Favorite Audio Commentary Tracks

[ToyMan]

i'm a huge fan of commentaries. i'm wondering if we can merge this thread with these others...

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,3962.0.html
http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,62868.0.html

i really love the joe-bob briggs commentaries for media blasters' shriek show and guilty pleasures discs. fun stuff. i've always wondered why more discs don't have commentaries by legit film buffs, if the people involved in the films are either unable to contribute to one, or simply won't/can't for whatever reason.

also, the mike nelson "mst3k-esque" commentary on the NOTLD dvd was a bit of fun, and i imagine the others he contributed around the same time were similarly interesting.

[WingedSerpent]

My two favorite are
Roger Ebert on Dark City.  It was really interesting to hear him critique the movie.  I really learned a lot about film, style, mood, from it.

Milla Joevich Resident Evil -She's talks like some stupid high school kid.  Almost Totally absent minded.

[Torgo]

1) Escape from New York  (Kurt Russell, John Carpenter)
2) The Thing    (Kurt Russell, John Carpenter)
3) Big Trouble in Little China   (Kurt Russell, John Carpenter)
4) Zombie 3  (can't remember their names, but the male and female leads proceed to completely rip this movie apart which is hilarious)
5  Jason Goes to Hell  (the director and writer take a great attitude in commenting and making fun of this infamous entry in the F13th series.)

[HappyGilmore]

UHF- Weird Al/Jay Levey talking about the making.  Informative, funny, and I loved Al getting up and walking around for donuts.

Any Kevin Smith Commentary- Any of the commentaries he's done.

Orgazmo- Trey Parker and crew talk about making Orgazmo.  The whole Orgazmo disc is great though.

Cannibal! The Musical- same reasons as stated by previous people here.

South Park- Any of the commentaries of the tv shows.  Especially for Imaginationland.

Boy Meets World- The Commentaries on the dvd's are great.  Especially during the first season, when they had Matthew Lawrence as a guest.  They asked him all sorts of questions, and he couldn't answer them, as he wasn't even a cast member of the first season.  He's all like, "I was filming Super Human Samurai Syber-Squad at the time.  I wasn't even a cast member of this show until the 5th season."

[Torgo]

Oh yeah, and I can't forget to mention Bruce Campbell's fantastic commentary tracks for the 3 Evil Dead movies.

[Ozzymandias]

Ozzymandias speaks: Much of what I have are older horror films with historians talking. Some have two British film historians that remind me of Cook & Moore's beer drinkers giving the commentary. It's funny to listen to these guys, but they do know their stuff.

The Gunsmoke 50th Anninversary Part One 55 - 65 is a best of with commentaries from James Arness, Dennis Weaver, Angie Dickenson, Barbara Eden, George Kennedy and Adam West.

On Get Smart season one, the pilot episode has two commentary tracks from Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. Another episode has a comentary by Barbara Feldon.

Blackboard Jungle has a track that is Jamie Farr, Paul Mazurky, Peter Ford (Glenn's son) and another man (a producer?).

All time favorite is Hal Borkske on the Ghastly Ones DVD. He swears like a sailor but is funny. He starts off by saying "This movie is going to suck."

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!
 

[ToyMan]

i liked the batman: the movie (1966) commentary. listening to adam west and burt ward coo over the catwoman was pretty hilarious.

any commentary featuring george romero has entertained and informed me, as well. he's just a really great speaker, and knows exactly what his fans want to hear about the goings-on behind the scenes.

the american werewolf in london commentary was similiarly informative, giving your backstory on a few of the little easter eggs that landis dropped in there. another very entertaining director, as a person.

commentary on basket case was a lot of fun, although it's been a long time since i've listened to it. it was refreshing, though, to see that henenlotter didn't take himself, or his film too seriously.

conversely, the commentary on the howling III: the marsupials surprised me in that phillipe mora showed that he actually did take care in crafting the movie, and that while it looks like the movie came out hokey, he intended it to be exactly what he produced.

[HappyGilmore]

i liked the batman: the movie (1966) commentary. listening to adam west and burt ward coo over the catwoman was pretty hilarious.

any commentary featuring george romero has entertained and informed me, as well. he's just a really great speaker, and knows exactly what his fans want to hear about the goings-on behind the scenes.

the american werewolf in london commentary was similiarly informative, giving your backstory on a few of the little easter eggs that landis dropped in there. another very entertaining director, as a person.

commentary on basket case was a lot of fun, although it's been a long time since i've listened to it. it was refreshing, though, to see that henenlotter didn't take himself, or his film too seriously.

conversely, the commentary on the howling III: the marsupials surprised me in that phillipe mora showed that he actually did take care in crafting the movie, and that while it looks like the movie came out hokey, he intended it to be exactly what he produced.

Agreed on the Romero commentaries.  I'm a big fan of his.

[ToyMan]

when i was living in chicago, i saw him at a convention/screening (the crazies/creepshow/day of the dead) and he was so nice and warm-hearted. you get the sense that he's really happy that he never let himself get absorbed into the hollywood system, and went his own way, for his own reasons.

also, whenever he does his dario argento impression, the audience cracks up. great stuff.

[Rev. Powell]

Although I'm not a huge fan of audio commentaries in general, Guillermo del Toro's job on
PAN'S LABYRINTH taught me more than I would have thought possible and pointed out images that affected me subliminally, but that I never would have noticed in my own.

[AndyC]

, but the most entertaining of
> the bunch is the Carpenter/Russell commentary on Escape from
> New York.


I liked their commentary on Big Trouble in Little China

I agree. That one was pretty funny, especially when they start talking about what went wrong with the marketing.
Newspaper ad: Who is this man and where is he going?  Kurt Russell: "Who gives a sh!t?"
That and the studio suits just not understanding the movie. Funny stuff.

[ToyMan]

i don't think we need a whole different thread for worst commentaries, so i'll just put this here-

the commentary for starship troopers has to be the most disappointing one i've come across yet. first off, it's actually a little difficult to understand verhoven from time to time, and worse than that, he spent way too much time talking about the political ideals that inspired the film, and not enough time providing anectodes about its production. i mean, the film is pretty blatant in what it's saying, he didn't really need to spell it out for us, did he?

i'm also mildly disappointed by commentaries where it's really just a bunch of stitched-together audio clips of two or three people talking about the film, especially if it's not scene-specific. i think, off the top of my head, that the commentary for candyman was like this. while it was better than listening to people tell the same old stories they did during the documentaries, or listening to minutes of dead air between scenes, it's just not as entertaining as a "live" commentary, if you ask me.

back to good commentaries, though-

has anyone heard the commentary on the region 2 (uk) edition of they live? is it especially good? when i bought the region 1 disc, i felt like it could have offered more features, and when i found out that the other disc offered a commentary, i felt a little slighted.

[Psycho Circus]

My favourites are The Goonies and Big Trouble In Little China. 

[BTM]

2nd up would have to be LOTR: FOTR

Which one?  If you get the extended DVDs they have, I believe, FOUR different commentary tracks.  (Yes, four!)

[the master]

My favourites are The Goonies and Big Trouble In Little China. 

the goonies on is great