What makes a good dvd commentary

Then there are the all-purpose tracks that combine practical-moviemaking details, flotsam of trivia, and hang-out banter, like the crowded Fight Club commentary that covers everything from CGI explosions to Rosie O'Donnell giving away the film's ending on her talk show "just unforgivable," star Brad Pitt laments. The best commentary tracks don't bog you down with technical details or fill up dead air with dull plaudits: They footnote the movie experience, answering questions you may not have known you had about everything from casting to cinematography to marketing.

Eventually, it popped up on YouTube, which has become home to countless bootlegged commentary-track rips, some of them listed under fake titles and some, like Get Out , are easy to spot.

But there are also hundreds of digitally preserved commentary tracks available through legit means. Only a few years ago, commentary tracks seemed all but dead; now, there are almost too many to keep up with—including the numerous fan-recorded ones available as podcasts and hours-long YouTube clips.

When Peele opens his Get Out track, he notes that it's a "surreal honor" to be recording it—a testament to how crucial these commentaries are for anyone looking to sneak behind the screen. And now, online, you can pretty much stay there forever. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has one of these featuring Bill Hader and the two directors. And it is hilarious. Pixar , in fact, is famous for doing exceptionally good, well-written, and well-planned commentaries that never sound like the commentators are just talking randomly!

Finding Nemo stops at certain during the commentary and shows some behind-the-scenes clips to illustrate how a particular scene was made. Unfortunately most of the transitions are not very smooth. Brad Bird and John Walker's track for The Incredibles was recorded before the film was released, so they awkwardly note at one point that they like the film, but have no idea how it will be received.

It was also the day after legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas passed away, and Bird gives a brief and touching eulogy for him at his and Ollie Johnston's cameo.

Film - Live Action. Director Tom Shadyac recorded a solo commentary track for Liar Liar. He's pretty serious, but he also tells a really nice story about taking Justin Cooper, who played Max, to meet Jim Carrey at Carrey's house. Apparently, Jim and Justin got along really well. The Saw DVDs often come with commentary from directors, actors, writers, and producers. These are hilarious, and YMMV about when they start become more entertaining than the actual films.

Cameron is busy discussing behind-the-scenes work, while the actors are goofing off and having a great time with each other. It continues all the way over the end credits. The commentary for AVP: Alien vs. Predator with Paul W. Anderson , Sanaa Lathan, and Lance Henriksen is more entertaining than the film itself.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy features a surreal but hilarious fake commentary, where Will Ferrell talks about hookers and gets drunk with the director. Then, two actors who didn't get cast in the movie show up, and attack Ferrell.

Then, after that, Lou Rawls, of all people, shows up! As one of his character's puts it when you launch it, 'if you're watching this, you have too much time on your hands! Cheaper by the Dozen has several commentaries, by the older actors and creators, and then another with several of the child actors. This second commentary is absolutely hilarious, the kids going wildly off subject and clearly having a lot of fun. Ridley Scott is well noted for his commentaries.

Bowling for Columbine features commentary recorded by Michael Moore 's interns and secretary. Bound features The Wachowskis along with the woman they consulted for the portrayal of lesbianism. Jennifer Tilly also shows up in the last 20 minutes. The track is notable for being the last time the Wachowskis did anything related to promotion for one of their films. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension : The audio commentary takes the rather surreal tactic of claiming that what we're viewing is an adaptation of actual events.

The commentators include the "real person" on which one of the secondary characters was supposedly based, and they go so far as to constantly explain how the events depicted differ from "what really happened" and make comparisons between Peter Weller's portrayal and the "real" Buckaroo. At least this is equally odd as the movie.

The DVD also contains a subtitle track that provides additional commentary with the same conceit. The subtitle comments are consistent with the audio commentary, but its author seems to be privy to additional details not known to the audio commentators.

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie parodies the unappreciated status of commentary tracks by having the characters turn on the commentary in order to learn what they need to do to solve the problem they faced at that point. Several of them comment such things as "who cares about this crap?

The Musical features one of the earliest "drunken commentaries. At the end, the commentators decide to go to a titty bar, and the last comment heard is one challenging the other to a fight. Specifically, they begin the commentary sober, but openly declare at that point that they will be drinking during it and you can even hear the alcohol being opened and served. In case you thought they were faking it though, there's an entire segment where the commentary cuts out Orgazmo , also by Trey Parker and featuring Matt Stone, continues the tradition of drunken commentary.

A point of interest about The Goonies commentary track: Occasionally during the film, the viewer is treated to the sight of all the now-adult stars sitting at a long table watching it, while the movie shrinks away into the corner of the frame.

Sean Astin unfortunately had to leave the session early to honor a prior commitment leaving a Samwise Gamgee action figure in his place , never getting to finish a personal message to Cyndi Lauper. Not in a teasing way or as a way to make the commentary interesting — he actually means it. Considering the director, it's almost certainly not "reportedly.

He and the audience would watch a movie on DVD in an auditorium and pause the film whenever someone has something to discuss. His notes from the event are incorporated into DVD commentaries for the films. His commentary for Dark City shows you just how brilliant the film is, pointing out visual motifs, cinematography tricks being used, and just how perfectly the movie's playing with Noir archetypes.

The DVD's worth it for the commentary track alone. Ebert also contributes an excellent, in-depth commentary for Citizen Kane. Again, notable for the breakdown of cinematography, shot design, and other interesting tidbits. The second serious one is an Easter Egg.

The commentary for EuroTrip features the crew playing a drinking game during the movie. The commentary for The Fast and the Furious , by Rob Cohen goes to show the depth of insight a director can have about hidden aspects of the movie. Oh yeah, and he likes to blow stuff up too. Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe have such a good time talking about Fast Times at Ridgemont High that the commentary goes on 20 minutes longer than the movie.

Danny DeVito 's commentary for The War of the Roses is pretty standard and quite good except for several parts where he starts complaining about an unnamed movie composer, living near the mansion where the exterior shots were filmed, who kept calling the police and complaining about noise from the production.

Each time, DeVito stops ranting after a few seconds and apologizes to the audience. Each movie of the Star Wars saga has a commentary track by George Lucas and heads of the principal production departments. They mostly discussed common knowledge facts. To the contrary, the commentary for Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie was much more informative, as the whole thing was rather fresh and new at the time.

Movies released after Lucasfilm's purchase by Disney also have commentaries, recorded without Lucas. Fight Club has four commentaries, the most interesting of which is by Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls. It's a masterclass in how to adapt a novel. The track featuring Brad Pitt , Edward Norton , and David Fincher together in a room is highly amusing, as the actors frequently gang up on the director for laughs but also respect his craft and the info he wants to share.

Helena Bonham Carter is dropped in via solo clips, some of which have priceless anecdotal information. Most notably, the very English HBC had no idea how old American children are in grade school, so the "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school" line meant nothing to her when she delivered it.

On the Frequency DVD, there's an alternate commentary track by writer Toby Emmerich and his brother Noah, who appeared in a small role. Toby openly questions who's listening to the commentary and gives his email address which became more useful once he became the head of New Line and Noah has to leave midway through the commentary to get to another appointment. The Region 1 DVD of Godzilla features a commentary by the three guys who did most of the work Americanizing the film. It's full of information on what goes on in dubbing and adapting a film and is hilarious to boot.

Hot Fuzz has several commentaries, including one of two actual police officers from Wells, Somerset where it was filmed. Shaun of the Dead features numerous commentaries, including one with zombies. If you include Spaced and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World , he's pretty much done this. Kevin Smith is known for the excellent commentaries he sets up for his View Askewniverse films: The commentaries for Clerks: The Animated Series , essentially three hours of ranting against ABC and bad Korean animators, may be just as funny as the cartoon.

His first commentary he ever did was for the Clerks laserdisc which is also featured on the later DVD. It's notable for — aside from insights on how Smith put together a film for the price of a new car — featuring Jason "Jay" Mewes on the floor, drunk, occasionally loudly shouting an expletive before falling asleep.

He has also done commentaries for Mallrats , Chasing Amy in which he says "Fuck DVD, Laserdisc is the future" , two for Dogma once with the cast, then again when it was deemed that nothing was learnt from the first , Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back , two for Jersey Girl including one with Jason Mewes , three for Clerks II including a podcast commentary that was intended for people to take to the cinema and listen to while the film was on release.

Interestingly, he didn't do one for Zack and Miri Make a Porno , apparently because of Smith's response to the low box office reciept. That's 48 hours of commentary across the whole series. And Andy Serkis too! In the commentaries featuring Ian McKellen Gandalf and Christopher Lee Saruman it is painfully obvious that the actors are not actually watching the film and the commentary from them is simply spliced bits from interviews.

In the commentary featuring Elijah Wood Frodo , Andy Serkis Gollum and Sean Astin Sam , Sean Astin completely takes over the conversation several times to rattle on about how great the story and production values are to the point that you can hear Wood and Serkis shifting uncomfortably in the background. This is easily the weakest of the assorted commentaries. While the others are a mix of good humour and fascinating information, Wood, Serkis and Astin spend most of their time praising each others performances.

Especially when Billy keeps waxing lyrical about his feelings for Minas Tirith. Bernard Hill has a few solo sections, where he lets loose a few Precision F Strikes. They are as informative as they were on The Lord of the Rings , explaining the reasoning behind many of the changes made while adapting the book.

Love Actually 's commentary gets off to a rough start — Hugh Grant arrives late about 10 minutes into the film and almost immediately has to excuse himself to answer his cellphone. Later, Bill Nighy and director Richard Curtis realize that young star Thomas Sangster who was 13 years old at the time is legally unable to watch the movie, which is rated 15, which results in them desperately talking about something else during the scenes he's not supposed to watch.

It's also worth it just for Hugh Grant's snark about absent co-star Colin Firth , his fake nemesis. After Richard Curtis had commented on what a nice close-up Firth had in a love scene: "I'd just assumed you'd cut it in from one of his other movies. Barry Sonnenfeld 's commentary on Men in Black II falls under the awkward self-congratulation category, in addition to Sonnenfeld seemingly having no charisma whatsoever.

The commentary for the first movie is unique in that Barry and actor Tommy Lee Jones are sitting in front of the movie MST3K -style, and at various points even draw on the movie to point things out.

These MST3K -style visuals are also used in the commentary for Ghostbusters and Muppets from Space as seen below ; this was because Sony Pictures owned the rights to all three movies. Conversely, Barry Sonnenfeld's commentary on Get Shorty along with the Making Of features reveals just how much of this movie was made exactly how the movie in the movie was made, especially how Danny DeVito was basically playing himself.

He was originally going to play the role of Chili Palmer, but he and other producers thought he'd be too short for the role, which is the ending punch line of the movie! He was asked a question in the Making Of interviews and starts rambling in an arrogant way and then admits that he forgot what the original question was, totally as his character Martin Weir would do. He and other actors admit to ordering totally off menu and not knowing their own address just like Martin Weir.

Muppets from Space had the director joined by Gonzo and Rizzo, which resulted in an amusing joke commentary that's largely Parental Bonus stuff — clean, but most of their references would be missed by kids. The screenwriters' commentary track for Night at the Museum is just hilarious. Their commentary for the second one is just as good. The actor's commentary track on Ocean's Eleven. If watching the movie didn't make it obvious that the cast had an absolute ball making the film, hearing them riff on the movie and each other does.

One is by the colorization team, which combines fascinating insights into the colorization process with lame pot jokes. The other is by none other than Mike Nelson. These commentaries combine both classic "trivia spouting" and Nelson's own milieu — movie-bashing a la MST3K.

Anderson and actresses Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez crack jokes and argue about meaningless crap. Anderson : And in this scene we Milla : Who cares about that, you can see my boobs! My dearest sister. What is that extra bit between your knickers and your stockings? Oh, I don't know Affleck: I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers and he told me to shut to the fuck up.

So, that was the end of that talk. Keira : What exactly did you think it was? Jack : I thought the film skipped!

The author of Constellation Games wrote a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the novel on his blog link to the first one here , which details a number of differences between various drafts, points out minor plot holes, and otherwise serves a purpose pretty much identical to a DVD commentary track.

Some movies even have the shooting script, which JMS feels is an invaluable resource for aspiring writers to get a handle on writing for TV and movies. The Sum of All Fears has a pretty amusing commentary featuring featuring director Phil Alden Robinson and Tom Clancy himself who introduces himself as "the author of the book [Phil] ignored" where the latter spends nearly the entire running time picking apart every inaccuracy and change to the book right in front of Robinson.

Live-Action TV. The season three premiere of Alias features a track by Erin, the show's Television Without Pity recapper, and another fan who won a radio contest.

Though clearly hogtied to some extent by the show's lawyers without reading her recaps you'd get the feeling Erin is far more fond of season three than she really is it's still good fun as they easily find things to chat about through the whole episode and even get in the odd jab at the show "What was the point of the dress? Joss Whedon 's commentaries for his Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly episodes are occasionally enlightening, but always funny. His commentary for " Objects in Space ", however, is very philosophical, as the episode was inspired by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre.

His commentary on " Restless " is almost required to actually understand what the hell is going on. It is no exaggeration to say that my cinematic education was immeasurably helped by the rise of the DVD format. Before, I was a keen but undiscerning cinema goer; afterwards, I considered myself a film aficionado. Some would have said fanatic. I bought my first DVD player in , when the format was still in its infancy, but already I had heard excited whispers that this was a proper game-changer for the industry.

After years of only being able to watch films at home either on overpriced, poor-quality VHS video tapes or expensive, hard-to-find Laserdiscs, this was a true boon. Not only were the films presented in their proper aspect ratios, rather than the hacked pan-and-scan format on video, and in pristine audio and visual condition, but, most excitingly of all, they came with a cornucopia of extra features. But others were fascinating and considerably more in-depth.

And, perhaps best of all, there was the DVD commentary. Sometimes, an articulate director or writer could even convince the viewer that they were watching a considerably better film than they were, so persuasive were their arguments. Or, on the other extreme, there could be a riotous party atmosphere, as on the commentaries of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, or Kevin Smith and his regular cast, in which the viewer at home could temporarily feel that they had been invited into a private gathering of famous friends and allowed to join in for a couple of hours.

The DVD boom lasted for about a decade, before it was superseded by the Blu-Ray format, which boasted greater storage capacity and even more impressive audio-visual accoutrements.

It seemed as if studios had hit upon a winning formula. After releasing the films at the cinema and enjoying the box office receipts from a smash — or taking the hit from a commercial flop — they were then able to release the same films multiple times on various home entertainment formats and could be assured of renewed interest each time.

Pity the poor documentarians who were asked to do similar tasks for films that were expected to be similarly enormous hits, and then saw their work quietly filleted into a five-minute piece of embarrassed after-the-fact promotional video.

But the heritage market, in particular, benefited enormously. If you were an admirer of such great directors as Hitchcock, Bergman, Kurosawa or Kubrick, you would soon find that there was a box set with your name on it. It was, in short, far cheaper and even more comprehensive than a film school degree. Many big-name directors, not least Paul Thomas Anderson, explicitly advised aspirant directors to listen to their DVD commentaries, rather than hear the second-hand advice of film professors.

But, as with most good things, the end has apparently come. And all this in exchange for going straight to Netflix.