Favorite Movie Commentaries

I watched/listed to Film and 40's last night and man that was really good! Pretty excited to watch a new one every week for awhile. It got me thinking about the one thing I miss most now that we live in a digital era is movie commentaries. I have always been interested in behind the scenes aspects in movies. Reasons for choosing a shot or line or etc. So basically I'm wondering if any duders also like movie commentaries? If so, which one or two are you favorite commentaries?

Personally, one of my favorite commentaries of all time is from Superbad. Its obviously not a technical movie but a certain moment in the commentary has made it quite infamous. The director of the movie Judd Apatow brings his daughter with him to the commentary screening with Jonah Hill in the same room and the rest of the cast in a different location. Halfway through the movie Judd and Jonah get into a verbal argument because Jonah keeps forgetting to not cuss in the presence of Judds daughter. The argument escalates until the point when Judd walks out with his daughter in the middle of the commentary and doesn't come back. It was a pretty surreal moment and one that has been debated online in terms of being staged or not. Either way, it still helps it stand out as being one of my favorite commentaries (if youre a fan of those movies it's also a good commentary because its almost the whole crew from the movie riffing on it and each other). What is your favorite movie commentary?

Tarantino's True Romance commentary, without a doubt. Full of fascinating stories of the script-to-screen adventure, and Tony Scott, and how it's better for not being directed by himself, etc. I can't recall another time a huge director did commentary for a film he didn't direct.

Also, not a true commentary, but the Heart of Darkness documentary is basically a commentary of Apocalypse Now, and it's brilliant. You gotta see it.

I like the commentaries for Orgazmo and Cannibal The Musical. Matt and Trey and the rest of the guys get really wasted for both of them and during the end they are pretty incoherent and it's just a mess. But a funny mess.

I think I've heard like 3 in their entirety and the one I liked the most was Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Causal, insightful bits about the scenes and anecdotes specific to the days' happenings outside of the frame. Pretty cool.

Honestly though, I don't really seek them out 'cause it might ruin my own read on a scene or the movie. I kinda think artists have to just stfu and let the work speak for themselves. I don't think commentaries are totally gone though. I've seen digital purchases come with extras.

This is Spinal Tap has a pretty awesome commentary track that is all in character.

MST3K... that is all

My favorite single commentary is probably The Shawshank Redemption. It was my favorite movie when I was a teenager and I really appreciated learning a lot of the behind the scenes stuff in that movie, like the production design for the prison, changes made to the novella (this was before I read it myself), the new ending to the movie, etc.

Another commentary I remember digging was the one for GoodFellas. This is kind of a unique one, because the commentary was stitched from a bunch of separate interviews. So you had Martin talking when he had something relevant to say, an actor talked when he had unique behind the scenes story to a scene, etc.

It's been 10 years since I've seen it, but I remember liking David Lynch's....thing for Eraserhead. On the DVD I rented, there was a separate thing where David Lynch just talked about the movie. It's not commentary, but it was a nice supplemental to the film.

I wish I have kept up with watching more movies, and listening to commentaries. I don't have the time right now, but I've been thinking more about joining a service like Mubi that only has 30 films streaming at one time. There are literally hundreds of films I should watch, but I either never seek them out, end up in situations where I would have a Netflix disc sitting on my shelf without watching it, or just forget about how I have never watched X. Like with the Oscars last night, I realized "Oh right, I never saw Spotlight or The Revenant" from last year. But yeah, anyways, movie commentaries are cool!

The commentary track from the original Total Recall with Arnold is just hilarious. It's not so much a commentary of what they went through to film any specific scene as it is just Arnold narrating what he's doing on screen in a dumb enthusiastic voice.

The commentary tracks for John Carpenter films are usually great, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China being the best. Him and Kurt Russell have so much fun with those things.

Conan the Barbarian has one of the funniest commentaries ever. Most Arnie movies do, but the combination of Arnie being a doofus and John Milius being just the most creepy dude ever make it special.

I will take any and all opportunities to post this:

The Lord of the Rings extended edition commentaries are fantastic. There are lots of different ones too, like one track is the directors/writers and one is just the hobbits.

This is Spinal Tap commentary is pretty funny since they do it in character.

A lot of really good suggestions here. Thanks duders!

Ben Affleck's commentary track from Armageddon

Arnold Schwarzenegger's commentary track from Total Recall

John McTiernan's commentary for Predator has some darn interesting stuff in it.
Mark Gordon and Graham Yost are very entertaining in the Speed commentary.

The people who were putting together the Roadhouse DVD heard that Kevin Smith loved the movie, but they didnt do their research. He loved it because of how dumb it is. Him and Scott Mosier did an extremely funny commentary track for it, and they ended up liking it so they put it on the DVD. Its just two guys taking the piss out of the movie the whole way through. Its great and I thoroughly recommend it.

Also after the furious movies GBeast should do Roadhouse.

I haven't listened to many commentaries. I've been doing it a lot more lately. Recently, Easy Rider with the late director Dennis Hopper was interesting. Also, recently, Aguirre with Werner Herzog.

I've also been marathoning Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures and have rewatched almost every episode that had a commentary track. Bruce Timm and Erik Radomski are funny to listen to at times.

Dan watching Rocky IV during a Film and 40's. And Commando.

And Roger Ebert talking about Dark City was pretty neat.

I listened to his commentary for Citizen Kane maybe a week ago. Most of what he talked about was pretty technical, but it was worthwhile.

Red Letter Media's commentary tracks are quite entertaining.

Also, as stated in the comments above, any John Carpenter commentary with Kurt Russel is fun to listen to. Just two friends hanging out and shooting the shit, essentially.

Only film that I have watched the commentary on, it's pretty fantastic.

Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs on The Limey. An open and honest discussion of how the differences between writing a movie and directing a movie effect the story being told. Dobbs rightfully gets ticked at reviewers who tend to blame the writer, who has zero power, for "bad scripting" when the choices made by directors, producers, etc. made the changes to the script that lead to complaints.

Plus, The Limey is awesome.

I rarely listen to commentaries unless the movie is really interesting, or Kurt Russell and John Carpenter are chatting. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are other people whose chatting I make note to listen to as well.

Francis Ford Coppolla can't go a movie without getting into trouble with animal rights types. I quite like The League of Gentleman commentaries. That series just seems like so many characters spawned from inside jokes and they struggle to explain them. It's great.