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 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 11:46 AM   
 By:   Sir David of Garland   (Member)

What are its characteristics?

1 - Telling me what is happening on the screen. (Hello, people, this stuff belongs on a descriptive audio track for people with vision problems, not for the rest of us who can already see!)

2 - Telling me the same information over and over. (Again, this belongs on an audio track for people with some other disability.)

3 - Repeating lines that are being said, usually with a sense of awe. (Somebody else already said this line and did it better.)

(I came up with these after listening to the commentary on EL CID, which needed editing and the contribution of others.)

Any other characteristics?

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 11:51 AM   
 By:   LeHah   (Member)

Star Trek Nemesis.

If you haven't heard this - its both incredibly boring and amazingly vapid.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 11:58 AM   
 By:   riotengine   (Member)

I think you pretty much nailed it.

Conan The Barbarian is one of the worst commentaries I've heard. Arnold does all of these things, but the commentary is slightly redeemed by the presence of John Milius.

Greg Espinoza

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:26 PM   
 By:   Doug Raynes   (Member)

Actors and directors telling us over and over how wonderful (insert name) was and how great it was to work with him/her etc etc.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:33 PM   
 By:   BobJ   (Member)

My three top contenders for worst commentary are:

1: Any commentary featuring Mel Brooks. If he is alone, don't listen to it. All he does is talk about how wonderful every one was to work with then says next to nothing.

2. Braveheart- Seriously, I don't know why Mel even bothered. Her says something, then 5 minutes pass before he says something else. The you wait another 10 and so on and so forth.

3. PCU-Jeremy Piven bores like no one else can. All he does is talk about how he wanted to make a scene funny but the director wouldn't let him. Then he points out all the jokes he made up on the spot and thought were funny. Ah yes, this was a lot of fun to listen to. *Add sarcasm* I never knew how much of a whiney little prat he was.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:35 PM   
 By:   drivingmissdaisy   (Member)

I want to hear a commentary when we hear THE TRUTH, when the director is like oh this scene was fun, but Robert DeNiro kept flubbing his lines and it ticked me off, or some other truth, we never hear these things. I think it would be cool, course, it would be the last picture the director would direct, but us, the audience listening would be cracking up!

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:36 PM   
 By:   Sarge   (Member)

Conan The Barbarian is one of the worst commentaries I've heard. Arnold does all of these things, but the commentary is slightly redeemed by the presence of John Milius.


Agreed, but I enjoyed it on the basis that Arnold and Milius are obviously drunk / stoned.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:36 PM   
 By:   ahem   (Member)

The commentator reading the credits as they appear on screen.

I hate it when they just reiterate what they've already said in the Making Of featurette, incidentally a special feature on the same DVD as the film. roll eyes



"ANDDDDDD.............. here we are, on the moon. Again."



"And there's so and so. He was great, wasn't he? I really had the best on this"


I ahte Tim Burton's commentaries that sound like tracked in interviews, even though they are recorded live as he watches the film! He can disconnect himself from the film and not tell you any anecdotes about what is on screen even when it's the most important moment in the film.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 12:38 PM   
 By:   LeHah   (Member)

Agreed, but I enjoyed it on the basis that Arnold and Milius are obviously drunk / stoned.

Some of the stuff Milius says is hysterical. Like the part with kid Conan and his dad on the mountain top.

"I remember that was one tough kid...!"

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 1:02 PM   
 By:   The Mutant   (Member)

If you wanna hear a weird commentary - check out Val Kilmer on Spartan.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 1:36 PM   
 By:   Eric Paddon   (Member)

Mickey Rooney on the Twilight Zone S5 set regarding his episode "Last Night Of A Jockey."

Marian Keane on the Criterion version of "Spellbound" since she spends the entire time talking about phallic imagery in each scene. The one thing I hate more than unhelpful actors/directors with bad memories or who just praise everyone are film "scholars" who bore the listener to death with their indulgence in symbolism/imagery etc. while offering nothing on production history.

Similarly, Gene Hatcher on "Ben Hur" is both pompous, worthless not to mention inaccurate (asserting that Tiberius was not Emperor at the time of Christ but that "Pomponius" was. First off, not only was Tiberius the actual emperor, but there was no Roman emperor named Pomponius before or after Tiberius!)

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:01 PM   
 By:   Jim Phelps   (Member)

I just wish that those TV stars who haven't seen the episode they're commenting on since who-knows-when would do their homework. Taking the time to watch it once beforehand might improve the quality of their comments. Robert Conrad in the Wild, Wild West pilot comes to mind. He might have avoided saying something like "Nehemiah Persoff didn't do much TV." Yeah, right; when wasn't Persoff on TV!

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:22 PM   
 By:   Stefan Miklos   (Member)

Roy Thinnes' intros for "The Invaders": awful, dull and contrived as if he was reading his text on a screen.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:28 PM   
 By:   The Mutant   (Member)

Frankenheimer and John Carpenter always make great commentaries.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:40 PM   
 By:   Tom Servo   (Member)

Agreed, but I enjoyed it on the basis that Arnold and Milius are obviously drunk / stoned.

Some of the stuff Milius says is hysterical. Like the part with kid Conan and his dad on the mountain top.

"I remember that was one tough kid...!"


I love that commentary on CONAN, it's a total blast!

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:40 PM   
 By:   Tom Servo   (Member)

Star Trek Nemesis.

If you haven't heard this - its both incredibly boring and amazingly vapid.


+1 on this.

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 2:45 PM   
 By:   Grimsdyke   (Member)

DEEP STAR SIX
There is either no one talking for several minutes or everybody at the same time.
What a mess.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 4:49 PM   
 By:   GladVlad   (Member)

Ratatouille.

Let me explain...

In my experience (I've been working in that field since '92), that was the first AND last time we dubbed the commentaries.
Yeah. We dubbed the commentaries.
In french, for Quebec (Canada).

So we sat in the studio, with the text on the table and headphones; and read the lines like a voice-over, but of course, it was only in french in the final edit.
We didn't even see the movie!
And recorded our lines (voice of producer and director) separately...

To this day, I haven't listen to the edited results. I'm not sure I will. Absurd.
But, hey! Paycheck was good...

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 5:00 PM   
 By:   Charles Thaxton   (Member)

Roy Thinnes' intros for "The Invaders": awful, dull and contrived as if he was reading his text on a screen.

He WAS reading them. What did you expect him to say in the intros? I thought they were adequate (except his Burgess Meredith/Joker gaffe)

 
 Posted:   Apr 27, 2009 - 5:04 PM   
 By:   Ron Pulliam   (Member)

Film "historian" Richard Barrios' commentary on the roadshow version of "South Pacific".

Barrios owns nothing that he says...all negative, by the way. It's always, "..people have said..", "friends think..."...etc.etc.

It's a very disappointing appendage to a beautiful version of the film.

 
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