raimi’s but Bruce Campbell’s was brilliant. Very chatty and informal and loads of little anecdotes on how they managed to do all the effects with very little money.
The Snatch commentary is good too, with Guy Ritchie and one of the producers. They can be talking seriously about an aspect of the film when suddenly Guy comes out with ‘Are you wearing my trousers?’ and they go completely off topic for a few minutes before they’re told by the ‘men in suits’ to talk about the film again. Very funny.
The commentary for Conan pointed out something to me that was evidently too subtle to penetrate my thick skull: Conan is chased by wild dogs to the tomb where he finds his sword. He goes back outside, chops the chain off his legs, and looks down at the dogs surrounding the rock on which he’s standing. Then (the part I never noticed), in the next scene, he’s wearing their skins.
The commentary tracks for Seven (Platinum Series version) are quite good… there are 4 of them. One focuses on the actors, one on the script, one on the visual design, and one on the sound design. All are excellent, with the slight problem that on the actors’ track, Morgan Freeman seemed to be recorded seperately from Pitt and Fincher, and then spliced together, so that Freeman’s comments don’t necessarily relate to those of the other two. Still, they all have good, insightful things to say about the film. The real bonus was the last track, the audio one, with the sound designer and the composer talking about what they did. I loved hearing about all of the subtleties of sound design that went into Seven… great stuff.
All of the commentaries are worthy, though, and make it worth the 8 hours it takes to hear them. laughs
Adrian Lyne’s commentary for Jacob’s Ladder is quite insightful as well, though a little sparse in places.
Also, I second the recommendations for the commentary on The Usual Suspects and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
And avoid, at all costs, the commentary track on Stephen King’s Storm of the Century. King’s comments are amusing in parts, but almost completely unrelated to the film (he does like to ramble, that Steve), and the director’s comments primarily discuss how, when, and where they used the 13 different types of snow they needed for the film. Ugh.
I did like King’s reference to X-Files as a “five-year-long cock-tease”… which should give you an idea of just how far afield his comments wander.
The Simpsons DVD sets have excellent commentaries. Very insightful and funny. I’ll also second Kevin Smith’s commentaries.
If they ever come out with Strange Brew on DVD (and they MUST), it would be the greatest thing ever to have an in-character Bob and Doug commentary. Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis can’t be that busy anymore, can they?
Ebert’s commentary on Citizen Kane is most definitely worth watching. The Limey has been mentioned, but I’d like to add that all the Soderberg commentary tracks I’ve heard are excellent and informative. Out of Sight springs to mind as a particularly good one.
Doug Liman’s commentary on Go is another one I liked. It’s particularly informative, because Liman owns up to some of his own shortcomings and inexperience and tells how he solved problems. For instance, he talks about how this film contained his first ‘dining room’ scene, ie., a scene with several people sitting around a table having a conversation. While this might seem like an easy thing to film, they’re actually notoriously difficult to get coverage on, because if you don’t film them just right, filming over the correct shoulders, for instance, you could wind up with a mess in the editing room, with actors looking off into the wrong screen direction because you shot it wrong. Liman got to set that day and realized he wasn’t positive what coverage he needed. So he called his editor in a panic, asking for help. An interesting thing for an experienced director to admit to the world on a commentary track, but it is educational.
This is one of the best DVDs as it includes a lot of extra footage that is as funny as what was in the original film.