I listened to a commentary track..

sfoster

sfoster

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I can't believe we don't have a thread like this here..
I did a search but couldn't find one, so having said that..

I will kick off with a couple of my favorite audio commentaries

Platoon
This was a fantastic commentary by oliver stone, the writer/director of platoon and an actual veteran of the vietnam war. He reveals how significantly the script is based upon his own experiences.

Evil Dead 2
This is a great commentary that gives a lot of tricks and shots away. I enjoyed it a lot as an aspiring director.

Apocalypto if i spelled that right, by Mel Gibson.
This was a surprisingly good audio track, which revealed history and some film making tricks too. Here is where I learned about spider cam.. probably spelled that part wrong too :)
 
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Anything by Trey Parker and Matt Stone where they do commentary is very insightful. They talk a lot about the industry and about storytelling techniques, and plenty of laughs can be found just listening to them talk. The great thing about the commentary on each individual south park episode is they make them last only 3-5 minutes, which they dub "commentary-mini's"
 
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I, Frankenstein

3/5

Informative and interesting commentary track.
I learned this film had a 37 million budget, was shot in 9 weeks and spent 6 million on VFX

and the villain dude, bill neigh was only there for ONE day of shooting.
and they only had the budget for arron ekhart to take his shirt off for one day too lol. (body covered in scars)
 
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Tyrannosaur 3/5

Talks about how this was original a short film and how he reshot the beginning parts. That was interesting. Most of what he says is praise for his actors or specific shots.

Easily my favorite part from this commentary:

Spoiler alert in the visuals, audio is not a spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvowgqBwGU
 
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Count of Monte Cristo (jim caviezel version)
3/5 Perhaps my favorite book, I know this story extremely well and have seen multiple versions on screen. There were a couple of cool things I didn't consciously realize when watching, and this commentary pointed them out. I was entertained and I learned one film trick near the end.

Confessions of a Superhero 2/5
Commentary is just the superman dude and his wife. They talk about what has happened to the other characters, etc and provide insight into the events, batmans arrest, etc. entertaining for anyone that liked the movie.

Interview with the Vampire 4/5
Fantastic commentary with the director. Wow!! Those veins on their face.. the blue veins. They hung the actors upside for 30 minutes every day, after the blood rushed to their head then they traced the outlines of the actual veins in the actors faces.
 
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Primer 4/5 Great commentary track from an indie film maker doing his first feature film. He reveals a lot of his mistakes.

Bram Stoker's Dracula 5/5
EVERY FILM MAKER SHOULD WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY!!
Yes yes yes, this is a gem mine from francis ford coppola.
So many diamonds.
 
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This weekend I watched the extended LOTR trilogy twice.

Once with the writer/director commentary.
Once with the cast commentary.

The cast commentary lacks aragon interestingly enough. And I didn't find gandalf to be very interesting, nor gimly. Merry and Pippin were the highlights of the commentary, cracking jokes and having fun.

In the ROTK andy serkis does some golem voices in the commentary which is a bit entertaining.

2/5 for cast commentary.


4/5 for writer/director commentary which reveals a lot of stuff. I still need to watch the behind the scenes special features, but I was impressed with how much went on. I already knew about the forced perspective props but I didn't know that they built 2 entirely different hobbit homes, one big and one small for the shot/reverse shot sequences. Or that many of the "miniatures" were actually 15-20 feet tall or 30 feet wide.

It's also really interesting how many sequences actually weren't directed by jackson. Yes he had oversight, etc. But wow so many of these scenes were done by other directors.
 
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