I love the idea of listening to a director/producer/actor talking about how a movie is made. My problem is I just don't want to sit down to watch a movie--which is mostly visual--and end up having to LISTEN to audio commentary while the movie is on in my living room.

I'd much rather listen to audio commentary on my way to work, or on the train, or walking my dog, etc. Are there podcasts for this? A website where I could download different commentaries?

play the DVD commentary and put this near the TV speaker

What the hell is that thing?

There's www.rifftrax.com , although those are intended to be companions to the films, and probably wouldn't make much sense being listened to separately.

There are fan-made commentaries for films, most all on mp3. One site that lists many of them is sharecrow.
http://www.sharecrow.com/top_ten.html

"Official" mp3 commentaries are rarer, and mostly limited to TV shows, where one can download the commentary to listen along with the broadcast, or re-broadcast maybe. Battlestar Galatica is one show that has an official commentary podcast:
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast.php

There's one mp3 film commentary made by director Darren Aronofsky for his film The Fountain that he recorded after the studio decided not to produce one for the DVD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fou...lm)#Home_video

Keep in mind that these commentaries were specifically designed to be watched with the movie, so they may not work well when listened to on their own. I know at least some of them do not mix the film's audio in with the commentary mp3, so without the DVD will will have both no video or audio cues as to what part of the film they're specifically commentating on.

Seriously? I used to have one as a kid, I would listen to the tapes that came with Peanuts storybooks on it.

I'd really like to hear the now-extinct Criterion commentaries from LaserDisc days, especially those by David Fincher for Seven and The Game.

I'd kill for a copy of Scorsese's Taxi Driver commentary. I was disappointed that neither this nor the music-only soundtrack were ported from the Criterion laserdisc.

Can't really send any links since I think it's considered not kosher on this site (have no idea why though), but there is software out there that can rip audio streams of DVDs to MP3 format. A Google search will turn up quite a few results, all of which are programs that you pay for, but can test out.

Murder is not required, just patience and a DVD burner.

Luckily I have both. Thanks for the link!

My father has one of those in a similar design. Very old, still in good shape; uses it sparingly. I have one, too, only it's a cheaper version for kids. Used to play all my tapes on it. Not exactly hi-fi, but delivered fine for the youngster with unrefined tastes.

--THX

For older titles, I'm surprised the studios haven't found a way to turn audio commentaries into a small revenue stream by making them available for download for a (very) small fee. Obviously, free is better.

I listen to audio commentaries at work (with the picture off), but it's a design/desk job so no one is too worried. Still, I'd much rather have them on my iPod. In most cases, the movies are already firmly etched into my brain, so the commentaries would be ideal as portable items.

Might have to try the searches that have been suggested here.


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It's doubtful that studios would release anything sans DRM. Plus, the group that would download an audio-only file of a commentary is still a fairly niche group. If the studios have a new commentary, they'd probably rather save it for a future re-release of the title.

It's possible BD Live may create a venue for studios to add commentaries to a film at a later date, but this wouldn't really help the OP.