so many bad ones...so few good ones...

You can never go wrong with Terry Gilliam.

:)

Are you sure you had the commentary turned on :)

he also explicitly states (according to my brother as i have not seen it yet) that on pota, that he hates doing commentaries, and that we fan boys should get a life.

santa clause 2 was horrible!!! the director is an idiot... The movie was an okay sequel but all the extras and the commentary sucked!

Burnt Offerings
 

"Burnt Offerings" is an okay movie. But there are hundreds if not thousands of people who think it's one of the scariest movies ever. But, from what I've read on Amazon.com, these are pretty much all people that saw the movie on TV when they were kids. (It was aired on TV a number of times in the late 70s and early 80s--I remember commercials for it, but never watched it). Apparently these are the kinds of people who don't really grow up much. They still think it's "like the scariest thing ever!". These are probably kind of people that still miss "The Love Boat".

ANYWAY, I finally saw the movie last month. The DVD has a commentary track, and it is awful. Barely any insight into the movie. The people chatting had very clearly not prepared at all for it. Some of them haven't even seen the film since it came out (we're talking 1976 here). It was silly and embarrassing at times. Karen Black especially seems to have lost some brain cells. She sounded drunk, even. But I think that's how she is. She's been in some great movies, but this isn't one of them. The commentary is a complete waste. Zero insight into anything. Then again, there's really not much to talk about, anway. It's a big letdown of a movie. Really a made-for-TV movie that was released to theatres. It looks and feels like a made-for-TV movie, which makes sense since Dan Curtis directed it (most of his work was on TV, and he was very busy in the 70s).

The Exorcist/William Friedkin
 

Friedkin is monotonous, which is not a good quality for someone that obviously loves to talk. But I skipped through the commentary on "The Exoricist" (the "Special Edition", not "The Version You've Never Seen"--which I do not recommend). I actually found it interesting. He was talking about his experiences in Iraq (which are of course are relevant to current events). Plus I felt he did a good job mapping out Regan's gradual descent into possession (by a demon, not by Satan). I have seen the movie a number of times, but I hadn't quite put the clues together in that way.

Yeah, I understand that the regular version of The Exorcist has a proper commentary. I wish one of the video stores around here carried it so I could give it a listen.

Last night I watched one of my favorite comedies, the wonderful wonderful Election. Afterwards I was reminded that it has a truely pitiful commentary track by the director. I guess he didn't realize he had made such a terrific movie, cause he kept trying to make up 'deep symbolism' in every scene that he was clearly pulling out of his ass. 'And in this scene here he's about to take a bite of an apple... sort of like the Garden of Eden... and uh... apples are round... I guess I don't know what I'm trying to say here.'

Family Guy was soooooooooo disappointing.

Stuart Baird's commentary for Star Trek: Nemesis makes it painfully clear that he had no knowledge of, or regard for, what he was directing.

i agree any Carpenter/Russell commenteries are great

I don't know if anyone will agree with me but I hated the commentary track by Scott on Gladiator. He basically told you what was happening on the screen before your eyes:

"And here is the scene where Russle fights the tiger. Now, the tigers were done by computers if you didn't know. Parts of them. Okay, so he is coming out to fight the tiger. Russle looks good here. The tigers are orange, you see. It was done during the day. Good light. Look at that tiger."

i can't really say which commentary are bad....
cause you see, not everybody can be very "talky/chaty" or even "full of fun information"
this people were there to give us what we asked them to do... tell the information about the movie (production, story or whatever)
& they're just being them self... so, i can't really blame them if they can't be "as fun as we want them to be"

but i do have to say Carpenter & Russel's commentary are generally good... not just because i'm a fan on both guys, but they're so relax & not too uptight about doing the commentary.
these are 2 good friends meeting together again & remembering the art that they did together... so, they're cool

i'm not a movie student or anything like that... so technical conversation about making a movie can be a very dreadful experience for me... unless the guy can be funny from time to time, then that's a different story

you just can't win all the time...
they try & we bitch

my $1

This is why I don't ever complain about a lack of commentary on a release. When they first started doing them on laserdiscs they were neat, but now that they do them on just about EVERY damn movie the novelty has worn off.

I can't comment on most of the content as I didn't make it past the second chapter. But the recording or mastering easily makes this the most annoying. The laughter is so much louder than the dialogue it's unwatchable. I turn the volume up real high and lean in to the speakers to hear what they're saying only to get knocked back the next time they all cackle at some unfunny remark. Such a shame as Crowe's other commentaries are my favorites.

I second Family Guy. Wheras the Simpson's commetaries are packed with information, long pauses and stupid comments almost make FG seem like they were created by completely different people.

I LOVE any and all commentaries, I think their the greatest part of DVD in some cases, even more important than OAR to me.

But I defy anyone to enjoy the pain of the North By Northwest commentary by writer Ernest Lehman. He does have some nice tidbits and annectdotes, and is a great preservation as those who worked directly with and under Hitch dwindle in numbers as the years go on. But they are literally all appropriately encapsalated in a 5 minute interview in the documentary on the disc. He drags this out for all 2 hours plus of the film, and it's simply PAINFUL and I was totally checking my watch about an hour into the movie. Just dreadful.

And I think with RARE exception, actor commentaries are worthless if their sole contribution to a project was acting. A few good ones exist like Depp and DelTorro's on FaLILV, but most of the time, it's like two manequins conversing.

For an utterly lame, gimmicky commentary, the "Thermian language" track on the Galaxy Quest DVD really is the undisputed winner. For maybe the first 30 seconds or so, listening to the alien language which resembles cats being choked to death is mildly amusing, but I can't imagine anyone on the planet would actually attempt to watch the entire film that way. What a waste of bitrate.

Another vote for Mctiernan in Hunt for Red October, he doesnt seem to remember much about making it.

Also X2 commentary was bad and so far so was the Arnie/claire danes commentary on T3 (I never got the the end so not sure if it picked up or not).

Um, they were.
Anyways, the FG wern't a total dissapointment but they certainly could've been better, I have a feeling Fox had a hand in editing up the commentaries.

Wow, you are so right on Friedkin! Is his French Connection one this bad too? But I agree, his voice is simply captivating. John Carpenter has a great voice too. But I got thorugh 27 of 48 chapters, and I found two bits of new and relevant insight(which escape me) in his sea of breathless oratation on his film. There are NO breaks in this one.

Whoa, alright! Any specifics? This I'd like to hear! Is it definately big trouble?

I heard Quentin Tarantino was extremely annoying in Pulp Fiction. Is this true?

Quentin did'nt do one for pulp fiction,it has a pretty cool pop up commentary though

Odd because the only commentaries he's participated in are From Dusk til' Dawn,True Romance and Switchblade Sisters. I enjoyed listening to all 3 of those.

You might have been mistaken for the commentary on the SE of R-Dogs which he appears in. Though it's taken from interviews which makes it less interesting.

He's rumored to do one for Kill Bill. Again--rumored.

Oh and since I haven't responded to the thread yet. I'll add another vote for McTiernan on Die Hard. I still don't think I've finished listening to it yet.