As a film student I found these DVDs to have great info regarding film techniques/directing/stagging/cinematic issues/etc...

-"Dark City"
-"Bound"
-"Alien"
-"The exorcist"
-"Contact"

I was wondering if any of you knew of any other DVD's where the director talks about this kind of stuff on the commentary. Thanks!!!


C.

Check out the El Mariachi/Desperado director's double feature from Columbia. A great disc! Robert Rodriguez provides commentary for both films, explaining the logistics of making them in a very in-depth fashion. There are also 2 10 minute segments explaining how El Mariachi was made for only $7000, and how the shootout in Desperado was filmed. I think this disc would be right up your alley. I loved it.

Zizz definitely picked a great commentary, but another one you must check out is John Carpenter's THE THING: Collector's Edition. Great stuff! Another winner is THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: Criterion Collection. The presentation is odd, but the insights are fabulous. I just finished listening to the commentary on THE LAST STARFIGHTER: Collector's Edition not five minutes ago--alas, it's yet another commentary where the director just describes to you what you're already seeing...oh, well (sighs)...

Commentary tracks are my favorite "extra" feature. Some other commentaries I would definitely recommend are:

12 MONKEYS
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
RONIN

And on laserdisc: GOLDENEYE and BRAZIL (the latter soon to be avaliable on DVD--and very welcome!)

If you want a commentary track that is just plain fun to listen to I'd recommend Bride Of Chucky, the track featuring Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif and Don Mancini. They seem to be enjoying themselves immensely and obviously love the characters.
Two others I'd recommend are Time Bandits and This Is Spinal Tap, both Criterion versions in case you didn't know.

[This message has been edited by Sheik Yerbouti (edited 06-23-1999).]

a couple more:

"Slam" is uhlike any other you have and probably will hear.
"Vertigo" was quite interesting but obviously without Hitch.
"Permanent Midnight" was by a first time director and he does a nice job of describing both the guerrilla tactics and translation from book aspects.

Bob

Try Vertigo, the commentary has some good info on film restoration as well as some insights into the making of the film from the associate producer.

The feature included on the DVD is also documents the restoration effort quite well.

Too bad Hitchcock is not around, a commentary on any film from him would be awesome

amazon.com has very good DVD details which list the special features included. This includes commentaries, making of featurettes, trailers, etc.

baenca00 -

I brought this same topic up recently, because I looove a good commentary!
Here's the thread:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001455.html

Also, if you want great commentary OUTSIDE of DVD commentary, check out the book "Who the Devil Made It" by Peter Bogdanovich. It has many interviews with directors (including Hitch! )

-burgeon

Gotta agree with the Zizz regarding the El Mariachi/Desperado commentaries. Very informative and entertaining.

To anyone lucky enough to have access to the Independent Film Channel, tomorrow they will be airing "El Mariachi" as their All Access presentation of the month. They will run the film three times between 8 pm and 2 am.
All Access presentations allow one to access the director's commentary (I believe through the SAP channel) during any showing of the film. In addition, they will air the "Bedhead" short and the 10 minute Film School segment for Mariachi.
Check it out if you can.

Another commentary that I highly recommend is on the "Rock 'n' Roll High School" DVD. The commentary is by director Allan Arkush, producer Michael Finnell and screenwriter Richard Whitley. Besides being the funniest audio commentary I"ve heard to date, it also provides a good amount of insight into how things worked in the Corman factory in the late 70's.
Greatest revelation: the infamous paper airplane sequence was partially the work of the Zucker brothers.

While I believe a rerelease of this disc has been postponed until December, you can rent the original Lumivision pressing for NetFlix.



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-Mumford, the All Purpose Nothing
[email protected]

Just got Ronin - great commentary!

-burgeon

I agree with many of the previous comments, so here are some other DVDs that haven't been mentioned so far. I thought "Boogie Nights" was a great great film with an informative Director commentary. Steven Soderbergh gives good commentary in "Out of Sight", and though it was a largely sucky film, Richard Donner gave a great commentary on "Lethal Weapon 4". My favorite commentarian of all is John Woo, on the Criterion Killer and Hard Boiled, respectively. Rush Hour has an interesting commentary by legendary composer Lalo Schifrin, but do yourself a favor and avoid the commentary by the director.

I enjoyed the commentary on Suicide Kings. The movie was average, but worth the $9 considering the extras and performance from Walken.

I JUST watched "Ronin" over the weekend too and I have to totally agree with Burgeon. The BEST comentary I've heard for sure. He talks about many many things I was interested on as a film student such as: how he went to film group shots/stagging/composition of certain shots/action sequences/close-ups/why and how to use time cuts/cross cuts/etc. LOVE IT!!! Almost a Bible comentary. Also, Roger Ebert talks some good stuff story wise and mentions some good reference of old film noir classics in the "Drak City" one.

If anyone has access to it, the LD special edition of "Nightmare Before Christmas" with director Henry Selick & Director of Photography Pete Kozachik talk some serious good stuff as well.


Carlos

Please consider "My Fair Lady"
1. A GREAT musical, transfer and restoration.
2. A comm. setup so that the voices
come out of the left, center or right.
Comments are by Gene Allen the Art Director,
Marni Nixon the singing voice for Hepburn,
and the film restorers R. Harris & J Katz.
The disk also contains 2 musical numbers with
Audrey Hepburn's REAL voice and Nixon's dubbed in voice so you can compare.

PLATOON is loaded with commentary. First there is Oiver Stone. Then there is Dale Dye's commentary. Plus a bonus documentary "A Tour Of The Inferno."
An excellent DVD!

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Sony KV-32V26 32in.
Yamaha RV-1105 Receiver
Compact Theater One/Atlantic Tech. Spk.
Sony CDP-S300 DVD
Toshiba M-782 HiFi VCR

The commentary on Criterion's "The Lady Vanishes" is real film-school stuff. I found it a little dry, but to those not familiar with Hitchcock, it explains a lot of how he constructs a narrative.

This may not be everyone's cup of tea in terms of movies, but "Thelma and Louse" contains a commentary from director Ridley Scott that is amazing. He goes so in depth about every aspect of making a film. He even talks a bit about Alien and Blade Runner. I highly recommend people to check this commentary out.

I liked John Singleton's Commentary in Boyz N The Hood - I believe it's only on Laserdisc though. Another good one is the Criterion edition of Robocop available on DVD. Awesome stuff!!!

Trinity and Beyond The Atomic Bomb Movie http://www.vce.com has a good director's commentary. This is an excellent DVD disc.

...And lest we forget Paul Verhoven's er, Vigorous commentary on the Starship Troopers DVD! Gotta love the way he pronounces "the bugs" as "Der Bergs", and his screaming into the mic later on the disc. Truly a wild individual!

My favorite commentary on a disc probably is Nora Ephron's on You've Got Mail. She goes into detail about every scene and went into shooting it.

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"ha, you the one i saw on the news last night ha, you the one been robbin' them dudes out they shoes last night ha"...Juvenille

I loved Taylor Hackford's commentary on The Devil's advocate.

Ridley Scott's commentary is ok, at times it sounds like he has a pen in his mouth when he talks.

Richard Donner's commentary is good on LW4

The Spawn Platinum series commentary by Todd Mcfarland, not including the others, is the same stuff he said on the video director's cut.

You might check out "The Fabulous Baker Boys". The commentary is by Michael Ballhaus, the cinematographer. Check out his filmography at www.imdb.com. This guy has worked on some beautiful films. A slightly different perspective from a director.

If you're looking for techniques used for filming, check out the commentary on Elizabeth. Shekhar Kepur's commentary tells why he chose different shots, why the camera is moving in some scenes and not in others, and much more. A great commentary and a great movie to boot.

-Blake