Favourite commentaries

Started by phil marlowe, January 29, 2003, 12:57:07 PM

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MacGuffin

Quote from: MacGuffinCameron Crowe and his mom on the "Almost Famous: Bootleg Edition" and Crowe, Ione Skye and John Cusack on "Say Anything..." (commentary starts 30 min. before they start the movie)
Roger Ebert on "Citizen Kane" and "Dark City"
Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn on "Swingers" and "Made"
Any of the "Fight Club" tracks
Soderberg and Scott Frank on "Out Of Sight"
Tarantino on "True Romance"
Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks on "Sweet Hereafter"
Coppola and Walter Murch on "The Conversation" and Coppola on all three "Godfather" films
Cast and crew on any of the "Evil Dead" films
Spinal Tap (in character) on "This Is Spinal Tap"
The Wachowski Bros. and sex consultant Susie Bright on "Bound"

Add Frank Darabont on "Shawshank Redemption" to this list. Informative and inspirational. I hope "Green Mile" is reissued with a director's commentary.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

diggler

Bruce Campbell (as Elvis) for Bubba Ho Tep
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

grand theft sparrow

The Limey is one of the best.  Nothing better than a writer having at a director after he turned a script that could just as easily have become a straight-to-video flick into one of the most underappreciated American films of the 90s.

Pozer

Quote from: hacksparrowThe Limey is one of the best.  Nothing better than a writer having at a director after he turned a script that could just as easily have become a straight-to-video flick into one of the most underappreciated American films of the 90s.

This is so so true.

mogwai

the director/producer track on "the day after tomorrow". the producer is really funny while the director mostly sounds like arnold schwarzenegger on helium.

Myxo

- Shawshank Redemption
- Usual Suspects
- Dances with Wolves
- Terminator 2
- Fight Club
- Almost Famous

jasper_window

recently...Heat and Collateral.

Pwaybloe


jasper_window


Two Lane Blacktop

Robert Altman's commentary on 3 Women.  I went back and listened to it immediately after finishing the movie for the first time.  

Also, it's not really a commentary in the usual sense, but the long "interview" with David Lynch on the Eraserhead DVD is worth the whole price of the disc, IMO.  Just an hour and a half of Lynch telling stories about the making of the movie, his early days, and some great little tangents about people who knows or knew.  He also gets Catherine Coulson (the Log Lady from "Twin Peaks" and a longtime friend) on a speaker phone at one point and chats with her.  It's really great.

2LB
Body by Guinness

kotte

I may have mentioned these before but...

Amores Perros - A commentary with Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga. An informative, exciting and inspiring commentary with two people I admire. I have no problem with subtitles but subtitled commentaries I don't like.

Roger Dodger - Both tracks. The one with Kidd and his DP is informative and inspiring. The one with Kidd, Campbell and Jessie is funny as hell. Kidd has this Rodriguez-anyone-can-do-it attitude towards filmmaking, something I appreciate. Though some part of me want filmmaking to be a mystery, a bit magical.

What makes a commentary bad? Scene-specific!! Not only is it boring as fuck but the over-analyzing of scenes make them bad too. It's disservice to the film. I don't mind interesting discussions over certain scenes but not all of them. And silence...I enjoy Deakins Fargo track but a couple of them he's silent for so long you're pulled into the movie and when he starts talking it's like "who's the fuck is that? oh yeah...I remembers, it's the commentary track..."

Pubrick

Quote from: kotteWhat makes a commentary bad? Scene-specific!!
ie. peter bogdanovich in Citizen Kane. i dont think his commentary has been dissed enuff. it has to be the most disappointhing thing ever! for sumone who has potentially a MILLION things to say about welles, all he says is two variations:
1. "now she's moving to the window." as kane's mother moves to the window.
and worse than that
2. "no one had done this before" "this was revolutionary" "no one had dared tried that before.. that's what made him great"... uh, that's the most obvious thing u could say about citizen kane other than "it's in black and white". sheesh.
under the paving stones.

03

Quote from: Pubrick
Quote from: kotteWhat makes a commentary bad? Scene-specific!!
ie. peter bogdanovich in Citizen Kane. i dont think his commentary has been dissed enuff. it has to be the most disappointhing thing ever! for sumone who has potentially a MILLION things to say about welles, all he says is two variations:
1. "now she's moving to the window." as kane's mother moves to the window.
and worse than that
2. "no one had done this before" "this was revolutionary" "no one had dared tried that before.. that's what made him great"... uh, that's the most obvious thing u could say about citizen kane other than "it's in black and white". sheesh.
yes. those reasons are similar to why i can't tolerate Stephen Prince's commentaries.

Two Lane Blacktop

Another one:  George Romero on The Crazies.

His descriptions of how the film got made in the first place (this was only his 2nd film, after Night Of The Living Dead) are fascinating, and he comes across like a really nice, really humble guy who'd be great to hang out with.  

2LB
Body by Guinness

bluejaytwist

the new raging bull dvd has a very good scorsese commentary, i am unsure if it was 'borrowed' from the laserdisc version or not, but it is a nice go through...thelma should have talked a bit more about the actual editing though i thought
cigarettes & red vines - pt anderson definitive resource
http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com

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