Hours of Commentary

DVD commentary is an often over-looked present. Of course it can also go down as one of the worst ways to waste two hours this side of re-coloring arm hair. So maybe I can help with some brisk, and rather random, commentary commentary.

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS - Wes Anderson takes this commentary solo and balances light humor with light trivia well and consistently. The most shocking insight offered comes up every couple of scenes, that the seemingly deliberate movie has a lot of nuances even Anderson himself doesn't know the origins too. What is the difference between randomness and depth? Watch to find out.

TROPIC THUNDER - Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. really make this commentary a feature-length piece of entertainment. Staying true to his hyper-method-acting character, Downey Jr. stays in his Osiris character until dropping the character in the movie itself. And while there is a bit of ass-kissing ("Robert here is absolutely brilliant", etc), the guys seem like fun people to be around.

THE MATRIX - One of the older DVDs I own, I found it appalling the cast and crew (minus the Wachowski brothers) failed to properly use the microphones required for the commentary. Seriously, one person's voice is captured by a microphone I can only assume is placed two rooms over. Baffled by the technology, the people behind the techno-iest film since TRON often forget to talk about the movie and opt instead to watch the film like a polite audience. Boring.

ROBOCOP - Like Wes Anderson, director Paul Verhoeven manhandles the task of talking to no one for two hours. Unlike Anderson though, Verhoeven goes to great length to explain the Christian symbolism in ROBOCOP. Though his Dutch accent is heavy, and oddly intimidating, Verhoeven makes sure you won't toss aside his movie like so many other robot-cop escapades captured on film.

THE GODFATHER (part I and II) - Francis Ford Coppola may be one of the best directors of all-time, entirely thanks to his exceptional craft in these two films (and APOCALYPSE NOW). If one believes I over spoke, listen to the steady commentary of THE GODFATHER and learn how to make good movies. However, I can't make the same recommendation for Part II. Coppola drifts in and out of the film and, on no less than fifty occasions, mentions the relative ease in the production compared to Part I.

STAR TREK - The commentary by the filmmakers (led by J.J. Abrams) actually made me appreciate the movie more than the first (and only other) time I saw it in theaters. They show an appropriate amount of love to the Star Trek canon but also took more risks than I originally credited them for. Abrams especially seemed to have an impressive insight to the iconic characters and was even somewhat apologetic for the over-use of lens flares throughout the film.