Favourite DVD/LDCommentary Tracks? (1 Viewer)

[Marty Lockstead]

Hello all,
Upon doing a quick check to make sure no-one had recently began a thread on this topic, I figured, why not? So let's hear from you fine folks out there. As far as my personal picks go here are some in no particular order:
HALLOWEEN cav criterion LD which features John Carpenter, co-writer/producer Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis
TAXI DRIVER cav Criterion LD which features the one and only Martin Scorsese and a little bit of writer Paul Schrader
BLADE, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, THE THING, HELLRAISER, KISS OF THE DRAGON (mostly when Bridget Fonda is speaking), SOLDIER (think what you will about the film but the commentary is quite good), RONIN, and Bruce Campbell's track on THE EVIL DEAD.

 

[Scott D S]

This topic might be going to the Polls section soon, but here is my opinion:
-Mallrats with Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, Jason Mewes, Phantom's Ben Affleck , Jason Lee, and Vincent Pereira. (It starts out funny and only gets funnier. Also, there is sporadic video footage of the commentary recording session available via multi-angle.)
-Clerks: The Animated Series with Kev, Scott, Jason, Brian "Dante" O'Halloran, Jeff "Randal" Anderson, David Mandel, and Chris Bailey. (This commentary is funnier than some of the episodes, especially when Kev & Dave reveal the idea for the KITT episode and when Kev goes off on the thin-mustcache "child and animal rapist" lawyer.)
-Kentucky Fried Movie with John Landis, Robert K. Weiss, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams. (I just saw the film with the commentary on recently and I actually spit out my soda, it was so funny!)
-The Goonies with Richard Donner and all the original kids, now all grown up.
-Star Trek: The Motion Picture with Robert Wise (although I think his comments were scripted, but considering his age, I have no problem with it), Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra (who sounds so enthusiastic - I'd love to hear a commentary from him for Star Wars), Stephen Collins, and Jerry Goldsmith.
Ghostbusters with Ivan Reitman, Joe Medjuck, and Harold Ramis. (The first "video" commentary, done MST3K style.)

 

[Derek M Germano]

Anything with Gary Marshall, this guy is so funny, he should be doing the commentaries for other people's movies.

 

[David Illingworth II]

Unfortunately, there are so many more useless commentaries than good ones . . . but 2 good ones are Out of Sight and End of Days.

I'm really looking forward to the Usual Suspects commentaries.

 

[Mark Evans]

I'll second the Clerks: Animated Series DVD. That's just a constant riot from start to finish, especially when they insert those horribly politically correct, yet gutbustingly funny, jokes about animator Han and his Korean animation team.
Out of Sight's great too. I'll bankrupt myself on the Criterion of Traffic just to listen to another Steve Soderberg commentary.
Ghostbusters is great, ditto Army of Darkness.
Martin Campbell's commentary on Goldeneye is very very well done, the perfect mix of humor and information.
The Blair Witch Project also has a dynamite commentary, along the lines of the Goldeneye one, made even better by the fact that the style of filmmaking in TBWP is so different from regular Hollywood style.
Finally, another personal fave is the Osmosis Jones commentary, but Marc-Paul Gaugnier paid me to say that

 

[Patrick McCart]

Superman: The Movie

Citizen Kane

Fantasia

Dumbo

Nosferatu: Special Edition

Doctor Zhivago

Shrek

I'm pretty sure the UHF commentary will be a great one when the DVD is released in June.

 

[JohnJB]

I cannot beleive nobody has mentioned 'THE BEST' commentary, Robert Rodriguez on El Mariachi, he tells you absolutely everything, I felt exhausted (but in a good way) after I'd listened to it.

Do you American's get the UK telly series Spaced ? because the people doing the commentary for it make Kevin Smith appear like a corporate ass kisser, meaning their the best cause I love KS, the latest Spaced Series 2 DVD is 95% as good as the T2 DVD, I kid you not, everything is 16:9, everything has cast & crew commentary, there's outakes, deleted scenes, homage-o-meter (this is one cool series, one episode just takes the piss out off Star Wars Episode 1, but because Spaced the 1st series got positive feedback at the official SW website, Rob Macalum let them use Empire SB music, etc and it's dubly ironic becuase the guy who did Darth Maul voice plays a small but significant part in Spaced, oh yeah) raw footage, etc, ect WHAT I'M SAYING IS BUY SPACED SERIES 1 & 2!!!

Other good DVD commenatries IMO:

RS on Alien

JC on Assault on Precinct 13

pretty much all the Bond films

cast in caracter on Spinal Tap

Drive (HKL version)

PTA on Boogie Nights (what was that turd Magnolia about?)

Jack Cardiff on The African Queen

Jackie Chan on Gorgeous (turd of a movie but a commentary which is more like a love letter to his fans)

little fart to finish things off, the worst comms:

Pitch Black (fat idiot from fast and the furious calling comms asinine becuase he's no good at them)

Blade (Wesley 'no talent' Snipes slagging of the director, two points firstly the number of turds WS has been involved with compared to said director was a pretty good defence also this is one of the many times where the DVD extras nearly effected my retrospective enjoyment of the film)

 

[Tina_H_V]

For me, my favorite DVD/LD commentaries came are as follows:
ANYTHING DONE BY OLIVER STONE--which, would be, of what I have him in, from the following movies:
JFK
Nixon
Salvador
Platoon
Wall Street
The Doors
Born on the Fourth of July
Natural Born Killers
Heaven and Earth
Any Given Sunday
I always enjoy Oliver and I NEVER EVER GET TIRED OF LISTENING TO HIM ON ANYTHING!!!!!
It is like having an intellectual conversation that is stimulating for the senses besides the mind.
(If he had only done one for my favorite Oliver Stone movie of all time, Talk Radio! :frowning: )
ANYTHING DONE BY JOHN FRANKENHEIMER--regarded by many to be the best at commentating--and I can see why. The man, to me, is very thorough and clearly knows his stuff, as well as his history. An interesting listen.
SPIKE LEE--I enjoy listening to Spike. If he would only be as thorough in his commentating for those he has done as he was for Bamboozled, I would be so very happy. And if he had only done one for Malcolm X...
NORMAN JEWISON--I always enjoy listening to his commentary. I truly enjoyed him on what would be a civil rights trilogy of sorts--one which, IMHO, went very well for him: In The Heat of the Night, A Solider's Story; and The Hurricane. How poignant are these films? All three combined involved Academy Award winners Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington in key roles. (With, of course, AA winner Rod Steiger involved with the first and back-enders as well. )
JACK HILL--who is he, you may care to ask? Well, allow me to please explain. Jack Hill is a one-time jazz musician-turned-film director who was at the helm for two seminal movies of the early 1970s starring one of Halle Berry's early precursors, Pam Grier. The films: Coffy and Foxy Brown. To hear Jack tell it as he does, it seemed to be more than just "Blaxploitation" in terms of providing work to African-Americans as it does about the story of a black woman, who, as would be subjectable to ANY woman, getting revenge on those who wronged her and her family, not merely settling on being a victim and living with her circumstances. Hence such universal themes which, when presented as they were at the time, went beyond their original core market and seeped into mainstream acceptance to become very well-received. Jack also does not pull punches in speaking of the pervaisve racism in and of Hollywood--and society--at the time and the effects such films as Coffy and Foxy Brown had then--and now. Jack also goes into the Shakesperian proclivities of Coffy's conclusion with serendipidous revelation, which, when watched with the commentary, come to make sense, IMHO. One to check out.
Also good...
JOHN SINGLETON--its like kickin' it with intelligence. He also did not hold back on criticism where warratned. Liked that.
ANTOINE FUQUA--like what he said in Training Day; will now want to listen to The Replacement Killers. Also kickin' it with intelligence.
ALEXANDER PAYNE--liked him in Election.
TIM ROBBINS--LOVED him in Bob Roberts, both 1992 AND 1999 commentaries.
SANDRA BULLOCK--crazy in Miss Congeniality. A fun time with her and the scribe of the movie.
SIR BEN KINGSLEY--liked him in Sexy Beast: his performance and his DVD commentary. Interesting.
WILLIAM FRIEDKIN--Bill The Revelator on the French Connection DVD. Makes you wonder, you know: could such a film be made THAT way today???????
And that, of course, is just but a wonderfully select few from me.

 

[MatthewG]

Braveheart has a good commentary.

Ditto on Ghostbusters.

 

[Luc D]

Boogie Nights

The Last Temptation of Christ

The End of the Affair

Dark City

Rushmore

Herzog's Nosferatu

The Limey

 

[Adam_S]

The commentarys I really love are the ones that talke about how somethign is done, why this or that scene construction and focus is being used so I find the following commentarys to be very helpful (I also love hearing in jokes and references to other films)
Seven Samurai
Grand Illusion
Untitled
Stand By me, lots of pauses but lots of good information about how reiner worked with the kids and why he used certain lenses for different shots.
Braveheart, again, I might have started to dislike this film as I become more of history buff, but Gibson's passion for the material, and his absolutely bald faced openness that this is entertainment before historical fact, and the way he would explain about the varying speeds used, weapons, props, editing techniques all made me really appreciate this film as a absolutely wonderful piece of modern entertainment. I think when we start insisting a fact based, fictional story adhere to strict fact we lose something very important.
I really liked what i heard of the Silence of the lambs commentary but I haven't listed all the way through yet. Too often on movies I really enjoy watching repeated times I like to switch off the commentary and just slip into the movie agian. so often the movie is that much more interesting than the commentary unfortunately (cough, Clerks, cough). though some are equally good, especially the iluminating grand illusion and seven samurai commentaries.
commentary I was most disapointed in: To Kill A mockingbird, I was started this at like seven at night and fell asleep in it. it provides some nice anecdotes, but dosen't ever seem to delve into the process of making the film more than teh absolutely excellent documentary does.
Adam

 

[Michael Harris]

OK, here is my list (not in any order):

Rodger Ebert's on "Dark City". Enjoyed "Citizen Kane" too.

"Star Trek - The Motion Picture" (really liked the subtitle commentary by Mike Okuda)

All the Kevin Smith ones but "Mallrats" stands out

Most all Criterion collection, especially older movies that include commentaries by movie historians. Wish thier versions of "Casablanca" and "High Noon" could see the light of day.

"Tora, Tora, Tora" - not the whole thing but the comments by Japanese film historin Stewart Galbraith

"Titus" - one of the best director's comments.

All by Ridley Scott. Can't wait for "Blade Runner".

Commentaries by Paul Verhoeven and Wolfgang Petersen if you can get passed the accents. Who knew that the "Das Boot" sub was used in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?

Emmerich and Devlin on all their pictures. "B" movies masquarading as "A" but they are having fun and like to explain it all.

I just want to see more from film historians, critics, and writer/directors that tell me about the film. I really don't care too much for "talent" telling me how they "remember dat guy over dare".

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Emmerich and Devlin on all their pictures. "B" movies masquarading as "A" but they are having fun and like to explain it all.

This is the first time I've ever heard someone cite Emmerich/Devlin commentaries as their favorites - usually those tracks end up on lists of the worst ones! Hey, more power to you if you dig them. At least the one for The Patriot had its unintentionally funny moments, mainly due to Emmerich's insanely long sentences. An example:
"It's simply a fact, you know, that this happened, I mean, there was like kind of extremely young kids in the war effort and there's also like kind of this moment where like kind of you have to... you have to, where he has to, the character has to kind of like make this moral decision, now he's only kind of set on kind of like kind of trying to kind of rescue his son and, uh, he knows that he, in a way, he has to kind of do everything you know to get his son, and one kind of choice is to give his, uh, kids like guns to try to help him distract, you know, the soldiers from him while he, you know, so it's more possible for him to kind of like kind of save him."
Well, when you put it THAT way, Roland, it all makes perfect sense!

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Conan the Barbarian. The commentary track by which all unintentionally funny commentary tracks will be judged.
"Ja, Theres the big snake!"
"I break his arm!"
"He thinks it's funny till he gets kicked, well who's laughing now?! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Whoo, I gotta go watch this movie now.

 

[Michael Harris]

Colin, like I said it seems like they are having fun and I can't help having fun with them. Certainly wish I could have access to the "train set" like they do.

As for "Conan", that track is a hoot. Totally uninformative but AH-nold is real "class act" and I am sure he really earned his scratch on the the "Total Recall" track he recorded. Guess I should buy a copy of the red tin can just to hear it.

 

[Craig Robertson]

i really enjoyed the filmmakers commentary on The Limey. stylisticly, it is done similar to the film. and i found it interesting to hear Lem Dobbs (writer) complain to Steven Soderbergh (director) about how the scenes are not shot as written.

 

[Osato]

Live and Let Die (Tom Mankewitz)

Moonraker (great!)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (In additon to the audio track I really enjoyed the text commentary.)

The Saint (I'm probably the only one alive besides Phillip Noyce who has listened to it)

 

[Scott D S]

Oh yeah, I forgot. The subtitled text commentaries on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (by technical consultant Mike Okuda), Ghostbusters (excerpts from Don Shay's book, Making Ghostbusters), and The Abyss (by DVD producer Van Ling) are excellent.

 

[Mick Wright]

Conan is the best.

"I get laid a lot in this movie."

And how many times does Ahnold say "exactly"?

 

[Jeremy Allin]

"I get laid a lot in this movie."

I believe the pronunciation is more like:
"Yah, I get laid a lot in dis movie!"