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Movie Commentary Tracks Are Back (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last spring, long before Get Out's eventual Oscar win, the movie was released on home video with a commentary track from its writer-director. A decade ago, in the pre-streaming era, this wouldn't have been news: Back then, seemingly every movie got a commentary track, even Good Luck Chuck. Then the DVD market began to decline, and the commentary track went from a being standard-issue add-on to relative rarity. Even recent Best Picture nominees like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Wolf of Wall Street, 12 Years a Slave, and Spotlight were released sans tracks -- bad news for anyone looking for behind-the-scenes intel on Mark Ruffalo's little-Ceasar haircut.
In the last few years, though, several high-profile films -- everything from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Lady Bird to Get Out -- have been released with commentary tracks. That means you can spend your umpteenth viewing of Peele's film listening to him talk about how he modeled the opening credits on those of The Shining, or how the film's title was inspired by a routine from Eddie Murphy Delirious. For casual movie watchers, such details may not be too thrilling. But for film nerds who absorb behind-the-scenes trivia and how-we-made-it logistics, tracks like the one for Get Out remain the cheapest movie-making education available.
In the last few years, though, several high-profile films -- everything from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Lady Bird to Get Out -- have been released with commentary tracks. That means you can spend your umpteenth viewing of Peele's film listening to him talk about how he modeled the opening credits on those of The Shining, or how the film's title was inspired by a routine from Eddie Murphy Delirious. For casual movie watchers, such details may not be too thrilling. But for film nerds who absorb behind-the-scenes trivia and how-we-made-it logistics, tracks like the one for Get Out remain the cheapest movie-making education available.
You should be able to tell five minutes into the commentary - unfortunately most are pretty dry and not really that interesting (Star Wars, I'm lookin' at you).
Generally the great ones have the actors and directors together and they actually like each other and can riff off of each other. For the most part great ones are quite funny, but they can really expand on the movie experience and in many cases make the movie a lot more enjoyable.
In the poor ones the director rambles on and on about the different shots and what made it memorable to them (but of little interest to anybody else including wanna be filmmakers) and the actors talk about clothing, makeup and how hard it is finding a good meal while they were on location.
Here are a few of my favourites:
- Big Trouble in Little China by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell
- The Silence of the Lambs Criterion DVD (not on the Criterion BRD version of the film) with Jonathan Demme, Jodi Foster & Anthony Hopkins
- Dogma with Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck (he's not too stuck up here) and Jason Mewes
- UHF by Weird Al Yankovic
- Transformers by Michael Bay (seriously)
- Blackhawk Down by Ridley Scott
- Shaun of the Dead by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (As well as the commentaries on the other two Cornet movies)
- The last two seasons of "Breaking Bad"
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