orangerunner

In Richard Linklater's commentary for the Criterion Collection Dazed & Confused DVD he grills an extra for carelessly spinning the players around during a game of foosball in the background of one scene.

He gets quite upset at this extra mentioning that in the 70s foosball was a serious sport not to be taken lightly.

Josh Z

I see that it's been name-checked very early in this thread, but I'll just give another plug for the Brannon Braga & Ronald Moore commentary on Star Trek: Generations, which is refreshing candid about the weaknesses in the movie.

Chas Speed

The 2nd audio commentary of Cat Ballou by Michael Callan and Dwayne Hickman seem fairly wild and unedited. Callan seems drunk and doesn't say much other then grunting support at Hickman who talks constantly. There is also, of course, much discussion of Lee Marvin's drunken behavior.

Numes

I was looking for this thread to bump a couple months ago. Very glad someone bumped it.

The Spartacus commentary is brutally honest, in particular the comments provided by the novelist Howard Fast. He doesn't sugar coat anything, whether it is scenes he likes or dislikes. I was especially interested to hear that he didn't think that Kirk Douglas's portrayal of Spartacus was anything like it should have been.

In addition, on there is a scene-by scene audio analysis taken from rough-cut notes written by screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. It is basically a commentary, but spoken by an actor from the notes that Trumbo wrote about many scenes. This "commentary" is truly no-holds barred. I highly highly recommend listening to this.

Adam Tyner

I still put on the commentary for A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell every once in a while just to hear Brett Piper. His very vocal disgust with everything related to Troma -- down to its fans -- is pretty amazing.

Giles

Malcolm McDowell's bascially rips nearly the entire film: Caligula he hides no negativity towards the editing that Bob Guccione did to Tinto Brass' film.

Rypro 525

the Boogie Nights cast and director commentary comes to mind. From PTA asking everyone if Luis Guzman is stoned whenever he is on screen/

Numes

Holy cow. I missed this commentary when I watched this a couple months ago. I listened to the PTA only commentary, but I missed the other one. How dare me! Thanks!

Rypro 525

and Whalberg keeps asking to leave and PTA talks him into staying.

Yeti4623

Guinevere Turner's commentary for American Psycho. Totally speaks her mind.

terrible chong

Jean Jacques Annaud's commentary for In the Name of the Rose airs out what a pain F Murray Abraham was to work with.

apparently Abraham's ego swelled after his Oscar for Amadeus, so he started treating everyone like crap. among his diva-ish demands was that he refused to show up on the set before Sean Connery. Sean Connery had to be there first, then Abraham would make his arrival... because Connery didn't have an Oscar

Annaud then points out that humble hard workers like Ron Perlman get plenty of work, and where's F Murray Abraham now?

terrible chong

in the cast commentary for Resident Evil Apocalypse, Milla Jovovich is apparently drunk or ditzy or both. she and Oded Fehr non-stop make fun of the dialogue, the special effects and the zombie noises

Jovovich has one of those pirate laughs where it sounds like she is horking snot

terrible chong

John Milius and Arnold Schwarzeneggar sound like they were smoking more than cigars when they did the commentary for Conan the Barbarian. Judge for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86-vveE9DI4

Yeti4623

Shannon Sossamon's comments during one of the Rules of Attraction commentaries. Entertaining.

Alan Smithee

I liked how the commentary for Friday the 13th Part 8 (Jason Takes Manhattan) and some of the extras said basically "Yeah, it would've been cool if we could actually put Jason in New York, but they didn't give us enough money so we spent most of the movie on the boat instead."

crazyrabbits

Some of the ridiculous (not necessarily no-holds-barred) commentaries I've heard over the years:

Speed (Five-Star Collection): Graham Yost (the screenwriter) and producer Mark Gordon talk about the film, and the following (if I recall correctly) happens:

- Yost and Gordon reveal that Jeff Daniels thought the movie would be a disaster while filming
- Yost cracks jokes about the opening credit sequence
- railing on all the plot holes and ridiculous moments
- insulting Billy Idol's end credit song
- saying the subway sequence was useless
- Yost being immensely thankful he wasn't involved in the sequel (which he insults)

The Rules of Attraction: For some reason, the director (Roger Avary) elected to hire Carrot Top (the comedian), someone who had NOTHING to do with the production, to riff during the film. It's painfully unfunny (and he admits this), and it quickly becomes clear that this is the first time he's ever seen the film. He keeps making jokes until a scene where a woman gets raped, and then he's totally shocked and can't come back with any witty material for the next half hour. Hilarious.

Resident Evil: Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez riff on the film, MST3k-style, and talk about how it's nothing more than a popcorn flick, point out ridiculous moments, and act like schoolgirls the entire time.

Brazil: Terry Gilliam. 2 hours. 'Nuff said.

Dancer In The Dark: The director discusses (at length) how much Bjork sucks as an actress.

Frequency: Not necessarily no-holds barred, but any commentary where the person speaking actively questions who's watching the film, and the second participant leaving early so he can get to a dentist's appointment is pure gold.

Rypro 525

Kind of, but i listened to the Army of Darkness commentary for the longer version, and Sam didn't like that Ash had become somewhat smart and wishes he was more of the coward we all know and love during the end battle scene (which he also admits that its too long in the extended version) And both he and Bruce both do prefer the darker ending on that version as well

DeadMADMAN

Seven - Brad Pitt rips the marketing department for insisting his face be on the movie poster and then gets in a conversation about how his eyes appear.

Josh Z

You neglected to mention that both Jovovich and Rodriguez were drunk off their asses when recording that track. It's pretty embarrassing to listen to.

DiedLaughing

Awesome. I am going to pick the DVD up this weekend.

Yeti4623

I love that Speed commentary. It's kind of amazing how much they riff on it. I've seen lesser movies get more respect from the filmmakers.

MTRodaba2468

I'm not surprised. There was an incident on his talk show where the frontman of Jackyl came out with his chainsaw and sawed his desk in half. Green seemed caught off guard and legitimately pissed about it. Apparently he can't take the same kind of stuff that he's dished out with his pranks.

Well to be fair, Carrot Top was at a disadvantage. Prop comedy doesn't really work too well when delivered via audio commentary.

Yeti4623

Bump. Anyone got anymore?

godzilla rules

The Midnight Meat Train commentary by Clive Barker and the director is pretty good. they talk about how the movie got screwed when it was released.

Travis McClain

I still love Shatner's commentary for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It's two hours of him bitching about how Paramount screwed up his movie at every turn. I think he even lodges a complaint about how he was hoping to get to fix some effects shots for the DVD release, but that they nixed that as well. I think the only pleasant remarks he made were about his daughter's cameo as his yeoman.

Oh, and Tim Burton's commentary for Batman includes a frank discussion of how much Jack Palance hated working with him. Burton laughs it off, but you're left with the impression that was his way of admitting that Palance may have been right to think him a clueless amateur director at the time.