DVD Commentaries

[StarOpal]

So I just finished up Big Trouble in Little China with the commentary track on. John Carpenter and Kurt Russell are hysterical! "This is probably my favorite role of - Well maybe Captain Ron - but after Captain Ron I think this is my favorite role of your's."

Personnally I dislike commentaries that the whole thing is like "You were great." "No, you were great." "Really you're wonderful!" "No, no, you..."

Anyway, it got me to thinking:

What are, in your opinion, some good DVD commentaries? They can be funny or informative.

Some of my favorites (from the ones I've listened to):

The Princess Bride
The Lord of the Rings Extended Version movies (at least the actor, and director and writers tracks, haven't quite got around to the rest)
Big Trouble in Little China
Van Helsing (The movie? Terrible. But the commentary improves a lot.)

As for TV shows:
Firefly
Heroes: Season 1

[coccatino]

Goonies!
Oh, and Big Trouble in Little China is one of my all time favorite movies- I'll have to watch the commentary, now!

[baalek]

Willow - Warwick Davis is both informative and funny, but more than that, he manages to make the audience feel like an old friend. One of the most enjoyable commentaries ever.

A Knight's Tale - Brian Helegland (the director) and Paul Bettany (actor who plays Chaucer), clearly old friends, yak about the movie and generally joke around together for the whole movie. Hilarious!

I've got to second Goonies, although at times they all talked at once and I couldn't tell what anyone was saying.

Hudson Hawk: The director explains why the movie failed at the box office in a hilarious way and divulges a cut subplot involving a pet monkey named Little Eddie. I think "This is for Little Eddie, you son of a *****!" is my favorite cut line from any movie ever.

The Exorcist: William Peter Blatty (author) and William Friedkin (director) shriek at each other for the whole movie, each one blaming the other for what they perceive are terrible missteps. I think they started throwing furniture at one point. Must be heard to be believed.

[PoolMan]

I second the motion on Lord of the Rings. It's worthwhile just to hear the guys who played Merry and Pippin improv at each other for three hours at a time. Very fun.

[StarOpal]

Oh, and Shaun of the Dead.

"Aaaand here's Harry Potter and Brittany Spears."

[coccatino]

OH! HUDSON HAWK! Definitely. Hilarious!

[drew]

Any Kevin Smith commentary is bound to have some good one-liners.
The Freaks & Geeks DVDs have 33 (I think) commentaries; all of them are entertaining, and at least 25 of them are absolutely priceless.
Come to think of it, any commentary with Judd Apatow and company is a good time; not necessarily informative, but definitely entertaining.

[blinkfan]

Donnie Darko (Original not directors cut) has a great commentary, only the Jake Ghyllenhaal and Richard Kelly one. The actors one is terrible.
Also: South Park has hilarious and great but criminally short commentaries on all of their seasons.

[orangejesus]

Just to repeat, yes, almost all of Kevin Smith's commentary tracks are worthwhile. I particularly like the ones for Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and the cartoon series.

The Fight Club actors/director track is totally awesome whenever Helena Bonham Carter isn't speaking. . . trust me, if you listen to it, you'll understand why.

Superbad, I really liked, as well as the one on the SE Ghostbusters.

Also, Season 6 of West Wing has an excellent commentary track on the episode "King Corn." Actually, most of the commentaries on that show are pretty good (though as much as I dig Sorkin's writing I could stand to never hear him utter a word himself again); that one just happens to be my favorite.

Ooh ooh ooh-- and Eddie Izzard did a pretty hilarious commentary track for his Dress to Kill one man show. Yes, a commentary track for a one man show. Awesome, it is.

And for anyone who doesn't know, the Mutant Viewings on the main site act as sort-of commentaries on their respective movies, and some of them have gotten me kicked out of my campus library for laughing too loudly.

(By the way, Justin, you now owe me $25, or one of Poolman's shoes--preferably of equal value--for this plug.)

[coccatino]

Dress to Kill has a commentary? Allrighty- time to go and buy that one.

Can I just pay devil's advocate here and tell you that my all time favorite dvd commentary is R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet. If you haven't experienced it, you're going to have to.

[james42]

*Wishing my entire DVD collection wasn't now sitting in boxes waiting for my wife and I to finally move so I could peruse the titles*

A couple of commentaries I really enjoyed come to mind:

(1) Highlander--Outside of the terrible annoyance of listening to Russell Mulcahy rant about how the American Studios ruined his movies (when, after watching the Director's Cut of the second Highlander movie, it seems very clear that Mulcahy needed no help from the studios to do that), the Highlander Director's Cut commentary is absolutely packed with interesting little nuggets about what happened during the filming, etc.

(2) Die-Hard--John McTiernan's commentary is kind of like a Film 101 lecture, and if you enjoy the art and mechanisms of filmmaking (as I do), this is really enjoyable.

(3) The Mummy--This isn't as clear in my memory, but I seem to remember the writer and director being very enjoyable to listen to (especially all their quips about the incompetence of their extras)

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of my favorites.

But I also want to mention a couple of the worst I've run into:

(1) The Matrix--What a disappointment. Commentary includes the Wachowski Brothers and Carrie Ann Moss. I found no relevance or entertainment from their bland comments. It sounded like they didn't even want to be there. If I remember correctly, there's large sections where they don't even talk, and I swear (it's been a while) that after about half the movie, you barely even hear from them again.

(2) Speed--Awful in a good way. I swear, Bay and the woman producer come off as the worst Hollywood stereotypes. A lot of pretentious, inane and superficial banter and you start to think you're listening to a satire on Hollywood. Actually, I kind of enjoyed this one...

[BlackCatWhiteCat]

A: I demand you all go buy Spaced because it is probably the funniest show, ever.

B: Kevin Smith does commentary! As well as Edgar Wright (show's director), Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson), Quentin Tarantino, Matt Stone, Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt and Bill Hader.

[StarOpal]

The Secret of Roan Inish - A good informative commentary. John Sayles talks a lot about the history, folk lore, and people of Ireland, about making the movie - you can tell he really enjoyed working on it -, and Rosalie Fry's novel (The Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry). And, hey, I didn't know that the actors who played Tadhg and the Selkie were brother and sister.

The Price of Milk - Harry Sinclair, and his uber cool New Zealand accent, just go through this whole crazy quirky movie explaining how he came up with this, and how they did that on such a small budget, and he has a really good sense of humor.

[RobOfTheDead]

Slither has a hilarious commentary. Lots of funny banter between James Gunn and Nathan Fillion, especially comments on James Gunn's directing style and the craziness of Michael Rooker.

"Don't suck this time! Action!"

[Rett Mikhal]

Ghostbusters was the first DVD I ever bought, so I tried all the nice little extras and gizmos and loved the whole thing. The commentary was the best part. Sometimes I find it hard to decide if I want to watch it with or without commentary. My friends and I added all the quotes on the commentary to our conversation replacing movie quotations.

Then I watched other movie commentaries.

Scarred for life. Could never bring myself to do it again.