Director's Commentary

[-A-]

I own so many DVDs with a Director's Commentary option but I've listened to hardly any of them. It's nothing to do with the quality, I just find it impossible to concentrate on the dialogue when there's talking over the top of it. I know it's only intended for episodes/films that you've seen enough not to be bothered by this, but they always seem to comment on things that I've totally missed, or I flick between the two audios and confuse myself.

The ones that I've listened to and enjoyed have been the Ricky Gervais DVDs, where the jokes he's making there (and the addition of Karl Pilkington) make it almost like a second helping; and The Wire, where there's so much insight into how things were made. Do you guys always give them a listen?

[livid]

I'll watch the commentary if it's a comedy because it's generally just more hilarious stuff from the guys that made it.

But for dramas and action movies, I haven't actually ever listened to the commentary as I know it's just a bunch of technical stuff and while I want to be a director and all that jazz, it does get boring when trying to watch the movie.

[TheRyno]

I used to listen to commentary all the time when I lived at my parents' house and holed myself up in my bedroom. But now that I'm sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with a bunch of dudes, it's kinda hard to do anymore.

However, there is one Commentary that needs to be listened to by everyone and that is the one for Cannibal: The Musical. Trey Parker and Matt Stone (and others) decide to get drunk for hilarious results. Basically, he reveals that the plot of the lead's horse running away was an allusion to his girlfriend at the time dumping him. By the end of the movie, he's talking about how he's worth $20 million and the guy she dumped him for is a restaurant manager.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I usually watch or listen to the commentaries on episodes of TV shows released on DVD, like with The Boondocks' first season. The commentary is fucking great stuff on that DVD, and I also like the commentary on the first four episodes of season 1 of Gargoyles because it's pretty interesting stuff (and I just love Keith David's voice).

[Bigal]

Not usually, but Shaun of the Dead has a couple of great commentaries which are almost as good as the film.

Star Wars commentaries are shit, because they're not all in a room at the same time

[Toe]

Not director commentaries, but I have listened to commentaries with the cast. 40 Year Old Virgin has a very funny commentary track.

[Benji]

It depends, TV shows I'll almost always listen to them, films I'll only tend to listen to if they're geeky/cultish, but I have been known to listen to others, only to find them not worth the effort, though once in a blue moon a good commentary will pop up (if I remember rightly, Dodgeball has an awesome staged alternate commentary).

[tristy]

I think the only commentary track I've listened to is the Mallrats one, which had me laughing my ass off, I remember.

[LittleDaniel]

Comedy/tv shows, always. I love them, they're great. But for stuff like thrillers and dramas, it's more hit or miss. I will say this, I absolutely love the Evil Dead II commentary, since it's basically the guys making fun of the whole movie. For example, they point out exactly when you can see the high school gym that they shot the cabin scenes in.

Also, I think it's important that the people giving the commentary actually enjoy being around each other, or most of them do. An example of this is Clerk II(the only View Askew movie I have on DVD), where the guys genuinely like each other, and it makes it much funnier as they have more to talk about.

Edited July 12, 2008 by LittleDaniel

[TMM]

The only commentaries I really listen to are Joss Whedon related shows. I think I've listened to the vast majority of commentaries on Firefly, Serenity, Angel and Buffy because most of the people involved with the shows are just funny. The commentary with Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk on War Stories is hilarious.

[Thatz]

I listen to them sometimes, but not often. I'll watch them if I see a scene that is just really incredible, or if it has a stunt or something that I have absolutely no idea how they pulled it off. I think that the Director's Commentary is often disappointing, however. I was really excited to see what Coppola had to say about The Godfather, but he didn't sound too interested, almost as if he was forced to do it (which he probably was).

[TheRyno]

Best Movie Commentary - Cannibal: The Musical for reasons I've already mentioned.

Best TV Commentary - Mr. Show. All 4 seasons have cast commentary and it's non-stop hilarity.

Worst Movie Commentary - The Exorcist. William Friedkin's commentary for "The Version You've Never Seen" is horrible just because all he does is describe things as they happen in the movie. Not how he did them or how things were filmed, nothing. The entire movie is him going "Here's the part where this guy does this. And now this guy says something. And now they're doing this." The only use I could think of is if some blind person was trying to watch the movie and needed things described to them, but the original dialogue would've done a better job of that anyways.

[K]

Futurama DVD commentaries are gold.

[Toe]

The mini-commentaries on the South Park DVDs are very interesting and short, usually only a few minutes per episode.

[Benji]

Futurama DVD commentaries are gold.

QFE, I discovered them by accident first time I played the DVD's (I changed the language), originally intending to watch the episodes as were, I decided instead I'd see something I hadn't seen on the first run. I was not dissapointed.

[Kaney]

Only the in-character commentary on Spinal Tap, though I may need to try the futurama ones. I get the same problem, I get distracted by the film. I'd probably listen to more if it was a pure audio file to concentrate on than both that and the film but eh.

[MyKILLv2.0]

I normally always listen to the director comentary on movies that I really enjoy. My favorite one to do so is my current favorite TV series "Rome", which the comentary usually illistrates not only the filiming, but Roman history, which I am a huge fan of. :thumbs up:

... some comentaries are completely dreadful, however. The worst I remember is the Chronicles of Riddick. They had the director, the main girl, and main villian (Karl Urban) do the commentary. Basically it was two hours of the director drooling over the girl, the girl drooling over Vin Diesel, and Karl Urban reminding everyone that he was in Doom & The Lord of the Rings.... :shoots self in head:

[I Don't Mind]

I like to listen to director commentaries on all of my favorite movies to give me a good idea of what the creators were thinking, but I have to agree, some commentary on DVDs are horrible. For example I like to hear commentary from the director if he doesn't speak with a thick as hell accent so I can understand what he's saying. If I wanted to hear the movie in a foreign language, I would have just switched the language preferences to such. But I also make sure I've watched the movie about three times on it's own without any commentary so I could recite the dialog if I wanted anyways.

[TheRyno]

Case in point: It wasn't until I listened to the commentary for Resident Evil that I realized Milla Jovovich is actually a valley girl.

[deadkenndys1105]

The people who said futurama are right. I watch the commentary sometime more than the episode itself.