YES. I feel like I’ve posted about this several times before, but seriously, that is one of the most informative commentary tracks I’ve ever heard, and it made me go from hating the movie to thinking it was brilliant. Give it a listen!
The screenwriter commentary on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl is actually really good. Since they were the ones who decided what should go into the movie, they have a lot of analysis on every scene. By comparison, the commentary track with Johnny Depp and the director is a self-indulgent snoozefest that didn’t once talk about the movie itself.
In the same vein as Joss Whedon, JMS does good commentary tracks on the Babylon 5 DVDs. The only caveat is that JMS assumes you’ve seen the entire series by the time you turn on the commentary, so he mercilessly spoils future episodes and plotlines when pointing out details of an episode. You can’t just watch an episode and then rewatch it with the commentary.
That’s an awesome one that I came in to mention, so I’ll settle for touting the commentary for The Blair Witch Project by a number of the producers and crew. I’d rather watch the movie with their commentary than without, because the production was so unusual and the backstory behind how they set up certain scenes and storylines and the bits they had to cut out is way more interesting than the bare movie, which is friggin tedious in places because the cast was making up the dialogue as they went along.
The actor commentaries on the Seinfeld DVDs are funny and interesting.
On their music video collection PopArt, Pet Shop Boys do an amazing commentary for all the videos, switching periodically between actual insight and making fun of whatever silly outfits they were wearing.
I’ve never actually listened to the commentary despite owning the DVD, but apparently during the commentary for Dancer In The Dark, director Lars Von Trier spends the entire time bitching about what a total jerk Bjork was, and how difficult it was to work with her.
The commentary on the 1966 Batman movie by Adam West and Burt Ward. They sounded like they had a lot of fun reminiscing. Burt Ward brought up a point I had noticed: Robin didn’t have a license to drive the Batmobile. Yet he was permitted to pilot the Batcopter.
That was why I disliked the commentary track, actually. Yeah, it was a good self-reference with the line from the movie, it was amusing for the first half hour, but then it just got annoying. Same thing with Step Brothers, which has a musical commentary track. Funny for a few minutes, then quickly irritating.
The Simpsons DVDs are the best. Those commentaries are really good and really informative. The Simpsons DVDs are prime examples of what a good DVD set should be.
The commentary for Buckaroo Banzai deserves mention - it reveals the movie is in fact a documentary.
David Tennet’s comemntaries are pretty good for Doctor Who (he doesn’t do every episode)
BrotherCadfael - all the extended LOTR DVDs have 4 commentary tracks- writers / director, actors, and 2 others I haven’t listened to. Both the writers’ and actor’s commentary do have some insight but I can see they wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea.
Brian
If your goal in life is to be the greatest authority on South Park trivia ever, you have to have the commentary and the “Goin’ down to South Park” special.
I’m also not a commentary fan so the ones I know about all came recommended by others.
“Brother Bear” is a lousy movie with a great commentary. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas do it in their moose characters, which are basically Bob & Doug McKenzie with antlers.
Mr Show DVDs have Bob and David ad libbing, very funny.
The bad vampire movie “American Vampire,” featuring Carmen Electra on the cover despite not having much of a role, and Adam West as the vampire hunter has a commentary track where they got a couple of people from a nearby improv group to MST3K the movie. It makes it much more tolerable.
The Evil Dead commentaries with Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi are very good. It took years to complete the movie because financing kept running out. They explain all the stuff that went on getting the film made.
These threads pop up periodically, and one I usually cite is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with director Tobe Hooper, cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and Gunnar Hanson (who played Leatherface). They throw out tons of interesting info about the movie and the other people involved. My favorite bit: during one scene, Hanson’s character was supposed to cut the lead actress’s finger with a knife, after which another character sucked the blood from her finger. Well, the day was super-hot, they’d been shooting for 29 hours, and the prop knife (with a taped-over blade and a bulb full of fake blood) kept clogging. Hanson, hot and exhausted in his Leatherface costume, finally just ditched the bulb, took the tape off the blade, and cut the actress’s finger for real. She was supposed to scream anyway, so apparently no one noticed. Hooper and Pearl sounded genuinely shocked when Hanson told the story during the commentary.
Weird Al’s commentary on UHF was pretty darned good.
The silent version of The Ten Commandments features an excellent commentary from Katherine Orrison. She also does a commentary on the sound version, but I haven’t gotten all the way through it yet.
Hands down: My Cousin Vinny for reasons mentioned in this thread.
HBO’s ROME, not just for the audio commentary (though some of those are good) but for a feature called All Roads Lead to Rome that provide running onscreen written commentary (similar to pop-up video) about the actions on screen (e.g. “The calender shown here is based on one found in Herculaneum…” or “The goddess Lyde is worshiping is Orbona, a deity who’s specialty was granting children to parents who had lost their children” or “The masks on the wall are wax replicas of death masks and were observed with this ritual…” or “Pompey’s other wives included…”) that’s both informative and adds to the understanding of the series.
My favorite commentaries have to be the ones for the SImpsons and Futurama, with the Simpsons a bit ahead since it has subtitles.
A good commentary I saw recently was the one for Atonement. It has great, informative stuff about set design, scene symbolism, references etc. that is easy to miss. Also, the commentaries are translated into a number of languages and there are even commentaries for the deleted scenes in the bonus features.
“Cannibal! the Musical” is a film made by Trey Parker (of Southpark fame) at film school, with Matt Stone’s assistance. I find it freakin’ hysterical and well worth watching if you are into almost deliberately crappy and utterly absurd nonsense, combined with Parker and Stone’s usual witty and surprisingly catchy songs.
On the commentary track Parker, Stone and other members of the cast announce early on they have several bottles of whiskey which they are going to drink by the end of the commentary. Consequently the beginning of the commentary is relatively sensible, but by the end it consists mostly of slurred whgbrrls and drunken laughter.
I listen to both Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog AND Commentary: The Musical both in my car and on my walks. It’s all great music!
There are commentary tracks from the director and a NASA scientist for the great film “Armageddon”
The DVD for “Spinal Tap” has the cast in character. The Criterion Laserdisc had them out of character.
Great moment in “Logan’s Run” from star Michael York. At one point when costar Jenny Agutter bares her lovely breasts, he sighs “Oh, Jenny!”.
HBO “Rome” has some good commentary tracks (although they gloss over what is inaccurate) but is great for the popups explaining which is going on (which gods are represented, curses made with left arm, etc).
The commentary track provided by Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles on the Brüno DVD is pretty fantastic.
The commentaries (and all the other extras) on the Ultimate Editions of the EON James Bond movies are all pretty keen, but I have a particular soft spot for Roger Moore’s commentary tracks for the Bond movies he starred in. Really, they’re worth picking up just for that.