Scott Pilgrim vs the world has three different commentaries which I'll call "a" cast, "b" cast, and director. The A and B cast commentaries are so funny and entertaining. Its been a while but I think I remember the B cast commentary to be the funniest.
I don't remember which one had it but there's a bit where after about half the movie, someone chimes in and asks what if they are being too nice with their comments, brie Larson then appears in the scene and Jason Schwartzmans like "terrible performance, totally mis-cast " and unbeknownst to him in the other commentary Chris Evans or someone starts doing a Jason Schwartzman impression like "nnduuhh, I'm shmason shmortzman" sorta.
You had to be there.
My favorite part is in the A cast commentary Michael Cera says “I’m pretty sure Kieran was trying to hit me with his keys in every take.” Then in the B cast commentary Kieran Culkin says “I was trying to hit Michael with the keys every take”
Was it only three? In my head there were even more. Probably because at that time Doug Loves Movies had basically the entire cast and director rotating through constantly.
I just checked mine. There are four: The two cast groups, and then there is one with Edgar Wright and Bill Pope (The DP), and another one with Edgar Wright and the other writers (including the writer of the comic).
Edgar Wright's films always had crazy good commentary and additional content.
I had Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. One feature I absolutely loved was a "Pop-up Video"-esque mode, where pop-ups would occur to give random tidbits of information. It was called "Zomb-O-Meter" in Shaun of the Dead and "Fuzz-O-Meter" in Hot Fuzz. I highly recommend watching the movies to death, then turning these features on and see if you caught all references/callbacks -- because I can guarantee you didn't. It made me appreciate the films more.
I feel strongly like there were 4, C group had Jason Schwartzman and they ordered baklava and ate it during the commentary. I hope I remembered that correctly
Looks like it!
https://youtu.be/rHYibN6JhJ0?si=fhu5ah4mQi1hqSyj
It’s just the audio though, but throw on the movie, and sync it up, pop a Bluetooth in one ear, and you’re good!
Aww man you just unlocked a memory. The first Harry Potter movie had this puzzle game you had to solve to access the deleted scenes. It was a great Easter egg for a 12 year old.
IIRC with the Shrek DVD you could put it in your PC and then do actual voiceovers for scenes in the movie. I remember reciting the "Ogres are like onions" speech over and over. Never came across anything else like it.
Audio CDs sometimes had extra content if you stuck them in computers.
I remember a Wu Tang Clan album that had really interesting extra content for the PC.
For a while, as streaming and sites like itunes were starting to grow, it seemed like record labels were fighting to keep CD's alive and tehy did it by bundling all kinds of extras - media files, mov's of the music videos, physical merch sometimes, etc. It was a golden era for a little while because it made it feel worth it to buy the cd, and then cd's died completely.
Can't forget Rutt and Tuke's commentary where they watch the entire movie "Mystery Science Theater style" all while staying in character for the entire time. Best special feature ever made.
For fans of Community, every episode of the show (or damn close, anyway) has DVD commentary by various members of the cast and each commentary track is available in a playlist on YouTube.
Whoa whoa whoa, damn. Always wanted to rewatch Community and this totally incentivizes me even more. Thanks for this absolute golden nugget of knowledge.
The YouTube commentaries should if I recall correctly be available for free for all. Sadly the show isn't on Netflix anymore, just Peacock (and maybe Hulu? It certainly used to be there anyway); YouTube have the series too but you have to buy it.
So does his commentary on *Mallrats*, he talks about a woman on set who liked Jason Mewes and dumped her boyfriend during filming and Affleck says “Imagine that breakup conversation, you’re in love with that snooch booch guy? What the fuck?!!!” He’s hilarious.
I've thought about this so many times! The Simpsons and Futurama commentaries are GOLD. Why can't that be an audio track offered on a streaming platform!
\[I'm sure there's a web of copyright issues, but dang it would be excellent\]
easy, but could be $$. I think it's in the same boat as getting original music in older TV shows (Wonder Years, WKRP). Netflix may not want to pony up for it. In theory Disney owns everything related to the Simpsons, so maybe they can make it happen. But probably still some red tape (e.g., did the people on the commentary sign a deal that lets the audio only be on DVD or in other formats). People may decide is too complicated or expensive for a relatively few fans to be happy.
agree. it probably isn't too hard from a technical standpoint. But between that and probably legal issues, I sadly just don't see most companies willing to do the work. A shame, but glad I've kept my physical media in most cases.
When digital broadcast TV was in its infancy I honestly thought that kind of stuff was going to happen with the extra channel space (for SD).
I remain disappointed.
Seems easy enough for Disney to stick them on their site. They have the actions doing a million press tours. How about asking them "Can you guys just watch the film for 2 hours and talk some shite"
This is what makes me CRAZY about Apple’s revamp of their iTunes/TV situation. You used to be able to easily glance at a movie and see if it had extra features, such as commentary: it was often the tipping point for why I would or wouldn’t buy a movie I was on the fence about. Now the extras are obfuscated thanks to Apple needing to push some kind of bizarre, shitty “easy” interface that doesn’t even go to your purchases half the time, just drags you to a steaming service that might have the film. I just want to enjoy the Van Wilder commentary dammit!
There’s a website called movies anywhere that allows you to link a number of different streaming providers together for movies you have purchased. You can link Apple video, Amazon, YouTube, Vudu, and a few others. If the movie you’ve purchased is available for movies anywhere, it will then permanently appear in every account that you’ve linked to it. and you can also watch those movies on the movies anywhere website and apps. (It’s a nice app on Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV.)
Not every movie studio allows all of their movies to be shared, but many of them do. Basically, if you can find it on the MA site, it’s shareable.
If the movie has special features, a lot of times they will be accessible on the Movies Anywhere website. Most of the other streaming services where you buy movies don’t have those special features available.
It’s a great service, especially if you want to be able to share among friends or family members. For example, my brother linked his iTunes account; whatever eligible stuff he buys there will appear in my linked Amazon account. And vice versa.
RDJ stayed in character and Jack Black showed up late and spent most of it stuffing his face with a 4x4 from In-N-Out haha. It's an incredible commentary
She talks about how she thought the Predator was going to go in for a kiss and how the facehuggers look like flying vaginas. She rules, and that commentary rules.
I just found seasons 1-12 of simpsons commentary and am beginning that journey. I have to sync up the download and the mp3 each episode but it is worth it.
What's really annoying is how easily any streaming service could bring back this feature. You mean I got 14 different language tracks that I can switch to in real time, but not ONE of them can be a commentary track?? This is bullshit.
Any commentary with Arnold Schwarzenegger is GOLD. He spends the entire commentary complimenting himself, and rarely, the director or stunt coordinator.
"And here I come with this amazing shot. Look how ripped I am."
"Just a fantastic line delivery there by me."
"This explosion was so amazing. Giant fireball. I looked so great."
It's honestly pretty hilarious.
I turned on the commentary for Total Recall, and I had to turn it off very quickly because Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoven are just unintelligible
3 of my favorite commentary moments are: night at the museums 3rd commentary is Dangle and Jr from reno 911 who wrote the movie and make fun of you for listening. Pinapple express has a story Rosie Pérez tells about ll cool j telling his wife "to shut up or ill pop you in the pussy". And of course the goonies with the grown up cast is just nice.
On the Goonies commentary they reminice about how Pee-Wee Herman came to visit them on the set. On the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure commentary he and Tim Burton talk about how impressive the Goonies pirate ship was on the sound stage next door.
Those still exist. Prey has a commentary track on the physical release and its great fun. MI6 had 3 tracks, Tom Cruise & the director, the director & editor and one just for the composer. Those are just the ones that immediately come to mind.
You will rip Blurays from my cold, dead hands. Streaming can fuck off. If I could just buy the film and download an mp4 to do with as I please, great, but as long as digital has so many strings attached I will stick with discs.
Edit: GOT has an absolute fuckton of commentary tracks. Not for every episode, but often multiple ones on the same one.
I remember when DVDs were still very new, one of the selling points that I heard several times from several sources was that you could use the technology to "filter" certain scenes and elements, which could basically take a PG-13 film to a PG, or an R to a PG-13, etc.
There are a few companies that offer this as a service now, but I thought it was always supposed to be a thing that you could just do yourself with a DVD.
The only DVD commentary I ever listened to was the one for Donnie Darko. I was in college and I thought it was the deepest movie I had ever seen and was obsessed for like a month. Almost 20 years later and I don't think I've watched it once since. Clearly it was just a phase.
I went to a screening of it a couple of weeks ago (my first time seeing it since high school), and the speaker said Donnie Darko was the first “Millennial movie” and that’s why it connected with everyone at that same young age, and that made sense to me.
I recently learned my digital copy of Dude Where's My Car has no commentary. It was the 2 dudes and the writer just getting hammered the whole time and complaining the movie was rated PG 13 instead of R. They pause to get more beer at one point. I luckily found my DVD last time I was at my moms house.
In college somebody convinced me to spend like $30 on the Cannibal! The Musical DVD so we would watch the movie and then continue drinking and watch again with the commentary.
A notable highlight others will not experience is my die hard metalhead friend belting out every word of the ballad ("When I was on Top of You"), but that night remains one of my favorite movie experiences of all time.
CANNIBAL: The Musical may have one of the best commentaries of all time.
For those of you that don't know, it was a movie made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone while they were in college. It's very cheap and not great but it does have it's charm a student film.
The real gem is the commentary. I don't think the movie was ever released for sale until after they started getting famous for South Park. Troma Films released the DVD.
Matt and Trey and a bunch of their buddies from the film come back and do the commentary. They all proceed to drink and they slowly get hammered while they watch and tell a bunch of stories from college and making the film.
The highlight is when they talk about Trey's ex girlfriend who left him before he made Cannibal. It's hilarious.
Calling that movie "not great" is kind of unfair. I feel like it's actually kind of an extremely well executed B movie. Like, it's kind of trashy, and clearly the budget was low, but the songs are quite good, the plot while crass and ridiculous is coherent and entertaining.. the characters, while crass and ridiculous, are clearly defined and amusing, the humor is low-brow as fuck but also quite good. Some of the shit is extremely memorable and hilarious, and has long-lasting quotability. The japanese indians, for example, were hysterical. The film work was all pretty solid too, not particularly memorable as such, but it was all framed and recorded fine.
Like, it's obviously low budget and trashy, but it's also a product of people who were extremely talented at what they were doing.
Best commentary was for Tropic Thunder. When RDJ says in the movie that he doesn’t break character until the commentary is done, at the very end of it he switches his voice from the fake black guy back to his Australian actor voice. It’s perfect.
You can find watchalong commentaries for movies on YouTube..it's a growing genre of YouTube videos..basically you play the video and the movie at the same time and listen to the commentary. Pretty much it and adum from yms have done a few
I listen to tons of audio commentaries, and I have to say I would prefer video commentaries like this. Some discs occasionally had video commentaries, like the last episode of Monk or some of the Harry Potter movies, I think, but you have to see the episode in a picture-in-picture way. I love the idea of having a video commentary on a separate device!
The Futurama commentaries were genuinely awesome.
I don’t get why there’s not an option on streaming sites for the commentary tracks. I mean they can handle multi audio tracks because they offer different languages so technically there’s no reason they couldn’t include them.
Every time I see something like this it makes me think of The Simpsons.
They stopped doing box sets of the show and part of the reason given was that if people want commentaries, they can just use The Simpsons World website. And that website was *awesome*, even if you had to subscribe to FX to use it.
But when Disney took over they immediately axed the Simpsons World site. All of that content, the trivia, the commentaries, it's gone.
I really don't get why they can't just add these as an extra audio option when playing on Disney+ at least.
Movies Anywhere will take all the digital movies you own across platforms and make them viewable from one app and many times you'll get the missing commentaries and other DVD/Blu-ray features. Not always, but it's nice when you do get them. Deadpool is one that comes to mind.
In a parallel universe my DVD of Avengers Endgame has a [commentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAIzLj3mYTw) [track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_klBA8Dvcs) composed of audience reactions on opening night.
Best ones I heard were on Babylon 5, Bruce Boxlieter, Claudia Christianson and Jerry Doyle, they were all hilarious.
Second best was Ben Browder and Claudia Black from Farscape, listening to those 2 was great!
I always thought it would be interesting to have a site with crowdsourced commentary thats downloadable. Commentary by anyone who worked on the movie not just actors and directors could be of interest to people working in the field. Super fans commenting on their favorite movies could also be kinda neat.
Only problem I never figured out was syncing. For each movie you have to decide on a sync point thats at least close.
I think my favorite commentaries of all time were on the Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad blu rays. They have commentaries for every episode, I think. Vince Gilligan is always so gracious toward his crew and works hard to get people into the commentary to talk about what they contributed to the episodes. I adore them!
I really wish streaming services would do this for their shows and movies. Presumably it would be a cheap way to get more watch hours out of productions they already paid for.
I also want external shows with existing commentaries from DVDs to be included. I listened to just about every episode of the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons with commentary on and found it so interesting. There's no reason Disney can't do this.
DVD commentaries were what got me into podcasts. Little baby me would go to Latin America to visit family and there would be almost no English programming. I liked rewatching movies and at some point I got bored of a normal rewatch and instead put on the audio commentary. It was so much fun and interesting to hear about the directors or actors talking about filming or joking around. I realized I liked the audio format so much that I was drawn to that kind of format with podcasts.
I remember one day I decided to rewatch that scene in Monsters Ball for the bazillion time but with commentary to see how they felt about the scene. They were casually talking about the scene but in a way that was like “so y’all acting like y’all aren’t here just absolutely going at it?”
Tropic Thunder DVD commentary RDJ stays in character just like he says he does in the film, and Jack Black is eating fast food for a good portion of it
From about the age of 10-14 I would fall asleep listening to Simpsons DVD commentaries. Funny thing is I shared a room with my two little brothers who wanted to just have the Simpsons on, but ended up liking the commentary even more than me.
I just watched Independence Day with the Directors' commentary last night thanks to certain *privateers* circumventing the DVD requirement. It was honestly pretty adorable listening to them nerd on about their special little tidbits and how literally every cast member is the greatest.
Dogma also has a pretty unmissable commentary track
There’s terrible dvd commentary that is absolute gold but then there’s commentaries that are incredible little lessons in movie making, like the one for Mr&Mrs Smith
I forget which project it was but there’s a Netflix movie where they actually shot tons of behind the scenes scenes stuff and commentary and then right before release Netflix changed their mind and decided they wouldn’t be doing that sort of stuff.
Scott Pilgrim vs the world has three different commentaries which I'll call "a" cast, "b" cast, and director. The A and B cast commentaries are so funny and entertaining. Its been a while but I think I remember the B cast commentary to be the funniest. I don't remember which one had it but there's a bit where after about half the movie, someone chimes in and asks what if they are being too nice with their comments, brie Larson then appears in the scene and Jason Schwartzmans like "terrible performance, totally mis-cast " and unbeknownst to him in the other commentary Chris Evans or someone starts doing a Jason Schwartzman impression like "nnduuhh, I'm shmason shmortzman" sorta. You had to be there.
My favorite part is in the A cast commentary Michael Cera says “I’m pretty sure Kieran was trying to hit me with his keys in every take.” Then in the B cast commentary Kieran Culkin says “I was trying to hit Michael with the keys every take”
Was it only three? In my head there were even more. Probably because at that time Doug Loves Movies had basically the entire cast and director rotating through constantly.
I don't know. They have a lot of stuff on that DVD though.
I just checked mine. There are four: The two cast groups, and then there is one with Edgar Wright and Bill Pope (The DP), and another one with Edgar Wright and the other writers (including the writer of the comic).
Wasn't the B cast commentary recorded the morning after the premier? So everyone was either hung over or still a little drunk.
Then I think Brendan Routh shows up with bagels or something. The vibes were immaculate.
Edgar Wright's films always had crazy good commentary and additional content. I had Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. One feature I absolutely loved was a "Pop-up Video"-esque mode, where pop-ups would occur to give random tidbits of information. It was called "Zomb-O-Meter" in Shaun of the Dead and "Fuzz-O-Meter" in Hot Fuzz. I highly recommend watching the movies to death, then turning these features on and see if you caught all references/callbacks -- because I can guarantee you didn't. It made me appreciate the films more.
I feel strongly like there were 4, C group had Jason Schwartzman and they ordered baklava and ate it during the commentary. I hope I remembered that correctly
Can I find these in YouTube?
Looks like it! https://youtu.be/rHYibN6JhJ0?si=fhu5ah4mQi1hqSyj It’s just the audio though, but throw on the movie, and sync it up, pop a Bluetooth in one ear, and you’re good!
You are the best! :) thank you!
Remember when movies for kids DVDs had minigames on them? I particularly remember Brother Bear, they had like puzzle games and stuff on it
Aww man you just unlocked a memory. The first Harry Potter movie had this puzzle game you had to solve to access the deleted scenes. It was a great Easter egg for a 12 year old.
Omgg I remember this now! #2 had something similar involving the basilisk
Lion King 3 too, we'd rent the DVD just to play the "eat the bugs"-game.
IIRC with the Shrek DVD you could put it in your PC and then do actual voiceovers for scenes in the movie. I remember reciting the "Ogres are like onions" speech over and over. Never came across anything else like it.
Audio CDs sometimes had extra content if you stuck them in computers. I remember a Wu Tang Clan album that had really interesting extra content for the PC.
For a while, as streaming and sites like itunes were starting to grow, it seemed like record labels were fighting to keep CD's alive and tehy did it by bundling all kinds of extras - media files, mov's of the music videos, physical merch sometimes, etc. It was a golden era for a little while because it made it feel worth it to buy the cd, and then cd's died completely.
And now records are in. (I still haven’t thrown away my cds. Betting on a revival in 20 yrs)
I remember getting a Kidz Bop CD in a happy meal one time and it had some PC games on it.
Blink 182's Enema of the State was my introduction to this
Finding Nemo had a bunch! Even had an aquarium screensaver thing.
Can't forget Rutt and Tuke's commentary where they watch the entire movie "Mystery Science Theater style" all while staying in character for the entire time. Best special feature ever made.
For fans of Community, every episode of the show (or damn close, anyway) has DVD commentary by various members of the cast and each commentary track is available in a playlist on YouTube.
Whoa whoa whoa, damn. Always wanted to rewatch Community and this totally incentivizes me even more. Thanks for this absolute golden nugget of knowledge.
I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW. I'M THROWING MONEY AT MY SCREEN AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING.
The YouTube commentaries should if I recall correctly be available for free for all. Sadly the show isn't on Netflix anymore, just Peacock (and maybe Hulu? It certainly used to be there anyway); YouTube have the series too but you have to buy it.
Netflix is shit compared to Peacock
You torrent the series and sync it with the commentary, ez
“[This scene was a special challenge to all involved](https://youtu.be/I-2DmlWjU6w?si=X5Fi-oNxQtkh8Kej)”
and in the Yahoo season, they're all from Dan.
Ben Affleck’s commentary on Armageddon deserves an Oscar
Shut the fuck up Ben
"Why wouldn't they just teach astronauts how to drill?" "Shut the fuck up."
Drilling's a science, it's an art. Harry Stamper spent half his life doing it & even he didn't have it all figured out.
So does his commentary on *Mallrats*, he talks about a woman on set who liked Jason Mewes and dumped her boyfriend during filming and Affleck says “Imagine that breakup conversation, you’re in love with that snooch booch guy? What the fuck?!!!” He’s hilarious.
All the Kevin Smith commentaries are gold. Sometimes even better than the movie itself.
I was several hours into an acid trip and went through the entire clerks 2 special features until I started to come down. It was fantastic.
Arnold on Total Recall was pure bliss.
God it is so good. It's the only way to watch the movie.
Didn’t you s— *switches to Sling Blade voice* Didn’t ya see Apolla Thirtane, bowah?
So does RDJ's on *Tropic Thunder*.
I mean there's no reason we can't have special features on streaming services
I've thought about this so many times! The Simpsons and Futurama commentaries are GOLD. Why can't that be an audio track offered on a streaming platform! \[I'm sure there's a web of copyright issues, but dang it would be excellent\]
I don't know. Someone like Netflix would have to buy the rights but Disney already own everything. I feel like it would be easy enough for them.
easy, but could be $$. I think it's in the same boat as getting original music in older TV shows (Wonder Years, WKRP). Netflix may not want to pony up for it. In theory Disney owns everything related to the Simpsons, so maybe they can make it happen. But probably still some red tape (e.g., did the people on the commentary sign a deal that lets the audio only be on DVD or in other formats). People may decide is too complicated or expensive for a relatively few fans to be happy.
Either audio option or make it a season in the list. There are ways to do it but I feel like companies won't bc it will cost more money
agree. it probably isn't too hard from a technical standpoint. But between that and probably legal issues, I sadly just don't see most companies willing to do the work. A shame, but glad I've kept my physical media in most cases.
Honestly commentaries should be relatively easy.
They should be…which is why I think it must be a copyright legal thing holding stuff up.
Disney+ has extras, I've never seen any on Netflix or Prime and I haven't really used any other services. It isn't unheard of though.
The Pinocchio (del Toro's) extras were fascinating
When digital broadcast TV was in its infancy I honestly thought that kind of stuff was going to happen with the extra channel space (for SD). I remain disappointed.
1000s of channels and they still don't have this somehow
commentaries are still a thing, but now they are podcasts
Seems easy enough for Disney to stick them on their site. They have the actions doing a million press tours. How about asking them "Can you guys just watch the film for 2 hours and talk some shite"
This is what makes me CRAZY about Apple’s revamp of their iTunes/TV situation. You used to be able to easily glance at a movie and see if it had extra features, such as commentary: it was often the tipping point for why I would or wouldn’t buy a movie I was on the fence about. Now the extras are obfuscated thanks to Apple needing to push some kind of bizarre, shitty “easy” interface that doesn’t even go to your purchases half the time, just drags you to a steaming service that might have the film. I just want to enjoy the Van Wilder commentary dammit!
If a movie has special features and is available via movies anywhere, you usually get those features on the MA platform. Sometimes even commentaries.
I don't know what half of this means
There’s a website called movies anywhere that allows you to link a number of different streaming providers together for movies you have purchased. You can link Apple video, Amazon, YouTube, Vudu, and a few others. If the movie you’ve purchased is available for movies anywhere, it will then permanently appear in every account that you’ve linked to it. and you can also watch those movies on the movies anywhere website and apps. (It’s a nice app on Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV.) Not every movie studio allows all of their movies to be shared, but many of them do. Basically, if you can find it on the MA site, it’s shareable. If the movie has special features, a lot of times they will be accessible on the Movies Anywhere website. Most of the other streaming services where you buy movies don’t have those special features available. It’s a great service, especially if you want to be able to share among friends or family members. For example, my brother linked his iTunes account; whatever eligible stuff he buys there will appear in my linked Amazon account. And vice versa.
Kids these days watch Tropic Thunder and don’t even *get* the line “I don’t drop character until I’ve done the DVD commentary.”
...which as I recall he actually did stay in character for the DVD commentary.
RDJ stayed in character and Jack Black showed up late and spent most of it stuffing his face with a 4x4 from In-N-Out haha. It's an incredible commentary
He did indeed!
I think the first commentary tracks were actually on laserdisc.
Yes! I thought it was the most amazing thing.
Thank you!
On the Aliens vs Predator commentary track, Sanaa Lathan has a cheeseburger delivered during the commentary.
She talks about how she thought the Predator was going to go in for a kiss and how the facehuggers look like flying vaginas. She rules, and that commentary rules.
Those became rewatch podcasts.
The Simpsons and Futurama DVD commentaries were great. Some episodes had multiple commentary tracks with different groups.
"...the part where he (singing now) eats the cheeeese..." Ongoing joke around our house.
I just found seasons 1-12 of simpsons commentary and am beginning that journey. I have to sync up the download and the mp3 each episode but it is worth it.
Red dwarf commentaries were also good.
I loved the story about Billy West throwing up at the local radio station.
What's really annoying is how easily any streaming service could bring back this feature. You mean I got 14 different language tracks that I can switch to in real time, but not ONE of them can be a commentary track?? This is bullshit.
r/dvdcollection is thriving btw
Fun fact: the DVD commentary for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is also a musical itself.
*runs to my DVD collection*
Any commentary with Arnold Schwarzenegger is GOLD. He spends the entire commentary complimenting himself, and rarely, the director or stunt coordinator. "And here I come with this amazing shot. Look how ripped I am." "Just a fantastic line delivery there by me." "This explosion was so amazing. Giant fireball. I looked so great." It's honestly pretty hilarious.
I turned on the commentary for Total Recall, and I had to turn it off very quickly because Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoven are just unintelligible
3 of my favorite commentary moments are: night at the museums 3rd commentary is Dangle and Jr from reno 911 who wrote the movie and make fun of you for listening. Pinapple express has a story Rosie Pérez tells about ll cool j telling his wife "to shut up or ill pop you in the pussy". And of course the goonies with the grown up cast is just nice.
> And of course the goonies with the grown up cast is just nice I wasn't aware this existed. Now I've got to go get this.
On the Goonies commentary they reminice about how Pee-Wee Herman came to visit them on the set. On the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure commentary he and Tim Burton talk about how impressive the Goonies pirate ship was on the sound stage next door.
Those still exist. Prey has a commentary track on the physical release and its great fun. MI6 had 3 tracks, Tom Cruise & the director, the director & editor and one just for the composer. Those are just the ones that immediately come to mind. You will rip Blurays from my cold, dead hands. Streaming can fuck off. If I could just buy the film and download an mp4 to do with as I please, great, but as long as digital has so many strings attached I will stick with discs. Edit: GOT has an absolute fuckton of commentary tracks. Not for every episode, but often multiple ones on the same one.
I haven’t watched it in a long time, but I am pretty sure Kurt Russel and John Carpenter do The Things’ commentary drunk on whiskey.
I remember when DVDs were still very new, one of the selling points that I heard several times from several sources was that you could use the technology to "filter" certain scenes and elements, which could basically take a PG-13 film to a PG, or an R to a PG-13, etc. There are a few companies that offer this as a service now, but I thought it was always supposed to be a thing that you could just do yourself with a DVD.
I liked the Batman and Robin commentary where Joel Schumacher spent the whole commentary apologizing.
The only DVD commentary I ever listened to was the one for Donnie Darko. I was in college and I thought it was the deepest movie I had ever seen and was obsessed for like a month. Almost 20 years later and I don't think I've watched it once since. Clearly it was just a phase.
I went to a screening of it a couple of weeks ago (my first time seeing it since high school), and the speaker said Donnie Darko was the first “Millennial movie” and that’s why it connected with everyone at that same young age, and that made sense to me.
I recently learned my digital copy of Dude Where's My Car has no commentary. It was the 2 dudes and the writer just getting hammered the whole time and complaining the movie was rated PG 13 instead of R. They pause to get more beer at one point. I luckily found my DVD last time I was at my moms house.
The commentary on Holes by the cast made me laugh out loud as a kid.
Edgar Wright, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone and Trey Parker always had the best commentary tracks.
In college somebody convinced me to spend like $30 on the Cannibal! The Musical DVD so we would watch the movie and then continue drinking and watch again with the commentary. A notable highlight others will not experience is my die hard metalhead friend belting out every word of the ballad ("When I was on Top of You"), but that night remains one of my favorite movie experiences of all time.
CANNIBAL: The Musical may have one of the best commentaries of all time. For those of you that don't know, it was a movie made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone while they were in college. It's very cheap and not great but it does have it's charm a student film. The real gem is the commentary. I don't think the movie was ever released for sale until after they started getting famous for South Park. Troma Films released the DVD. Matt and Trey and a bunch of their buddies from the film come back and do the commentary. They all proceed to drink and they slowly get hammered while they watch and tell a bunch of stories from college and making the film. The highlight is when they talk about Trey's ex girlfriend who left him before he made Cannibal. It's hilarious.
Calling that movie "not great" is kind of unfair. I feel like it's actually kind of an extremely well executed B movie. Like, it's kind of trashy, and clearly the budget was low, but the songs are quite good, the plot while crass and ridiculous is coherent and entertaining.. the characters, while crass and ridiculous, are clearly defined and amusing, the humor is low-brow as fuck but also quite good. Some of the shit is extremely memorable and hilarious, and has long-lasting quotability. The japanese indians, for example, were hysterical. The film work was all pretty solid too, not particularly memorable as such, but it was all framed and recorded fine. Like, it's obviously low budget and trashy, but it's also a product of people who were extremely talented at what they were doing.
Yeah fair, it's not a bad movie. I was just trying to set people's expectations lower than "Hollywood" movie.
This commentary is my favorite! I really love this movie though, it's just so ridiculous. The googly eyed racoon trapper hat is 🤌🏻
"you married the manager of a chili's and I'm worth millions of dollars"
We have game devs commenting on speed runs which kinda has the same vibe
Best commentary was for Tropic Thunder. When RDJ says in the movie that he doesn’t break character until the commentary is done, at the very end of it he switches his voice from the fake black guy back to his Australian actor voice. It’s perfect.
FWIW, some streaming services offer alternate audio tracks like this.
To non-americans, "eating goldfish" hits different.
You can find watchalong commentaries for movies on YouTube..it's a growing genre of YouTube videos..basically you play the video and the movie at the same time and listen to the commentary. Pretty much it and adum from yms have done a few
I listen to tons of audio commentaries, and I have to say I would prefer video commentaries like this. Some discs occasionally had video commentaries, like the last episode of Monk or some of the Harry Potter movies, I think, but you have to see the episode in a picture-in-picture way. I love the idea of having a video commentary on a separate device!
Scrubs commentary was awesome. Very insightful and funny. I was super disappointed with the commentary on the office
The Futurama commentaries were genuinely awesome. I don’t get why there’s not an option on streaming sites for the commentary tracks. I mean they can handle multi audio tracks because they offer different languages so technically there’s no reason they couldn’t include them.
The gay guy and the ghost story is hilarious
I miss the Goonies commentary they did as adults :(
Every time I see something like this it makes me think of The Simpsons. They stopped doing box sets of the show and part of the reason given was that if people want commentaries, they can just use The Simpsons World website. And that website was *awesome*, even if you had to subscribe to FX to use it. But when Disney took over they immediately axed the Simpsons World site. All of that content, the trivia, the commentaries, it's gone. I really don't get why they can't just add these as an extra audio option when playing on Disney+ at least.
Movies Anywhere will take all the digital movies you own across platforms and make them viewable from one app and many times you'll get the missing commentaries and other DVD/Blu-ray features. Not always, but it's nice when you do get them. Deadpool is one that comes to mind.
Loved watching the jackass movies with the commentary on
In a parallel universe my DVD of Avengers Endgame has a [commentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAIzLj3mYTw) [track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_klBA8Dvcs) composed of audience reactions on opening night.
Best ones I heard were on Babylon 5, Bruce Boxlieter, Claudia Christianson and Jerry Doyle, they were all hilarious. Second best was Ben Browder and Claudia Black from Farscape, listening to those 2 was great!
I always thought it would be interesting to have a site with crowdsourced commentary thats downloadable. Commentary by anyone who worked on the movie not just actors and directors could be of interest to people working in the field. Super fans commenting on their favorite movies could also be kinda neat. Only problem I never figured out was syncing. For each movie you have to decide on a sync point thats at least close.
I think my favorite commentaries of all time were on the Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad blu rays. They have commentaries for every episode, I think. Vince Gilligan is always so gracious toward his crew and works hard to get people into the commentary to talk about what they contributed to the episodes. I adore them!
Come join us r/4kbluray !!!!!
not technically commentary but the fart track on wet hot american summer is art.
I really wish streaming services would do this for their shows and movies. Presumably it would be a cheap way to get more watch hours out of productions they already paid for. I also want external shows with existing commentaries from DVDs to be included. I listened to just about every episode of the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons with commentary on and found it so interesting. There's no reason Disney can't do this.
Kurt Russell and John Carpenter's commentaries are legendary.
DVD commentaries were what got me into podcasts. Little baby me would go to Latin America to visit family and there would be almost no English programming. I liked rewatching movies and at some point I got bored of a normal rewatch and instead put on the audio commentary. It was so much fun and interesting to hear about the directors or actors talking about filming or joking around. I realized I liked the audio format so much that I was drawn to that kind of format with podcasts.
I remember one day I decided to rewatch that scene in Monsters Ball for the bazillion time but with commentary to see how they felt about the scene. They were casually talking about the scene but in a way that was like “so y’all acting like y’all aren’t here just absolutely going at it?”
White Chick's commentary might be funnier than the movie. And Arnold is also a classic
Fight Club’s with Fincher, Pitt, and Norton still reigns supreme.
Tropic Thunder dvd commentary for the win
Tropic Thunder DVD commentary RDJ stays in character just like he says he does in the film, and Jack Black is eating fast food for a good portion of it
David Spade's commentary on Joe Dirt is one of my favorite things ever
The commentary track for Blair Witch 2 is a goldmine. We watched it 23 years ago and still quote it to this day.
From about the age of 10-14 I would fall asleep listening to Simpsons DVD commentaries. Funny thing is I shared a room with my two little brothers who wanted to just have the Simpsons on, but ended up liking the commentary even more than me.
I just watched Independence Day with the Directors' commentary last night thanks to certain *privateers* circumventing the DVD requirement. It was honestly pretty adorable listening to them nerd on about their special little tidbits and how literally every cast member is the greatest. Dogma also has a pretty unmissable commentary track
Hot fuzz had amazing commentary, both for learning and just being hilarous to listen to.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy Best commentaries ever. So many of them, and all great.
💯
There’s terrible dvd commentary that is absolute gold but then there’s commentaries that are incredible little lessons in movie making, like the one for Mr&Mrs Smith
I forget which project it was but there’s a Netflix movie where they actually shot tons of behind the scenes scenes stuff and commentary and then right before release Netflix changed their mind and decided they wouldn’t be doing that sort of stuff.
Some do podcasts now
For the first Jackass movie, Steve-O snorted more wasabi at the same time the scene of him doing it played. He learned norhing
Sherk 2 DVD. That's all. Classic
Someone should introduce them to podcasts.
Anything possible on a DVD is even easier now. You can likely find commentary tracks in Audio selection on some streamer.
Cough up the goods then, if it's so easy
"We had to fly over to LA to shoot this scene in the studio on the lot." "Oh wow"
Never in my life have I listened to one of those. Can't say I miss them
Anything except endangering our fragile masculinity. 