Audio commentaries

[Ikertxus]

Does anyone watch them? find them useful? waste of space?

I was just curious because I'll go through any film multiple times listening to them, in fact I am get quite dissapointed when a modern film comes without them, I couldn't care less for the rest of the extras... trailers, sketches, making-of... not a glance at them.

You can find golden nuggets of information that make the films much more enjoyable, once you see why certain decisions were made, side-comments on what was going on at the time of the shots, plus they are usually quite funny when there's a good vibe between commentators.

As an example, I went through all 4 different audio commentaries on each of the Lord of the Rings films and I got a really different picture on what it was all about, because I felt a little dissappointed on the outcome of the message it was supposed to deliver, it felt soul-less in my eyes, and some decisions I swore never to forgive, hehe. I changed my mind after watching the film as PJ and co. envisioned it.

Yeah, life-changing moment, hehe. So what do you think about it all? Obviously for me it's up there in the greatest idea's ever section, hehe.

[Grimmlokk]

They vary wildly. I've never sat through an entire drama/whatever film with the commentary on. But some comedies they are great. The Jackass movies, 40-Year-Old virgin. Just depends who is doing the commenting.

[Canisis]

I don't watch too many commentaries but I had to mention one I watched recently that was rather spiffy...Sideways.

Giamatti and Church play off each other so damn well~

[Blank]

only commentary I've ever listened to was Ebert's take on Dark City (one of my favorite movies of all time -_-). Was interesting some of the stuff I missed and shit, but not enough to get me to listen to any commentary ever again. I basically don't even touch the "extras" features on DVD's... in (extremely) rare cases I'll watch deleted scenes but that's about it.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Commentaries rock, though I've listened to fewer as the years have gone on, mostly because the studios have started to put them exclusively on "Special Edition" discs that I have no interest in paying an extra 5 to 10 bucks for. Two I recently listened to were Hellboy 2, where Del Toro talked quite a bit on the themes and also on what the 3rd movie might be, and also Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was a good "comedy commentary" since they pretty much had the entire cast there.

More interesting that the movie commentaries are the TV series ones, Ron Moore talking about BSG especially.

[Desidero]

Never had any desire to listen to the audio commentary. I've seen deleted scenes on a few movies, but for the most part I just press play over and over again until the main menu finishes the stupid loading thing and lets the movie begin. I don't seem to care too much beyond the experience of watching a movie. I've never felt attached enough to want to know what's going on in the peoples' minds. They are just characters to me.

[Regime]

Awesome commentary = anything by John Carpenter.

The ones that are a must "listen" is The Thing and Big Trouble and Little China.

Kurt Russell just owns.

Also Conan the Barbarian, Arnold's commentary about his mom "The spanish Actress" makes you roll knowing he banged her offset.

[Baazl]

I really love audio commentary, but I haven't really listened to any since I first started with DVDs almost a decade ago.

Basically, the time investment isn't worth it. The last one I watched was basically like having the movie on mute with a guy making one boring comment every 2 or 3 minutes.

I wouldn't mind an edited commentary, but then you'd miss out on some of the fun stuff (like the SLC Punk commentary where Matt Lillard shows up to the studio hungover and sleeps below the table).

[Arbitrary]

Has anyone else listened to commentaries and found they had no fucking clue what the director was doing?

Natural Born Killers, Donnie Darko, and Starship Troopers all immediately spring to mind as films that I liked but ended up scratching my head as the director explained the film they had created. Being in the military makes you a fascist? Donnie is a superhero? Really?

[James]

I watched all the audio commentaries on Fight Club one boring ass weekend during my first phase of tech school. I think there were three different ones, but the actor one with Brad Pitt was by far the best. They were just crackin jokes the whole time.

[Eomer]

I typically don't listen to the commentaries at all. The only one I can recall offhand, and I have no idea why, is Chronicles of Riddick. Go figure.

They're a good feature, but I might watch 10-20 movies a year, I'd rather spend the 2 hours watching a new movie instead of re-watching one I've already seen.

[Korioni]

As a film maker, audio commentaries are amazing to have available. For example, go turn on the commentary during "Moonstruck". Makes the movie about twice as enjoyable. Mind... the alternative is listening to Cher for 2 hours.

[homsar]

For me I only bother with movies I am a huge fan of. Listening to the commentary on movies like Legend, Army of Darkness, and Labyrinth was really cool.

[Arbitrary]

Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness have some of the best commentaries ever. It's like having a whole new movie to watch.

[Astrocreep]

is there an option where i can watch a movie with commentary on and use the subtitles so i can still follow the dialogue in the movie? every time i try this on my prog scan dvd player i always just get the commentary captioned.