Director/Cast commentaries

S

~Skellington~

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I don't do it for every film that I watch but I have often gone back to a film or a tv program on DVD to listen to commentaries by the films makers or the cast. Do many people bother with them anymore? I won't deny when I listen to them there is a very heavy air of "yes, we are in fact in love with ourselves cos we are that damn good" but not all are like that. Do you go back to a film with the intention of doing this?
 
Pretty much never! Dunno why, Heard one or two in the past and they can be interesting, I just don't feel I have time for these things.
 
I love a good commentary. Simon Pegg & WEdgar Wirght's films are fantastic value in this respect.

Also, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd were hilarious in their Lord Of The Rings commentaries.
 
I love 'em when they're done well.

Wrong Turn p1 - with Dushku, Director + Male Lead => great
Pirates of Caribean(?) - writers one, very interesting, how final story was put together from a number of different scripts.
300 - great movie but directors commentary was boring as hell
HellBoy - painful, rather than have movie playing and comentary going, we get to see the commentary people watching the movie and commenatating on it, that way of doing things just DOES NOT WORK.
Rambo, Jason X - loved 'em.
Milo Jovich(?)'s one for the movie with the dark-space guns and suitcase thing - didn't work, just her alone, no director to bounce things off of :(

For me, a commentry is a must for me to even consider buying the DVD.
 
I think Simpsons are some of the best. I'd also recommend Pixars commentaries. I especially enjoyed the Toy Story ones.

I also look for commentaries when buying DVRAB. I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to films and love hearing how they're made but I understand theyre big for everyone.I hate recieving discs with no extras and no commentary :mad:

Edit: just remembered - Steven Spielberg is famous as a film traditionalist and hates the idea of commentaries so he doesn't allow them on his films. I would love to hear some of his insights on his films.
 
Without fail I listen to the commentary if there is one.

Like the films themselves, the quality ranges from excellent to dire...but most of them are within a fairly narrow range of 'worth-listening-to-if-only-once'. I enjoy them so much that if the film's not too good, it's almost like it has a second chance if there's a commentary track. 'Twilight', for example, is a mediocre film which has quite an entertaining and amusing commentary....mainly due to Pattinson.
 
The *only* commentary I've ever listened to is the one for The Usual Suspects... and it was actually on the VHS version (one tape had the movie, a 2nd tape had the movie + commentary).
 
I've listened to a few and they've all been quite interesting so far.

Contact (Jodie Foster)
Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks)
Some of the Star Wars movies (George Lucas)
Some of Tropic Thunder which is pretty funny. (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black)
 
Ah this old chestnut. The best commentary I've heard is Kurt Russel & John Carpenter on Escape From New York. You can tell they're good buddies, Kurt even takes the piss continualy about Adrian Barbeau's jugs (she was Carpenters wife at the time of filming). Quality! Kurt is excellent on The Thing too, taking the mickey out of his awful hat :D
 
I loved listening to all 3 Lord of the Rings commentaries by the cast and the director/writers. They all seemed very down to earth and very honoured to be able to make the films. Love the humour with the 4 hobbits aswell! Just a shame Viggo Mortensen didn't feature on them.

Also really enjoyed listening to changes and ideas that they were originally going to do but then decided against and vice versa, but I am a bit of a fantasy geek!
 
As mentioned the LOTR ones are good, well some of them. The cast one is great, the writer/directors one is interesting, but the ones by the design team & post-production teams send me to sleep pretty quickly I'm afraid.

Another good commentary that spring to mind is the real Lovells one on Apollo13, some great background on what really happened in there.

One style I really don't like is the Family Guy ones, where they just talk over the show and occasionally mention it in passing, you may as well just listen to these separate to the DVD.
 
I love listening to the commentaries, and like others have said, I'm disappointed when there's no commentary are included.

It depenRAB who do the commentaries though ... some can be really boring and mention things that personally I'm not interested in, so if they're not engaging me I'll give it 15 minutes then switch if off.

But I try and stick with it, as there's usually some tidbit of info that I wouldn't have known otherwise.

Recently, I thought the Twilight commentary was quite amusing, and some of the Mad Men commentaries can be good ... I remember one given by the actor who plays Roger Sterling and his co-star, and that was a hoot, very funny :D
 
Occasionally. It depenRAB on who it is and also if it's an solo commentary or not. By far the best ones are group commentaries as they allow people to bounce off each other.
I find most solo commentaries can be extrordinarily dull. Yes they may be great actors or directors but they have the personality of a yucca plant.

I often don't bother with a lot of the featurettes either. I would rather have a proper documentary about the film than a behind the scenes making of....... featurette.
 
Agreed.

I also like the one on Ghostbusters - Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and another bloke whose name I can't recall.

Also Gremlins, Superman and The Godfather I and II.
 
I always listen to hem. It's not a great experience when they're done badly. I hate it when they splice clips of interviews over the film making it just random audio instead of a proper commentary. The Goodfellas one is terrible for that.

Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott and Paul Thomas Anderson are generally very good when they do them.
 
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