“But I think we pulled it off” and other DVD audio commentary inanities (2 Viewers)

[Damin J Toell]

Great, we get it, you don't like pretty much every commentary ever made. So do yourself a big favor and don't listen to them anymore. I'd rather hear a director narrate the on-screen action of his film than read yet another post about how much people dislike every commentary. At least narration actually has something new every once in a while when something happens in a film.

DJ

 

[Charles de Lauzirika]

Another alternative would be to just turn the commentary off and get on with your life. That's what I usually do anyway.

 

[MarkHastings]

Ouch! Them's fightin' words.

 

[Charles de Lauzirika]

Not really, no.

I just don't have time to waste on extras that I don't enjoy. Hell, it's hard enough to get me to watch any extras these days. As you might imagine, I'm pretty supplemented-out. Unless they're for a film I really love, I just tend to sample a lot of different extras on a lot of different discs until something hooks me in. "Slogging" through a commentary that you're hating seems like a big waste of time, no?

 

[Scott Weinberg]

(Thanks for the great work on The Duellists, Mr. D!)

Anyway, I'm a big fan of the commentaries. If it's a movie I really like, I'll absolutely make time for the commentary track ASAP. (I'm listening to a solo Paul Verhoeven talk about Flesh + Blood right now, and I think it's a pretty damn solid track, too!)

My favorites: Ebert on Dark City, Gilliam on Brazil, the director/screenwriter tracks on the LOTR films, ANY track featuring both John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, ANY track featuring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, either of the audio tracks done between Brad Pitt and David Fincher, the group tracks on The Simpsons and Futurama, the cast track on Aliens, the schtick track on This is Spinal Tap, Bill Paxton on Frailty, the "MST" track on Ghostbusters, the "normal" tracks on Holy Grail and Meaning of Life, Knightley and Davenport on Pirates of the Caribbean (I found them charming and witty), Fincher and his cast from Fight Club, Joe Bob Briggs on I Spit on Your Grave (no, I'm not kidding; this commentary rocks), EITHER of the Boogie Nights tracks, the Criterion's Devil and Daniel Webster track (I forget the names of the two participants) was amazingly informative, Brad Anderson and Steve Gevedon on Session 9, the three tracks combined from Ravenous (there's just something fascinating about the inner workings of a movie that nobody went to see despite its being a great flick), and many, many others.

I think Ridley Scott does fantastic commentaries. Ditto Verhoeven, Cameron Crowe and James Cameron.

The ones I DON'T like? I generally forget about 'em before too long. But there are a few filmmakers I love who absolutely stink at audionical commentizing. Guys like Rob Reiner and Mel Brooks... Heck, I had a hard time getting through the ZAZ tracks on Airplane! and Top Secret!...and these guys are clearly FUNNY freakin' guys. Well, funny freakin' writers regardless.

I don't so much mind the 'narration' style of commentizing; quite often this type of out-loud chatter leads to something rather fascinating. But if a speaker drones on and on giving A-B-C plot points, you gotta wonder what gives.

One thing I would agree on: I'd like to see more commentaries recorded after a film is released. Let's face it: listening to Roger Christian talk about the CGI and Travoltaness of Battlefield Earth is probably not that thrilling, but listening to Roger Christian discuss his movie in relation to the deluge of hatred the movie received...well, that's a commentary track I'd listen to.

We could call it the "Hindsight Commentary Collection"!

Robert Altman on Popeye: "Hoo boy. Here we go."

Martin Brest on Gigli: "Before we start in, let's cut me a little slack. I've made some pretty good movies you know!"

David Fincher on Alien 3: "No comment."

Cheech and Chong on Up in Smoke: "You guys might not believe this...but that weed...was all real."

Robert Greenwald on Xanadu: "[weeping uncontrollably]"

Michael Lehmann on Hudson Hawk: "From Heathers to this to a movie about giant talking cockroaches. Hollywood rules."

Michael Bay on Pearl Harbor: "The ELECTRIC BILL from our computer effects department could have FED an entire third-world country. FOR A WEEK!"

John McTiernan on Rollerball: "Ugh. Don't ask."

So what was the point? Ah.

Commentaries = Good

The bad ones don't affect me all that much because one can generally tell within the first 15-20 minutes if the participants have anything interesting to say whatsoever. If it's dry and lifeless at the outset, guess what. Skip it and move on to another one.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

Hey Scott, the talking cockroaches movie ("Meet the Applegates") was released before Hudson Hawk. I, er, think it's pretty funny actually.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Thanks for the correction, Mark. I, too, think it's actually kinda funny. Dabney Coleman is a hoot.

But anyway, it was my error. Lehmann's next flick after Hudson Hawk was...Airheads.

 

[Devin_C]

Dave Mack -
I was just getting ready to post something to that effect - excellent commentary, enjoyed it very much (as I did the film). Good to see it mentioned later too.

I think some of the more techie commentaries by the special effects guys can be interesting; they tend to spend less time describing what's going on and more time talking about what's real and what's not. or so it seems to me, anyways.

 

[Timon Russo]

Thats funny, I just listened to the Patriot commentary the other day, which is just as bad as everyone has said already, and which is what inspired me to read this thread. I thought every time he said "kind of like", I would take a drink, but quickly realized I would have been in the hospital with alchohol poisoning before the first shot was fired.

 

[Melson]

I found out a great way to "listen" to boring commentaries. Lost of commentaries are subtitled these days (at least here in Europe), so I just turn on the subtitle track, press fast forward (double speed will do fine!) and watch an entire track in about 45 minutes to an hour. Works great, and it's especially rewarding with speakers who have annoying voices (like Jan de Bont or John McTiernan).

Best speakers: Oliver Stone (I once read he takes WEEKS to prepare for a commentary track), Terry Gilliam, Paul Verhoeven.

Biggest disappointment: both commentaries on the new Planet of the Apes dvd,

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Just to clarify, since I started this thread:

I will frequently abandon a track after about 20-30 minutes if it doesn't do anything for me, or at the very best I might chapter ahead to see if it sounds more interesting later on, or during memorable scenes. If not, as Charlie says and many of you no doubt do, I switch it off and get on with my life (perhaps another commentary track or perhaps scrubbing the bathroom tile, either way I do move on. After all, they're just movies.)

I suppose my comments about "slogging" through these things (in my previous post) were uncalled for. Rarely do I consider it "slogging," but as I mentioned way, way back in this thread, sometimes one feels the need to at least get one’s money's worth out of a disc (the whole "completist mentality" thing), but I'm also well aware that just because a studio or filmmaker puts something on a disc doesn't mean we are bound in any way to watch it. It's just that ever-increasing amounts of this material, particularly on new releases that may not warrant it, bring so little enhancement to the films they supplement (as others here have noted as well). But hey, if ultimately it helps sell more copies, who’s to argue?

Admittedly if I didn’t have the distinct advantage of being able to listen to commentaries at the office without it impacting my workload, I honestly doubt many of the commentary tracks would even reach the 20 minute mark. Sometimes I just let them play out simply to ease the boredom and avoid the top 40 radio that plays all day off in the corner.

Granted, many of us would probably balk at the price if a DVD didn't have extra material, but I'm happy to say I'm not one of them. No-frills discs have their advantages too, particularly on some newer titles (so very many of which seem to be burdened by ample “extras” these days, regardless of box-office performance, critical reaction, audience reaction, etc.) Makes one pine for the days of Laserdisc, it does, when commentaries and supplements seemed to be, predominantly, the domain of arguably important films, classic films, and films that had held up to the test of time for one reason or another (and to one fan or another), and even the occasional cult films, art films and Hollywood Blockbusters. Back then, because the whole concept - if not the entire format - was targeted largely at the collector mentality, I consistently felt like I was really about to hear something special (even if it ultimately wasn’t) that regular VHS buyers wouldn’t get to hear. Obviously, I don’t get that feeling anymore. Half the time, the participants on today’s tracks simply sound obligated...which seems all the more sad if they’re not paid to take part.

And please, Damin, don’t think that I dislike pretty much every commentary ever made. I never meant to imply that, but as a recent thread about great commentaries quickly devolved into a series of lists (as nearly always happens when people discuss favourite things), I simply knew that the bad ones would be more interesting to discuss and debate, and the length of this thread has pretty much exceeded the mileage even I thought it could bear.

That said, I'm still hoping to hear more horror stories, if only just for the fun of it.

 

[Ray_Gootz]

A good track I jut heard was The Critic. During the Siskel and Ebert episode they mentioned how when Siskle died they showed clips on his tribute episode of his apperance on the Critic and one guy goes "yeah we got money. it was great." and there is a creepy silence afterwards and someone goes "Let's go to something else" it was a weird but awesome moment.

Also anything with Ben Affleck or Brad Pitt is preety funny. I don't know how people could hate Ben Affleck he's so cool on his commentary tracks, he's even funny on the Pearl Harbor one. Anytime Pitt is on he makes alot of dorky refrences you'd never think he would know about. But Affleck wins the award as the best actor on a commentary track.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Melson brings up a very interesting point.

I love it when commentary tracks are subtitled, as I'll do exactly what he does: put the player on 2x or 4x speed which, on my all-region players, is still slow enough for the laser to grab the subs and for me to still be able to read them. For the unsubbed commentaries, they come to the office with me.

Slightly off topic, but not really, are the enhanced information tracks, which I sometimes prefer to audio commentaries. Someone way back mentioned the "interactive" tracks on the recent Disney animated films Treasure Planet and Finding Nemo. I checked out part of the Finding Nemo one out of curiosity when I bought it and was rather impressed with how well it integrated all the different extras (including some of the usual studio publicity type interviews) into a rather enjoyable mix. I'm guessing basic commentaries are cheaper to record and program than these tracks, but this at least allows numerous features, including bits of commentary, production drawings, interviews, behind-the-scenes stuff to be inserted where they'll have the most impact, rather than coldly lumped together somewhere else. Sure, it expands the viewing time considerably, but if your player has a memory-play function, it can be split into sessions.

Basic information subtitle tracks also benefit from Melson's technique. I watched the info-track on Die Another Day last night in just over 1 hour, including watching most, but not all, of the "incoming video transmissions" (a lot of these are publicity interviews) Amazing how much of the info on John Cork's track simplified what was said on the Tamahori/Wilson audio commentary. The cool thing about this particular track is that none of the features "jumped away" from the movie, meaning the entire experience at regular speed would still be no longer than the movie itself. In fact, I dare say there's probably more useful tidbits here than there are in the commentary, and it's not a bad commentary! The video segments simply zoom up to fill up the screen, while the movie proper zooms down to the corner so you can still watch it out of the corner of your eye.

These kind of features take far better advantage of the interactive nature of DVD in my opinion, even if they are largely "programmed" to lead us in certain directions.

 

[R. Kay]

McTiernan on 'Thomas Crown Affair' is the worst I've heard.

 

[MarkHastings]

Charlie, what I meant by Ouch was, it's hard to say "get on with your life" when there are so many commentary tracks out there. It would be one thing if all of the tracks were worth listening to, but there are a lot that are down right horrible.

I (as so many others) live for DVD's and the extras, so when we run into so many "time wasters", it's almost traumatic. Yes, maybe there are more things to life than commentaries, but when you're passionate about something (and don't have enough time to watch them all), it's not easy to just think "oh well, it's just an extra and I should get on with my life" - those few hours wasted on bad commentaries are precious to us.

Don't get me wrong, the little 'nit-picking' stuff is one thing, but you have to agree that there are some commentary tracks that aren't worth the space they occupy on the disc. These are the ones I roll my eyes at and can't believe I just wasted my precious time being bored to death with.

And is it fair to say that I shouldn't be upset because I got more than my moneys worth with the movie alone and the commentary is just 'extra'? I don't think so.

This was the reason for my outrage with the people who think I am greedy for wanting quality commentaries. The 'extras' are a way of 'selling' the movie to the consumer. The entire package is what determines if I am to spend money on the product or not. So when I buy something, I should expect that everything I get is up to a certain standard. If I've based my decision on wether or not to buy "X" because it has commentary, then the commentary should be of a certain quality. This doesn't mean that I even have to like it. Hating a commentary because it's what I consider 'bad' isn't what bugs me, it's the ones that are relentlessly 'dull' that get under my skin.

 

[Nick T Robot]

I think this sums up how many films are made. I don't mind hearing a director say this as long as the phrase is accompanied by the story about how they pulled it off. Especially with movies with special effects (well, not CGI)

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Many of the Family Guy commentaries were abandoned.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Another disc with a text commentary that branches to video featurettes is "Die Another Day" with its MI6 data stream, which, it occurs to me as I type, was produced by Charlie.

Regards,

 

[MarkHastings]

Don't forget the first season of South Park. True, you could get them separately, but they weren't included on the DVD. That's almost 5 hours worth of commentary that was recorded and then not put on the DVD.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Now that I know Charlie de Lauzirika was involved in that MI5 track on Die Another Day, I know one BIG way he could help us help ourselves to get on with our lives: turn off the commentaries and start making more features like this and the ones on those Disney discs. Nice work!

Come to think of it, couldn't a producer or editor pick and choose commentary highlights, much like they do with tracks featuring multiple participants who weren't recorded together, to further augment these text/video commentary tracks? Just to have semi scene-specific commentary in-between the video snippets. If the commentators indeed are not paid for their services, surely they wouldn't have recourse if their tracks were pared down and incorporated into a greater multi-media track like that on the Bond disc.

Could be cool, but then I guess people would eventually start posting "best and worst audio/text/video commentary inanities" on internet forums, so it might be a no-win situation.