You know I love watching DVD’s, on my system I can get better quality than the cinema in picture and sound, and no idiots making rustling sounds, slurping drinks and issuing popcorn farts throughout the cinema, it’s fab. Not only that, but there’s the extras to entice you once you’ve seen the movie.
Me, I’m a big fan of outtakes, deleted scenes, and the most amazing of inventions, the audio commentary. Get a good team of actors, or a great director, and you have a stunning commentary, like that of Dog Soldiers. Get a bad one and you have a long drawn out ironing session…well…that’s what I do!
So bit of a surprise for me after watching the superb X2 to listen to the audio commentary of Bryan Singer and Newton Thomas Sigel. It wasn’t that great. Sure there were some interesting insights, but nothing to what I thought I was going to learn about the whole process of making the movie.
Then there was the second commentary of the writers including David Hayter and Lauren Shuler Donner. It too was a little disappointing but provided some interesting points as well, and contradicted some of Singers comments.
There were four things that were really interesting:
1. Jean Grey’s ending was not scripted, and not decided upon until late on in the movie, although the outcome was, the physical end wasn’t. The writers, in their commentary, talk about the various different drafts of what would happen and how, and it’s interesting to hear the different endings that were written.
Throughout the movie there seem to be some key scenes and sequences that just sprang up out of their heads and the process of filming. As Singer says at one point he truly believes that there are three stages of creating the movie, the script writing, the filming and the editing.
2. The continual comments on scenes that happened because of budget concerns. For such an effects rich movie it was surprising how many times they had to cut back, or use existing shots, so as not to use too much budget.
One comment which was particularly telling was when Singer retold a showing of some footage to the Studio Chairman. He showed Wolverine walking down this really long corridor.
Chairman: “Where was that filmed?”
Singer: “We built it”
Chairman: “Oh god”
3. The desire to film X-Men 3 as a musical, complete with line dance. No, although that was there, that wasn’t meant to be point three. The possibility of filming X-Men 3 completely digital.
4. Beast was supposed to be in each of the movies so far, but just never managed to pull through, and the writers and producer sit at the end and talk about what they would like in the next movie, and who. Beast scored big, Gambit, Juggernaut, and Angel – who interestingly featured in the X-rays in the background of Strykers lab.
See, interesting stuff you can get from commentaries! Has anyone got any particularly good commentaries, or commentary insights to suggest? Or other such surprising insights? Can anyone just not abide this type of thing at all and rather they weren’t made? Why not?
My fave commentaries to date:
John Carpenter/Kurt Russell.
Jonathan Hensliegh on “Punisher” (2004)
Katherine Bigelow on “Near Dark”
Roland Joffe on “Killing Fields”
…and shockingly, Oliver Stone on “Platoon” (and Dale Dye on the other track)
There you go.
T h s, i agree with your opinion of the commentary on resident evil 1. it feels like you’re just hanging out with the cast and crew, everyone relaxed and goofing around. and milla has a great sense of humour, which is one of the reasons i’m a fan of hers…
The commentary on the futurama episodes is pretty great.
Besides some clever remarks/insight from the producers/writers, Billy West and John DiMaggio ad-lib hilarious little conversations between characters.
Aside from indiviual movies…..I love commetaries that the people actually watch teh movie….I hate the ones where they pipe in didfrent clips…..you’d think they could take 3 hours out of their day to watch it again.
The commentary for the, ermh, first Resident Evil movie is pretty funny. That Mila Jovosomthing was hilarious in it. Don’t know why I ever listened to it, but I did.
The commentaries on the Simpsons DVD’s are also really good.
I think the pattern of a good Commentary appears to be to have two of them.
One has cast, one has crew (Director, Producer, etc) and let them talk all over each other instead of lecturing, especially on the cast one. That seems to be a winner.
For me personally I like insights galore into the movie, why choices were made, why scenes were changed, etc. I love hearing about what the actors did on set and how involved they were with their character and the movie process.
SWAT had a pretty decent commentary on the cast side, and they were taken into the studio as soon as the movie was finished, it hadn’t been in the cinema yet, so it was pretty fresh.
Big disappointment for me was the Big Fish commentary. Some guy interviewing Tim Burton and asking him direct questions about the odd scene. Okay, well rehearsed, but Burton is dull, can’t engage an audience and it too gets boring after 20 mins.
Great suggestions here, and not at all selfish on my part…as they are all already added to my rental list.
Do you agree with the above though? Is that was makes a good commentary for you?
dvd’s with the best commentaries/extras i’ve seen were dawn of the dead unrated and bring it on.
Jason, I love Goonies, twas one of my favorite films when I was growing up, recently purchased the DVD but have yet to watch it, I’ll keep an eye o
oh, one other commentary i can sort of recommend in the so-bad-it’s-good category: dungeons and dragons. the director really believes he made a great movie, and is so earnest about it, it makes you cringe and feel sorry for him at the same time.
the director commentary for blade 2 is hilarious! lots of fun, including talking about how they had to buy back some of the props from the first movie on eBay…
non-recommended: spider-man 1 and 2 dvd commentaries were disappointing, imho.
The Bubba Ho-Tep Elvis commentary is pretty entertaining although it gets old after 20 minutes or so.
My favorite commentary is the extended Aliens DVD with pretty much the entire cast and some of the crew chiming in … even the actress who played Newt and her brother (also in the extended version).
I got a kick out of the Goonies Commentary…they actually would cut away to video of them talking….which was cool.
The Shaun of the Dead ones are good (although you probably knew that already) especially the Writers one and the cast one. Very funny and they explain alot of the references, which is interesting if you didn’t spot them first time round.
Simone-Yeah I read it a few months ago, fantastic! I really hope they get the movie right. It has the potential to be a classic.
Hmm. might have to check out the dvd since I have it someplace, just for the sake of Hayter talking. For those of you who don’t know, he is the guy who does the voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid and the EA Sports, it’s in the game slogan.
The only time I actually listened to commentary was for A Few Good Men. I thought it was pretty good, but normally it would require watching a movie a second time and well I don’t have a lot of patience.
Hey Adam, you remembered! *winks* Thanks for telling me, have you had the chance to read the book?
I’m a commentary junkie. Aronofsky has some great ones in Requiem and Pi. Fincher, Pitt, and Norton in Fight Club as well as Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls. That is if you have the 2 disc set, if not, you should!
Simone- I read today on another site that Alfonso Cuaron (HP:Prisoner of Azkaban) is in talks to direct Life of Pi. I liked his Harry Potter but I still would rather Shyamamlan do it! Just thought you would like to know since you said you were a fan of the book.
This is Spinal Tap has one of the best commentary tracks I’ve ever heard. If you’re a fan of the movie, it’s like getting a second film.
I remember liking the Ocean’s Eleven actors commentary too, but I don’t remember why I liked it. it’s been a while.
Well I guess being the Star Wars geek that I am, it has to be the original trilogy DVD commentaries that I will recommend for their commentaries, I have already seen all of it many times and enjoy it each time. Unless of course youve seen it already Rich? If not, try the “Empire of Dreams”. It’s like another movie in itself!
I very seldom watch the commentaries but for Star Wars, it will be an exception, it’s just always been fascinating to do so.