Movie Commentary Tracks Are Back (wired.com) 50
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last spring, long before Get Out's eventual Oscar win, the movie was released on home video with a commentary track from its writer-director. A decade ago, in the pre-streaming era, this wouldn't have been news: Back then, seemingly every movie got a commentary track, even Good Luck Chuck. Then the DVD market began to decline, and the commentary track went from a being standard-issue add-on to relative rarity. Even recent Best Picture nominees like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Wolf of Wall Street, 12 Years a Slave, and Spotlight were released sans tracks -- bad news for anyone looking for behind-the-scenes intel on Mark Ruffalo's little-Ceasar haircut.
In the last few years, though, several high-profile films -- everything from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Lady Bird to Get Out -- have been released with commentary tracks. That means you can spend your umpteenth viewing of Peele's film listening to him talk about how he modeled the opening credits on those of The Shining, or how the film's title was inspired by a routine from Eddie Murphy Delirious. For casual movie watchers, such details may not be too thrilling. But for film nerds who absorb behind-the-scenes trivia and how-we-made-it logistics, tracks like the one for Get Out remain the cheapest movie-making education available.
In the last few years, though, several high-profile films -- everything from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Lady Bird to Get Out -- have been released with commentary tracks. That means you can spend your umpteenth viewing of Peele's film listening to him talk about how he modeled the opening credits on those of The Shining, or how the film's title was inspired by a routine from Eddie Murphy Delirious. For casual movie watchers, such details may not be too thrilling. But for film nerds who absorb behind-the-scenes trivia and how-we-made-it logistics, tracks like the one for Get Out remain the cheapest movie-making education available.
I wasn't aware they were a common thing (Score:2)
I think the only thing I've seen them was some episodes of the original Survivors.
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Yes! Isn't it just fabulous?
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What's to happy about when stupid shit like this clogs up the news?
Mod topic: Slow news day.
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Because in fact nothing has changed.
Typically, for the major movie releases, there is no commentary track. When that comes later, in a special edition, they can make a second sale.
Rentals have always not had commentary tracks. That would encourage people to watch a DVD twice, and that is undesirable.
The less the movie, the more extras. Studios know they have to work harder to peddle higher grades of manure.
Movie extras are essentially unchanged in the last decade, with perhaps a slight trend toward less
Re: No movie viewing in prison for Trump. (Score:2)
Twist: these two posters are the same person and he himself is unaware of this fact.
'The Shining; Commentary (Score:2)
The Shining has a whole other film [wikipedia.org] as a commentary, for the conspiracy nuts.
There are some great ones and mostly not so great (Score:5, Informative)
You should be able to tell five minutes into the commentary - unfortunately most are pretty dry and not really that interesting (Star Wars, I'm lookin' at you).
Generally the great ones have the actors and directors together and they actually like each other and can riff off of each other. For the most part great ones are quite funny, but they can really expand on the movie experience and in many cases make the movie a lot more enjoyable.
In the poor ones the director rambles on and on about the different shots and what made it memorable to them (but of little interest to anybody else including wanna be filmmakers) and the actors talk about clothing, makeup and how hard it is finding a good meal while they were on location.
Here are a few of my favourites:
- Big Trouble in Little China by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell
- The Silence of the Lambs Criterion DVD (not on the Criterion BRD version of the film) with Jonathan Demme, Jodi Foster & Anthony Hopkins
- Dogma with Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck (he's not too stuck up here) and Jason Mewes
- UHF by Weird Al Yankovic
- Transformers by Michael Bay (seriously)
- Blackhawk Down by Ridley Scott
- Shaun of the Dead by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (As well as the commentaries on the other two Cornet movies)
- The last two seasons of "Breaking Bad"
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I would expect the best ones to involve people who were involved in every aspect of production (e.g. directors), rather than people who have a more limited view into only part of the production process (e.g. actors, writers). Of course, it helps if the people are good at storytelling, so writer-director commentaries ought to be some of the best. Your list reinforces that suspicion.
Re:There are some great ones and mostly not so gre (Score:4, Interesting)
The best commentary track ever is by "The King" on Bubba Ho-Tep. It is an entire track of Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis, not having the first clue what he's watching. "Commentary! The Musical" on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is pretty good too.
I guess the thing I enjoy about both of those is that they aren't actually commentary tracks, they're additional productions along side the original video.
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I think the commentary to Muppets from Space might have it beat.
Kermit, Rizzo, Gonzo, and the director watch the film (MST3K-style), with some excellent one-liners.
Re:There are some great ones and mostly not so gre (Score:4, Insightful)
Spinal Tap 20th anniversary edition.
The two main actors, in character, talking shit about everyone in the film, 20 years on. It's as good as the original was.
Also: 'Fight Club', the story of the line 'I haven't been fucked like that since grade school'. Was first 'I want to have your abortion'. The suits heard the 'grade school' line, asked to go back, but no.
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The two main actors, in character, talking shit about everyone in the film, 20 years on. It's as good as the original was.
I think it was "Sum of All Fears" which had a track with Tom Clancy, in what can only be called a "contractual obligation commentary". He spent the entire track slagging the producers, pointing out in painful detail where they deviated from his book (basically everywhere), explained that they had no effing clue what they were talking about ("Neo-nazis calling Hitler an idiot? Neo-Nazis worship Hitler").
When the first thing the commentator says is "I'm the author of the book with the same name as this movie,
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Oddly enough, there's another Bruce Campbell commentary that I'd say is even better: Alien Apocalypse. The movie is just as horribly cheesy as it sounds, but the commentary track is a completely different level. Take an at best B-movie plot, about giant termites taking over the work, with a practically nonexistent budget, and fly a few cast members to Bulgaria to make it on the cheap.
So, 90% of the cast and crew didn't speak English, and the director of this insane flick is dragging in allusions to The God
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Oh, OH!
Here's the part where I make it go BOOM!
Actually no, it was surprisingly in-depth. He makes better commentary tracks than movies.
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Commentaries can definitely be a mixed bag. As you mention, some of Breaking Bad is great, but some episodes they're just jerking each other off for an hour about how great they all are and don't actually talk about the motivation behind what's on the screen and what not. Still, it was a shame for all us film nerds that commentaries almost disappeared, because when they're good, there can be some really fascinating insight in them.
Anything with Arnie is going to be fucking [youtube.com] amazing [youtube.com] though.
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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Three words: Cannibal! The Musical
Greatest commentary of all time. In fact, it's so great that time-travelers from the future built a time machine specifically to come back and inform us that it's still the best commentary track ever, even in their time.
South Park is great. Team America is great. The Book of Mormon is great. But nothing Matt and Trey ever do will ever top the commentary track on Cannibal. It should be taught in schools. It should be preached in churches. It should be elected President. Shri
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The most disappointing commentary track I can presently recall was Steven Soderbergh on Traffic.
He must have uttered the phrase "available light' 17,000 times, in an apparent effort to cement his status as the Guru King of the low-production-cost / high-visual-quality movie producer orgasm quadrant.
Hey, Mr Greenlight, was it as good for you as it was bad for me? If so, you probably won't walk straight for another week.
On the other side, an unexpected treat was director Fernando Trueba on Belle Epoque. This
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In the poor ones the director rambles on and on about the different shots and what made it memorable to them
I remember trying to watch the second Lord of the Rings movie with director commentary. It was pretty boring and uninformative. Stuff like: "Oh yeah, this day. It was foggy, I remember we wondered if it would be foggy. Then it was foggy." Also: "That orc there on the left... his name was Steve. He wore another orc suit in another shot. I remember Steve. In that orc suit."
Meanwhile the Space Balls commentary has Mel Brooks almost dying at the super long ship at the start, talking about how he wanted to m
Mark Ruffalo's little-Ceasar haircut (Score:1)
As usual I prefer subs to dubs (Score:2)
If anyone created a decent .srt file to go with the best ripped versions of these films, I'd be ok with it.
I mostly enjoy commentary tracks. (Score:2)
I kinda like 'em and if it's a movie I really like and there's no commentary, I tend to go reeeeee about it.
These tracks may not interest most of the populace, but I enjoy the film-makers pointing out things one may not have noticed (tape holding up bits of airplane interiors, and the prescence of cardboard people, in Airplane!, Milos Forman pointing out the huge black floofcat in the beginning of Amadeus, just two examples)..
I enjoy them retelling of the difficulties in making the film (Star Wars, how they
I don't find them as interesting as I used to (Score:2)
Maybe it's better for indie films though. I don't want a ton of movies anymore. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that movie making isn't a hu
Rifftrax (Score:1)
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It's sad that they don't riff as many new release blockbusters anymore... Perhaps they don't make enough money on those; since people have to sync
MST3K (Score:2)
I always wondered where those cool comments came from :) Now I know, and Knowing is half the battle, or so I've heard.
The real American hero ; GI Joe....
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That's a Blu-ray without a commentary track.
Fury road?!?! (Score:2)
Wholly shit, I know I am out of it, but fury road for best picture? We watched that load of garbage a few months ago. Zero character development. Zero empathizing with anyone in the film period. The entire movie was just one big long driving fighting scene. The main character barely says 3 words that arent grunts for the entire film...
How the hell could anyone have that remotely come close to best fucking picture?!?!?