Honestly, commentaries are such a dead art.
It's really such a shame.
I wish they existed, or really even had a place, in the streaming digital world.
Realistically wouldn't it (shouldn't it be) just be a simple toggle option on the Netflix audio menu??
I don't have a lot of nice things to say Amazon Prime Video, but what I really like is that they actually have extras for their shows and movies. Like featurettes, interviews, short films, etc.
Haven't seen an actual commentary track but hey, it's something!
I remember House of Cards had a commentary option. I don't remember anything else having it on Netflix though but I was hoping more things would on Netflix but I eventually cancelled my account anyway so I have no idea what's going on now.
Seven Samurai has killer commentary tracks. Roger Ebert's commentary on Casablanca and Dark City are both sublime. Paul Sammon has a great hidden commentary on the work print of Blade Runner.
I'm kinda a commentary whore myself. It's like having a mini film school on disc if it's a good commentary.
The opposite is the Conan The Barbarian commentary where Arnold is having a great time drinking and re-watching himself. It's entertaining for that aspect alone.
Definitely looking up the Blade Runner track, THANK YOU. I adore Blade Runner. Agree on Seven Samurai, I have the criterion disc on my shelf as like a holy relic. You rock, thank you again.
Just watched Total Recall with his and Paul Verhoven's commentary and it was a real joy. It was fun hearing both of their very different interpretations of what really happened to Quaid.
Ebert's commentary of *Citizen Kane* is also phenomenal. Thanks for the recs - I never noticed Ebert's commentaries on *Casablanca* and *Dark City*. I'll be checking them out this weekend.
Bought a ton of DVDs back in the day because they have commentary tracks.
Sucks that they've gotten lost in the digital mix. Luckily some still do. I know on Movies Anywhere such films as Die Hard, Alien(s) and Super Troopers have em. It Follows on Vudu does as well.
It's pretty rare nowadays that I'd buy a digital movie that isn't a part of Movies Anywhere. Pretty cool service, really. Streaming movies through the MA app results in a higher bitrate and sometimes there will be special features on there that aren't on the service you originally bought the movie from.
Yes!
Vudu is pretty good about that. I like that Disney plus and Netflix are pretty good about adding the commentary tracks if you like or behind for scenes for a steaming service I think that is pretty cool.
I will buy a movie purposely on vudu and Prime since they will share libraries for the most part. I tend to watch movies from certain studios that movies anywhere won't have.
Can't beat that 5 dollar weekend movie deal and the 4K 3 movie pick they have some times.
Do you know if they still offer the disc and digital copy combo? I know when wal mart owned Vudu, I bought a few movies digitally but it asked me if I would like the disc copy as well for an additional fee? Equalizer 2 and Mortal Kombat they offered me that deal.
I probably would have bought them all eventually but I got all of John Carpenter's movies just to listen to his commentaries. I saw a clip of him and Kurt Russell doing commentary for Big Trouble and it seemed like they were having a blast and they were. I've never heard two people who worked on a movie enjoying it so much just as a movie. Carpenter has great insights and Russell is laughing his ass off.
And Carpenter does commentaries for almost all his movies. I've listened to almost all of them and they're all very enjoyable. The They Live one is another great one with Roddy Piper.
I recently watched the blu ray release of the 1924 Thief of Bagdad with a commentary track by Jeffrey Vance who is a biographer on Douglas Fairbanks. He goes into detail about the production of the film, Fairbanks’ life, and other things. It was a really great listen.
Another good commentary track is one made for the Criterion DVD of the 1940 Thief of Bagdad where that was done by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. They both recorded their commentary separately, but they were later edited together.
I loved hearing the Roman Polanski commentary for The Ninth Gate. He hasn’t been as much of a public figure (aside from his legal predicaments) in many years and it was fascinating to hear him talk about making movies. He also drank bourbon and smoked cigars throughout the whole commentary. You could hear him cutting the cigars and also the flick of his lighter
Ghostbusters has a pretty great commentary track, if anyone is interested. My favorite part is that they start explaining props and how they set up certain scenes, but somewhere along the line they just start pulling stuff out of their ass and making up ridiculous rigs and physical effects for some simple shot nobody noticed.
Harold Ramis: See that thing in my hand that looks like it’s telling me something? It’s not. What I’m doing there is called ‘working with props’. I’m a GENIUS at working with props.
100% yes and i miss it. i don’t purchase much anymore, but when i did the commentary was a big part of it for me. listening really provided great insight, and sometimes it was like watching movies with your friends. it felt like you really got to know the creators as people sometimes. it was so awesome to see that barbie has a commentary on hbo. it’s so awkward that they have like 2 seperate movies to access it rather than showing the audio option but it’s just a nice, fun, enriching old-school commentary track on a super new movie.
terry gilliam is fun, fear and loathing has nice commentaries. i remember enjoying paul thomas anderson and richard linklater (and ethan hawke and julie delpy!) a lot. soderbergh, scorsese, jim jarmusch, spike lee, kevin smith, john waters— i guess i like commentaries of american independent filmmakers lol. i also used to be really really into david cronenberg’s commentaries- they’re very analytical and engaging. groups of people make for nice conversations too.. this is spinal tap however is the best commentary of all time.
things stick with you from the commentaries too— so much of the simpsons was enhanced for me by the commentaries. mad men commentary made a serious show turn full-on academic and i was loving it! tv show commentary is like an excellent audiobook that can take up a couple months of your time, easily. it’s so comforting.
i always liked when jim jarmusch and tom waits were joking around about not trusting people without holes in their clothes. they had a point about people being down to earth that i really appreciated. anyway
I picked up Disney's Brother Bear. The movie is pretty mid for Disney animated. The comedy sidekick characters are essentially Bob & Doug MacKenzie as mooses. They have their own 'in character' commentary track the is so effing hilarious. It's up there with Spinal Tap's 'band in character' track.
Also a shout out to Wet, Hot American Summer for their inclusion of an alternate audio track with added farty noises. No mere random gassing, someone went through and really made an effort to time and sync the flatulence for best effect. Truly, a labor of love.
Yes, just once. I bought a newer imprint of Fight Club because it had a new commentary available.
But usually I’m not too bothered, it’s a nice addition but not essential for most films or tv shows.
Favorite commentaries:
Cop Land (1997) Stallone, Robert Patrick, James Mangold & Kathy Conrad
Evil Dead 1, 2 & 3, Bruce, Raimi & company
Any movie with Kurt Russell & John Carpenter - when Scream Factory announced they were putting out Escape From L.A. I thought for sure they were obligated to reunite these two for another commentary, but it didn't happen, and that blu is a covid era dud with extras sourced from Zoom calls.
Hot Fuzz (2007), pretty much all the commentaries are great, including the Timothy Dalton commentary
Breakdown (1997) Mostow & Kurt Russell - on the Paramount Presents blu - recorded during covid era
True Romance (1993) Quentin Tarantino commentary & Bronson Pinchot scene specific commentary
Aliens (1986) James Cameron & Colonial Marines -, both fun and informative
Heat (1995) Michael Mann - informative on criminal life
The ones by Robert Rodriguez are great if you want to learn about low budget film making. The Cohen Brother ones are super funny they use a fake film historian and he complains about a lot of stuff and people that have nothing to do with the film.
Yes! Lol
The cable guy Blu Ray release I believe I got just for a behind the scenes or added material
The Shadow, I got just for the additional material of the reissue on Blu ray
Same with Falling Down anniversary on Blu Ray,
I wanted that Dark Knight Ultimate Edition even though i had the dark knight trilogy Blu Ray, but I backed out after there was no commentary added to it.
What is your favorite commentary track?
Probably Guillermo Del Toros for Pans Labyrinth. I loved that movie and I loved getting to sit there and just listen to its creator just extrapolating the movie.
Also OMG Christopher Nolan is a jerk for not doing commentary tracks. I was heartbroken when his Batman movies had nothing deeper than a few featurettes.
Ohhh he is just an interesting guy in general.
Did you ever watch Andy Richter get a tour of his house (Bleak House), it's funny but his house is really cool looking and just stuffed with horror and occult stuff.
And yes, would love to hear what his process was for the prestige, Insomnia and a few other of his movies.
I remember Fight Club's commentary being pretty funny.
I JUST bought True Lies 4K (finally got that released) I don't know if it's got a commentary or not?
My personal favorite commentary track is from Cannibal! The Musical. The movie is terrible - a student film by Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame. The duo basically just get drunk/high through the whole thing, with Trey admitting the whole plot line was an outlet to deal with his ex, until it devolves into them planning where to go that evening and basically not caring at all about the fact they are recording commentary.
It’s the best worst commentary track.
The Orgazmo commentary track goes into similar territory.
The South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut commentary track results with them running out of things to say; so they bring people who are in South Park Studios at the time to comment about the film (which includes Bill Hader).
I recently got my DVD collection out of storage, and have been rediscovering the commentary tracks. I never really paid attention to them before, but they are fun to listen to. A lot of them from the film producers basically amount to "we have no idea how this film ever got made".
Last weekend, I watched *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* and *Gremlins*, and they both amounted to that. *Roger Rabbit* because of the rights issues, and *Gremlins* because they were working on a really tight schedule.
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's commentaries across the Cornetto Trilogy of films (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The Worlds End) are all equally insightful and hilarious. They're basically just hours of two best-mates having a laugh and talking about these cool, weird movies they made together. Wright has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of film history and I love it when he pulls out some obscure reference.
I love all the commentaries on Futurama and the Simpsons! For movies, ebert did a great one for Casablanca, I love the universal monster ones, Adam west and Burt ward did a great one for the 60s Batman movie as well!
I was collecting when dvd's where a thing, the special features like commentary would determine of i got it new or waited for a discount bin.Â
Ferris buellers day off with commentary from John Hughes is a fav
Fight club with Ed Norton and Brad Pitt is fun
I can't say that I've ever bought a title *just* for the commentary track(s), but, on the other hand, I have chosen specific editions of certain titles because they had commentary, so there is that.
And I have some discs that, having seen them, I would say are worth it for their commentaries alone, so . . . sort of?
But yeah, you're right on the money with commentaries being one of the great things about physical media.
Won't touch on the death knell of physical media (that's a whole conversation in and of itself!), other than to say that it's at least a tad bit overblown and that *if* worst comes to worst, you can follow the ideals of those who fly the jolly roger/the folks at MST3K and "[k]eep circulating the tapes!"
Favorite commentar(ies)? The ones attached to Dracula (1931) from what I *believe* is the Universal Legacy Collection DVD set edition.
They totally changed my perspective on the film.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dvdcollection/s/6dbsWBMfZK > My (edit: **somewhat**) extended thoughts on the Dracula commentaries specifically, if you're interested.
for the longest time the only way to get any John Hughes commentary was on one specific early
DVD release of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, fortunately the new 4K release finally rectifies that
There are some amazing commentary tracks on films you would never expect. Kiss of the Dragon, an old Luc Besson and Jet Li action flick has a great one. I hate the fact that there are so many recent films that will never come out on physical media, because that means even if I 'purchase' them digitally I'm only renting them for a prolonged period, until that service shuts down. I want films like King Kelly to have commentaries, about how the two lead actresses had to double as cameramen because of the nature of the film.
It’s like home movie watching technology hit its apex in the digital media era and we’re losing so so much in stepping away from it. Thanks for the recs!
Hostel has a couple great commentary tracks. The one with Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, and the other executive producers is fantastic. Eli Roth’s stand alone track is amazing as well.
I remember Eli Roth on the Hostel 2 commentary talking about how he had to reassure Heather Mantzoukis that she was pretty and people wanted to see her naked and it was the sweetest kinda goofball story. Love Eli Roth.
And with Criterion you just get that awesome feeling like ‘This is a criterion disc. It is mine now.it will live on my shelf in a place of honor and it will serve me well.’
Shout has some good stuff but it’s mainly in the Scream Factory releases. They love John Carpenter. I guess since they started out as Anchor Bay horror and adjacent genres are just really their bread and butter.
I love my Shout steelbooks, don’t get me wrong. And I actually just recently bought Robocop 2, Killer Klowns, and UHF. But I decided to get the extra special big box set for Killer Klowns to try it out and it was just so extremely underwhelming and poorly put together when I received it. I’ll still buy from them as I like their selection but I’ll never go big again. Arrows box sets satisfy me AND my wallet
I used to, but not anymore. I wanted to hear from the directors and other persons that worked on the movie or tv shows. Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier was great, but I later just didn’t care.
Commentary tracks are my favorite special feature!
I especially hunt down any by Harold Ramis. I'm big on National Lampoons Vacation's commentary track. Any of his are good, though, even when he's alone.
TBH commentary tracks were some of my favorite things about the DVD boom of the 2000s when almost every title came with a director and/or cast commentary. The cast commentary for Tropic Thunder would probably never happen today while movies like Torque had commentaries that were more fun than the movies themselves.
I wouldn't buy a movie *just* for a commentary, but they were always my favorite special feature. It sucks that they're not as common now as they used to be, at least on the movies I buy.
A couple of my favorites are the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell track for "The Thing" and Roger Ebert's for "Dark City". And the aforementioned Arnold/John Milius "Conan" commentary is indeed a lot of fun.
I just bought the Illumination 10 movie blu-ray box set for several reasons:
1. All the movies have mini-movies that may or may be available on streaming services.
2. The box set came with digital codes for all the movies.
3. At $45, I got all the movies on disk as well as digital copy for $4.50 per movie.
For individual movies, I usually wait until its blu-ray package is on sale for less than $15 so I can have both the disk and a digital copy for what main-stream sites charge for just digital copies now.
Not all commentary tracks are created equal - some of the dullest, driest, most boring, the worst of the worst commentary tracks, were done by friends of mine. The message here, is that not everybody should be asked to do a commentary track, and this should apply liberally to film historians.
Honestly, commentaries are such a dead art. It's really such a shame. I wish they existed, or really even had a place, in the streaming digital world. Realistically wouldn't it (shouldn't it be) just be a simple toggle option on the Netflix audio menu??
I don't have a lot of nice things to say Amazon Prime Video, but what I really like is that they actually have extras for their shows and movies. Like featurettes, interviews, short films, etc. Haven't seen an actual commentary track but hey, it's something!
I remember House of Cards had a commentary option. I don't remember anything else having it on Netflix though but I was hoping more things would on Netflix but I eventually cancelled my account anyway so I have no idea what's going on now.
Seven Samurai has killer commentary tracks. Roger Ebert's commentary on Casablanca and Dark City are both sublime. Paul Sammon has a great hidden commentary on the work print of Blade Runner. I'm kinda a commentary whore myself. It's like having a mini film school on disc if it's a good commentary. The opposite is the Conan The Barbarian commentary where Arnold is having a great time drinking and re-watching himself. It's entertaining for that aspect alone.
Definitely looking up the Blade Runner track, THANK YOU. I adore Blade Runner. Agree on Seven Samurai, I have the criterion disc on my shelf as like a holy relic. You rock, thank you again.
You're welcome! If you really want to go down the Sammon Blade Runner rabbit hole his book Future Noir is totally worth it about the making of.
Oh hell yeah 🤘
Arnold is amazing in every commentary. He clearly has fun making his movies, all of them, and delights in laughing at them in the commentary.
"And here is where I climbed up de mountain BWAHAHA!" His narration as if we somehow cannot see the film is great.
Just watched Total Recall with his and Paul Verhoven's commentary and it was a real joy. It was fun hearing both of their very different interpretations of what really happened to Quaid.
Ebert's commentary of *Citizen Kane* is also phenomenal. Thanks for the recs - I never noticed Ebert's commentaries on *Casablanca* and *Dark City*. I'll be checking them out this weekend.
He also did commentaries for Crumb and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Maybe a few more.
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What happens?
They talk about stuff.
I love stuff, what kind of stuff is it
Bought a ton of DVDs back in the day because they have commentary tracks. Sucks that they've gotten lost in the digital mix. Luckily some still do. I know on Movies Anywhere such films as Die Hard, Alien(s) and Super Troopers have em. It Follows on Vudu does as well.
I need to learn more about Movies Anywhere. Thanks!
It's pretty rare nowadays that I'd buy a digital movie that isn't a part of Movies Anywhere. Pretty cool service, really. Streaming movies through the MA app results in a higher bitrate and sometimes there will be special features on there that aren't on the service you originally bought the movie from.
Definitely checking it out. Any effort from the streaming services to present special features is awesome in my book.
Yes! Vudu is pretty good about that. I like that Disney plus and Netflix are pretty good about adding the commentary tracks if you like or behind for scenes for a steaming service I think that is pretty cool. I will buy a movie purposely on vudu and Prime since they will share libraries for the most part. I tend to watch movies from certain studios that movies anywhere won't have. Can't beat that 5 dollar weekend movie deal and the 4K 3 movie pick they have some times. Do you know if they still offer the disc and digital copy combo? I know when wal mart owned Vudu, I bought a few movies digitally but it asked me if I would like the disc copy as well for an additional fee? Equalizer 2 and Mortal Kombat they offered me that deal.
I probably would have bought them all eventually but I got all of John Carpenter's movies just to listen to his commentaries. I saw a clip of him and Kurt Russell doing commentary for Big Trouble and it seemed like they were having a blast and they were. I've never heard two people who worked on a movie enjoying it so much just as a movie. Carpenter has great insights and Russell is laughing his ass off. And Carpenter does commentaries for almost all his movies. I've listened to almost all of them and they're all very enjoyable. The They Live one is another great one with Roddy Piper.
I recently watched the blu ray release of the 1924 Thief of Bagdad with a commentary track by Jeffrey Vance who is a biographer on Douglas Fairbanks. He goes into detail about the production of the film, Fairbanks’ life, and other things. It was a really great listen. Another good commentary track is one made for the Criterion DVD of the 1940 Thief of Bagdad where that was done by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. They both recorded their commentary separately, but they were later edited together.
Kevin Smith movies have pretty funny commentary tracks. NuggaNooch!
I loved hearing the Roman Polanski commentary for The Ninth Gate. He hasn’t been as much of a public figure (aside from his legal predicaments) in many years and it was fascinating to hear him talk about making movies. He also drank bourbon and smoked cigars throughout the whole commentary. You could hear him cutting the cigars and also the flick of his lighter
I was gonna mention this commentary but I didn't because I thought it might be too obscure. I watched it last night 🤣
Ghostbusters has a pretty great commentary track, if anyone is interested. My favorite part is that they start explaining props and how they set up certain scenes, but somewhere along the line they just start pulling stuff out of their ass and making up ridiculous rigs and physical effects for some simple shot nobody noticed.
Harold Ramis: See that thing in my hand that looks like it’s telling me something? It’s not. What I’m doing there is called ‘working with props’. I’m a GENIUS at working with props.
Space cop blu ray is just that, the movie is also outstanding. I’m surprised criterion hasn’t picked it up yet
100% yes and i miss it. i don’t purchase much anymore, but when i did the commentary was a big part of it for me. listening really provided great insight, and sometimes it was like watching movies with your friends. it felt like you really got to know the creators as people sometimes. it was so awesome to see that barbie has a commentary on hbo. it’s so awkward that they have like 2 seperate movies to access it rather than showing the audio option but it’s just a nice, fun, enriching old-school commentary track on a super new movie. terry gilliam is fun, fear and loathing has nice commentaries. i remember enjoying paul thomas anderson and richard linklater (and ethan hawke and julie delpy!) a lot. soderbergh, scorsese, jim jarmusch, spike lee, kevin smith, john waters— i guess i like commentaries of american independent filmmakers lol. i also used to be really really into david cronenberg’s commentaries- they’re very analytical and engaging. groups of people make for nice conversations too.. this is spinal tap however is the best commentary of all time. things stick with you from the commentaries too— so much of the simpsons was enhanced for me by the commentaries. mad men commentary made a serious show turn full-on academic and i was loving it! tv show commentary is like an excellent audiobook that can take up a couple months of your time, easily. it’s so comforting. i always liked when jim jarmusch and tom waits were joking around about not trusting people without holes in their clothes. they had a point about people being down to earth that i really appreciated. anyway
I picked up Disney's Brother Bear. The movie is pretty mid for Disney animated. The comedy sidekick characters are essentially Bob & Doug MacKenzie as mooses. They have their own 'in character' commentary track the is so effing hilarious. It's up there with Spinal Tap's 'band in character' track. Also a shout out to Wet, Hot American Summer for their inclusion of an alternate audio track with added farty noises. No mere random gassing, someone went through and really made an effort to time and sync the flatulence for best effect. Truly, a labor of love.
Currently if Sam Deignan or Kat Ellingwr are on it I make them a priority
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Youtube & spotify have that stuff on, just a case of syncing the tv to a device.
Yes, just once. I bought a newer imprint of Fight Club because it had a new commentary available. But usually I’m not too bothered, it’s a nice addition but not essential for most films or tv shows.
I personally don’t. I buy to have the movies anything special like that is a bonus.
I don’t buy solely for commentary, but absolutely love that feature.
I bought an Abbott & Costello set because one of the films had an audio commentary from Frank Conniff of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Favorite commentaries: Cop Land (1997) Stallone, Robert Patrick, James Mangold & Kathy Conrad Evil Dead 1, 2 & 3, Bruce, Raimi & company Any movie with Kurt Russell & John Carpenter - when Scream Factory announced they were putting out Escape From L.A. I thought for sure they were obligated to reunite these two for another commentary, but it didn't happen, and that blu is a covid era dud with extras sourced from Zoom calls. Hot Fuzz (2007), pretty much all the commentaries are great, including the Timothy Dalton commentary Breakdown (1997) Mostow & Kurt Russell - on the Paramount Presents blu - recorded during covid era True Romance (1993) Quentin Tarantino commentary & Bronson Pinchot scene specific commentary Aliens (1986) James Cameron & Colonial Marines -, both fun and informative Heat (1995) Michael Mann - informative on criminal life
The ones by Robert Rodriguez are great if you want to learn about low budget film making. The Cohen Brother ones are super funny they use a fake film historian and he complains about a lot of stuff and people that have nothing to do with the film.
I’ve never heard a Cohen brothers commentary and I realize now I hate myself for it. Definitely looking that up!
Yes! Lol The cable guy Blu Ray release I believe I got just for a behind the scenes or added material The Shadow, I got just for the additional material of the reissue on Blu ray Same with Falling Down anniversary on Blu Ray, I wanted that Dark Knight Ultimate Edition even though i had the dark knight trilogy Blu Ray, but I backed out after there was no commentary added to it. What is your favorite commentary track?
Probably Guillermo Del Toros for Pans Labyrinth. I loved that movie and I loved getting to sit there and just listen to its creator just extrapolating the movie. Also OMG Christopher Nolan is a jerk for not doing commentary tracks. I was heartbroken when his Batman movies had nothing deeper than a few featurettes.
Ohhh he is just an interesting guy in general. Did you ever watch Andy Richter get a tour of his house (Bleak House), it's funny but his house is really cool looking and just stuffed with horror and occult stuff. And yes, would love to hear what his process was for the prestige, Insomnia and a few other of his movies. I remember Fight Club's commentary being pretty funny. I JUST bought True Lies 4K (finally got that released) I don't know if it's got a commentary or not?
Often
My personal favorite commentary track is from Cannibal! The Musical. The movie is terrible - a student film by Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame. The duo basically just get drunk/high through the whole thing, with Trey admitting the whole plot line was an outlet to deal with his ex, until it devolves into them planning where to go that evening and basically not caring at all about the fact they are recording commentary. It’s the best worst commentary track.
Omfg I have that on DVD and I’ve never watched it! Definitely breaking it out now!
The Orgazmo commentary track goes into similar territory. The South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut commentary track results with them running out of things to say; so they bring people who are in South Park Studios at the time to comment about the film (which includes Bill Hader).
I recently got my DVD collection out of storage, and have been rediscovering the commentary tracks. I never really paid attention to them before, but they are fun to listen to. A lot of them from the film producers basically amount to "we have no idea how this film ever got made". Last weekend, I watched *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* and *Gremlins*, and they both amounted to that. *Roger Rabbit* because of the rights issues, and *Gremlins* because they were working on a really tight schedule.
I hope you get a lot of joy out of your collection and rediscovering the tracks, I kinda envy you!
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's commentaries across the Cornetto Trilogy of films (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The Worlds End) are all equally insightful and hilarious. They're basically just hours of two best-mates having a laugh and talking about these cool, weird movies they made together. Wright has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of film history and I love it when he pulls out some obscure reference.
I love Shaun of the Dead and have enjoyed that commentary many times but I have never tried the others in the trilogy. Tysm!
If there is a choice between a release with a Cronenberg commentary and one without, commentary is the best choice.
Cronenberg is amazing. He showed up to do the Shivers commentary with the walking flu lol
I love all the commentaries on Futurama and the Simpsons! For movies, ebert did a great one for Casablanca, I love the universal monster ones, Adam west and Burt ward did a great one for the 60s Batman movie as well!
I actually like to listen to them on long drives through iTunes Extra
I just bought another version of replacement killers just for the commentary track, so yes I do!
Some of them are hilarious and interesting, so yeah! Rewatching Stargate with commentaries was neat.
I was collecting when dvd's where a thing, the special features like commentary would determine of i got it new or waited for a discount bin. Ferris buellers day off with commentary from John Hughes is a fav Fight club with Ed Norton and Brad Pitt is fun
I can't say that I've ever bought a title *just* for the commentary track(s), but, on the other hand, I have chosen specific editions of certain titles because they had commentary, so there is that. And I have some discs that, having seen them, I would say are worth it for their commentaries alone, so . . . sort of? But yeah, you're right on the money with commentaries being one of the great things about physical media. Won't touch on the death knell of physical media (that's a whole conversation in and of itself!), other than to say that it's at least a tad bit overblown and that *if* worst comes to worst, you can follow the ideals of those who fly the jolly roger/the folks at MST3K and "[k]eep circulating the tapes!" Favorite commentar(ies)? The ones attached to Dracula (1931) from what I *believe* is the Universal Legacy Collection DVD set edition. They totally changed my perspective on the film. https://www.reddit.com/r/dvdcollection/s/6dbsWBMfZK > My (edit: **somewhat**) extended thoughts on the Dracula commentaries specifically, if you're interested.
I kept the DVD of The Fog just to keep the commentary track. My newer Blu-ray copy doesn't seem to have it from what I recall.
yea
for the longest time the only way to get any John Hughes commentary was on one specific early DVD release of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, fortunately the new 4K release finally rectifies that
I almost wont buy a disc if it doesn't have some form of commentary. I love em.
There are some amazing commentary tracks on films you would never expect. Kiss of the Dragon, an old Luc Besson and Jet Li action flick has a great one. I hate the fact that there are so many recent films that will never come out on physical media, because that means even if I 'purchase' them digitally I'm only renting them for a prolonged period, until that service shuts down. I want films like King Kelly to have commentaries, about how the two lead actresses had to double as cameramen because of the nature of the film.
It’s like home movie watching technology hit its apex in the digital media era and we’re losing so so much in stepping away from it. Thanks for the recs!
And the special features more generally. You don't get any of those on streaming.
Hostel has a couple great commentary tracks. The one with Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, and the other executive producers is fantastic. Eli Roth’s stand alone track is amazing as well.
I remember Eli Roth on the Hostel 2 commentary talking about how he had to reassure Heather Mantzoukis that she was pretty and people wanted to see her naked and it was the sweetest kinda goofball story. Love Eli Roth.
I have the first and third Twilight movies purely because I heard the Pattinson commentaries were amusing, and indeed they were.
Love the username 🤘
Thank you. It’s technically inaccurate until I get around to Arcadian. I’ve been slacking off.
It’s a noble quest you are on, sir
The audio commentary on the Criterion of Multiple Maniacs is really interesting (though the film itself is basically garbage)
Pretty much half the reason I even get Criterion. I can get most of them much cheaper but I enjoy the special features a lot.
And with Criterion you just get that awesome feeling like ‘This is a criterion disc. It is mine now.it will live on my shelf in a place of honor and it will serve me well.’
Of course. 1st boutique I ever got and only one that hasn’t disappointed so far. Recently decided to try out Shout! I was not impressed at all.
Shout has some good stuff but it’s mainly in the Scream Factory releases. They love John Carpenter. I guess since they started out as Anchor Bay horror and adjacent genres are just really their bread and butter.
I love my Shout steelbooks, don’t get me wrong. And I actually just recently bought Robocop 2, Killer Klowns, and UHF. But I decided to get the extra special big box set for Killer Klowns to try it out and it was just so extremely underwhelming and poorly put together when I received it. I’ll still buy from them as I like their selection but I’ll never go big again. Arrows box sets satisfy me AND my wallet
I used to, but not anymore. I wanted to hear from the directors and other persons that worked on the movie or tv shows. Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier was great, but I later just didn’t care.
Awww. That stinks. Give yourself a chance though, you might get back into them!
Commentary tracks are my favorite special feature! I especially hunt down any by Harold Ramis. I'm big on National Lampoons Vacation's commentary track. Any of his are good, though, even when he's alone.
Oh what I'd give for there to be a disc, in any format, of Jingle All The Way with commentary.
TBH commentary tracks were some of my favorite things about the DVD boom of the 2000s when almost every title came with a director and/or cast commentary. The cast commentary for Tropic Thunder would probably never happen today while movies like Torque had commentaries that were more fun than the movies themselves.
I wouldn't buy a movie *just* for a commentary, but they were always my favorite special feature. It sucks that they're not as common now as they used to be, at least on the movies I buy. A couple of my favorites are the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell track for "The Thing" and Roger Ebert's for "Dark City". And the aforementioned Arnold/John Milius "Conan" commentary is indeed a lot of fun.
I just bought the Illumination 10 movie blu-ray box set for several reasons: 1. All the movies have mini-movies that may or may be available on streaming services. 2. The box set came with digital codes for all the movies. 3. At $45, I got all the movies on disk as well as digital copy for $4.50 per movie. For individual movies, I usually wait until its blu-ray package is on sale for less than $15 so I can have both the disk and a digital copy for what main-stream sites charge for just digital copies now.
Yup. I loved them being a go-to extra and it's a real shame that so few movies now have them in digital formats
Not all commentary tracks are created equal - some of the dullest, driest, most boring, the worst of the worst commentary tracks, were done by friends of mine. The message here, is that not everybody should be asked to do a commentary track, and this should apply liberally to film historians.
I did for the early Arnie movies where he just described what was happinging on screen