DVD Audio Commentary - The Best & The Rest

And so, on to the commentary commentary...

Recent Additions:

- The Enforcer (Ultimate Collector's Edition)
- Magnum Force (Ultimate Collector's Edition)
- Ace in the Hole (Criterion)
- Dirty Harry (Ultimate Collector's Edition)
- Futurama - The Beast With A Billion Backs
- All Monsters Attack (Toho Master Collection)
- Terror of Mechagodzilla (Toho Master Collection)
- Black Widow
- Malcolm
- if... (Criterion)
- The Guns of Navarone (Collector's Edition)
- A Clockwork Orange (2-Disc)
- The Shining (2-Disc Special Edition)
- Loan Shark (Forgotten Noir Volume 2)
- Spider-man 3 (2-Disc Special Edition)
- Bladerunner (Four-Disc Collector's Edition)
- Midnight Express (30th Anniversary Edition)
- House of Bamboo
- Portland Expose (Forgotten Noir Volume 1)
- Two-Lane Blacktop (Criterion)

The Best

12 Monkeys
Commentary by director Terry Gilliam and producer Charles Roven. Terry's a very interesting guy and always manages to weave an entertaining commentary. Still, his giggling, stream-of-consciousness delivery can be grating, and left to his own pretentious devices he can get to be pretty annoying in a hurry (see Brazil). I think he does his best commentary work when he's teamed up with someone else. In this instance, Roven doesn't add much in the way of content, but he does serve as a nice speed bump for Terry's manic, rambling orations.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Commentary by director Richard Fleischer and film historian/moderator Rudy Behlmer. Going in, I wasn't so sure about this commentary. Usually when they give you a really old director combined with a film historian you figure you're in for some seriously dull commentary. At first that's where I thought this one was headed, but it eventually won me over. Behlmer really knows his stuff and provides all of the details that eighty-something Fleischer probably wouldn't have been able to conjure up on his own. And on his own, Fleischer manages to recall many an interesting story about this film in particular and his career in general.

28 Days Later...
Commentary by director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. Lots of interesting discussion about the creative decision making process. Lots of helpful story discussion (this movie confused me on more than one occasion). I liked how they pointed out all of the swipes from and homages to (and there are lot of them) their favorite horror movies. This movie scared the hell out of me, so it was kind of fun to be able to watch it without the sweaty palms. Sort of like having the curators of a really scary amusement park haunted house give you the full tour with the lights turned on.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner Director's Series)
Commentary by actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood (recorded separately). Surprisingly informative commentary from a couple of actors now 40-some years removed from their experiences on this film. I guess Lockwood now makes the Sci-Fi convention circuit (leveraged by his appearance in this film as well as the original Star Trek TV pilot) and apparantly he's become quite a student of the genre in general, and this film in particular. Whatever the case, he certainly provides a more studied commentary here than one typically gets from actors.

Airplane
Commentary by producer Jon Davison and writer/directors Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker. If there's anything more enjoyable than listening to a group of funny guys yucking it up, I don't know what it is. These guys seem to take a perverse glee in mocking their own brilliant creation. Clearly, success has not gone to their heads. Hilarious.

Alien (20th Anniversary Edition)
Commentary by director Ridley Scott. Ridley gives us one of the all-time great commentaries here with copious amounts of interesting detail on this production. I had no idea Alien was such a low budget operation and finding out the details of how they managed to stretch that budget is totally fascinating. And I especially love Ridley's modest attitude about creating one of the all-time great movies. The way he tells it, you'd think he was just kind of hanging around the set looking on in awe and admiration while everyone else did all the creative weightlifting. What a total mensch.

Alien (Collector's Edition)
Commentary by director Ridley Scott, writer Dan O'Bannon, producer Ronald Shusett, editor Terry Rawlings, and actors Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, and John Hurt. Wow, I didn't think they could top Ridley's original commentary for Alien, but they did. I think they actually recorded two new sessions with Ridley, one solo and one with Sigourney, and still he manages to entertain, inform and avoid repeating himself. It may be time to dub Ridley Scott "Master of All Commentary". The actors are a lot of fun as well, especially Cartwright who goes off on this daffy rant where she wonders why nobody ever tried communicating with the alien. And finally, O'Bannon is the cherry on top of the whole thing. Who could be more entertaining than a testy old writer who got totally jerked around by the producers and all the other suits associated with the film. What a character. He certainly manages to extract a measure of revenge in his commentary, something I found totally refreshing and surprising (didn't the producers have to OK it?). I sure wish he and John Carpenter would do commentary for Dark Star!

Aliens (Collector's Edition)
This multi-threaded commentary jumps between several groups of people, including the director (James Cameron), the producer, the DP, members of the effects team, and a small army of actors. The content is tremendously interesting, and I just really like the way they've broken everyone up into small groups and then interwoven all of the different conversations into a nicely paced whole (naturally leaving his royal highness James Cameron to pontificate in solo). I can't get enough of these commentaries that talk about the ingenious FX methods used in the days before CGI. And once again, James Cameron further solidifies his reputation as the biggest perfectionist asshole genius in Hollywood. There's a great story about how virtually the entire production crew walked off the set and refused to work for this tyrant (who at that time was a tyrant without any reputation to back him up).

All About Eve
Commentary #1 by Chris Mankiewicz (son of director Joe Mankiewicz), Mankiewicz biographer Kenneth Geist and actress Celeste Holm. Commentary #2 by film historian Sam Staggs. The first commentary (with the exception of the Holm snippets) is really quite fascinating. Chris and Kenneth tell many an interesting tale about Joe Mankiewicz (about whom I previously knew nothing) and many of the other big names associated with the film. Thoughtful, and let's face it, kind of gossipy, but definitely engrossing - much, much better than the typically pedestrian crap generally trotted out in these kinds of third party commentaries. These guys are obviously intimately knowledgeable about their subject, and they stick to talking about that rather than wasting time with boring descriptions of what's happening in the movie. Holm, unfortunately, is virtually unlistenable. She must have been quite old at the time she was recorded and her voice is pretty much gone - she sounds like a man trying to do a bad impersonation of Mr. Bill (of Saturday Night Live fame). I was quite grateful that she was featured only occasionally, and then only briefly. The second commentary is really superfluous and doesn't hold a candle to the first. Staggs' historial information and occasional critical analysis are pretty pedestrian, and by the time the movie is half over he really starts running out of things to say. Whatever is of value here could easily have been culled and edited into the first commentary.

All the President's Men (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Commentary by producer/actor Robert Redford. Holy crap, it's Robert Redford. I mean, what else ya gotta say?!

Almost Famous (director's cut)
Commentary by director Cameron Crowe and his mom, Alice Crowe (along with assorted friends, producers and well-wishers who only occasionally chime in). If you love this movie, this era and this music, you will love this commentary. Stories, stories and more stories, it's wonderful. Having his mom there really adds a nice dynamic to the proceedings. I'm more convinced than ever that Cameron Crowe is the luckiest man alive. What a life.

Amadeus
Commentary by director Milos Forman and writer Peter Shaffer. This extremely entertaining and enlightening commentary starts out with Milos shouting "Now watch! Watch! Do you see that cat? Do you see that cat?? Not one critic noticed that! That's the superficiality of the critics, because the rest of the film was easy. But to direct animals, that is the hardest!" And it only gets better from there.

An American Werewolf in London
Commentary by actors David Naughton and Griffin Dunne. Amiable conversation between the two actors as they watch and enjoy the movie along with us and share some of their memories of the project. It's all very light and breezy and humorous. My only question is, why the heck doesn't John Landis himself contribute commentary for his movies, particularly the early, successful ones? There's certainly plenty of room in the existing commentary for more, and Landis is always an interesting guy to listen to.

...And Justice For All
Commentary by director Norman Jewison. Interesting commentary focusing on the actors, particularly Pacino.

Apocalypse Now (The Complete Dossier)
Commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola. Hands down, this is the finest Coppola commentary I've yet encountered - and no mean feat that, considering that all of Francis's commentaries to date have been outstanding (OK, OK, his Patton commentary being the exception that proves the rule). He effortlessly tells the tale of his experiences creating his masterpiece (and like it all happened yesterday). I was as completely spellbound throughout this commentary as I was the very first time I saw the actual film (waaaayyyy back in 1979... at a midnight movie... on acid... oops, too much information). Anyway, if you thought you knew everything there was to know about this production after watching "Hearts of Darkness", get ready for a ride.

Army of Darkness (director's cut)
Commentary by director Sam Raimi, actor Bruce Campbell and a brief appearance by co-writer Ivan Raimi. These guys are really funny and provide a great deal of interesting information. I sure wish they had more distinctive voices though, they sound exactly alike and I never could tell who was talking.

Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery
Commentary by Mike Meyers and director Jay Roach. These two have a nice rapport and a low key delivery that's easy to listen to. Not as uproariously funny as a Zucker/Abrahams commentary, but entertaining and informative nonetheless.

Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me
Commentary by Mike Meyers, director Jay Roach and writer Michael McCullers. Jay and Michael provide all of the interesting behind the scenes info and Mike keeps things funny.

Austin Powers, In Goldmember
Commentary by Mike Meyers and director Jay Roach. More fun commentary from Mike and Jay. You can't argue with a winning formula.

Barfly
Commentary by director Barbet Schroeder. You wonder sometimes how odd little unloved movies like Barfly ever get made, what with its unsavory characters and politically incorrect story. But after experiencing Barbet's passion for this movie firsthand, one comes to the realization that there was no way on earth that this movie wasn't going to get made. I mean, when your director goes on hunger strikes and threatens to start lopping off body parts, we're talking about someone who is serious about getting his film made. Many great stories about his struggles getting the film off the ground, about collaberating with Charles Bukowsky, and about working with Dunaway and Rourke (the latter being apparantly every bit as difficult to work with as legend would have it).

Batman The Movie (1966)
Commentary by actors Adam West and Burt Ward. Y'know, these guys don't have much to say other than wisecracking about the movie, but I don't care, I think they're hilarious. Whoever cast these two guys for these roles really knew what they were doing. Burt Ward really is this golly-gosh overgrown boy scout, and Adam West really does sound like he comes from Pluto. Too funny.

The Beatles Yellow Submarine
Commentary by producer John Coates. I didn't really have high expectations for this commentary, and it being an animated feature, I honestly didn't know what he was going to talk about. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it turned out to be. John provides lots of interesting information about the production and has many amusing stories to tell. Frankly, his ability to pull so much information from his thirty-plus year-old memories is nothing short of astounding.

The Ben Stiller Show
Commentary by Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, John O'Donohue, Brent Forrester, Janeane Garofolo, Andy Dick, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Jeff Kahn, and Rob Cohen. Wow, who ever heard of The Ben Stiller Show? Apparently nobody, as it was the lowest rated program in all of television when it debuted in 1992. It's hard to believe, given the incredible cast and inspired writing. Of the 13 shows in this set, 7 have commentary tracks. After listening to some of the commentaries featuring Stiller, Apatow, and the writers I was pretty disappointed. They basically spend their time talking about the pre-history of the show and how it got made and pretty much anything except what we're watching. Kind of boring, really. Fortunately, things kick into high gear in the commentary tracks featuring the cast. These people are really funny together and have a good old time reminiscing about (and laughing at) their moribund show. And Janeane Garofolo is definitely the straw that stirs the drink. What a cool chick.

Best in Show
Commentary by director Christopher Guest and writer/actor Eugene Levy. An interesting look behind the scenes of their improvised classic. A nice dry delivery and easy rapport between the two.

Beverly Hills Cop
Commentary by director Martin Brest. Interesting commentary with lots of behind the scenes information. Martin has a smooth, conversational style that's easy to listen to. Of particular interest are the stories relating to the evolution of the film. I had no idea that it started out as an action vehicle for Sly Stallone.

The Big Picture
Commentary by director Christopher Guest and actor Kevin Bacon. Guest is typically droll and sardonic. Bacon is painfully stiff and conventional, but fortunately not enough to sink the ship. Bacon kept trying to play the "where did we shoot this?" game, but Guest wasn't having any of it. In fact, I'd say that Guest's inability to conjure up mundane technical details works to his advantage. At one point he says (paraphrasing here) "In other commentaries they talk about how a scene was lit, and if I remembered, I'd love to tell you". No worries Christopher, you remembered the important stuff.

Black Hawk Down
Commentary #1 by director Ridley Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (recorded seperately), commentary #2 by author Mark Bowden and screenwriter Ken Nolan, commentary #3 by Task Force Ranger veterans Msgt Matt Eversmann, Col. Tom Matthews, Col. Danny McKnight and Col. Lee Van Arsdale. The director/producer commentary is actually about 95% Ridley Scott, and Scott delivers another typically engrossing commentary, this time focusing on everything they had to do to make this film as absolutely real and accurate as possible. Ridley obviously came to this project with a lot of deep admiration for the soldiers involved and some very strong feelings about American interventionism in general. He certainly has no problem taking on the naysayers who criticized the American mission to Somalia. The writer commentary is also extremely interesting. These guys focus more on talking about their experiences working on the production and with the actors and especially with Ridley. Nolan does this dead-on impersonation of Scott that is absolutely hilarious. The third commentary with the Task Force Ranger vets is definitely a notch above the usual "this is what they got right, this is what they got wrong" fare you generally get with "real world" commentators. And finally, I have to say that as much as I love commentaries, having more than one on a movie is usually too much of a good thing. By the time you've watched a movie three or four times in order to check out multiple commentaries, it really does start to feel like work (no matter how good the movie is).

Bladerunner (Four-Disc Collector's Edition)
Commentary #1 by director Ridley Scott, commentary #2 by a bunch of producers, commentary #3 by a bunch of FX guys. Ugh, what a bloated festival of commentary. So far I've only been able to manage to sit through Ridley's commentary. And although he turns in another fine effort, it's hard to get excited about such things after sitting through the nine million hours of interview and documentary included elsewhere in this DVD package. Suffice it to say, I haven't bothered checking out the producer or fx commentaries (and probably never will).

The Blair Witch Project
Commentary by directors Dan Myrick and Ed Sanchez, and producers Rob Cowie, Gregg Hale and Mike Monello. This is a completely fascinating look at a very innovative film project. I really had no idea (or maybe I just forgot) how this film was made- that these guys pretty much just turned their actors loose in the woods with a couple of cameras, and apart from some bare bones ideas about where to go and what to do, basically let them do their thing. And all the while playing witch-in-the-woods at night to scare the crap out of them. Really engrossing and memorable stuff.

The Blob (1958)
Commentary #1 by producer Jack Harris and film historian Bruce Eder. Commentary #2 by director Irvin Yeaworth Jr and actor Robert Fields. I was surprised by how well both of these commentaries worked (although I imagine they will only be of interest to nerdy baby boomers like myself who grew up watching these silly movies). I'm amazed they could find as many key players as they did to actually sit down and render live commentary about this film. And I think it's kind of amusing that the producer is so hugely proud of this movie, the crowning achievement of his career, whereas the other two seem more than a little dubious about still being associated with it after all these years. The Steve McQueen stories are obviously the main reason to care about any of this, and they all provide some good ones. All in all a very interesting look back into an odd little corner of the motion picture industry.

Blood Simple
Commentary by Kenneth Loring (artistic director of "Forever Young" films). When I picked up this DVD I thought "oh swell, another commentary from a film historian and/or critic". However, after the first scene (where Loring describes how the actors were strapped into a car upside-down so the scene could play in reverse), I knew I was in for a treat. As it turns out the whole thing is a delicious satire on critical commentary, with Jim Piddock (Loring) acting from a script by the Coen brothers. Achingly funny and one of the best ever!

Born to Kill
Commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller. Fine, unscripted commentary from Eddie, who makes many interesting observations about the film as well as providing some interesting stories (some firsthand) about loony actor Lawrence Tierney. He also moderates around a few minutes of creaky, nonsequitor interview material from director Bob Wise (whose raspy whisper makes it sound like he was recorded on his death bed). Update- Bob Wise died about a week after I wrote the previous sentence. Ouch, sorry!

Bound
Commentary by directors Andy and Larry Wachowski, editor Zach Staenberg, "sexual consultant" Susie Bright, and actors Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano and Gina Gershon. Apparently this was recorded in the living room of somebody's house, with people straggling in every 15 minutes like some talk show lineup. It's all pretty low key to begin with, and one gets the impression that the laconic Wachowski brothers just aren't big into doing commentary. Joe arrives at about the same time as his character and doesn't have a lot to say at first, and basically we're left with Susie and Zach playing the roles of admiring fans and basically oohing and aahing over the film. But, man, about halfway through the screening Jennifer Tilly shows up and the whole thing starts blowing up like the 4th of July. Gina Gershon shows up a few minutes later and things really go through the roof. Lots of teasing and ribbing and funny stories and laughter and general carrying on ensues. It's a total blast, although by their silence and sullen half responses to questions you get the idea that the mighty W brothers were not amused. But whatever, it's still a riot. I didn't realize until listening to this commentary that the big Mafia boss was played by none other than my man Richard C. Sarafian (director of "Vanishing Point"). Nice to see that he's managed to carve out a second career as an actor.

Braveheart
Commentary by director Mel Gibson. I really enjoyed this commentary and I honestly can't put my finger on exactly why. I don't feel like I came away with much in the way of anything particularly memorable. I guess it's that whole A List superstar thing. Whatever it is that makes Mel so watchable in movies is right there in his commentary as well.

Bringing Up Baby
Commentary by Howard Hawkes biographer Peter Bogdanovich. Another terrific commentary from Bogdanovich with lots of fascinating insights into the Hawkes style (this movie was in fact the inspiration for Peter's own screwball comedy, "What's Up, Doc?"). Peter even does an amusing imitation of Hawkes as he reads quotes from his old interviews with the director. As a talented director in his own right, as well as a film historian and someone who actually hobnobbed with many of the great talents from the golden age of Hollywood, Bogdanovich invariably delivers entertaining and enlightening commentary, and I sure wish he'd do more of them.

Bull Durham
Commentary #1 by director Ron Shelton. Commentary #2 by actors Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins. Either one of these great commentaries would have been sufficient, but to get them both is really a treat. Ron is obviously passionate about this subject, filmmaking and life in general and it all comes through in his commentary. And Tim and Kevin are just tremendously engaging to listen to as they yuk their way through the showing. Fantastic.

California Split
Commentary by director Robert Altman, writer Joseph Walsh, and actors Elliot Gould and George Segal. I've always found listening to an Altman movie soundtrack to be a very cozy and comforting experience. Something about those overlapping, low key, conversational tones just makes me feel good. I guess that, more than anything, explains why I like this commentary so much. Listening to 70's superstars Gould and Segal and the others talk about this movie sounds like something right out of an Altman film. As for content, we get an endless supply of great stories and interesting observations.

Call Northside 777
Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. Excellent scene-specific (and thankfully, unrehearsed) commentary from two guys with really great rapport. Ursini and Silver make many worthy observations and provide a great deal of interesting background information (especially about the actual case upon which this film was based). They even have a bit of fun with the movie at times, and in general get into some pretty good back and forth discussions. I almost universally loathe these kinds of film historian commentaries, but no complaints here.

Catch-22
Commentary by director Mike Nichols and Steven Soderbergh. This is one of those odd films that doesn't really work, but yet I totally love and always wind up watching every couple of years. And now it comes with this absolutely brilliant commentary. I mean, to take a currently famous director who is clearly a fan of the movie and its director, have him do all the research and pre-interviews and other prep work and then sit the two down to watch and comment on the film was a stroke of genius. You have Soderbergh sort of leading the way, and providing all of the missing details that may have eluded Nichols had he sat down to record a solo commentary. And the content is totally fascinating; numerous interesting stories about that great cast (especially Welles), the writing, the locations, the technical stuff, you name it. It's all here.

Chasing Amy
Commentary by director Kevin Smith, producers Scott Mosier, Robert Hawk and Jon Gordon, actors Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes, and View Askew historian Vincent Pereira. An entertaining commentary from Kevin Smith and his cast of thousands. This time they manage to stay on topic and still remain loose and funny and have a good time with the whole thing. Better still, they manage to keep all the complimenting and mutual admiration and general glad handing to a minimum.

A Christmas Story
Commentary by director Bob Clark and actor Peter Billingsley. The content here is OK, there are a few interesting anecdotes and whatnot, but Clark is the main reason to listen to any of this. He's one of those wonderfully egotistical yet bitter old Hollywood curmudgeons that are so much fun to listen to. You know, the kind of guy who remembers every bad review he ever got and has a memorized list of all the critics he'd like to haul into an alley and beat to death with a lead pipe. Who'd have thought that the guy who directed this holiday classic would also be responsible for Porky's and Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things? For some reason Melinda Dillon is listed on the box as also participating in this commentary. Well, she doesn't. Not sure what happened there, maybe she backed out at the last minute or something. Too bad, her perspective would've been interesting as well.

The Cincinnati Kid
Commentary #1 by director Norman Jewison, commentary #2 by Phil Gordon and Dave Foley (hosts of "Celebrity Poker Showdown"). The Jewison commentary is really excellent. This was his first big production and he's obviously very proud of it and very excited to be talking about it. As for the second commentary, well... not so good. Dave "Kids in the Hall" Foley's attempts at humor are pretty strained, and the whole thing feels a bit "flavor of the month". In five years when the current "Texas Hold 'Em" Poker craze has died down, people are going to wonder why the hell these two are on this DVD providing commentary.

Citizen Kane
Two commentary tracks, one from Peter Bogdanovich and the other from Roger Ebert. How wonderful would it be to have Orson Welles himself providing commentary for his groundbreaking classic? I've often wondered why nobody back in the pre-DVD days ever had the bright idea of coaxing one of these old-school directors to sit down in front of a tape recorder and talk about their film while they watched it? Oh well, I digress. Roger provides a more technically oriented look at the film (bordering on too much technical detail, but still interesting) while Peter provides fascinating insight as a film historian and one of Orson's close friends. Peter debunks numerous urban legends surrounding the film.

Clash By Night
Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich. Another fine commentary from one of my favorite film historians. Many fascinating and revealing insights into the Fritz Lang style (in fact, Peter even presents us with a few minutes of an interview he recorded with Lang in 1965). You really have to admire Bogdanovich's laid-back, patrician delivery. He makes it all seem so easy.

A Clockwork Orange (2-Disc)
Commentary by actor Malcom McDowell and film historian Nick Redman. Noted raconteur McDowell provides many an interesting story about his work on this picture (demonstrating his amazing powers of memory in the process - wow). He did tend to go on and on (in repetitive fashion) about the lighting, but hey, it's two-plus hours so we'll cut him some slack there. Nick doesn't provide a great deal in the way of content, but his occasional question/comment does serve to keep Malcom focused. One of the better commentaries (if not the best) in the Kubrick boxed set.

The Conversation
Commentary #1 by director Francis Ford Coppola, commentary #2 by editor Walter Murch. Another stunningly personal commentary from Coppola (almost to the point of blood letting). From the production, to the actors, to other movies he's worked on, to his entire career, to his entire life, no topic goes uncovered here. Really engrossing and memorable stuff. As for the Murch commentary, well, it's very technical and only occasionally very interesting. Frankly, I wish they could've found a way to edit the two together. Why have two where one will do?

The Cowboys (Deluxe Edition)
Commentary by director Mark Rydell. Decent commentary of the "reminescing fondly" ilk. Lots of interesting stories about working with "The Duke", especially about how Wayne sacked it up (performance-wise) when faced with the company of "Actor's Studio" ack-tores Rydell threw at him.

Crime Wave (Film Noir Classic Collection)
Commentary by film historian Eddie Muller and noir writer James Ellroy. Muller is always fun to listen to on these noir commentaries, and teaming him up with raving lunatic James Ellroy was kind of an interesting experiment. The two share a decent chemistry together, and Ellroy (L.A. Confidental) is fairly obsessed with the LAPD and 1950s Los Angeles, so he had plenty to contribute. Yeah, I could've lived without all of the panting and other assorted animal noises (oh, don't ask) but I guess that's part of the whole bizarre Ellroy package. Anyway, lots of interesting info and insight into the film.

Crossfire
Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. Another interesting commentary from the dark duo, this time focusing on the HUAC era. These guys really have a good formula going and I look forward to more from them. Also included in this commentary are a few minutes of interview material with director Edward Dmytryk, and although all old, nonsequitor material, still pretty interesting.

Das Boot
Commentary by director Wolfgang Petersen, actor Jurgen Prochnow, and producer Ortwin Freyermuth. One of the all time great war movies gets one of the all time great commentaries. The stories told by these three rival the story told on the screen. Endlessly fascinating, amusing and enlightening. My favorite bit is where Ortwin, who sort of plays the part of the interviewer, comments on a particularly interesting effect and asks Wolfgang if he'd done that on purpose. To which Wolfgang replies (paraphrasing here) "My dear Ortwin, in this movie we did everything on purpose".

The Day The Earth Stood Still
Commentary by director Robert Wise and director Nicolas Meyer. For me, this is the ideal setup for a commentary. Take an aging director who's solo commentary style tends to be a little boring and team him up with a more contemporary (and more interesting) director to ask all the questions. Meyer delves into Wise's methods all the way from pre-production to editing and scoring. And more importantly, he's always there to steer Wise away from the "let's point out where everything was shot" cliff. I'm not sure how they came up with Meyer, but I do think it's kind of ironic that they wound up with the two guys who directed the first two Star Trek films.

Decoy (Film Noir Classic Collection)
Commentary by film historian Glenn Erickson and writer Stabley Rubin. The addition of original story writer Rubin elevates this commentary several million miles above the rest of the commentaries in this collection. Ninety years old when he recorded this, and he's still got it all going on. Erudite in the extreme, and with an astoundingly nimble memory, Stabley provides one amazing story after the other about his 60 years as a writer and producer. Amazing stuff, and man do I envy his genes. Erickson moderates ably, filling in a lot of the historical information about the production.

Dazed and Confused (Criterion)
Commentary by director Richard Linklater. Jeez, after buying more DVD editions of this flick than I care to contemplate, we finally get one with commentary. It was certainly worth the wait though, as this commentary is just a whole lot of fun. Linklater gets to rant about all the studio drones who made his life miserable, and at the same time talk about how much fun he and the cast had making this movie. Linklater is tremendously entertaining here, and his commentary style is pretty much perfect - smooth, casual, and conversational. He doesn't overwhelm us with blather and at the same time he doesn't run out of interesting things to talk about. Great stuff.

DodgeBall: A True Underground Story
Commentary by director Rawson Marshall Thurber and actors Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller. This one really passed the ultimate commentary litmus test. For rental flicks (IE movies that aren't likely to ever wind up in my DVD library), I usually don't spend a lot of time with the extras. If the movie was OK, I'll fire up the commentary track and stick with it as long as it holds my interest (which usually isn't very long). Well, this one was quite entertaining and I wound up listening to it right through to the end. Can't argue with that.

Dog Day Afternoon (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Commentary by director Sidney Lumet. Sidney Lumet talking about Al Pacino? Are you kidding me? It doesn't get any better than this.

Donnie Brasco
Commentary by director Mike Newell. For somebody who's been around forever, I'd never heard of Mike Newell until I purchased this DVD. He nails the commentary, though. He provides all sorts of interesting insight and behind the scenes details, especially about Al Pacino's performance, and all in a silky smooth, oh so very British style.

The Doors
Commentary by director Oliver Stone. Another great commentary from Stone. His delivery is smooth, nicely paced and very easy to listen to. He slips in the occasional bit of technical information, but for the most part spends his time talking about the story, the actors, the era, and the real people upon which the film was based. Having Stone lead the way actually takes a bit of the depressing edge off this otherwise engrossing story. It might have been fun to have some of the original band members participate, particularly Manzarek, who (according to Oliver) hates both him and his film.

Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
Commentary #1 by film historian Richard Schickel, commentary #2 by film historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman. Wow, for a bunch of film historians, these guys really provide some interesting commentary. Lots of fascinating information and insight. So engrossed was I during the Dobbs/Redman commentary that I completely ignored the fact that they were basically ignoring the movie and just blathering on and on about this, that and the other thing. Hey, sometimes it works I guess.

Downfall
Commentary by director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Really interesting commentary, focusing mainly on the Nazis and just kind of explaining who's who and what's going on (as opposed to going on about the nuts of bolts of actually making them film). As an inveterate History Channel junkie, I was completely fascinated.

Drugstore Cowboy
Commentary by director Gus Van Sant and actor Matt Dillon. Very cool movie gets a very cool commentary delivered by a couple of very cool dudes. This commentary is really unique insofar as it's actually possible to watch and follow the movie while listening to the commentary. Hard to explain, but the commentary really blends in with the action without ever stepping on it, and they give us enough breaks to allow important dialogue to take center stage.

Ed Wood
Commentary by director Tim Burton, writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, actor Martin Landau, DP Stefan Czapsky, and costumer designer Colleen Atwood (except for the writers, all recorded separately). Despite the lengthy laundry list of contributors, the commentary is provided primarily by Burton and the two writers. The rest contribute only brief, nonsequitor comments. We get lots of interesting details about the creation of the film as well as further insight into the lives of Wood, Legosi and the rest of the assorted misfits and outcasts that made up their world.

The Empire Strikes Back
Commentary by director Irvin Kershner, producer/writer George Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and actor Carrie Fisher (all recorded seperately). Another superb commentary in the Star Wars series. Lots of interesting information about the movie that I thought I already knew everything about. Kershner in particular brings a lot of energy to the party.

The Enforcer (Ultimate Collector's Edition)
Commentary by director James Fargo. Really interesting commentary from Fargo His memory is quite amazing, and I was astounded at his ability to conjure up all sorts of fascinating little details about his work on this picture (and with Clint Eastwood). Dirty Harry fans should enjoy this one.

Excalibur
Commentary by director John Boorman. Very interesting commentary with lots of interesting stories and technical details. Of particular interest are all of the simple, low-budget methods they used to accomplish their special effects. Once again, an old-school director lamenting how it'd all have been done with a computer nowadays and cost ten times as much, and without really adding anything to the film.

The Exorcist ("The Version You've Never Seen")
Commentary by director William Friedkin. If this same commentary were offered by anyone other than the charming and engaging Friedkin I'd probably have to rank it lower. The entire commentary is essentially a description of what is happening on the screen, albeit a deeply insightful description of said action. There is little or no discussion of the production or performances, and yet Friedkin's obvious passion for the story and underlying themes makes for compelling commentary.

The Exorcist (25th Anniversary Edition)
Commentary by director William Friedkin. I didn't realize that Friedkin's commentary on this particular release is different than the one he recorded for the "TVYNS" dvd. And as good as that one was, this one is even better. Here he talks about the production and the actors and the script and, well, everything (and in much less scattershot fashion than usual). There is a second so-called commentary track which consists of about 30 minutes of non-sequitor interview material from writer William Peter Blatty, and another 30 minutes (or so) worth of recordings from the Mercedes McCambridge "demon" voice sessions. The demon stuff is kind of interesting for a while, but eventually gets to be kind of boring. On the other hand, the Blatty stuff is really quite fascinating. I found particularly interesting his thoughts on Friedkin supposedly screwing up the movie in the editing room, as well as his claim that Lt. Columbo was a straight rip-off of his Lt. Kinderman character. All in all, 1.5 really great commentaries!

The Evil Dead
Commentary #1 by director Sam Raimi and producer Robert Tapert. Commentary #2 by actor Bruce Campbell. Campbell is his usual entertaining, wiseguy self and his commentary is easily the best of the two. I guess I don't understand why they split these guys up and recorded two separate commentaries. There is a lot of repetition of stories and behind the scenes detail between the two commentaries, and I'd say Campbell actually covers everything Raimi and Tapert do (and more) and in more entertaining fashion. Plus, Raimi and Campbell have this great chemistry together and really feed off each other and I think the energy level of both commentaries suffers as a result of their not being recorded together. Anyway, the Campbell commentary is definitely worth the price of admission, but I guess after being spoiled by the far superior Evil Dead II commentary I was expecting more here.

Evil Dead II
Commentary by director Sam Raimi, actor Bruce Campbell, writer Scott Spiegel, and make-up artist Greg Nicotero. This is easily one of the best and funniest commentaries I've yet come across. The style is definitely MST3K as the commentators shout suggestions at the screen and generally mock and ridicule the proceedings. Campbell in particular is a stitch. He has this Ash character so totally nailed that he actually ad-libs lines in the commentary that are funnier than his lines in the movie. Don't miss this one!

Fail Safe
Commentary by director Sidney Lumet. Engrossing stuff from Mr. Lumet. Another amazing story of how every dollar gets stretched in a low budget production. Sidney avoids griping too much about Stanley Kubrick's attempt to squash his project (to protect Dr. Strangelove). It's refreshing to listen to political opinions from a real old school left-winger. And I find it interesting that of all his great movies, this is one of the first he chose to record commentary for. One of my all-time favorites, but certainly not as well known as some of his later work (Serpico, Network, et al).

Fallen Angel
Commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller and Susan Andrews (daughter of Dana Andrews). Teaming up the always interesting Muller with Dana Andrews' daughter was a great idea. They have a nice chemistry together and Susan provides lots of interesting information and observations about her father.

Fantastic Voyage (Cinema Classics Collection)
Commentary #1 by film historian Jeff Bond, commentary #2 by film historians Jeff Bond, Jon Burlingame and Nick Redman. The first commentary is definitely a cut above your typical film historian commentary. Bond's style is nicely conversational and unrehearsed, and yet he's obviously come well prepared as he's able to provide a nigh endless assortment of interesting facts and fascinating stories. The second commentary lasts for the first 38 minutes of the film (the pre-mission sequence where there is no musical score) and focuses strictly on the upcoming music. Pretty interesting if you're into that kind of thing.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Commentary by director Amy Heckerling and writer Cameron Crowe. These two have great chemistry together and provide lots of interesting stories about all the studio interference they had to deal with, as well as lots of cool bits about the actors (particularly Sean Penn). Another movie that, had the studio suits gotten their way, would've been completely destroyed and nobody would even remember today.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Commentary by director John Hughes. Lots of interesting behind the scenes detail from John, and an awful lot of analysis of the film and its characters (believe it or not). For reasons unknown, this commentary was not included in the more recent "Bueller... Bueller..." special edition DVD, so hang on to your old copies.

Fight Club
Commentary #1 by director David Fincher, #2 by Fincher, and actors Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter (Bonham Carter recorded separately), #3 by novelist Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls, and #4 by production designer Alex McDowell, DP Jeff Cronenweth, costume designer Michael Kaplan, and visual effects supervisor Kevin Haug. So far I've only listened to the first two tracks, and of those, the director track is easily the best. Fincher has a nice sly, low-key style that's fun to listen to and he really holds your interest as he talks about the actors, and the story and some of his experiences shooting the film (and thankfully, keeps the technobabble to a bare minimum). It must be incredibly difficult to maintain a listenable pace for two hours and have enough on your mind to actually hold a viewer's interest for those two hours. Lord knows there's precious few that can do it, but Fincher pulls it off admirably here. The conversation on the actor/director track was occasionally amusing, often entertaining and sometimes even informative. Then again, a lot of it is just so much throw-away, nigh inaudible mumbling. And frankly, I found this whole prickly business of attacking everyone who criticized the film (by name in some instances) a little classless. Rather than rise above it all, they adopt the attitude of "we're geniuses, and if you had anything bad to say about the film, you're an idiot who just didn't get it". As for the other commentaries, well I suspect it's going to be a good long time before I ever get around to 'em... (Ugh, did there have to be four?!)

First Blood
Commentary by author David Morrell. This turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. David wrote the book upon which the first Rambo film was based and apparently was involved in all three of the movies. He has lots of interesting stories to tell.

A Fish Called Wanda (Collector's Edition)
Commentary by John Cleese. Hey, stick a microphone in front of a Python and I am so there. And don't be fooled by those who claim that if you try to dissect a joke, it's going to die on the operating table. Obviously they never went to Cambridge.

Footloose
Commentary #1 by actor Kevin Bacon, commentary #2 by producer Craig Zadan and writer Dean Pitchford. I didn't have very high expectations for this one, mainly because the only other time I've heard Kevin Bacon do commentary was for The Big Picture, where he was, quite frankly, kind of boring. Not so here, though. Kevin has lots of interesting things to say and lots of fun stories to tell. The writer/producer commentary is a lot of fun as well. They spend a lot of time talking about their assorted trials and tribulations getting the picture made and all of the odd hoops they had to jump through in their dealings with the studio and the director - real "Project Greenlight" stuff. Very amusing, especially since they ultimately wind up having the last laugh.

For Your Consideration
Commentary by director Christopher Guest and writer/actor Eugene Levy. If you like your humor dry as dust, you can't go wrong with these guys. The movies themselves are often hit-and-miss, but the commentaries are always worth a spin or two regardless. I was quite astonished to learn that Catherine O'Hara did that whole "Hollywood lip injection" thing with nothing more than her facial muscles and a little bit of make-up. Wow, and yikes.

Free Enterprise
Commentary #1 by writer/producer Mark Altman and writer/director Robert Burnett. Commentary #2 by Robert Burnett, and actors William Shatner, Eric McCormack and Rafer Weigel (Shatner recorded separately). This is a really fun movie (picture "Swingers" populated by Star Trek nerds) and the commentaries are fun as well. Lots of energy and humor and interesting stories about this zero-budget indy production. The second commentary with the actors gets to be a bit "more of the same" after a while (especially with the actors obsessing over their hair and their bodies and whatnot), but the Shatner portions are well worth the price of admission. Man, what a goofball. When he started going on about the wonders of a beautiful woman passing gas, I was rolling on the floor.

Freeway
Commentary by director Matthew Bright. Listening to Bright enthuse about all the great actors he got to work with (in this, his directorial debut) is almost as much fun as listening to his deranged glee as he giggles at all the bloody mayhem he wrought on the screen. And apparently he really got into dressing up "his girls" and doing their hair - something about not being allowed to play with dolls when he was a child. Yes folks, a commentary every bit as twisted and funny as the movie itself.

The French Connection
Commentary by director William Friedkin. Truly fascinating commentary by Mr. Friedkin. An engrossing inside look at a real guerilla filmmaking project. You'll be amazed at what he reveals about the creation of that amazing chase scene. And although William does spend probably more time describing what is happening on the screen than we really need, he has such an engaging and entertaining style that it remains interesting nonetheless. There are also a couple of relatively interesting short "commentary" tracks supplied by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, but they are of the nonsequitor variety.

Futurama
Commentary by Matt Groening and an assortment of writers, directors, animators, producers and actors. These commentaries aren't quite as good as the commenataries for The Simpsons, but they're still pretty entertaining despite some unevenness. The commentaries featuring voice guy Billy West (Fry) are a heck of a lot better than the ones featuring the annoying John DiMaggio (Bender). As with The Simpsons, each and every episode comes with commentary, usually by 4 or 5 of the people associated with a particular show.

Futurama - Bender's Big Score
Commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Phil LaMarr, Claudia Katz, Dwayne Carey-Hill, and Ken Keeler. More fun Futurama commentary... finally! After a several-years long hiatus, it's great to hear the old gang again. And does anybody put more effort into their commentary than David Cohen? The guy is totally hilarious, provides tons of interesting trivia and behind-the-scenes information, and always goes the extra mile when it comes to keeping the group steered in the right direction. Oh, and John DiMaggio? Still annoying as hell. The "Sopranos" thing he got into was funny for about 12 seconds, so naturally he kept going back to it for the next 30 minutes.

Futurama - The Beast With A Billion Backs
Commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz, Pete Avanzino and Lee Supercinski. I'm never not going to like a Futurama commentary, but I sure wish they'd cut down on this whole "cast of thousands" thing they have going on. I mean, when you have nine people vying for attention, the net affect is generally a lot of chaos (especially when one of them is John DiMaggio). I always look forward to hearing what David Cohen has to say, but this time around it felt like he simply got swallowed up by the group. If nothing else, how about at least swapping out DiMaggio for uber-milf Katey Sagal? I don't think she's ever done a commentary for any of these Futurama DVDs...

Get Carter (1970)
Commentary by director Mike Hodges, actor Michael Caine and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky (all recorded separately). Really interesting commentary that just moves right along. This was Hodge's first film, and he seems quite enthusiastic about revisiting it. Michael Caine, as always, has many interesting things to say. And of course, like all cinematographers, ol' Wolfgang was utterly tedious, unwanted and unnecessary - fortunately, he only gets a minute or two here and there.

Ghostbusters
Commentary by director Ivan Reitman, writer/actor Harold Ramis and associate producer Joe Medjuck. Once again, you simply cannot go wrong listening to a room full of funny people talking about their funny movie.

Go
Commentary by director Doug Liman and editor Stephen Mirrione. Another entertaining look inside a low budget production. This is the first commentary that I've come across that really spent a lot of time talking about editing, and I have to admit I found it pretty interesting (god help me). I guess editing has always seemed to me to be the most mysterious and unfathomable aspect of filmmaking, so it was kind of nice to get some insights into the process.

The Godfather I, II and III
Commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola. These commentaries are, in a way, a fascinating and personal look at Coppola himself. In his commentary for I, we share his frustration, angst and near despair as he fights the studio and moronic meddling producers every step of the way (a very common thread in director commentary - you almost have to wonder how good films ever get made with so many fools in suits interfering). Conversely, in II we share his delight at being granted a larger budget and near total freedom to create a film true to his own vision. And finally in III we sense the depression that has crept into his life as his career has been fraught with setbacks and he is "pulled back in" (to use the movie's own dialogue) to make a movie for basically monetary purposes. At the same time we revel in a father's delight in his beloved daughter. In fact, the common thread in all three commentaries is Coppola's great love for his family, as it seems virtually every Coppola on the planet, young and old, manages to get worked into the films in small roles and as extras. Coppola does not seem shy about baring his soul on these commentary tracks and to reveal himself as ultimately a very sad man who seems to have been frustrated by his career, while at the same time never having lost sight of that which is most precious to him - his family.

Gojira
Commentary by film historians Steve Ryfle and the aptly named Ed Godziszewski. These two provide commentary for both the original Japanese version of Godzilla as well as the American recut version with Raymond Burr. Tons of fascinating information and observations about both films.

Goodfellas
Commentary #1 by director Martin Scorsese, writer Nicholas Pileggi, producers Irwin Winkler and Barbara DeFina, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, DP Michael Ballhaus, wiseguy Henry Hill, and actors Lorraine Bracco, Ray Liotta, Paul Sorvino, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, and Robert DeNiro (all recorded separately). Commentary #2 by wiseguy Henry Hill and former FBI agent Edward McDonald (recorded together). These are both excellent commentaries. The first one, featuring the cast and crew, is "kind of" scene specific inasmuch as although the speakers were not actually watching the film when their comments were recorded, they do generally have something to do with the scenes over which they play. And it's all good stuff - interesting, insightful and entertaining. The second commentary is "live" scene specific commentary, with former mobster Hill watching the film along with one of the FBI guys who got him into the witness protection program. Both provide a lot of interesting information that helps to flesh out the rest of the real life story of Henry Hill.

The Graduate (40th Anniversary Edition)
Commentary by #1 by actors Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross, #2 by director Mike Nichols and Steven Soderbergh. I was really happy to see Nichols and Soderbergh teamed up once again. And like their commentary for Catch-22, just a whole lot of interesting stories here about the making of this film. The actor commentary, on the other hand, was kind of tough to sit through. Dustin did most of the talking, with Ross only occasionally offering a word or two here and there. Worse still, Dustin kept going on about how gorgeous she looked and what a big crush he had on her back then - to the point where it felt like he was hitting on her! Yikes, talk about squirm inducing. Letting Hoffman do the commentary solo would've probably worked better. I did find it kind of funny how Nichols would lay claim to some small element or performance in the film (or give the credit to screenwriter Buck Henry), and then Hoffman would turn around and take credit for inventing it himself in his commentary. Oh well, I guess I have to cut them some slack - it was 40 years ago, after all.

Grand Theft Auto
Commentary by director Ron Howard and producer Roger Corman. I'd never seen this film before, and as I sat watching it "straight" before checking out the commentary, I started thinking to myself, man, this is terrible, what am I doing? But I stuck it out, and then moved on to the commentary. Suddenly, with Ron and Roger chatting amiably in the foreground, the movie really came to life. Then it dawned on me, "Oh, right, this was a drive-in picture". And like all drive-in pictures, it seems to work best if you have some distractions preventing you from paying too close of attention to it. I guess nowadays, when it comes to bad movies, a commentary track serves pretty much the same function as a cooler full of beer, some weed and a Frisbee did back in the drive-in days of the 70s.

The Great Train Robbery
Commentary by director Michael Crichton. Perfect commentary track with lots of inside information on the production and actors, entertaining stories and intellectual dissemination on the creative process. How about some commentary for Westworld, Michael!

Gremlins
Commentary #1 by director Joe Dante, and actors Phoebe Cates, Zack Galligan, Dick Miller and Howie Mandel. Commentary #2 by director Joe Dante, producer Michael Finnell, and special effects artist Chris Walas. Two amazingly entertaining commentaries, bursting with energy, good humor and more funny stories than you can shake a stick at. This was obviously a very trying production and listening to them all commiserate about their shared experiences is a blast (except for Dick Miller, who I swear slept through the entire recording session). Dante is pretty amazing, taking control of both commentaries with virtually no repetition between the two.

Gremlins 2 - The New Batch
Commentary by director Joe Dante, actor Zack Galligan, writer Charlie Haas and producer Michael Finnell. Another fun commentary from (most of) the gang that brought us the commentary for the first Gremlins movie. Again, lots of high spirits, laughs and funny stories, particularly from Dante and Galligan. I have to say, this (bundled with the first Gremlins movie) is about the most amazing movie package I've ever picked up. For $20 you get two great movies, three really great commentaries, deleted scenes (with commentary), gag reels, documentaries, you name it. Just a little bit better than the old days of video tape, where you'd pay $75 for a cassette that had no extras and lasted for about 5 viewings before disintegrating.

Groundhog Day
Commentary by director Harold Ramis. Great inside look at the best comedy of the 90s. Ramis is tremendously engaging, particularly talking about Bill Murray's improvisational performance. In fact, the only thing that might have improved this commentary would've been to actually have Bill take part as well. Although, I've heard that Bill and Harold don't get along anymore, so fat chance of that.

Harper
Commentary by screenwriter William Goldman. Goldman commentaries are always a blast. He invariably has lots of interesting stories to tell about pretty much every movie he's ever worked on (even the one he's supposed to be commenting on), and he certainly pulls no punches. When it comes to cynical Hollywood commentary, William reigns supreme. Plus, lots of insights into his own writing style and what goes into making a good script.

The Haunting (1963)
Commentary by director Robert Wise, screenwriter Nelson Gidding and actors Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn. This is a very "acting" heavy commentary, with the lion's share provided by Richard Johnson. Another third or so comes from Robert Wise with the remaining minutes divided amongst the rest of the cast (Harris and Bloom provide only a minute or two). It's all very interesting, and Robert Wise's delivery is more tolerable to the ear here than in other commentaries of his that I've heard. Johnson is fascinating on the topic of acting, talking in that marvelously suave English accent of his. On the other hand, Nelson Gidding's voice is reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard - thank god he only has a few minutes of audio time.

Heat
Commentary by director Michael Mann. This is a completely fascinating look inside of a film. As in his commentary for "Thief", Mann once again demonstrates his intimate knowledge of cops, crooks and crime. And he somehow manages to talk for nearly three hours at just the right pace - he doesn't blab a mile a minute nor does he run out of things to say. We get story and character analysis, discussion about the actors and their performances, information about the real life people upon which this story was based, and general philosophizing on the inner workings of cops and crooks. One of the all-time great commentaries.

Home Alone (Family Fun Edition)
Commentary by director Chris Columbus and actor Macaulay Culkin. Very fun and entertaining commentary. I love all the stories about the actors being sort of bitchy and wondering what in the hell they're doing in this kids' movie (Pesci, especially). Culkin is very funny as well, and definitely doesn't seem to be taking any of this too seriously. Too bad John Hughes didn't participate, though (as both of them constantly lament).

House of Games (Criterion)
Commentary by director David Mamet and actor Ricky Jay. Mamet is one of my all-time favorite writers, so I was pretty excited when I found out he was going to be doing commentary for this, one of my all-time favorite films. And he sure doesn't disappoint here. This guy knows something about everything and is more than willing to dispense strident opinions on just about any topic you'd care to name. Lots of interesting info and insights into the film, all delivered in nicely edgy fashion. Still pissed off at Orion Pictures after all these years, Mamet definitely gets the last word in on that whole deal. Ricky doesn't have a great deal to say, but he does have some interesting comments as the film's "con expert". My only disappointment with this commentary was that Mamet doesn't actually talk like a Mamet character... Ah well, another of life's little illusions poked in the eye.

The Hunted
Commentary by director William Friedkin. I thought this movie was just fair, but as always seems to be the case with Friedkin, extremely entertaining to watch when coupled with his commentary. William spends a lot less time describing the action this time around, and has many passionate rants on numerous interesting topics (some even related to this movie). Great stuff.

I Wake Up Screaming
Commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller. Another fine, easy-going, unscripted commentary from Eddie. The better the movie, the better the commentary with Eddie, and he's got a lot to work with here. And hey, he even waited until after the closing credits to pimp his books.

if... (Criterion)
Commentary by actor Malcom McDowell and film historian David Robinson (recorded separately). Noted raconteur McDowell always seems to deliver interesting commentary, and no exception here. And for his part, Robinson actually manages to serve up some surprisingly stimulating film analysis. Solid stuff all the way around.

Illegal (Film Noir Classic Collection)
Commentary by actor Nina Foch and film historian Patricia King Hanson. Wow, Nina delivers some amazingly pointed and entertaining commentary for an 82 year-old. She obviously loves talking about her long career (which at the moment includes a professorship at UCLA, among other things), and better still, she absolutely revels in trashing this (and other) old movies. Wow, suffice it to say, reverence is right out the window on this commentary. Hanson manages to get the occasional word in edgewise, but honestly, I don't think we even needed her. Nina should get a regular gig doing these commentaries, 'cuz man, she's a blast.

The In-Laws (1979)
Commentary by director Arthur Hiller, writer Andrew Bergman, and actors Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. Very entertaining commentary with these four reminiscing about their experiences making this film 25 years ago. They all seem to agree that it was one of the best experiences of their careers, which always makes for good commentary.

Innerspace
Commentary by director Joe Dante, producer Michael Finnell, actors Kevin McCarthy and Robert Picardo, and visual FX supervisor Dennis Muren. Joe Dante commentaries are always a ton of fun - great energy, good humor, lots of jokes and lots of fun stories. I haven't met one yet I didn't enjoy. I guess Martin Short was supposed to be in on this too, but cancelled at the last minute. Too bad, that would've made this one a classic.

Kentucky Fried Movie
Commentary by director John Landis, writers Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, and producer Robert Weiss. The movie? Not so good. The commentary? Hilarious. Somebody explain to me why Landis has time to do commentary for this forgotten relic, but not the 25th anniversary edition of Animal House!

Lady in the Lake
Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. This oddly prententious (and only partially successful) noir film is really asking for some serious critical hacking and slashing, and the Dark Duo are (as usual) more than up to the task. Both are acknowledged Chandler experts as well, so we get lots of information about Chandler in general and Marlowe in particular.

A League of Their Own
Commentary by director Penny Marshall and several cast members. Penny and her girls have fun watching the film and chatting about their experiences making it. All of the warmth and affection evident in the film itself comes through in this entertaining commentary.

Live and Let Die
Commentary #1 is moderated by John Cork of the Ian Fleming foundation and, as we've now come to expect from these Bond films, consists of the usual assortment of nonsequitor interview snippets from numerous people associated with the film (most notably, director Guy Hamilton and actor Yaphet Kotto). Commentary #2 is actual, honest-to-goodness scene-specific commentary from screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz. As mentioned elsewhere, I've sat through more of these Bond commentaries than I care to contemplate, and this is easily the best of the bunch. The Bond blather track (#1) is definitely a cut above the others, mainly due to Hamilton and Kotto, and track #2 (with Mank) is just flat out fascinating. I enjoyed his stories about working for Universal, and his experiences on the set as well as the discussions about how individual lines and entire scenes were written totally differently to accommodate one Bond (Moore) over the other (Connery). All in all, this is the first Bond commentary where it didn't feel like a job sitting through it in order to compose one of these eddifying little snippets.

Logan's Run
Commentary by director Michael Anderson, actor Michael York and costume designer Bill Thomas (all recorded separately). I'd always heard that this movie was pretty cheesy sci-fi stuff, and my suspicions on that score were confirmed fairly early on. Since the only reason I was watching it at all was to eventually check out the commentary, I bailed on watching it "straight" and started over with the commentary. Actually, turning on the commentary might just be the best way to watch this flick. Anderson and York, in addition to providing lots of interesting stories about the project, also spend a fair amount of time discussing the plot, so you can keep up with the story while listening to the commentary. On the other hand, did we really need commentary from a costume designer? I wound up learning a heck of a lot more about the costumes on this film than I ever needed or wanted to know.

Lord of the Flies (1963)
Commentary by director Peter Brook, producer Lewis Allen, DP Tom Hollyman, and camera operator/editor Gerald Feil (all recorded separately). Another great Criterion commentary, this one focusing mainly on how Brook assembled a cast and crew of complete amateurs, utterly devoid of experience, and made one of the great classic films of the 1960s. Lots of fascinating stories about their experiences making the film in Puerto Rico, and general philosophical commentary on this strange idea of filmmaking by instinct.

Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring
Commentary #1 by the director and writers, commentary #2 by the design/creation team, commentary #3 by the production team, and commentary #4 by the cast. I'm am such a huge fan of this film, I swear I actually sat down and listened to every one of these commentaries, right down to the tech guys. The cast commentaries are especially entertaining. These people obviously really enjoyed working together and obviously had a lot of fun working on this picture.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Commentary #1 by director Larry Blamire, producer Miguel Valenti, editor Bill Russell, DP Kevin Jones, production manager Darrin Reed, and Sony suit Mike Schlesinger. Commentary #2 by producer Miguel Valenti, and actors Larry Blamire, Fay Masterson, Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell, Jennifer Blaire, Brian Howe, Darrin Reed and Dan Conroy. The production team commentary takes a pretty light-hearted look at the inner workings of this zero-budget indy film (always fun). If you aspire to break into filmmaking, I recommend listening to as many of these kinds of commentaries as you can. You'll quickly be disabused of any notions you might have about the supposed "glamor" of shooting a movie. The cast commentary covers a lot of the same turf as the first track, and again all in the same humorously self-depreciating vein. Certainly worth a listen if you liked the movie (a very obscure title, but well worth checking out if you're a fan of cheesy 50's sci-fi).

Made
Commentary by director Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. Entertaining commentary delivered at machine gun pace. The chemistry between these two is a wonder to behold. And for novelty, they actually make good use of a tellistrator to point out all the friends, hangers-on, props and assorted in-jokes they placed in the background. It's a little cutesy, but it works. This is the hip, cool, funny commentary style that Kevin Smith tries to pull off, but in this case it succeeds.

The Magnificent Seven
Commentary by producer Walter Mirisch, assistant director Robert Relyea, actor Eli Wallach and actor James Coburn. Amazingly great commentary for a movie from 1960. It's so refreshing to watch an old classic and hear from the people actually involved in making it instead of the usual assortment of film historians and critics. This film's cast was definitely larger than life, and these guys deliver one great story after another about them. The stories about Yul Brenner and his runaway ego are especially amusing. In addition to the cast commentary, the two-disc "Collector's Edition" has an additional commentary from film historian Christopher Frayling. Frayling provides a lot of interesting information about the actors, the director and the production, as well as making many interesting observations about the film and how it compares to The Seven Samurai. He does tend to be a little pretentious in some of his analysis, and definitely spends too much time describing what is happening on the screen, but overall it's not too bad and certainly worth listening to at least once.

Mallrats
Commentary by director Kevin Smith, producer Scott Mosier, View Askew historian Vincent Pereira, and actors Jason Lee, Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes. Finally, a Kevin Smith commentary that really works. From start to finish these guys are funny, informative, interesting and just plain fun to listen to. They don't run out of things to say, they don't lose interest and stray off into unrelated topics and they don't spend half their time congratulating each other. Once again we have another comedy that didn't quite work in the theatre now saved by a great commentary on DVD. As a bonus, they include a second angle that actually shows the guys sitting around a table rendering their commentary (which is available for a couple of minutes about every 10-15 minutes or so). It's fun and kind of nice. Haven't you ever wondered about what people are doing and where they are when they're recording commentary? As it turns out, it's a couple of boring tables and some chairs in an empty room, but still... now we know.

Manhunter (director's cut)
Commentary by director Michael Mann. In typically engrossing style, Mann discusses the story, the actors, and the then nascent field of criminal profiling. He also talks about the changes he made for this particular cut of the film and how they managed to dig up all of the missing footage. Like Ridley Scott, you simply can't go wrong plugging in a Mann commentary.

M*A*S*H
Commentary by director Robert Altman. Robert obviously delights in retelling the stories of trying to get his subversive anti-Viet Nam war film made without attracting the attention of any of the suits at Fox (who at the time were more concerned with overseeing the productions of the big budget war films Patton, and Tora! Tora! Tora!). He seems particularly pleased relating the story of how Sutherland and Gould tried going over his head to get him fired because they didn't think he knew what he was doing. My god, Robert is impressed with himself and his movie, and he certainly relishes having the last laugh. I guess if I were that brilliant I'd have a monstrous ego as well. Great commentary, though.

Midnight Cowboy (Collector's Edition)
Commentary by producer Jerome Hellman. Decent commentary, nicely paced, and easy to listen to. Jerome's memory is very sharp and he manages to come up with many an interesting anecdote. I hadn't seen this movie in a very long time and I'd forgotten just how hugely pretentious and late 60's artsy it is. Hearing Jerome's tales of all the hedonism that was going on on-set goes a long way towards explaining why.

A Mighty Wind
Commentary by director Christopher Guest and writer/actor Eugene Levy. Two funny guys with extremely dry wit. The reviews of this movie opined that the less than savage take on folk music taken by the movie must reveal a somewhat affectionate view of its subject by the film's creators. Well, listening to these two have a go at the folkies shows just how goofy and creepy they really do seem to find the whole scene.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Commentary by directors Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, with additional commentary provided by Eric Idle, Michael Palin and John Cleese. I've been a Monty Python fan since day one, so obviously this is one my favorite movies and favorite commentaries. Now, let's get these guys do to commentary for the DVDs of all of their television episodes before any more of them kick off!

Monty Python's Life of Brian
Commentary #1 by Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle. Commentary #2 by Michael Palin and John Cleese. It's so interesting listening to these over-educated Brits bring so much scholarly philosophizing to the comedy table. Like, why the teachings of Sartre and Bergstrom make a pie in the face gag so funny in a socio-political sense.

Moonstruck
Commentary by director Norman Jewison, actor Cher, and writer John Patrick Shanley (all recorded separately). This is a really excellent example of taking three different commentaries and cleverly editing them together into a briskly paced whole (and undoubtedly leaving mountains of boring blather on the proverbial cutting room floor). We get lots of great insights into pretty much every aspect of the film, as well as lots of fun stories about prima donna actors throwing fits and whatnot. Better still, a really cool Rashomon effect manifests itself occasionally as they all start telling different versions of the same story. I wish more DVDs went this route instead of simply slathering on multiple, unedited, feature-length commentaries.

My Cousin Vinny
Commentary by director Jonathan Lynn. Another transplanted Brit director. Who knew there were so many of them? Lynn's pacing and delivery are perfect. I love it when a commentator shuts up every once in a while, allowing the viewer to follow the story while listening to the commentary. Every movie (good ones anyway) have a number of great scenes where you'd rather pay attention to the performances than listen to commentary, and Lynn seems to instinctively know when to keep his mouth shut and just let the movie play. As for content, he provides lots of interesting information about the actors and the production, as well as general philosophising on a variety of topics.

My Favorite Year
Commentary by director Richard Benjamin. Very entertaining commentary with lots of great stories about Peter O'Toole (whom Benjamin obviously thinks the world of). Richard is just plain fun to listen to, you can really hear the smile in his voice as he talks.

The Naked Gun, From the Files of Police Squad
Commentary by writer/director David Zucker, producer Robert Weiss and "host" Peter Tilden. Another commentary that passes the "let's record a bunch of funny guys watching something funny and see if it's funny too" test. Again these guys have a ball ripping their own film and its cheesy production values.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2, The Smell of Fear
Commentary by writer/director David Zucker, producer Robert Weiss and "host" Peter Tilden. I swear, these movies are even funnier with the commentary than without. These guys fire off more jokes watching their movie than are in the movie itself.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3, The Final Insult
Commentary by director Peter Segal, and producers David Zucker, Robert Weiss and Michael Ewing. The boys hammer the final nail into the coffin of the Naked Gun series. Still funny.

The Narrow Margin
Commentary by William Friedkin. Wow, was I ever pleasantly surprised to learn that William Friedkin had provided the commentary for this movie. I've enjoyed all of the commentaries he's done for his own films, and to now get his take on classic film noir is just a treat. Friedkin, a man very much in touch with the nether regions of the soul, was well chosen to cover this particular genre. Once again he delivers another perfectly paced collection of his trademarked passionate and energetic verbal musings. In this case covering this film, other films of the genre, its director, other directors, and onward into whatever semi-related realms his restless imagination might lead him. He also moderates over a few nonsequitor interview snippets from director Richard Fleischer, which is probably the best way to handle such material - take the best of what was said and let the scene-specific commentator work around it.

Network (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Commentary by director Sidney Lumet. A Sidney Lumet film is like a great symphony. There's just this musical rythmn to the way his scenes are put together. And in his commentaries, Sydney moves through a film almost like a dancer, pointing out this note here and that movement there. It's all so well thought-out and so beautifully timed. And once again, we get a great mix of information about every aspect of the film- the writing, the casting, the locations, the lighting, the shooting, the actors, you name it. 82 years old when he recorded this commentary and still as sharp as he ever was (still directing too). Whatever his secret is, I wish he'd bottle it and sell it to the rest of us.

Nightmare Alley
Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. Another fine noir commentary from the dark duo. Interesting insights into the author of this story, who's own life paralleled that of the Tyrone Power character.

No Way Out
Commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller. Another great Muller commentary. This time around we get to find out which 40's actresses Eddie would like to travel back in time to, um, "hook up with".

North By Northwest
Commentary by screenwriter Ernest Lehman. I really enjoyed this commentary, despite the fact that much of it appears to be nonsequitor interview material (in fact, bits and pieces of it actually appear in the "making of" documentary also included on the DVD). I really got sucked in listening to him talk about how he got involved in the project, the different stages he went through writing the script, how he collaborated with Hitchcock, and his experiences on the actual shoot. Lots of great stories and insights into the writing side of movie making. Ernest apparently never felt he got the recognition he deserved for his contributions to what most people consider the quintessential Hitchcock masterpiece, so it's nice to see him finally get his due with this DVD version. My only minor quibble is that there is very little commentary over the final 30 or so minutes, but given the length of the movie I'll cut them some slack there. I wish commentaries included the writers more often, as they almost invariably have a lot to offer.

An Officer and a Gentleman
Commentary by director Taylor Hackford. Really engrossing commentary focusing on the actors, the performances, the story, and the behind the scenes stuff (and very little technical mumbo jumbo, thank god). Taylor's delivery is smooth, and although he starts off talking a mile a minute, he eventually settles down to a reasonable pace. And his commentary is actually a little edgy insofar as this was one of his first directing jobs and he had a lot of people who didn't believe in him and what he was doing (particularly producer Michael Eisner, who eventually asked that his name be removed from the project). A little bit of nyaah, nyaah in-your-face payback from a director eventually proved right always makes for fun commentary.

Oh, God!
Commentary by director Carl Reiner, writer Larry Gelbart and actor Teri Garr. I always get a kick out of commentaries that feature these kinds of show biz mainstays, people whose careers we've been following for years and years. The commentary equivalent of comfort food, I suppose. Nothing profound, but lots of jokes, great stories and fond memories of their experiences making this film nearly thirty years ago. The box mistakenly lists producer Jerry Weintraub as also participating in this commentary. Well, he doesn't.

One False Move
Commentary by director Carl Franklin. Very smooth and very thoughtful commentary from Franklin. He really delves into the script and the nuts and bolts of how things get written and what makes them work. Additionally, he really breaks down a lot of the choices and moves he made as a director (as well as the ones he didn't make, and why). Really fascinating stuff, especially for anyone who might be interested in getting involved in writing or directing.

Our Man Flint/In Like Flint (Ultimate Flint Collection)
Commentary by film historians Eddie Friedfeld and Lee Pfeiffer. These guys are a lot of fun, and perfectly suited for these commentaries- total film nerds who grew up immersed in the spy movie/TV-show cycle of the 1960s. In fact, I think they wind up talking about the Bond films just as much as they do the Flint films. No worries, though. The two have great chemistry together and have the whole witty banter thing going on full tilt. I'm not the world's biggest Flint fan, but I did enjoy wading through the two films with Eddie and Lee as my travelling companions.

The Outsiders (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Commentary #1 by director Francis Ford Coppola, commentary #2 by actors C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze (Dillon and Lowe recorded separately). I really enjoyed Coppola's commentary (as I invariably do). In this instance he spends much of his time talking about the compromises he had to make when assembling the original theatrical release, along with all of the changes he made for this new "more like the book" DVD version - IE, rearranging scenes, restoring cut footage and completely replacing the original score (the latter change making for some particularly interesting commentary, what with the old "overwrought" version having been composed by Francis's own father!) The actor commentary isn't nearly as compelling, but certainly worth checking out at least once. Basically we get a bunch of forty-something actors struggling to remember some of their experiences on the set some twenty years ago (and with only scattered success). There are a few interesting stories, but too many long pauses as they get sucked into watching the film, and too many comments of the "wow, I sure was skinny back then", and "man, you really nailed that scene" ilk. Still, these guys are definitely of my own generation, so for me anyway, it was interesting to hear what they had to say about working on the film and with each other.

Paper Moon
Commentary by director Peter Bogdanovich. A nice job discussing one of my top five favorite comedies, although perhaps not quite as perfect as his What's Up Doc? commentary. Maybe a little too much repetition here? After the fifth or so time, we do finally get it that deep focus is cool and really hard to pull off. The same thing goes for long, uninterrupted shots. Yes, we get it. Still, I could listen to Peter read the Yellow Pages.

The Parent Trap (1960)
Commentary by director David Swift and actress Haley Mills. This is really cuddly Disney stuff, but it manages to rise above banality by virtue of the charm of (and easy camaraderie between) its two speakers. Haley Mills in particular is tremendously engaging. Those of us of a certain age grew up loving these Disney movies from the 50s and 60s, and this was certainly one of the best and most memorable. And these two have a splendid time reminiscing along with us about their experiences, before, during and after this movie.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Commentary #1 by director Tim Burton and actor Paul Reubens. Commentary #2 by composer Danny Elfman. Burton and Reubens are both pretty soft-spoken guys, and they both sound almost exactly alike so a lot of the time it's hard to tell which one is talking (and sometimes it's hard to even make out what they're saying). However, that minor quibble aside, the commentary itself is a lot of fun and very entertaining. The composer track is a bit of a mixed bag. There's no question that Danny Elfman is an entertaining guy with a lot of interesting things to say about his career, his influences and how he went about composing this, his first movie score. However, only allowing him to talk between the musical cues makes for a lot of music and not much commentary. They probably should've just recorded an interview with him and stuck it in as an extra.

Platoon
Commentary #1 by director Oliver Stone, commentary #2 by military trainer/adviser Captain Dale Dye. Another surprisingly low-key and thoughtful commentary from Stone. Like the movie itself, he pretty much eschews talking about politics and instead limits his conversation to talking about the day-to-day challenges of the American infantryman in Viet Nam. This is my third Stone commentary and so far he's batting 1.000. As for the second commentary, Dye spends most of his time talking about the production and the training he put the actors through and how real and accurate everything was and how he'd be pleased as punch to lead those fine young men into real battle and blah, blah, blah. I eventually got pretty tired of his redneck good ol' boy, gung ho, ooo-rah, military 'tude.

The Player
Commentary by director Robert Altman and writer Michael Tolkin (recorded separately). The movie commentary that comments on movies by commenting on a movie about the movies that satirizes the movies - got that? Better still, the way the two commentaries are edited together provides yet another level of meta-commentary even greater than the sum of the two parts. Tolkin and Altman will occasionally start working at cross-purposes when discussing a section of the movie and ultimately create a whole new level of observation about the writer/director relationship in this movie, and as a consequence, movies in general. Absolutely brilliant.

Predator
Commentary by director John McTiernan. Here is another example of taking a successful director and having them revisit their directorial debut via commentary. And as is generally the case, the insights are fascinating. John has a laid back delivery that's easy to listen to, and he relates lots of great stories about his being jerked around by studio execs who didn't trust him, as well as interesting anecdotes about the acting and the production. I love the story about the studio bozo who insisted they film in Puerta Vallerta, only to find out after two weeks that the leaves on the trees in the Mexican jungle turn brown and fall off in Autumnn just like the trees in North America do. Oops!

The Princess Bride
Commentary #1 by director Rob Reiner, #2 by writer William Goldman. Commentary is more often about attitude than anything else. Here is a perfect example. Goldman comes off as being really enthusiastic whereas Reiner seems rather dubious about the whole commentary thing (why would anyone want to listen to me talk about this movie?) Although Reiner imparts information, his commentary lacks spark. Fortunately, Goldman is very entertaining to listen to and although he was "just" the writer and only spent a few days on the set, he still manages to spin many an interesting yarn about the people involved in the movie (and even other movies). Maybe they should have sat them down together and made just one commentary track.

The Public Enemy
Commentary by film historian Robert Sklar. This is easily the best of the commentaries from the 2005 Warner Brothers "Gangster Collection" boxed set. Sklar has a nice casual, easy-on-the-ear style wherein he renders actual scene-specific commentary (as opposed to reading through a lot of pre-prepared material). He covers a lot of interesting topics without feeling the need to talk a mile-a-minute or inundate the listener with a lot of useless trivia. Basically I just thought he had a lot of interesting takes on the film and I look forward to checking out future commentaries from Robert.

The Quiet Earth
Commentary by writer/producer Sam Pillsbury. Very interesting look inside this low budget indy project. I especially enjoyed finding out about the ten cent methods they used for their special affects and just how really tough it is to find rental trucks in New Zealand.

The Racket
Commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller. Another interesting Muller commentary- lots of information about nut-job Howard Hughes. Unfortunately, my DVD went screwy about halfway through and I never did get to finish it. Friggin' Warner Brothers!

Raging Bull (Special Edition)
Commentary #1 by director Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (recorded separately) Commentary #2 by DP Michael Chapman, producers Irwin Winkler, and Robert Chartoff, music producer Robbie Robertson, actors Theresa Saldana, and John Turturro, and sound effects editor Frank Warner. Commentary #3 by writers Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader, Jake LaMotta, and LaMotta's nephew Jason Lustig. The director/editor commentary is absolutely brilliant. Marty and Thelma provide fascinating insight into the production, the performances, the editing, the sound, everything. A lot of commentaries (enjoyable or otherwise) have you glancing at your watch halfway through, wondering how much time is left. Not so with this one, it is engrossing from start to finish. The cast/crew commentary isn't bad, and oddly enough it's the DP (Chapman) that is the most interesting of the bunch. I think it's kind of amusing that they included bit player John Turturro in this (he thought it was kind of funny too). I guess overall I would have preferred a smaller cast of characters, though. The whole thing comes off as being a bit diluted. The third commentary with the writers and the LaMottas is OK I guess, but by the time I get to the third commentary for a movie I'm usually pretty burned out on the whole thing. Jake LaMotta's whole punch-drunk ex-prizefighter mode of speech didn't help any either.

Return of the Jedi
Commentary by director George Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and actor Carrie Fisher (all recorded seperately). All three of these Star Wars Trilogy commentaries are informative and interesting.

Rock Star
Commentary by director Stephen Herek. Well, this isn't one of the all-time great movies but, god help me, I still love it. And the same thing goes for the commentary. I guess it probably has something to do with the fact that there are so few good movies about rock and roll, and fewer still about metal (of which I've been a huge fan since the 70s). Stephen is obviously a fan of the genre as well, so I guess we must be on the same wavelength. Whatever the case, I was pretty much riveted the whole way through. Your mileage may vary.

The Rules of Engagement
Commentary by director William Friedkin. Another superb commentary from Friedkin, very similar in structure to the others of his that I've listened to. He'll start out by describing what's happening in a scene, then start delving into the underlying themes and before you know it he's gone off on some five minute dissertation about god knows what. I guess it's a style that you either love or hate. Personally, I always find his commentary to be totally engrossing.

The Rutles - All You Need is Cash
Commentary by director Eric Idle. If I weren't such a huge fan of Monty Python and Eric Idle, I'd probably have to go ahead and rank this commentary lower. Eric spends too much time pointing out obscure actors ("Here's so and so, he did such and such television show you never heard of"), and pointing out which locations each and every shot was filmed on (I've said it before and I'll say it again - who cares?) Plus, perhaps it's my imagination, but Eric tends to come off as a little bit cynical and bitter. I mean, not frighteningly so, but you do get the impression that maybe his career has not gone in the direction he'd hoped it would. Who knows? Maybe Eric would've been more cheerful if they'd teamed him up with someone else - Neil Innes would've been perfect. Still, it's not bad and if you're a Python fan, this is a must.

Salvador
Commentary by director Oliver Stone. Another very thoughtful and extremely engrossing Stone commentary. Simultaneously passionate and low key, he talks about his actors, his production team, some of his trials and tribulations getting the film made, and of course, his politics. Completely fascinating.

Say Anything
Commentary by director Cameron Crowe and actors John Cusack and Ione Skye. This is a really fun and interesting commentary with Crowe making a conscious effort to ask probing questions of Cusack and Skye. It must be those Rolling Stone reporter's genes resurfacing.

SCTV Volumes 1 & 2
Volume 1 commentaries by writer/actors Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty (recorded together). Volume 2 commentaries by writer/actor Dave Thomas and writers Dick Blasucci and John McAndrew (recorded together) and actor/writers Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara (recorded together). The Volume 1 commentaries are really fun. Levy has a very dry, amusing manner and Flaherty, in a constant state of the giggles, sounds like he's spent the past 20 years locked up in a loony bin wondering what happened to his career. The Martin/O'Hara commentaries on Volume 2 aren't bad, although a bit more low key than the others. The best commentary of the bunch is the one featuring Dave Thomas, who in addition to being really funny, has a great memory and tells some really fun stories. No question though, the shows (which are wildly uneven in terms of what works and what doesn't) are a heck of a lot more fun to watch with the commentary than without. Unfortunately, of the eighteen shows between the two boxed sets, only five come with commentary (and only one featuring Thomas).

Serial Mom
Commentary by director John Waters. Ninety minutes of John vamping about this and that, up to and including speculation about whether or not Monica Lewinsky gave the president of the United States a rim job. I mean, need I say more?

Seven Days in May
Commentary by director John Frankenheimer. Details, insights, anecdotes, and more. It doesn't get any better than this. It's always fun when a director looks fondly back on a project and calls it the best time of his life. I love the story about the script rewrite that caused him to lose a day in May and his frantic attempts to get it back.

Shattered Glass
Commentary by director Billy Ray and New Republic editor Chuck Lane. Wow, does Chuck ever save the day on this one. This was Billy's directorial debut and you can just tell that if he were doing solo commentary this thing would've been a 90 minute gush job about how wonderful everyone else who worked on the film was. Fortunately, Chuck focuses mainly on the real life story of his dealings with Steven Glass and how the movie goes about telling that story. I find this whole Stephen Glass phenomena endlessly fascinating, and Chuck's commentary really fills in the details. However, do feel free to turn off the sound when the credits start to roll and Billy gives his Oscar acceptance speech.

The Shawshank Redemption
Commentary by director Frank Darabont. Very enjoyable all-around commentary delivered in enthusiastic and wonky fashion. Frank really sounds like he's thinking about his audience as he hits all the topics, tells some fun stories and even explains some of the common moviemaking terminology ("coverage", "continuity", et al). Very solid stuff, no complaints here.

Sid & Nancy
Commentary by screenwriter Abbe Wool, actors Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, cultural historian Greil Marcus, filmmakers Julien Temple and Lech Kowalski, and musician Eliot Kidd (all recorded separately). Really engrossing commentary that touches on many interesting aspects of the film in particular and the punk movement in general. It actually gets to be pretty amusing after a while, because a lot of this commentary focuses on pointing out all of the stuff they got totally wrong in the movie (it not being particularly accurate in its depiction of people and events) - kind of a bold choice for a commentary, I suppose. I'm curious as to why they couldn't get the director to participate, as it would've been nice to get his side of things. This is another one of those odd commentaries that is generally pretty nonsequitor, yet succeeds anyway. It could be because the dialogue is not real important to this film, or maybe it's just something about drug movies in general (see Drugstore Cowboy).

The Silence of the Lambs (Criterion)
Commentary by director Jonathan Demme, actors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally and FBI agent John Douglas (all recorded separately). Great, engrossing commentary. Smart, thoughtful and serious.

Silent Running
Commentary by director Douglas Trumbull and actor Bruce Dern. These guys have a lot of interesting things to say and stories to tell about this movie, other movies they've worked on, their careers and more. I managed to enjoy it despite Bruce Dern's voice, which is kind of hard to listen to. I don't know if he's had a stroke or something (I hope not), but his voice has this very strained, tired quality and his annunciation has a bit of a Tom Brokaw-ish slur to it. Still, what he has to say ultimately wins out over whatever it was that was going on with his voice that day.

The Simpsons (Seasons 1-7)
Commentary by Matt Groening and everybody else on the planet except for the reclusive John Swartzwelder. These are my all-time favorite commentaries. Plugging in a Simpson's DVD and firing up the commentary track is like getting together for dinner and drinks with a bunch of your old friends. And these guys really give you your money's worth - each and every episode has commentary, usually by three or four of the people involved in that particular show.

The Simpsons (Seasons 8-10)
Commentary by Matt Groening and everybody else on the planet except for the reclusive John Swartzwelder. Still great commentary (for the most part), but as we move out of the golden age of The Simpsons and into some of the lesser seasons, it does feel like the commentary is starting to run out of gas just a bit (especially Groening, who barely says anything anymore). And I have to say that this annoying new (season 9) gimic of including peoples' toddlers in on the recording sessions is not something I'm hoping to see repeated. Season 10 is actually kind of an uptick, as there seem to be more writers than animators in the mix (the former being entertaining, and the latter being, well, not so much). And hey, did anyone else think that Mark Hamill was desperately (and shamelessly) angling for another guest star gig during his commentary? Yikes! And wow (season 10 again), wasn't it great to hear Al Jean again? Too bad he had to leave so abruptly, as the commentary for that particular episode completely deflated when he left.

The Simpsons Movie
Commentary #1 by Matt Groening, Al Jean, Dan Castellanata, Yeardly Smith, Jim Brooks, Mike Scully and David Silverman. Commentary #2 by David Silverman, Mike Anderson, Steven Moore and Rich Moore. The first commentary is pretty fun (as is generally the case with Simpsons writers) and the second commentary is kind of boring (as is generally the case with Simpsons animators). I seriously doubt this DVD needed two commentaries, especially since both of them basically focus on the incredible volume of material that was left out and/or changed over the course of creating this film.

Slap Shot
Commentary by Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and David "Killer" Hanson (aka The Hanson Brothers). Finally, something to liven up the boring non-hockey parts of this movie. I knew these guys were cast in this movie because they came out of the same kind of league as the one depicted in the film and were basically playing themselves, but I never realized that this whole story (or at least the good parts) was literally based on the real-life AHL exploits of these lunatics (as well as the third Carlson brother, Jack, who at the time the movie was made had been called up by the NHL and couldn't participate). Totally hilarious.

Snatch
Commentary by director Guy Ritchie and producer Matthew Vaughn. These guys are very funny, very likeable, and have great chemistry together. They tell some humorous stories, crack a lot of jokes, and have quite a bit of fun with "the suits" who were (if we are to believe them) actually passing them notes and suggestions during the commentary recording session ("talk about the budget", "talk about the locations", "talk about casting", etc). OK, content-wise, not the most memorable commentary ever recorded, but you certainly have to give them points for trying so earnestly not to suck, and for their almost palpable relief when they make it to the end credits without having run out of things to say.

The Sound of Music
Commentary by director Robert Wise. There are only a couple of traditional Hollywood musicals that I really like. As for the rest, I find even the good ones to be just tolerable (being, y'know, a guy). This picture falls into the latter category, so I guess the fact that I liked the commentary at all tells you what an interesting one it is. My only complaint is the way the commentary track itself is structured. Apparently they decided that in addition to the commentary, we also needed to hear the musical score sans vocals. So, whenever a song kicks in, Wise keeps quiet and we get to hear the instrumental version of whatever song it happens to be. Once completed, Bob continues on with his comments. Kind of bizarre, but whatever. I wound up just fast-forwarding through these musical interludes. In addition to the director's commentary, the 40th anniversary edition DVD also comes with a second commentary featuring actors Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and Charmian Carr, choreographer Dee Dee Wood and the youngest member of the von Trapp family, Johannes von Trapp. It's all scene specific and all quite interesting, but unfortunately there isn't very much of it. My guess is that there is maybe 30-45 minutes of commentary, which when spread out over three hours of film, does tend to get pretty well swallowed up.

Space Amoeba
Commentary by producer Fumio Tanaka (along with an anonymous DVD host). OK sure, it's in Japanese with English subtitles, but where else are you going to get commentary about the golden age of Toho giant rubber monster movies (outside of MST3K, that is)? I thought it was pretty hilarious the way the anonymous host would go into total James Lipton mode when talking to Fumio, asking his detailed questions about the goings-on in the film as reverently as if he were talking to Orson Welles about Citizen Kane. Tanaka doesn't seem to take much of this very seriously though, as a lot of his answers are of the "hey, it's a rubber monster movie, we didn't think too hard about it" ilk. If you're a Toho-ite, check it out.

Spartacus (Criterion)
Commentary by actors Kirk Douglas and Peter Ustinov, novelist Henry Fast, producer Edward Lewis, restoration expert Robert Harris, and production designer Saul Bass (all recorded separately). This commentary is absolutely brilliant. They've edited all of the individual speakers' comments together into a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. Virtually out of thin air they've create a fascinating debate about this movie, a debate so challenging and compelling that the viewer is filled with the profound desire to join in on the discussion. Ustinov in particular is just one amazingly erudite and opinionated S.O.B., capable of sliding the dagger in with just a couple of carefully chosen words. There are many fascinating stories describing the contentious atmosphere that existed between all of the gigantic egos involved in this production (both in front of and behind the camera). Amazingly, there is even a fair amount of negative criticism of the film (very rare for a commentary), particularly from Henry Fast, who wrote the novel upon which the film was based. And even the restoration guy has some interesting insights into the long and tortuous process of restoring old films. Easily one of the greatest commentaries ever assembled (and proof positive that a film only needs one!) If all commentaries were this good, I imagine more people might actually listen to them.

Splash
Commentary by director Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer and writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. These guys are very funny together and have lots of interesting and entertaining stories to tell. This is probably the best format for Howard, who tends to dwell on the technical when providing solo commentary.

Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan
Commentary by director Nicholas Meyer. Perfectly styled commentary with lots of interesting information about the cast, the production, and so on. Nicholas is an interesting character who provides a great deal of insight into his creative philosophies.

Star Trek III The Search For Spock
Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy, writer/producer Harve Bennett, DP Charles Correll, and actor Robin Curtis. These Star Trek commentaries keep getting better and better. Finally we have one of the "big two" original actors involved in a commentary. And Nimoy is hugely entertaining to listen to. For Star Trek fans, it doesn't get any better than this.

Star Trek IV The Voyage Home
Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy and actor William Shatner. For Star Trek fans, listening to these two old comrades discussing their experiences is quite a treat. Although I must confess than I actually enjoyed the commentary for III more. Shatner is a bit of a flake and can occasionally get on one's nerves. And I think Nimoy is a little more guarded in what he feels comfortable revealing here (sitting next to Shatner) than he is in the commentary he recorded for III.

Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
Commentary by director Nicholas Meyer and screenwriter Denny Martin Flinn. Another entertaining and interesting commentary from Meyer. It's very refreshing to get the point of view of a self-professed Star Trek outsider, and Nicholas, as usual, does much philosophizing on many interesting topics. He's not big on telling stories about the cast, but there's just enough of that kind of thing to satisfy Trek fans. Flinn doesn't have a lot to say, and to be honest, doesn't really add much.

Star Wars
Commentary by director George Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and actor Carrie Fisher (all recorded seperately). Although I despise the changes that have been made to the actual movie, I have to admit to finding this commentary pretty darned interesting. Despite having seen about a zillion documentaries about these movies, I still wound up learning some new stuff (like why it's impressive that the Millenium Falcon can make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs). Heck, I even thought the sound guy was interesting (up to a point). Of the four, only Fisher had much to say about the acting end of things, and unfortunately, she probably plays the smallest role in the commentary. It would have been nice to hear more from her.

Starship Troopers (Special Edition)
Commentary #1 by director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Ed Neumeier. Commentary #2 by actors Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and Neil Patrick Harris (and Verhoeven again). Commentary #3 by composer Basil Poledouris. Another so-so film that actually seems to be more entertaining with the commentary than without. Despite the fact that Verhoeven spends too much time obsessively pointing out which shots are "real" and which shots are CG, he's still quite entertaining. Obviously stinging from the negative criticism their film received, they spend much of their time explaining their intentions and how the critics just didn't get it. Cantankerous Verhoeven is particularly amusing as he points out bits of fascist symbology and then shouts "That's bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!". The cast commentary is also pretty entertaining, although truth be told, Verhoeven tends to do most of the talking again. I haven't listened to the composer commentary. Put a gun to my head and I might consider it.

Straight Time
Commentary by director Ulu Grosbard and actor Dustin Hoffman (recorded separately). This is a great example of a really nicely edited commentary. My impression (perhaps mistaken) was that neither Grosbard nor Hoffman were actually watching the film as they talked, since neither of them ever react specifically to moments on the screen. However, so cleverly edited and interwoven is the material that, more often than not, they do wind up talking (in general terms) about the scene in question. Better still, the comments (though recorded separately) have a very nice point/counter-point flow to them. Hoffman will talk about his experiences shooting a scene, casting the film, picking a location (or whatever) and then Grosbard will offer up a completely different take on the whole thing. Really fascinating stuff, particularly from Hoffman, who is pretty fearless about revealing personal details.

Straw Dogs (Criterion)
Commentary by film scholar Stephen Prince. Criterion always seems to find the best and most interesting speakers for their commentaries, and this one is no exception. Prince, in addition to providing plenty of fascinating insight into Peckinpah the man and Peckinpah the director, has a lot of very interesting takes on the movie itself. He pretty much goes against all of the conventional criticism of this film and what it was trying to say, and for the most part, does so very convincingly. The best third-party commentaries are the ones that really challenge you, where you would really love to get into a debate with the commentator. And that's definitely the case here.

The Street With No Name
Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. This is the third Ursini/Silver teaming I've listened to, and I have to say, these guys really are becoming the Siskel & Ebert of noir commentary. They're knowledgeable and sharp enough to be able to watch a film and casually toss out interesting insights, historical information, and critical analysis (all without having to reference a script). And better still, they have this really great chemistry together. They crack jokes, they get into back and forth discussions, they even argue with each other at times. I look forward to more commentary from this pairing.

Stripes (Extended Cut)
Commentary by director Ivan Reitman and producer/writer Dan Goldberg. These guys really take their comedy seriously, and provide many fascinating insights into their creative processes. Surprisingly, not nearly as funny a commentary as, say, the one for Ghostbusters, but engrossing nonetheless. I was particularly impressed to find out just how much of this film was invented as they went along, and really represented the coming of age of that generation of Second City performers.

The Stunt Man
Commentary by director Richard Rush, and actors Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Alex Rocco, Sharon Farrell and Chuck Bail (O'Toole and Farrell recorded separately). This was a lot of fun, a real high energy group session with lots of great stories about the project. Rush and Bail in particular have great chemistry together. Obviously they go back a long way. O'Toole does not render live commentary, but is riveting nonetheless (as you might expect). I don't know what Richard Rush has, but he should bottle it. These guys all seem to have a lot of deep admiration and affection for him, as evidenced by the fact that the whole danged cast showed up 20 years later to participate in this commentary.

Sullivan's Travels
Commentary by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Noah Baumbach, and Kenneth Bowser. Apart from Sturges biographer Bowser, these guys don't appear to have been chosen to do this commentary for any reason other than the fact that they're fans of Preston Sturges. But whatever the reason, they certainly deliver great commentary. Lots of interesting insights and opinions, and especially in the case of McKean and Guest, delivered in a very witty and amusing manner. I'm still trying to picture what was going on over at Criterion that might have caused somebody to jump out out of their chair and shout "Of course! I will assemble two thirds of Spinal Tap to do my Sullivan's Travels commentary!" Now that was some pretty hoopie thinking, chum.

The Sunshine Boys
Commentary by actor Richard Benjamin. I really like listening to Richard, he has a great voice and a lot of enthusiasm when he talks. Here he spends a lot of time talking about actors and acting and show business and all that stuff. Now, sometimes that can get to be maudlin and tedious, but in this context (a movie about actors and show business) it's totally appropriate. He tells a lot of interesting and funny stories about working with Matthau, Burns and Neil Simon and the whole thing is just a pleasant listening experience.

Super Fly
Commentary by film/television studies professor Dr. Todd Boyd. Another outstanding commentary from the notorious Dr. B. White suburban boys such as myself who grew up in the 1970's pretty much missed out on the whole blaxploitation era back in the day, but never fear, Dr. B. is here to show us the way in the today.

Superman
Commentary by director Richard Donner and creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz. These guys work really well together. Mank supplies the memories and Donner supplies the jokes. They both have some fun stories to tell. In fact, I think I enjoyed the commentary a whole lot more than I did the cheesy movie.

Superman II (The Richard Donner Cut)
Commentary by director Richard Donner and creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz. Wow, it doesn't get much better than this. Donner got yoinked off the Superman II project after having already shot much of the footage (large portions of I and II were filmed simultaneously). Then, decades later, Superman fans finally whip up enough support for Donner to get a chance to put together (as much as possible) his version of the film for DVD. Better still, he gets to do the commentary for it. Suffice it to say, he's still pretty pissed off after all these years and doesn't pull many punches. Donner can't even bring himself to utter the name of the director who replaced him (Richard Lester), claiming he can't remember it. Great, catty fun!

Swimming With Sharks
Commentary #1 by actor Kevin Spacey, commentary #2 by director George Huang, and commentary #3 by director George Huang and actor Frank Whaley. I seriously doubt this movie needed three feature length commentaries, especially after listening to the first one. If there's more than 15 minutes of actual commentary there, I'd be very surprised. And although Spacey sprinkles in a couple of interesting anecdotes and observations, much of his commentary is spent simply pointing out where their locations were located and how many days they spent at each. On the other hand, the Huang/Whaley commentary (#3) is definitely worth the price of admission. Great high-energy stuff that never stops. Very funny, very witty, and just plain fun. This one had me laughing out loud, and believe me, that don't happen very often. And despite the light-hearted tone, they really do get into some pretty interesting topics (namely, what a pain in the ass it is to direct, and what a bigger pain in the ass ego-maniacal actors can be, especially those whose initials are "K.S."). The Huang solo commentary is also quite entertaining, although to be honest it felt just a bit too glib and perfect, like maybe he had scripted it out ahead of time (or who knows, maybe he's just that good). My favorite bit is where he plays the answering machine tape from the call he got from Shelley Winters.

Swingers
Commentary #1 by actors Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, commentary #2 by director Doug Liman and editor Stephen Mirrione. I absolutely