I'm a big Jodie Foster fan, but she puts me to sleep on the Contact commentary.

The commentaries for the Fawlty Towers DVD's. Done by a couple of the original directors whose names I cannot remember and who sound about 90 years old. (And quite possibly are).

To make matters worse, the BBC, in their infinte wisdom, have decided to remove the original track completely so that you hear the commantary and nothing else.

So you have some old duffer laughing at jokes you cannot hear, and passing the occasional comment about once every 20 mins describing what is actually happening on screen.

I actually complained to the BBC about this, and got a repsonse back asking what the fault was - I had a hard time making the explain what the problem was, they just kept saying they would replace them if they were faulty (no pun intended), and I then had a voicemail from a rather harrassed sounding BBC guy who asked me to call him but the number was obscured - at which point I gave up.

It's been a while since I've listened... but doesn't one of the guys keep clearing his throat/blowing his nose throughout? I just remember thinking that they were both boring and, well, gross. I'm a commentary whore, but I couldn't finish.

Agreed. I gave it about ten minutes and gave up, and I'm likewise a commentary whore.

I haven't heard that one; I thought his commentary on Zardoz was quite good, lots of technical insights into the filming, stories about Sean Connery, admitting shortcomings in the film, etc. Maybe he had a bad day on the Excalibur recording session.

Does a Zardoz mention mean that we have to get the picture of Sean Connery in the red diaper in this thread?

Please, no.

A few gratuitous "The penis is evil" references would be fine, though...

Two horribel commentaries come to mind:

AVP-Henricksen, Laathan & Anderson. I was expecting them to explain some of the "not-so-clear" stuff in the film but they droned on and on about "how creepy"this was or "how cool" a scene that was,
or, how much did this film really cost to make? Laathan even goes out for a burger at one point during the commentary track!

Godzilla 98- It's so over board technical, I found myself nodding off in the first 15 minutes of the track.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force vol 1. Good god, how can people this dull be responsible for such a great show?

And as someone said earlier in the thread, Simpsons season 1. I don't know if they've improved over the rest of the discs, but the first several commentary tracks seemed to be "I forgot that was in there. Man, we're cool and cutting edge, aren't we?"

I thought it was "The penis mighter"?

The Night of the Following Day has a commentary by the director, Hubert Cornfield. It is probably fascinating. I've managed to listen to part of it and apparently Cornfield and Marlon Brando did not get along at all (The movie is not very good and Brando may well have regretted participating). The probelm is that there's something wrong with Cornfield's voice. I'm assuming it's damage to the vocal cords possibly from throat surgery. I feel sorry for the guy but it's almost impossible to listen to more than about 5 minutes of the commentary....his speaking voice like hearing fingernails on a blackboard.


OTOH, The British Sci Fi film, the Day the Earth Caught Fire has an untintentionally funny commentary that almost sounds like a Monty Python sketch ( and the Brit accents help it along). The participants are all so old and it's been so long since they worked on the film that they can barely recall doing it. They are contstantly reminding and correcting each other on the details. They also spend a good deal of time talking about a nude scene that was cut from the film in later releases and how they expect that this new release might have the nude scene restored. Well the sequence finally comes up and it turns out the nudity is not restored, the DVD is the censored version....meanwhile the commentary track goes curiously dead....I can only guess at what they said as they realized this was the G rated cut...obviously someone decided not to leave their comments in for the home viewer to hear...

I actually liked the Resident Evil commentary w/Milia. I haven't listened to many commentaries,and the ones I have were good.

Just some comments about some mentions so far:

Side Show: I've only heard about 5 minutes of the Resident Evil commentary, but it was a good few minutes. Any actress (Milla) who calls out "twat shot" on her own scene gets a thumbs up from me! I think she also called a nipple spotting on herself as well.

WildYams: I guess you just gave me the final reason to go ahead and pick up Joy Ride. I dug this movie in the theater, and enjoyed it when I saw it again at home as a rental. Just hearing the "Candy Cane" stuff kills me everytime.

DeadLamb, Crocker Jarmen: whenever the "favorite commentaries" thread is renewed/revived etc., I always mention that one. I think that's my all time favorite just after the various View Askew films' commentaries. Carrot Top singing along to songs, begging Eric Stoltz for movie roles "Eric! My brother!" etc...and best of all, when Stoltz gets some head and Carrot Top makes a gum smacking sound and says "suck your c*ck?" Friggin' classic. I'm with Corky Roxbury on this one, someone kidnap this guy and just force him to do commentaries!

Venom: Mel Brooks...incredibly funny guy, but shouldn't be doing solo commentaries. Something tells me if we were able to provide him with someone to talk with...say Gene Wilder in his various Brooks film appearances, or if Cleavon Little were alive for Blazing Saddles etc. As others have commented, in general solo commentaries don't do too well, and it's understandable. If you're going to try and pull it off, you better be used to talking to yourself.

Sunday Morning: nothing wrong about just talking what comes to mind, but as Feathers McGraw said...it shouldn't be the ONLY thing. However, it might get things started for a reunion type commentary. Breakfast Club commentary by cast anyone?

nodeerforamonth: laff...you got through forty minutes of the alien commentary track on Galaxy Quest and didn't understand? Man, what planet are YOU from!? That's got to be one of the most hilarious and insightful commentaries on ANY DVD!!!! Say....did you mention this commentary twice in this thread?!?

Sade: the only negative commentary that comes to mind for me was in PCU, the solo commentary by Jeremy Piven. If I remember correctly, he was pissed at how everyone was very much controlled, ie: they weren't allowed to improv all that much. I'll have to check it out again soon and post if that's accurate or not...

Finally, to add my own bit to the the thread. Unfortunately, it'll go the opposite way of the intent of the thread...it's a commentary I've enjoyed, at least, so far. I've not had time to watch it because it does require your undivided attention, unless you speak Japanese. Otherwise, you've got to sit and read the subtitles. It's for the film "Versus", done by the whole cast, and the entire time it seems as if they just want to rag on one another for bad acting. Highly amusing stuff for the first 15 minutes I've seen. I guess I'll have to provide an update for that commentary as well as PCU.

PT Anderson...he rambles on about shit that has nothing to do with the movie and cant stay on one topic....Sylvestor Stallone makes the best commentaries IMO

Anchorman was by far one of the most annoying tracks I've ever listened to...

"BEEP... BEEP... BEEEEEEEP... Maybe we can say BEEEEEEEEP...."

Give me a fucking break.

I also personally like the Carpenter/Russell commentaries and I'm waiting for them to do a DVD w/commentary for ELVIS.

okay the anchorman commentary was okay.
the funny part would be paul rudd talking about commentaries over the phone:
(disgusted)'people don't buy the discs for this type of commentary, they want to hear the cast say things like: this is a fun scene, oh we had a good time making this scene, but no!' he also mentions IMDB a lot
the fight with will ferrell and kyle gass got kinda old, especially when will kept complaining, it was obviously staged.
overall, funny stuff, but could've been way better

It just really got old by the 30 min. mark, when they were still trying to figure out if it was ok to say fuck-stick on a commentary track...

Oh yeah. The Anchorman commentary I hated. That Paul Rudd bit was about the only good thing about the commentary.

oh my god thats funny!!!! at least he didn't fart!



chris
dollfins1

Honorable mention for the Invader Zim commentaries. Maybe I missed the good ones, but the few times I listened to a track it was nothing but the voice actors making stupid noises and giggling at each other.

But then, it's kinda rare for actor tracks to be all that interesting.

The commentary track for Fawlty Towers in which the director is seemingly blowing his nose and eating it the entire time makes me want to vomit.

My favorite commentary of all time is John Frankenheimer for Ronin - it's seriously like film school 101. I love it.

The anchorman commentary was good for the 30 min. or so that they brought Lou Rawls in. He should do more of them.

The Rushmore commentary was disappointing. I never would have thought it would be so boring.

The commentary track for Bubba Ho-Tep with Campbell doing Elvis was absolutely dreadful. Would rather watch paint dry.

jet

I thought the Simpsons Season 1 commentaries were great. I looked forward to the commentaries more than the episodes (well, I have seen them many many times). I will admit that the commentaries have gotten better throughout the releases, but the season 1 commentaries still are good.

As for ATHF, I thought *most* of them were good. One thing that really annoyed me was when the just played guitar or music through the commentary, but I think they only did that for a few, otherwise I thought they were ok, definitely not boring and/or annoying.

I heard they get a little tipsy toward the end of "The Thing" commentary. A friend told me you can hear the ice moving in the glasses toward the end. I own the movie, one of my favories, but of course havent sat down to hear the commentary in the years I've had it.

Asterisk for mini-commentaries on South Park. For the 5 minutes that Trey and Matt talk about the episode, it is fantastic and informative, but then they end it too soon. Arg!!! I don't buy their excuse for having mini-commentaries. There are many things that occur later in the South Park episodes that they don't talk about, that they could if they did full-length commentaries. I suppose I should just be happy that they are doing anything at all.