Best and Worst DVD commentaries ever

[lordofthenerds]

The X3 commentary was beyond horrible.

Yeah, that was pretty much just a failed comedy act.

Also Joel Shumacher's commentaries on his Batman films were just as awful as the movies themselves. Couldn't stand his bored, monotonic voice.

 

[cabel]

Best:
Freddy vs. Jason (gave me an idea for a screenplay)
Kevin Smith
Stephen Prince (author of "The Warrior's Camera") on Kurosawa's films
Joss Whedon
Bruce Timm and Co. (DCAU)
Roger Ebert on Citizen Kane
Coppala on The Godfather
commentaries on Gojira

 

[Road Warrior]

Worst: Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" - it's not the worst, but i was expecting more than the dull mumbles emitted by Depp and Verbinski

Beat me to it. When I bought the DVD I was like, "awesome! A commentary track by Johnny Depp" then I started listening and I was bored after a minute.

As for the best...all of you beat me to it as well...so I'll bring up one no one has mentioned. Danny Elfman's commentary track on Edward Scissorhands was surprisingly good. I wouldn't call it the best, but it was REALLY good!

 

[WarBlade]

A few of my favourites:

This Is Spinal Tap: The actors comment in character in a mock commentary on their mockumentary.

Blade II: Guillermo del Toro and Peter Frankfurt doing informative and funny with one of the most unexpected introductions ever.

The Lord of the Rings: A menagerie of high's and low's LOTR had much to interest and/or entertain me buried away the multitude of commented-upon screen hours.


And I dislike:

The Matrix: Commentary with Carrie-Anne Moss, John Gaeta and Zach Staenberg. The mix is poor with Moss very much in the background when played in just stereo (which might be a good thing given that 90% of her miniscule contribution was to tell us how great Keanu was).

The Matrix: Commentary with composer Don Davies. Some people like this one, but I found minutes long silences with just an isolated score to be quite mind-numbing. Such a shame because he did actually have some good information to share when he did get around to talking.

 

[Cаrter]

Best.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - Milla Jovovich is just insane and hilarious. She doesn't take herself seriously at all and it's a great time.

Total Recall - Arnold is just very very funny on this one.

House of the Dead - Dr. Boll just acts like an ass for the duration of the film

Mallrats

Blade Trinity

So, really it seems like mostly the worse the movie, the more fun the commentary is to listen to.

 

[cryptic name]

i can't believe i forgot Spinal Tap. that's got to be the best audio commentary ever

 

[THE WIDDLER]

The commentary for any of the Romero zombie films are also really interesting and entertaining.

 

[The_Vision]

Best:

Lord of the Rings Extended Versions

 

[Noir]

Worst: George Lucas on Star Wars special editions: Its like listening to someone talk about how they planed and accomplished a rape.

 

[dpm07]

LOTR extended versions
Big Trouble in Little China
Hellboy
Resident Evil (Milla's awesome)

 

[SWAT]

Hensleigh's commentary for The Punisher was good.

 

[Electrix]

The X3 commentary was beyond horrible.

They just totally forgot about all the Pre-Production chaos and just talked about crap basically.

 

[Sentinel X]

Peter Jackson's commentaries for King Kong 2 disc special edition are really amazing. He goes in detail and shows what it really is like to be a movie director

 

[Furious Styles]

My god was the commentary for Predator bad. I was really looking forward to it too. Just when you think he's about to unleash his venom on the sequel and give his thoughts on where he thought the films should go, he returns to his incoherent mumblings

 

[The Chairman]

The commentary for True Romance with Patricia Arquette and Christian Slateris excellent.

 

[Fried Gold]

Best:
Anything Kevin Smith

Erroneous. The very first Clerks commentary is rubbish.

 

[cryptic name]

but the rest of them really are great. especially Mallrats and Clerks II

 

[THE WIDDLER]

oh Mallrats is the best thing I've ever listened to, Dogma is great as well

 

[Kent]

The cast commentaries for the extended LOTR movies are by far some of my favorite commentaries.

 

[Shifty]

any Arrested Development commentary where they have the entire cast in is simply the funniest thing you can listen to

They use all 22 minutes plus the credits and like the show, everyone gets to be heard and it isn't a mess like other group commentaries. The only bad thing is they did 3 a season when they could've done twice that.

 

[ghost_x]

They use all 22 minutes plus the credits and like the show, everyone gets to be heard and it isn't a mess like other group commentaries. The only bad thing is they did 3 a season when they could've done twice that.

The chemistry between the cast can be sensed from the start, each member has enormous respect for the others, especially Jessica Walter (Lucille 1 ) who can't stop praising everyone from their looks to the witty lines to the delivery.

It's a sheer 22 minutes of genius from possibly the greatest comedy team ever assembled, and I despise Fox for ever getting rid of the show.

 

[chamber-music]

Kevin Smith movies.

Donnie Darko Jake Gyllenhaal does impressions of Christopher Walken and Wille from the simpsons. He also reveals his motorvation for one of the scenes was pizza.

 

[Knives122]

Bryan Singer on X1 and X2 - starts off a little nervous, but becomes both entertaining AND informative (you should hear his plans for X3 - oh well.....)

I think I remember that, he wanted to make X3 a musical

 

[hippie_hunter]

I loved the commentary to Samurai X: Reflections. The cast who dubbed the voices just simply acted like idiots and told funny stories of their time recording the voices. Made me laugh.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

This is Spinal Tap is a great commentary, the band in character being totally offended at everything in the movie, saying how the director just choose all the bad stuff, but didn't show any of the good stuff.

I remember The Goonies having a pretty good commentary. They even made fun of Sean Astin being in LOTRs at one point.