Your Favorite Audio Commentaries
 

After seeing the thread on the most boring and/or annoying audio commentaries, I decided to ask: what are your favorite commentaries (or in other words, the ones that kept you entertained and never felt boring)?

In my case, here are my top three...

BRAZIL (Criterion Collection) - Terry Gilliam's passion for trying to keep his vision of this movie shows here.

DAS BOOT (Director's Cut) - The three-man commentary (Wolfgang Petersen, Jurgen Prochnow and producer Ortwin Freyermuth) had a lot of insight and was great to listen to. There was barely a moment of silence, and it was good...and surprising for a 3 1/2 hour movie.

SAY ANYTHING - John Cusack, Ione Skye and Cameron Crowe reuniting for one of the great romantic films of the 1980s...enough said.

There you go...

I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings Commentaries on the Extended Editions.

I liked the commentary on "Good Will Hunting".

"Anchorman" was memorable --- "Can we say that? We're getting thumbs down..."

:)

Cannibal: The Musical

Gotta go with Untitled: Almost Famous Directors Cut with Cameron Crowe and his mom. I love Say Anything, but thought the commentary was only OK. I guess a little to much time had passed. Fight Club with Fincher, Pitt, and Norton.

I'll second Fight Club with Fincher, Pitt and Norton.
I also found Ebert's audio commentary on Citizen Kane to be really interesting.

In no particular order:

John Madden on Shakespeare in Love

The LOTR trilogy (Director commentary)

Love Actually (actors were funny picking on Hugh Grant, who was picking on Colin Firth)

Citizen Kane (Roger Ebert)

I never laughed so hard listening to a commentary until I heard the Used Cars commentary. Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and Kurt Russell. While they did talk about the making of the movie, they mostly just joked around the entire time. They pointed out glaring mistakes like seeing the film crew in a mirror in the very first shot of the movie. But what had me laughing out loud the most is when Robert Zemeckis pointed out a camera they hid to get a shot being completely destroyed by a stunt. I lost it when he said it was the first camera he had to send back to Panavision in a shoe box.

The Simpsons: The Complete Season Five. Conan O'Brien is a trip. This is really when I get the most out of a commentary track. I've seen these episodes so many times, the commentary breathes new life into them. I get the sense that I'm there with 'em.

I'll second any of the Conan O'Brien commentaries on the Simpsons.

I'll also second Cannibal: The Musical. Absolutely Hilarious.

Also, in no particular order:
- Any Simpsons Commentaries
- Any Futurama Commentaries
- Any Babylon 5 Commentaries, there is an excellent balance between the JMS commenatires which are very informative, and the Actor/Actress commentaries which are just a lot of fun. I WISH THERE WERE MORE!!!
- Guillermo del Toro Commentary on the Director's Cut of Hellboy
- Any Stargate SG-1 Commentary with Peter DeLuise (The others are great too, but Peter has that hint of comedy that is enjoyable
- Any Nicholas Meyer commentary (ST:II, ST:VI) I haven't listened to the Time after Time Commentary yet, but I'm sure it will be great.
- Any Trey and Matt Commentary - Even if it is only 5 minutes
- I liked the scene specific commentaries on True Romance, it's been a while, but I remember those to be pretty informative
- I liked the Will Ferrell Commentary in Elf because he was actually just being "himself" and not in character.
- This is Spinal Tap Commentary (in character). I would love to listen to the commentary from the Criterion, but I don't feel like plopping down $100+ right now :)
- Both Goodfellas commentaries
- Gangs of NY commentary with Scorsese. I wish he would have actually talked to the movie as it was playing, but it was still an excellent commentary even if it wasn't directly talking to the movie as it was playing.
- This will sound dumb, but I did like the commentaries for Club Dread. I wasn't too keen on the movie, but I did like the insight on the commentaries.
- Mr. Show commentaries. I was a little annoyed in the first DVD release where they would always go into some random character, but they seemed to stop that for the subsequent releases.
- Se7en commentary with Fincher and Pitt. I haven't listened to to the other commentaries, or the commentaries from Fight Club, but after listening to one Fincher commentary, I can guarantee that I will enjoy any others. Morgan Freeman did disappoint me in the Se7en commentary and the Robin Hood commentary.
- Mallrats. I have to give it props because it was one of the first DVD's I ever owned and the first commentary I ever listened to. I remember a lot of ribbing of Afleck. Good stuff.

GASP!!

I didnt know Conan did commentaries on these. I'll have to rent em. I refuse to own all 100 seasons of the Simpsons... =p

The commentary track on the Evil Dead 2 LD is my all time favorite. The only commentary track that I have ever listened to more than once.


--Ian

Cast commentaries on the J&SB movies.
Cast on LOTR:FOTR EE
Teacher commentary on the 1 episode of F&G (Best commentary on anything ever)

This is the only movie I have watched more times wit commentary, than the actual audio track. The funniest commentary ever.

any oliver stone commentaries, especially heaven and earth.

I like the Futurama commentaries with Billy West and John DiMaggio (which is most of them).

Used Cars with Robert Zemeckis, Kurt Russell and Bob Gale.

This is Spinal Tap
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
A Christmas Story
original clerks disc

Angela's Ashes with the Author. It was great hearing the commentary done by the person who actually lived the story. Believe it or not, it was this commentary that made me decide to buy my first DVD player.

anything with kevin smith in it..

Which disc and or episodes have a conan commentary? I want to rent it but dont' want to get the wrong discs. Thanks.

Uhf

Edit: Weird. I typed that as all caps, and it automatically lower-cased the 'h' and 'f'.

Oh well.

most of the Simpsons commentaries are good, the best are in Seasons 3 and 4.
Most of Season 5 is skippable. The best Conan ones are on Season 4, discs 2 and 3 (one is hidden.)

Funniest commentaries are the Zuckers on Airplane! and with John Landis on Kentucky Fried Movie. Hilarious stuff.

Also the Freaks and Geeks boxset has some good ones too.

Cannibal: The Musical's commentary is better then the movie itself.

Some favorites that haven't been mentioned:

Blackhawk Down - Author/Screenwriter track. Tons of funny stories from the set.

Star Trek IV:CE - Shatner and Nemoy really shine. Just two old friends gabbing away about something they enjoyed. And Shatner doesn't come off as a grumpy old fart like he does in the Making of Docs.

Dogma - Cast commentary.

Evil Dead 2 - Featuring the comedy team of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell.

The animated Batman and Superman box sets.