“But I think we pulled it off” and other DVD audio commentary inanities - Page 3

I don't mind technical commentaries; in fact, I enjoy them - so long as there's actual information being presented. Cinematographers interest me a lot, but I think those tracks are a real hit-or-miss - there are some DPs who are very good at putting their experiences into words, and then some who just can't. I don't fault them for that; they went into the business to express things visually, but the people who either can't or won't reveal more information than what brand of light bulb they like is a waste of commentary space.

On the other hand, I also appreciate more relaxed, conversational commentaries - provided that the people are at least interesting. I don't mind if a commentary isn't scene specific as long as it stays interesting.

It would be nice if on the DVD specs (or in the press release) if they could note if the commentary track was recorded live with all principles in the room, or assembled from seperate sessions. It would also be cool if they could point out if it's going to be a more technical, film school type commentary, or a more anecdotal, conversational type commentary.

I had a really ong rebuttal written out to this, but when I finished I decided to skip it and say simply that I think that is a really unfair comment.

I also loathe this tendency of some participants. Guys, if we really want to watch the scene uninterrupted, we can switch the audio tracks ourselves! We don't listen to commentaries to hear you NOT talk!



The big difference between the Reiner Tap commentary and his other ones is that the former is edited, and he's not solo on it. I'm sure that if Criterion had expected a good, running, screen-specific piece from Reiner, his Tap commentary would have sucked as well. He's one of the worst commentators out there...

Dennis Hopper's DVD commentary for Easy Rider was an excruciating case of the viewer yelling at the screen "....come on...come on.....DAMN IT SAY SOMETHING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!! IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES!!"
It's a shame Columbia didn't port over the older 1996 LD commentary with Peter Fonda, production manager Paul Lewis & Hopper on the phone. Granted that LD track was more than a little annoying in it's self congratulatory manner but it was certainly more fact/story filled than Hopper's solo DVD snore-fest.

The end of Shane was like this. I was hoping the participants would discuss the ending, but they were still rambling on about some earlier point.

This is a topic that I have been having so many issues with lately...

I've actually come to loathe listening to commentaries because there are so many that are a complete waste of time. Especially on the movies that weren't recently in theaters...Is it too much to ask that these people watch the movie once BEFORE they start the commentary so we don't have LONG pauses where they are just sitting there watching the movie and laughing. How are we supposed to get a decent commentary track when they haven't seen the movie in years and are now watching with a cloudy memory?

And to add on the commentary issue, did you ever notice how so many of the featurettes (i.e. extras) all start to sound the same?

Here's my list:

- (Insert name here) is an AMAZING director to work with!
- (Insert name here) is truly a gifted actor!
- (Insert name here) is an AMAZING costume designer!
- (Insert name here) is one of the funniest people I've ever worked with.
- This movie has (insert large number here) special effects sequences...which is the largest number of effects shots in a movie.
- Whenever several actors (from the film) are doing commentary, one will always comment on what he/she is doing in the film - i.e. "Look at what I just did!" or "Look at my hair!" or "Look at me trying not to laugh"
-In the deleted scenes commentary, a director will ALWAYS say something like "I HATED to cut this scene because it was my FAVORITE!" or
"I cut this scene for length reasons, even though (insert actors name) did an exclenet job with this scene"

Here's a question I would like to pose:

Would you want the exact opposite?

"Damnit to hell, [insert actor/actress name] was a pain in the ass to work with."

"Man this shot sucked, and I have absolutely no idea why I put it here."

"I hate this movie. Oh why oh why did I make it?"

They made fun of this commentary on one of the Family Guy commentary tracks. They said that all Hopper did was say, "Whoa, I don't remember doing that!" over and over.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Army of Darkness audio commentary by Bruce Campbell and the Raimi brothers. It was a nice mix of technical and anecdotal information and a lot of fun to listen to.

De

Dewitte, I was just going to say that any Bruce Campbell commentary is good in my book. Sam Raimi seems to be pretty good when he's with Bruce as well, but seems pretty bored on Spiderman and other movies. Of course, I've seen him quoted as saying he doesn't really enjoy commentaries.

This is why I rarely listen to commentaries anymore. It was cool when I first got into DVD, but now every disc has one, even if it's not merited. To paraphrase an old saying, "If you have nothing interesting to say, don't say anything."

The only commentaries I may find interesting are ones that are generally informative and explain some key things about the film in its historical context, some general technical stuff (I don't need all the details), or are entertaining in their own right (like the MGM Spinal Tap).

In general, commentaries by the film-makers, especially actors, are dull and self-important. There are exceptions (I plan on buying Remains of the Day at some point and listening to Emma Thompson because I'm in love with her), but the commentaries from scholars tend to be much more interesting, in no small part to their objectivity.

One of the many things Criterion does right is to have such commentaries. Of course since many of the films are old they can't have the film makers, but note that many of their discs have no commentaries. They only put it in when they have someone knowledgable talk about something interesting. I owe some of my love for Kurusawa to Criterion's commentaries.

And I'll add another accolade to Ebert on Citizen Kane. A great example of a wonderful comment on a scene was him explaining how they filmed and spliced the part where Kane is firing his friend. Not too technical, understandable, and very interesting.

But these are the exceptions. What one usually hears on commentaries are that so-and-so is wonderful to work with, a genius, open, wonderful, great, wonderful, blah blah-bady- blah. Everyone's so great. Gee, I'd like a job where everyone is so great.

I don't have the energy to figure out how to rip commentary tracks on my MP3 player or any such thing. If I do listen to commentaries, it's at home while doing stuff, but it's still time-consuming or I'd rather be listening to music. The DVD makers have to realise that films are long, and therefore so are commentaries. Please make it worthwhile.

I haven't even tried listening to commentaries on films I don't love. I wouldn't see the point.

The commentary review site is a great idea.

While Bruce Campbell's solo track was great on the Evil Dead, I thougth Raimi's track was rather boring.

And for some reason I can't make it through the Die Hard John McTiernan commentary. He's just too monotone and technical for me.

And I find Morgan Freeman's commentaries to be quite uninteresting.

The most useless commentary I've listened to is the cast/crew commentary on Christmas Vacation. A major disappointment since it's the only special feature on the disc. Beverly D'Angelo spends most of her time talking/complaining about her hair, and there are a lot of "this was the studio...this was location" comments throughout. Too bad because it was a nice mix of the cast (Beverly D'Angelo, Johnny Galecki) and the crew (Director and Executive Producer). I can tell how useless it was because I can't remember a single anecdote or point of interest. Avoid.

As many people have pointed out, I think the actor commentaries tend to be the most uninteresting. Director/Filmmaker commentaries are hit and miss. It depends on the charisma of the commentator, and how willing they are to be candid. I've found critic/film historian commentaries to be the most informative. I think it's because they can be objective, since they weren't involved in the production, and because there is usually more perspective the older the movie.

These are other commentaries I consider subpar:

Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock/Marc Lawrence - Two Weeks Notice
Todd Haynes - Far From Heaven (a lot of interesting information, but I found it boring)
Emmerich/Devlin - The Patriot
Gary Ross/Steven Sodebergh - Seabiscuit (I was surprised by this - I love Sodebergh commentaries and this even has the neat feature of stopping the film to elaborate on points. I just found it to be quite dry, and very congratulatory).
Robert Zemeckis/Producers - What Lies Beneath
Sam Raimi/Kirsten Dunst - Spiderman (I've heard Raimi is usually good, but he was pretty boring on this one, and Dunst and the producer didn't offer anything worthwhile)

This may seem like a thread fart in this particular thread but commentaries remain by far my favorite 'extra' on dvds, some are good, some are bad, but I've purchased many dvds solely because they contained a commentary. I find them fascinating, even when I'm yawning thru some of them.

I like commentaries that are informative and make me think, the Criterion laserdisc of The Graduate comes to mind, but I especially like commentaries that are pure fun.

I really love the ones for Donnie Darko, Mr. Show, Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, Chasing Amy, and Cannibal: The Musical. I was/am really looking forward to the commentaries for Orgazmo. The one for American Pie is fun too.

It would be great if an SE of Dazed & Confused were to ever come out that multiple commntary tracks would be made, one of which would be the whole cast, and one would be just Richard Linklater complaining about how much it sucked to work for the film company.

A middle ground commentary would be any of the Criterion Martin Scorcese laser discs. Marty is informative, but he also sounds so coked up that sometimes it's hilarious.

.

That would be fantastic. Nothing like a little honesty to spice things up. It doesn't have to be all negative, but you can learn a lot from seeing where things went wrong. I like the fact that on the Daredevil commentary they weren't afraid to point out where the CGI sucked. That was one of my biggest complaints and I was pleased to hear that it bothered the director as well.

Terry Gilliam does honest commentaries like this and his are probably my absolute favorites to listen to.

So bring it on!

Ah Yes! The typical humbled director who has to make the comment that no one would ever want to listen to the commentary track...Argh! I can't stand it! They say things like:

"...to the 12 people actually listening to this commentary..."
or
"...the 3 people who actually bought this movie..."


One of my favorite comments was during the Finding Nemo commentray when one of the guys was making fun of all the other horrible commentaries by saying "Oooo! Remember this scene?...." and then he wouldn't comment on it...basically he was busting on all those directors that just sit there and watch the movie instead of commenting on it.

and to Dome, as everyone else has said, I too would love to hear real honest comments about a particular actor or scene. I understand that there are a lot of talented actors out there, but once you start calling all of them "the most talented actors you've ever worked with", it looses all meaning and starts to become a cliche that we dread hearing on every commentary track.

William Friedkin is the king of the narrators. He does drop the occasional nugget of information, but he really seems to like describing the onscreen action.

Ang Lee tends to do a better job when he has writing collaborator James Schamus to play off of.

I was amazed that Michael Lehmann made it through the entire "Hudson Hawk" commentary without offering a formal apology to the audience.

I started off really loving commentaries, and refused to give an A grade in my www.digitallyobsessed.com reviews to a disc that didn't include them. However, I've heard so many repulsively bad ones that I've had to revise my stance. I'm about to the point of commentary overkill--unless I'm really fired up about a movie a commentary may cause me to put the disc back! Way too many movies (and TV shows, like The Simpsons) that don't require them have them, and good god, Cabin Fever has FIVE commentaries?!? Forget it. Life's short enough as it is, don't seriously suggest I sit through this thing SIX times. I can't imagine ANY movie that I'd want to hear five commentaries on--the four on Lord of the Rings (and I adore those movies) is too many.

In Warner's defense, the Ben-Hur DVD acknowledges (at least my copy does) there are gaps in the Heston commentary and it even has an onscreen icon to skip ahead to the next bit. So I don't count that as one of the "dead-space" offenders. I've never seen that on any other disc.

If you want a new take on commentaries you really need to pull out the Monsters Inc. Disc 2 and listen to the commentary for "Mike's New Car." There's no dead space, its scene by scene, it deals with some "technical" matters, and is the most unique commentary I've ever seen/heard. Plus its only 3 1/2 minutes so its not a big waste of your time.

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Well, this is something you'll find more in promotional featurettes that commentaries, but I can't stand it when an actor says that the director "took it to the next level."

The Blade 2 commentary with Guillermo Del Toro and Wesley Snipes has some funny moments, Like when Del Toro tells you; "There are some CGI shots in this movie and I f@#king hate them! And I'll tell you when the film gets to them." or something like that, he's really funny and is genuinley excited to be sitting there doing the commentary.

I can think of one commentary that actually has an uncomfortable moment, Gremlins with Joe Dante, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates and Dick Miller and Howie Mandel.

In the scene wher Billy discovers the Mogwai have become Cacoons in his room Zach Galligan starts to tell the story of how early it was when they filmed the scene, and that's when Joe Dante interjects; "Don't tell that story, No one wants to hear it!" followed by about 2 minutes of dead air before one of the others on the commentary breaks the uncomfortable silence. Check it out, it really is odd.

One that I found particularly boring was Alan Ball and Sam Mendes on American Beauty. It was pretty obvious they ran out of steam early on, and Ball said virtually nothing unless Mendes prompted him for something. He just kind of sat back and said "I never knew that," or other awestruck-sounding comments. Oh, and enough about Conrad Hall's lighting already.

Another one that got a bit repetitive was John Frankenheimer on the Ronin commentary. I swear, he described DeNiro, Reno, Skarsgard, Pryce, and several others ALL as "phenomenal actors." It got old.

And the all-time worst commentary offense I've ever heard was on the Platinum Series edition of Se7en, in the second commentary track (the one devoted to the writing of the film). There is a film studies professor who proceeds to ruin the plot of AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MOVIE - He completely destroyed any chance I had of being surprised by Spoorloos (The Vanishing), by giving away what would have been an incredible ending (those who have seen the movie know what I'm talking about). To spoil the plot of the movie you're commenting on is one thing, but to ruin another, different movie is just infuriating! ARGH!!! I still get mad thinking about just how completely unnecessary that was.

Hey Brian-

The Friedkin track on The French Connection isn't bad.
He tells some interesting stuff about the frantic car
chase- you will be surprised.

The Hackman-Scheider track is OK too, but they speak
seperately, and for only about 25 minutes apiece.

Another sort of awkward moment was in Chasing Amy (I think) when Mewes starts telling some story about him and Affleck getting pulled over by the cops, Affleck plays it off a bit at first and then when Mewes says "It's cause that what's-her-name was passed out in the back seat"-- Affleck obviously got a bit upset and cut Mewes off...

I definately got the vibe that Mewes (unknowingly cause Mewes is a bit slow) crossed the line into "wild shit celebrities don't talk about" -- and Affleck quickly shut him down, trying to be resonably good natured...



I disagree on that- while American Beauty commentary could ahve been better, I thought that their respect of Hall was on par with where it shoud be... enough words could not be said about Hall in general, nor how much he brought to American Beauty. I wish more directors would gush about the work of Conrad- American Beauty only lacked in specifics on Hall.


-V

I'm surprised no one's mentioned what I consider by far the worst commentary, and yet also one of the most unintentionaly hilarious: Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes track.

Admittedly, I never listened to the entire track, only the last five minutes, just to hear him attempt to explain the absurd and non-sensical ending (a perfectly awful and yet appropriate capper to one of the worst movies ever, IMHO), and wound up alternately laughing and marveling at how someone so inarticulate could possibly be an A-list filmmaker or ever communicate his thoughts to the cast and crew.

Essentially, Burton rambles for five to ten minutes in sentence fragments, saying nothing of substance, barely even completing an entire thought.

The antitheses to Burton's blathering include the edifying/entertaining commentaries from Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Ed Norton on "Fight Club," various Pixar people on all their films, and pretty much any Joss Whedon track.