I was listening to the Boogie Nights commentary last week and was consistently shocked and surprised at how thoughtful and interesting Paul Thomas Anderson's insights into the filming were. Lots of different stories and reflective thoughts about filming and story-telling. I was impressed.

I listen to a lot of commentary because I'm weird in that I like to fall asleep to people talking sometimes...but sometimes they're so intriguing that I have to revisit them the next day and listen to them in full.

Francis Ford Coppola's commentary on Apocalypse Now is also very interesting and worth the time to listen to.

Kurt Russell and John Carpenter - Big Trouble in Little China

Entertaining / funny:

-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson; Criterion)
-This is Spinal Tap
-Blood Simple
-Apatow and cast commentaries (especially 40 YOV)
-Kevin Smith (funnier than his movies)
-Herzog
-Men in Black (Sonnenfeld and Jones)




Insightful / informative commentaries:

-Straw Dogs (Criterion)
-Citizen Kane (Ebert not Bogdanovich)
-All three Godfathers (Coppola; the third made me see what his intentions were; upgrades the film from outright awful to really bad)
-Dark City (Ebert)
-Dazed and Confused (Criterion)
-Herzog (especially Fitzcarraldo)
-Killer of Sheep
-If... (Criterion)
-Rules of the Game (Criterion)
-L'avventura (Criterion)
-Autumn Afternoon (Criterion)
-Alexander Nevsky (Criterion)


To pick one from each: Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Prince on Straw Dogs. Listen to them ASAP.

it's brilliantly fucking funny.

but during the fight club commentary with ed norton and brad pitt, ed was going off on the one scene when they were walking down the street, bashing in the windshields of every car windshield.

he said he insisted on only smashing bmws and mbs and shit, and leaving the more economical cars like the civics and geos be.

but he insisted on having a vw new beetle, because he particularly loathed how the hippy generation grew up, became captains of industry (apparently, specifically at vw), and tried tor recreate their youth with it, rathering than creating something new and original. it's difficult to carry across his tone, but i would call it kind of heavy handed and pedantic.

brad pitt, quiet this whole time, replies "wow, ed, i never thought about that, that generation really has captured their youth in that car. i think im going to get one."

i thought it was funny how he just clowned ed norton. in general, those guys were pretty good.

mcnulty and omar gave a great commentary on an ep in s2. they were talking about nick sobotkas gfs tits.

kevin smith is always entertaining.

i havent heard qt i dont think, but i would guess he would be awesome.

>mcnulty and omar gave a great commentary on an ep in s2. they
>were talking about nick sobotkas gfs tits.

Yup, that's a funny one. I was also laughing at Michael K. Williams laughing at Dominic West's story of his audition tape.

Also on the tv tip, the Freaks and Geeks commentary with Coach Fredricks, Rosso, and Kowchevski in character is great and the Sopranos Season 6B with Silvio and Carlo (not in character) was pretty funny at times.

I really like Robert Rodriguez's commentaries as well. Listening to El Mariachi and Desperado is like a crash course in film making.

The "celebrity" commentary with Matt Stone is a great breakdown on the differences between British & American TV


©


dough ray me
but I don't sing mothafucka

All the original and redone SPACED commentaries are great as are the Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz commentaries.

I agree, Pegg/Wright's commentaries are hilarious.

More often than not, I get the feeling the director is fulfilling a contractual obligation.
They'll digress at the drop of a hat.

I was pretty impressed with the American Beauty commentary.
P.T. Anderson's are pretty good as well.

I know it sounds crazy but if you watch the "How High" DVD commentary you'll be laughing your ass of for the whole film

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Really anecdotal and quirky. Especially the commentary for The Life Aquatic

Robert Downey in character nearly the entire time...Jack Black...Baron Davis...hilarious...

Darren Aronofsky's commentary on Requiem...

the commentary on Brazil was interesting, but I don't think it was Gilliam...maybe his cinematographer?

Spike's commentary on the 20th Anniv. Ed of Do the Right Thing

pretty much any film or show I love, I feel compelled to listen to the commentary, and I agree, it is a good way to go to sleep...the whole learning through osmosis thing...

just watched Bogdanovich's commentary on a Soprano's ep. he directed for season 5--boring, but I enjoyed his use of jargon and anecdotes about Hitchcock--"Hitch said never use an establishing shot to establish a scene...use it at the dramatic peak."

Dude knew EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING.

not very informative..

with JOn Brion scoring the commentary, and Will Ferrell singing for most of the movie.

that one freaks and geeks commentary where the teachers are in character

n/m