DVD commentaries: Most informative and most entertaining?

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

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  1. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    I generally don't seem to care so much about extras as some here do. Give me a great looking film and original soundtrack (and any updated multis) in lossless first and then look at extras without compromising the quality of the film.

    That said, commentaries are almost always the extra I find most interesting. I really don't expect or need them for a film I'll only watch once like Last Vegas or Dallas Buyers Club. Like many extras, I only find them entertaining when it concerns a film I really care about- that is, one I've seen countless times, where the bonus content can help provide a different experience. Then again, I don't always want to know about the "wizard behind the curtain" as Steven Spielberg talks about in an interview with Ain't it Cool (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49921):

    Quint: I notice you don’t do commentaries on your films. Is there a reason for that?
    Steven Spielberg: Well, because if I do commentaries it takes you out of the movie. It just takes you totally out of the movie because you’re not really watching a movie, you’re listening to a radio show. So, I’ve just never believed in doing commentaries because once people start one of my movies I want them to get into the film. I don’t want to knock down the fourth wall for them and take them into the handbook of how I did it because I just think it breaks the illusion.
     
  2. let him run...

    let him run... Senior Member

    Location:
    Colchester, VT USA
    I really like Randy Newman's commentary for Pleasantville.
     
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  3. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    Oasis ~ Time Flies. The commentary is roll around the floor funny when Noel is talking. He always makes some grand statement that's proved to be false seconds later.
     
  4. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I always thought Spielberg sounds like a dope when he says that. He could use the same argument against ALL behind the scenes pieces - they all "knock down the fourth wall", don't they?

    It's not like people have to listen to the commentaries - commentaries don't prevent people from getting into the movies.

    Of course, it's his right to not do commentaries, but it makes no sense to say they "spoil the illusion" but hours of "making of" programs - in which he happily participates - don't...
     
  5. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    The "Notes" were great - those were easily the best extras on the "Seinfeld" packages...
     
  6. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    I think the difference for him could be the fact, that you normally watch the movie during hearing the commentary track. That´s something that you do not do during all kind of the other making of features. I kind of get his point, that he wants his movies beeing presented just on it´s own. But I think he would provide great commentary tracks; his interview parts for the new Jaws BD are outstanding...

    Currently I was listening to the first two discs of The Twilight Zone BD Season 1 set, which was just released as a nice Digipak with great features here in Germany. Most of those commentary tracks are great. Especially those audio tracks which were taped from Serlings university class in the mid-seventies!
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2014
  7. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Yeah, I understand that's what Spielberg says, but I still don't think it makes much sense. It's not like the viewer is FORCED to listen to the commentary, and it's not like his movies don't get altered in other ways. People watch them on crappy, small TVs with awful sound and with commercial interruptions - there are all sorts of changes that make sure it's not just the movie presented on its own.

    I think he drew an anti-commentary line in the sand a long time ago and refuses to back off for reasons unknown... :shrug:
     
  8. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Also, Frankenheimer's commentary for 'The Gypsy Moths", a modest and low key film, especially by his standards, but one he seems to have really cared about. It's always fascinating, dissappointing and inspiring to hear him and other directors with strongly held views and style explore how they try to transcend the practical challenges of making a movie
     
  9. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Maybe it´s not a good point, but it´s a point. And most of Spielbergs Movies have quite comprehensive ´Making Of´ - Interview sections. If you look at ´The Jaws´ BD, I think you don´t need a commentary track on top of this. So if Señor Spielbergo doesn´t feel too well about commentary tracks, who am I to force him to... ;)
     
  10. Richard Donner's commentaries for his director's cuts of the first two Superman movies are brilliant - it's just a shame Richard Lester refused to contribute similar tracks for his two films in the series or appear in the various documentaries included on the Ultimate Collectors Edition discs, as I'd love to hear his side of the story behind the troubled production, not to mention what he thinks of the third in retrospect. While he was not involved with the later sequels, I'd also like to know what Donner made of Superman III and IV: The Quest For Peace outside of a few brief sentences on each (which is unlikely to happen, as he claims to have walked out from Lester's cut of II and didn't even know a fourth installment existed). He did approve the original pitch for Returns, so there could be potential for at least some insight into that one... it might prove quite revelatory, since the director responsible there was clearly intending to produce a visual love letter to Donner's work.
     
  11. mep

    mep Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Just bought the new GoT season 1 - 3 set and now I´m rewatching the first seasons commentary tracks. They´re real fun and it mostly feels like you having a great time together with the main cast. And if you not already have been fallen for Emilia Clarke, you definitley will be after hearing here adorable vivid commentary parts for episode six... ;)
     
  12. I disagree with Spielberg. That's HIS take perhaps but I watch the film on many different levels at once the fist time and when I watch it with the commentary it's precisely for that reason but it doesn't take me out of the moment. Instead, I marvel at a different level about the film. Perhaps it takes him out of the movie but its like talking shop with those who also make movies and allows a deeper appreciation of the finished film.
     
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  13. In my opinion Lester was out of his element directing those films but would be interesting as to changes that occurred during scripting vs. production and working with Pryor. Since Lester was somewhat stuck in the middle between Donner and the Salkinds there's bound to be u resolved issues between Lester and Donner.

    As for Quest, Sidney J. Furie could probably do a number on that one especially considering that their budget got slashed prior to production forcing many unnecessary script and production changes. In that case, they should have just gone to the drawing board and completely rewritten the script as what they shot was crap.
     
  14. IronWaffle

    IronWaffle It’s all over now, baby blue

    I see his point, though I'm a big commentary fan -- especially Criterion-style academic ones or the likes of Ebert's critical walk through of Citizen Kane. That said, many times over the years I've been simultaneously amused and bemused by this oft cited anecdote:

    "David Lean once screened Lawrence of Arabia with Steven Spielberg. Lean gave Spielberg a 'live director's commentary.' Spielberg said it was one of the best moments of his life, learning from a true master. Consequently, Spielberg stated that it helped him make better pictures and that commentary directly influenced every movie he has made since." (source)

    Maybe it's one of those, "you had to be there" moments? Or chalk it up to "consistency is not really a human trait." -- Maude, Harold and Maude.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2014
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  15. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I've heard a different version of that story. I recall Spielberg saying that Lean kept talking during "LOA" and Spielberg wanted Lean to shut up so he could watch the movie!
     
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  16. Karnak

    Karnak "81, 82, 83, 84..."

    Listening -and learning- over the past few nights to -from- the William Friedkin commentary to 'Vertigo'.
    His comment about Scottie's Scotch and water and 'there's an awful lot of drinking in this movie'(my paraphrase) is unintentionally funny:laugh:. I thought that Scottie's drinking was one of the few areas where Hitchcock would be actually indulging in realism, but I may be wrong.
     
  17. Django

    Django Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    There a really good commentary on The Fog by John Carpenter & Debra Hill. Very informative.
     
  18. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Gotta admit I was a bit disappointed by that one:

    "A veteran of these affairs, Carpenter usually interacts with actors such as Kurt Russell (The Thing and others) and Natasha Henstridge (Ghosts of Mars). Those pairings benefited Carpenter, as the exuberant personalities of the performers complemented his fairly low-key demeanor.

    Such participants go missed during the track for The Fog. While a reasonably informative piece, it lacks the spark heard during the better Carpenter commentaries. On the positive side, Carpenter and Hill have known each other for years, so they seem comfortable together. Neither dominates the commentary, and both offer a fair amount of nice notes and factoids about the film.

    Unfortunately, both seem pretty low-key, so the track moves slowly. Both also often tend to simply describe the on-screen action, and they stick with too many technical elements. Carpenter often tells us little more than the locations involved. The commentary remains at least average as a whole, but after the many compelling John Carpenter tracks, this one seems like a disappointment."
     
  19. My understanding is that Richard Lester needed to direct more than half of the finished Superman II for a sole credit in this role, and he could very easily have done this without having to change any other content than the originally intended conclusion, which had already been used to complete the first movie.

    I'm sure most fans could have accepted the end result if only he'd reshot a few scenes (while staying loyal to the early script), but the Salkinds took this opportunity to promote David and Leslie Newman - always their preferred writers over "creative consultant" Tom Mankiewicz, who only became involved with the project through Richard Donner.

    Before long, huge portions of the shooting script were being rewritten, incorporating more camp and slapstick humour, plus the removal of Marlon Brando for cost-cutting reasons. With Donner and Mankiewicz also no longer on board, II became much closer to the vision its producers had always wanted. For that kind of film, there's little doubt Lester was the best choice, though I notice they didn't originally ask him to direct the first Superman...

    My understanding is that Lester was only brought in to serve as an uncredited go-between for Donner, who found himself unable to work because of Pierre Spengler's constant remarks about the budget and deadline being spent, even though exact targets were never given to him in advance of shooting beginning.

    Also, it's claimed that Lester also joined the production because he was still owed money by the Salkinds after directing their Musketeer films - wasn't a clause invented within the industry as a reaction to their policy of only paying staff for one movie when they would often shoot two simultaneously?

    In his commentary for the theatrical version of II, Ilya Salkind maintained that Margot Kidder's character was given a reduced role in III because his early script for the sequel already looked to Lana Lang as a new love interest for Superman/Clark Kent.

    However, for the Richard Donner Cut, its director counter-claimed that Kidder was cut from III due to public comments made against the Salkinds for behind-the-scenes problems with the way II turned out. I'm even willing to bet the second film's score would have been handled by John Williams had Donner been asked back, though I'm returning to the subject of III rather than get into discussing Ken Thorne's arrangements, which I actually liked.

    Ilya's early treatment for III supposedly featured Supergirl, Bizarro and other familiar DC faces, yet was never spoken about until his commentary for the deluxe edition DVD. Not long after, a copy surfaced online that confirms this side of the story.

    I've spoken with quite a lot of fans who share my belief that Salkind actually penned this "early" script idea more recently, perhaps to justify his agenda and paint Donner as even more of a villain.

    Of course, Donner's firing goes back to 1979, when the remaining scenes yet to be shot for II needed directing. In a contemporary magazine article, Donner was quoted as saying he would not return while Spengler was still involved, and naturally the Salkinds sided with their long term business partner. Besides, they already had Lester waiting, possibly with the intention of always taking over.

    Whatever the case, I genuinely don't think the early III script is vintage, as Ilya Salkind previously spoke at length of his original plans for a Supergirl spin-off, which can be verified by others who worked on this project.

    Until the very last minute, Supergirl was going to be an origin story where the titular character comes to Earth and is met by Superman, who trains her before finding himself in a situation where he needs saving by his cousin.

    All this changed when Christopher Reeve pulled out, supposedly because he didn't want to play Superman again following III, which suffered due to the Newmans' camp humour, Lester's comedy-heavy direction and Richard Pryor having more screen time.

    Just as Margot Kidder had done, Reeve then openly declared that he was finished with Superman while Lester and the Newmans were favoured over people who treated the source material with more respect.

    Supergirl was then hastily reworked so that Superman was in space on a mission (which Bryan Singer may have used for Returns to justify ignoring the events of III and IV entirely), with the now unstable plot weakened further by major cuts introduced as a result of poor reception to test screenings.

    The Salkinds then gave up their rights to the franchise because of what they described as the commercial failure of III and Supergirl, though I reckon it's more because they'd lost two key cast members.

    So, with this, IV only happened in the first place because The Cannon Group promised they would fund Reeve's pet project, Street Smart, in return for him starring in two further Superman movies.

    To sweeten the deal, he was also given second unit directing credit and the freedom to co-write a more serious script. Donner and Mankiewicz were offered the chance to return, but declined when they learned that Reeve's vision was for Superman to tackle political issues.

    Despite a late slashing of the budget, things looked good on paper due to the return of Gene Hackman as familiar villain Lex Luthor. In fact, a large amount of the scenes cut from IV were even being considered as leftovers that a fifth film could be written around.

    In recent years, Kidder and IV co-scriptwriter Mark Rosenthal have independently confirmed that Cannon was indeed storing nearly a full hour of IV outtakes for this very purpose, explaining how so much footage previously believed to have been lost was then rediscovered years later.

    From what I can tell, genuine critical and commercial reaction to the low budget IV became the proverbial straw that convinced Reeve to hang up the cape for good. The release of Batman in 1989 then gave the world a new box office superhero hit, and not long after this, Reeve's accident spelled the end for a potential fifth Superman adventure, resulting in years of development hell until a reboot of sorts eventually arrived.

    On a related note, Tom Mankiewicz was responsible for convincing Warner executives to greenlight Tim Burton's concept for a darker Batman as opposed to a camp, Superman II/III influenced approach more in line with the 1966 movie.

    Around this point, the remaining footage cut from IV was thrown out, with only a rough work print surviving. On the other hand, there is a slightly longer international version that contains a scene where Reeve rescued his real life children from a tornado, but for some reason this was not referenced for the DVD that instead used the vault source mentioned earlier, which lacks final effects.

    (By the way, this slightly extended cut is available on import LaserDisc and could be found in the UK on rental VHS copies, along with the international Salkind broadcast version of III.)

    Finally, I've heard that Margot Kidder was made to share screen time with yet another love interest for Superman in IV because someone felt she looked too old to lead by then. If that really was the case, it makes no sense when you consider that Cannon made Kidder apply her own make up as a further budget saver, though it does explain why so little of her was in the footage being held back for a potential Superman V.

    Anyway, that's enough Superman talk from me for now. I'll just go back to crossing my fingers that Bryan Singer changes his mind and gives us a director's commentary for Superman Returns, perhaps even restoring the original $10m opening sequence he removed after suffering a breakdown during the film's post production stage. Does he really still pin all of the blame for its overall failure on Brandon Routh, and now that I think about it, whatever did happen to that poor guy?

    P.S. Has anyone heard if there will be a Blu-Ray for Supergirl in the near future? We're approaching its 30th anniversary, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'd love a set containing all three previous cuts plus the various extra content known to exist, such as the original Making Of documentary.
     
  20. Routh appeared on the TV show "Chuck" and appeared in the movies "Dylan Dog" and "Todd Pilgrim vs. The World" as well as other guest appearances on TV shows. He's done OK.
     
  21. Unfortunately, Supergirl is not in the cards at the present time. Its best hope lies in Warner Archive issuing the Blu-ray, though it's never been a big seller. Maybe around the time of Batman Vs. Superman's theatrical release.
     
  22. amoergosum

    amoergosum Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    I can highly recommend watching Almost Famous with the audio commentary of Cameron Crowe & his mother!
    >>>

    Source:
    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Almost-Famous-Blu-ray/19904/#Review
     
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  23. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    One that I thought was a hoot was Micky Dolenz' commentary on "Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story" where he makes fun of and rips apart the entire movie.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2014
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  24. I'm disappointed to learn that a Blu-Ray release isn't on the cards for Supergirl in time for its upcoming 30th anniversary, since the perfect time and there's already a high definition copy circulating from a recent television broadcast, which suggests a transfer has already been made. I've not personally seen this, but I'm guessing it's probably sourced from the so-called international version as opposed to the original theatrical edit or director's cut. As I said earlier, all three of these in a box with the vintage "making of" documentary would be great, though my fear is that WB don't feel there is the demand to justify such a package, not to mention I'd rather we got expanded reissues of Superman III and IV before this lesser spin-off is tackled - even in the supposed deluxe editions of those films, any deleted scenes were only available as bonus content and not reintegrated into the main features, with quite a lot from III still missing entirely. At the very least, I'm hoping the upcoming Batman/Superman is enough of an excuse for the extended television cuts of the first three Christopher Reeve era Superman movies to be finally restored, if not IV as well, since I doubt we'll see another opportunity for these to happen. As with the Supergirl HD copy floating around, WB are missing out by not beating the bootleggers, since fan efforts to do just this are currently ongoing.
     
  25. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I'm listening to that commentary right now.... he sounds a lot like Steven Van Zandt (which isn't a good thing!) :p
     
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