Brent L

I'd like to hear of some screenwriter only tracks, but as long as they are really involved in the discussion, it's ok if they are doing the track with other people. I've found this list, but for most of them it doesn't really say exactly what the quality of the track is, and besides, I'm sure that's not a complete list at all.

TimeandTide

Just watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night and while I didn't sample the extras, I'm pretty sure writer/director Shane Black provides commentary. Might be worth checking out as it's a brilliantly written film.

Also, the best writer of them all, William Goldman, provides some good commentary on The Princess Bride DVD.

Brent L

Trust me, I know all about the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang track! That's not me being an ass, just that I've been known around here as the guy that's been recommending it to everyone.

I really liked that track, but I thought it was more entertaining than it was insight into the writing process and the such. A great track, but not exactly what I'm looking for.

I'll check out the track on The Pricess Bride.

ASAPadam

I remember "The Limey" as having a very entertaining commentary with the screenwriter and Soderberg. It's been many years since I listened to it, but I remember them bickering about plot points and changes made to the script (and I also recall siding with the writer.)

Numes

The Alien Commentary is excellent (From the Quadrilogy). It's not just Dan O'Bannon, though.
True Romance - with Quentin Tarantino
All of the J. Michael Straczynski commentaries on Babylon 5 are excellent, not sure if you were looking for TV shows or not.

Some of the commentaries on ratethatcommentary I haven't heard in a while, so I'd hate to say yea or nay on ones I can't quite remember vividly.

Simpson Purist

Fight Club has a commentary by screenwriter Jim Uhls and author Chuck Palahniuk that's pretty entertaining, although it's more of a banter about the differences between the book and the movie.

Black Hawk Down Deluxe Edition has a commentary by screenwriter Ken Nolan and author Mark Bowden, they do a good job describing how certain moments in the book had to be compressed.

Fincher Fan

Panic Room, with David Koepp and special guest William Goldman is one of the best I've heard.

obscurelabel

I thought the Larry Kramer commentary on Women in Love was excellent. There's also a separate commentary with directory Ken Russell that's very good. The image quality on the disk is only OK, but both commentaries are good. The DVD also features some interesting still photos from Ken Russell's collection.

Sean O'Hara

Check out Nicholas Meyer's commentary on Star Trek II (the Star Trek VI one isn't quite as enlightening), and the writer's commentary on Pirates of the Carribean.

David Cornelius

WarGames and Sneakers contain two of the best commentaries I've ever enjoyed. Both detail the evolution of the scripts, in a lively, informative way. (The Sneakers disc also has a making-of that supports the commentary - you get to see the writers pull out the stacks of drafts from the years they took writing the thing.)

Brent L

Thanks for all of the replies so far.

kintnerboy

The SE for Se7en has a track with screenwriter Andrew Walker, Fincher and Richard Dwyer, who wrote the BFI guide for the film.

Donnie Darko: Director's Cut has a track with Richard Kelly and guest Kevin Smith (who is a fairly busy uncredited re-writer) talking about screenwriting in general.

Shawshank Redemption is one of the best Writer/Director commentaries you'll hear.

Rizor

The LOTR Extended Editions feature great commentaries with the the writers Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens.

I believe Moulin Rouge's writer chat was pretty good too.

hiccup

Yaeh, definitely check out the Donnie Darko commentary. Kevin Smith is excellent on it.

I've always found the Simpsons commentary fairly enjoyable and particularily insightful into how the write episodes of the show.

kintnerboy

Here's something interesting: I was listening to the commentary track for Kramer Vs Kramer and found out that virtually every memorable scene in the film (the french toast scene, the ice cream scene, parts of the courtroom scene at the end, etc) were re-written on set by Dustin Hoffman, or just improvised.

When K vs K won the screenwriting Oscar, Hoffman let Robert Benton take all the credit. What a guy.

eedoon

[Captain Obvious]Although he's a director, Cameron Crowe's commentary are always excellent, and he does write his own screenplay. Check out Almost Famous bootleg cut if you can have it.[/Captain Obvious]

But of course, he does commentary for Fast Times in Ridgemont High with director Amy Heckerling.

Numes

Ok, just got done listening to the first "commentary" on the BTTF 1 DVD again (it's been 2-3 years since I listened to it). It is really a Q&A session that took place at USC with Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. They play it over the movie, it is excellent.

mike7162

David O. Russell's commentary for "Three Kings" is very insightful (unless you're a raging conservative!)

Ernest Lehmann - "North by Northwest" Old school screenwriting at it's best.

Brent L

I just started giving this one a listen, and I can already tell that this is going to be one of the best commentary tracks that I've ever listened to.

Fincher Fan

And everyone usually thinks I'm bias...

I would say it's probably in the top 5 tracks, information-wise, that I've ever heard.

Brent L

It had me at "fuckin' scooter".

Brent L

Have any of you noticed any tracks of this sort lately?

I know it's old news by now, but the one on Big was great for this sort of thing.

Numes

Edit: funny. The URL that I have listed is in the first post... Whoops!

This might be more work than you are interested in, but if you go to ratethatcommentary.com (the URL has the keyword "screenwriter" in the search). You could go through all of them and look at the comments by people on that site. It will also list the exact participants of the commentary and their relationship with the movie.

You could also go to the top 100 commentary tracks and search for "screenwriter"

I think what you might run into, though, is that some of the best screenwriter tracks are also the director tracks, which tend to ultimately focus more on the directing than the writing...which I'm assuming you are most interested in.

I may have already mentioned this, but one of the 4 "Fight Club" commentaries has one that, oddly enough, has the writer of the source novel AND the screenwriter. Very unique. Honestly, it was over 2 years ago and I don't remember much specifically, but I gave it a 7/10 at the time.

DonnachaOne

What you're going to do now is track down as many Steve Soderbergh SEs as you can, because chances are he comments/argues with the writers on them. Traffic with Steve Gaghan, Out Of Sight with Scott Foley and the aforementioned The Limey are all brilliant.

Giles

really I didn't know that.

side note: it's a shame that Ken Russell did a commentary track for 'Tommy' that is only on the region 2 PAL special edition, which I have to say is quite insightful.