DJariya

Hey everyone
What do you all think are some of the most boring or annoying audio commentaries that you have heard?

Some that come to mind:

Anything from John McTiernan: Die Hard and Thomas Crown were soooo low key

Anything with clipped interviews with a host: Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition (all clipped sound bites and a very boring host) Also, most of the new James Bond Special Editions are interview excerpts which are pretty dry.

Anything from Brett Ratner (He's up beat but is really annoying)

Can any of you think of others?

MasterofDVD

Big Trouble In Little China!
John Carpenter and Kurt Russell talking about their kids playing softball together. I really paid to hear THAT on a track.

The American Pie 2 commentaries also stand out as very lame and useless.

fryinpan1

I found the Matrix commentary to be very dull and boring. There were many lapses when no one would talk.

Hokeyboy

The Donnie Darko commentary made me wish for Jake Gyllenhaal to get disemboweled by wolves and anally violated with a boat hook. By a midget. In August.

HERE'S A TRANSCRIPT OF THE DONNIE DARKO COMMENTARY:

Richard Kelly: Now, here is where I will explain the significance of key plot elements as well as engaging in detailed discussion of scattered symbols and allegories that tie into the overarching storyline. Now starting out with--

Jake Gyllenhaal: (interupting) Hey look at me, I'm a big loud stupid idiot!!

Richard Kelly: (chuckling) Yeah Jake, you're just too much. Now where was I? Hmm... I seem to have forgotten. Shoot. Ah, forget it...

(Continue this basic rapport for about two hours or so.)

Crocker Jarmen

My most hated audio commentary is William Friedkin's for The Exorcist: Version You've Never Seen. I scanned through it and it appears to be him describing what's happening on screen for the entire movie. "Now in this scene, she hears a noise in the attic and she's going to investigate. Here she is walking up the stairs. Now we've cut into the attic and she's looking at a mouse. There's a shot of the mouse on the floor...' Ugh. Although I have to say that Friedkin has a really cool voice. They should hire him to do a book on tape.

The only other commentary I can think of that comes close to being that useless is the intern commentary on Bowling for Columbine. I find it hard to believe that Moore thinks these idiot's banal, self-important comments would reflect well on him or his movie.

chemosh6969

austin powers is full of dead silence or hearing "this part mike just ad libbed"

SideShow

Resident Evil- I love Milla but she's just REALLY annoying on this commentary, interrupts the director and just giggles through the whole thing.

KrayzieGuy

Ang Lee's Hulk commentary. The movie isnt that lively and neither is he.

reverie

Most recently, Ice Age. It seemed all they talked about was what was on the screen.. "Here's where the story gets started" "Here's the middle part"...

RyoHazuki

Its annoying in the Groudhog Day commentary when Harol Ramis feels the need to say the lines in the movie while the actors are saying them.

otmetrud

Don't have that one, but Friedkin does the same thing on The French Connection. It is deadly.

The other commentary on that DVD is just as bad. It's billed as a commentary with Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. But all it is is about 30 dull minutes of Hackman recalling how he was cast and a couple of anecdotes. He's not even watching the movie. Then there is about 30 or 40 minutes of silence, then about 30 minutes of Roy Scheider doing the same thing Hackman did.

Another really bad one is the Farelly brothers on Kingpin. "Oh, there's Joe Schmoe, who was a high-school buddy and is an extra in all our movies. There's our mom. She really says that line well, doesn't she? That's our next-door neighbor Tom in the striped shirt in that crowd scene."

Sunday Morning

I love the kurt russell/John carpenter commentaries.
They just talk about whatever comes to mind.

They are so not pretentious and are actually funny.
It's just 2 friends sitting down and having fun.
I dig.

I mostly hate group commentaries where everyone just talks over each other.
Also commentaries with long gaps of silence are the worst.
What is the point?

cruzness

Ghosts of Mars - A commentary with nothing but John Carpenter kissing Natasha Henstrdge's ass along with every other actor in the film.

FilmFanSea

Robert Altman on McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Steven Soderbergh on Schizopolis (clever idea carried too far)
Wim Wenders & Peter Falk on Wings of Desire

Wild Yams

You didn't like the Finch-only commentary?

IMO, the worst commentaries are usually by the composers, especially Danny Elfman. Man, I like Elfman's music, but in his commentaries he'll speak up maybe every 15-20 minutes or so, make a few comments then go away again.

Producers are also usually extremely dull. Nobody needs to hear about what it was like trying to schedule everything or what the business side of making the movie was like: "Hi, I'm so and so and I produced this movie. Instead of hearing someone talk about the creative choices that were made, or what the importance of the movie is, I'm here to tell you about dealing with the agents and the studio, and organizing the logistics of it all. And on top of that, I'm probably the most arrogant person you've ever listened to. I hope you enjoy my commentary."

Wild Yams

By the way, the best commentaries are always by Leelee Sobieski. She is a raving lunatic who can talk nonstop about nothing for hours and it never ceases to be entirely entertaining, even though you're laughing at her and not with her. She's like this interviews as well, but is just phenomenal in her commentaries. I bought "Joy Ride" just cause she did commentary on it. If I was a filmmaker with my own DVD out, I would have her do a commentary on it even if she wasn't associated with the movie at all, she is that unintentionally amusing.

DeadLamb

The Big Hit - I forget who but one of the commentary tracks (think it's the writer), the guy has a really, really bad lisp.. Ok fine but then don't record a track if you can hardly speak clearly.

Zombie (1979) - ok on some level it was interesting but on another level the actors there for the commentary, had no idea why they were really there, did not rem much of the film and so it was a lot of dead air... Only thing that saved is was the pro movie fan they had with them to drop information about the films. Being the actors really seemed to remember very little about the film. That's fine, but again, don't do the commentary track them.

The In-Laws - I just stopped watching that one after two chapters. It was ok, a bit too much "and there they go into the door" but the real killer is the director does that up speak stuff. You know, where everything sounds like a question. I mean everything? Ya know? Being they walked into the door? Then we filmed this day for night? arrrgg!!

That about the only ones that really pop into my head as just out right bad. Most of the time I tend to like just about any commentary, being a fan of them over all..

Oh I almost forgot..
Poor White Trash - good commentary as far as info but bad being they did NOT mix in the sound track too.. Ya know how most of them are maybe 75/25 in favor of the commentary over the dialog. Maybe a mix back and forth.. In this film it was 100/0 in favor of the commentary track. So you can't really tell what is going on in the film just by playing the track in the back ground. sigh.. Also of course any the dead air was just that .............................. nothing.

Commentary track I thought for sure I would hate, then really liked. Carrot Top in The Rules of Attraction.. don't get me wrong, I HATE Carrrot Top and he hack prop act.. Still something about him talking about a film he had never seen was sort of funny.. I hang my head in shame. hehe

Venom

mel brooks on spaceballs.


very boring. and it's annoying becuase i was very forward to it.

MasterofDVD

How about they talk about what comes on screen.

And yes.....the Finch-only commentary was weak. I honestly don't even know why they bothered.


I was also going to mention the Austin Powers tracks but I'm glad someone else caught it. They are funny guys but they are about as interesting as insurance salesmen. blah blah blah

PJsig08

I didn't think it was THAT bad

Burnt Alive

Penelope Spheeris on Suburbia

(2 minutes of silence) "Oh look, there's Flea again...."

Feathers McGraw

That's fine as a starting point, but it shouldn't be *all* they talk about. The best commentaries are when a couple of folks are in the same room together, and just talking about the things that occur to them. If they end up talking about the plane ride on the way to Spain to film the movie, it's fine by me.

There's two hours to fill, lots of time for personal anecdotes and humour.

Crocker Jarmen

I thought this was one of the most brilliant commentary tracks I've ever heard. The novelty of a commedian trying to do a humourous commentary of a movie they've never seen before was an interesting experiment. I especially loved the way he got stopped dead in his tracks at the very sad suicide scene, and stumbleto come up with a joke to get back on track. I thought this commentary was facinating.

Corky Roxbury

the carrot top commentary is the only one I have ever listen to all the way through, it is brilliant, I wish this idiot would do more commentary, I am looking forward to the Jamie Kennedy commentaries on his first season discs

Panda Phil

Probably the deadliest commentaries I've head are on some of the Dr Who episodes, notably those from the sixties. (Tomb of the Cybermen for example) Nothing duller than ninety minutes of listening to two actors in their 50's or 60's struggling to remember names and stories. I'm not blaming the actors of course. It must be next to impossible to remember specific details after almost thirty five years.

The BBC could at least provid these poor people a host or interviewer or something to help jog old memories during the recording sessions.