I recently watched the cast commentaries to the Devil's Den and A Scanner Darkly. Even though one is a low budget, b-movie and the other is chuck full of stars, both commentaries said the same things.

So-and-so is very intelligent. We couldn't have picked a better cast. The director is the best ever. blah blah blah

I wasn't impressed with either movie much (though Downey's performance was excellent), so it seems worthless to hear the cast and crew pat each other on the back about a couple of medicore movies. It's boring. No insights, revelations, confessions. Just meaningless fluff pieces.

The best line in either commentary was when the cast of A Scanner Darkly was talking about government survellience and Winona Ryder blurted out how we are constantly being video taped. (Did this movie come out before or after her shoplifting arrest?)

I tend to avoid those and go for the director, producer and writer kind of commentaries because most of the time they actually talk about the making of the movie and not just about someone being great and all that kind of fluff as you said.

I tend to enjoy them although sometimes it helps if there's some kind of moderator. Too many people and good times can make for a jumbled commentary with everyone talking.

I actually enjoy cast commentaries because you get stories that the directors/writers/producers normally don't tell (like how they got casted, who they auditioned against, how f*ck*d up scenes were to film, different angles on certain stories, and ancedotes (like how they fooled around on stage and stuff), but they are more entertaining with a director/producer is around to moderate...

For me, it all depends on who the actor/actress is. If I'm interested in what that person has to say in general, I'll generally be interested in their film commentary.

I don't think they are, for me cast commentaries are more fun while watching the movie. All of Kevin Smith Commentaries, and the commentaries on American Pie, and Dude Where's my Car can sometimes make the movie better.

Yeah, it depends on who's on the commentary. I've liked the American Pie ones and even 40 Year Old Virgin (although that one got a bit crowded at times). Overall, though, they're fun to listen to as you get more bits of trivia rather than technical things...

Don't really like them. I like commentaries to listen about the creative process that went into making the film, you usually don't get that in cast commentaries.

the only commentary i have listened to is the chris columbus/macaulay culkin on home alone...........i find all others useless for me.....

It depends on the people.

Some people are just better at doing these types of things than others.

It's largely hit-or-miss, largely the latter. If they're not clapping themselves on the back for doing a good job, they seem to be phoning it in because they'd rather be doing something else. Other times there's just too much information to take in, especially when there are multiple commentary tracks.

I'm also going to have to agree that it depends on the people.

But this applies to commentaries in general.


Kevin Smiths group commentaries are a gold standard in how to do them.

And I admit that the commentary on "Revenge of the Nerds" was really good, not Kevin Smith caliber, but still fun and "behind the scenes" informative.

You should try listening to them instead. j/k

Seriously, the best cast commentary I've heard is from the Wachowski brothers' movie "Bound." It was a little drunken and all over the place, but they were interesting and added a lot of interesting information.

Well after. The shoplifting thing was in 2001.

Here's a random question: Are there any cast commentaries, where you can tell if they're on cocaine? Or is that even possible?

Well i think it all depends on how interesting and involved the person giving the commentary is. For example the commentaries on Fight Club with cast are excellent, the commentary by Brian Blessed on Falsh Gordon is worth buying the DVD for alone its so funny....the guy truly is Voltan, the Kurt Russell & John Carpenter commentaries on Escape from New York and The Thing are really good as well. I think the DVD that has the best commentaries however is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. All three commentaries on the Criterion DVD are amazing...especially the Hunter S. Thompson one.

Obviously you have never listened to the cast commentaries for Arrested Development they are just hilarious IMHO.

The Break Up cast commentary is awkwardly funny as Vaughn doesn't let Aniston get a word in edgewise, constantly interrupts her, and overtalks her. Good stuff.

I actually enjoy a lot of the tv commentaries more so than the film ones. I just got around to listening to some of the Futurama commentaries. They have a nice balance of humor and technical information.