DVD commentaries: Most informative and most entertaining?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by lasvidfil, Feb 14, 2008.

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  1. Yeah, it's on the new Blu-ray digibook. He's fairly engaged and chatty during it. Apparently his ex-wife was best friends with Jamie Lee Curtis, so there was a certain camaraderie between the two.
     
  2. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I wonder why the new edition was Blu-ray only? As much as I don't want to buy yet another copy of the movie, I would've liked to hear that commentary.
     
  3. Pete Norman

    Pete Norman Forum Resident

    Haskell Wexler on 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe' almost a master class of cinematography.

    Werner Herzog's commentaries are pretty entertaining as well...
     
  4. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    I found the two commentaries for "Armageddon", one movie making and one NASA to be pretty good.
    "Rome" has some good ones and also some good "Pop Up" written notes.

    Favorite commentary moment. on "Logan's Run" Michael York is talking about something, sees a brief topless scene by Jenny Agutter and wistfully says "Oh, Jenny!"
     
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  5. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    Interesting. I wish I could remember specific examples, but I've heard of more than one case where a director/writer/star/etc. has offered to record commentary for free and wound up turned down by the studio still. A union thing where the releasing company still has to pay something even if the commentary itself doesn't cost a cent beyond studio time costs, perhaps?

    As for the topic, I've mentioned a million times on a million other threads (and someone may have mentioned them here too already), but I wish all DVDs had commentaries even a quarter as good as the majority of the ones on the Simpsons DVDs. Every episode has one, most all of them have several participants who were directly connected to the episode in question, and most all of them are just really fun to listen to on top of it. Someone could write a series encyclopedia based on revelations from the commentary tracks alone. There's a few episodes where nobody seems to have a whole lot to say about the making of it and digress into (still highly entertaining) tangents, but for the most part they get into every little geeky detail a fan could want - and even non-fans would probably learn a lot from the tracks even if they don't care about the source material.
     
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  6. There's also the issue of recording studio time, mastering time, etc. so there is some cost involved no matter what even if it is the time to hire someone to transfer the commentary.

    I just think studios recognize that a lot of people could care less about commentary tracks and think they are a waste of money. I would personally disagree particularly if its a reissue and you are trying to convince people to pay for it again. This ploy worked for a while but I think sales dropped off with streaming as an option and people (other than über fans) got burned by all these special editions being reissued. By ripping off your audience, they end up turning on you to some degree.

    Look how well the Twilight Time li tied edition Blu-rays sell for example and they rarely have special features outside of isolated music tracks. I personally think Shout takes the right approach with these things. I appreciate that Twilight releases some stuff that might not otherwise be released (but the also release stuff that would have a fairly strong pull through as well which is frustrating because often times they sell out quickly) but I'd rather that if you are going to set a ceiling on those type of releases number the fist 5000 and then release it as a regular edition.
     
  7. The commentaries matter to a small handful of consumers, which is why studios moved away from them. Research indicated they were hardly being used except by the most hardcore fans. This is less true in certain niche genres but mainstream Hollywood fare receives less and less interesting commentaries these days.
     
  8. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    Which is really completely understandable. The studios had gone overboard with 'em, and frankly the majority of movies probably didn't really deserve commentary tracks and I can't hardly imagine who'd ever listen to some of them. Do we really need a commentary for Epic Movie or Stealth or such? (I dunno if those actually had commentaries, but you get my point.) Most of the tracks for recent and/or blockbuster/mainstream type movies were just friggin' boring as hell even if you did listen to them. "Oh, that person was great to work with. That FX shot cost $6 million. I really like the lighting in this scene." Rarely anything interesting because the participants are usually still too closely-connected to the material when they're recorded, and I've heard several where the commentary was recorded before the movie had even been theatrically released.
     
  9. Yayastone

    Yayastone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Monterey, CA.
    Commentary by Director Jeff Stein

    kids are alright.jpg
     
  10. tonyc

    tonyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I just got "Sideways" on DVD and listened to the commentary track. Hilarious as recommended by Thesmellofvinyl. :righton:
     
  11. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I've owned that DVD for years but have never listened to the commentary... maybe I should give it a spin! :)
     
  12. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    I've really been enjoying the commentary tracks from Matthew Weiner on the Mad Men DVDs....very thorough and yet still entertaining, probably because the episodes are so densely plotted. Little things are easy to miss and he points them all out.

    There are usually 2 separate commentary tracks per episode---one with Weiner and sometimes the director or writer and one with the main actors from the episode.
     
  13. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Commentary tracks are always my favourite if it comes to DVD/BD Bonusfeatures.

    For TV-Series I think the Seinfeld commentary tracks are extraordinary, comprehensive and also real fun. I wish each show would be treated like this for their home-entertainment release...

    As mentioned before in this thread, Werner Herzog provides extrem profound german commentary tracks; I personal really loved Tarantinos commentary track for Reservoir Dogs. Too sad that none of his more current films featured a commentary track at all. What a waste...
     
  14. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    I was disappointed that they didn't do one for every episode in the way The Simpsons DVDs have, but yeah, the ones that are there are pretty good. I assume you've watched the episodes with the "Notes About Nothing" feature activated? It's like a text-based commentary of sorts that points out quite a few interesting facts.
     
  15. mr_mjb1960

    mr_mjb1960 I'm a Tarrytowner 'Til I die!

    Loved the Micky Dolenz commentaries on the "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee" DVD! Very Humorous!
     
  16. Because studios are getting cheap, the novelty wore off and the commentaries are truly listened to by hardcore fans. Most folks are happy to have a nice looking version of the film (and nice is open to interpretation) and clear dialog. Heck, subtitles are sometimes not included for some older films as well and those are the ones that benefit the most from them as the fans are often older with hearing issues or dialog isn't always clear.
     
  17. davidarob

    davidarob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR USA
    "Catch-22" with Mike Nichols & Steven Soderbergh bantering back in forth is great listening.
     
  18. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    Mel Brooks.
    Young Frankenstien.
     
  19. carrick doone

    carrick doone Whhhuuuutttt????

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    Yeah, I decided to listen to the commentary and I was blown away by how much information I gained about Japanese film of that time, Kurosawa himself and the metaphors used within the film to tell the subtext of the story. I imagined I was sitting in the front row of a film class. It's brilliant.
     
  20. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    But most of the episodes have at least one; sometimes even two or three if you count the ´Notes About Nothing´ feature. And you´re absolutely right, it´s a great and very informative feature. And also the mixture of real and fun facts is quite unique...

    And the whole Seinfeld DVD Box Set is great in so many ways; the bonus materials, the completeness of the different episode editings or the still good looking picture and sound quality. It stands the test of time for me quite well...

    By the way ´The Simpsons´ commentary tracks are the one good reason for me to still buy the current DVD-Sets of the downwarding Show...
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2014
  21. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    Well, a lot of people have no interest in the "making of" aspect of the films, and yet there's another segment who "don't like people talking over the film". :rolleyes:
     
  22. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I thought the "Seinfeld" commentaries were tremendously up and down. Some were great, some were utterly useless. This tended to be especially true when Jerry himself "commented", as he had little to say... :sigh:
     
  23. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    Yeah, I almost got the impression Jerry was seeing these episodes for the first time since they'd aired (or maybe for the first time ever in complete form) and he seemed to get too distracted watching them to have much to say except "Boy, that turned out to be a really funny one!" or such. Also a shame that the rest of the cast did a few episodes together but that Jerry wasn't part of the group for those, only appearing either by himself or with Larry David or a writer.
     
  24. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    But in combination with the ´Notes about Nothing´ feature I can not say I had the feeling that anything informative would be missing. I think it´s very rare for DVD-Releases of a sitcom to get so many different actors in to do commentary tracks. I also appreciated that not too many people were featured together on one commentary. From my point of view ´The Simpsons´ often use too many people for those commentary tracks. After my fancy there is no need for more than maybe three people doing a commentary track; more are sometimes a bit confusing for me. Especially if I´m not too familiar with the individual voices...
     
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