Best Commentary Track on a Blu-ray

[BenOswald]

I thought of a couple more:

Mike Mills on Beginners & Thumbsucker

Mike Leigh has some interesting commentaries on his movies.

Anton Corbijn - Control

It's been mentioned before in this thread, but Ridley Scott does a good commentary. To me they're interesting because it's often more from the point of view as a producer.

Paul Thomas Anderson - Hard 8 (Sydney)

Jacques Audiard - A Prophet + Rust & Bone

Days of Heaven - the supporting crew's commentary lends some good insight into the production

The Shining - there's one DVD version with Garrett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam, where he talks about Kubrick's use of it and how they influenced each other.

[Torgon]

I enjoyed the commentary by Bonnie Hunt and Don Lake on Return to Me Yeah, I know it doesn't seem like the type of movie to listen to commentary, but they do a good job giving insight on how the movie was filmed.

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by obscurelabel

James Stewart on Winchester 73. This is from all the way back in the laserdisc days and is a great listen if you like Stewart (who doesn't?). He talks about the movie at hand, although not really specific to scenes, and then goes on to discuss his entire career over 90 minutes. Great.
.

speaking of laserdisc - I haven't listened to it in a while but I was very impressed with Criterion's release of 'King Kong' (1933) that has a commentary track by historian, and long-time Criterion contributor, Ronald Haver.

[obscurelabel]

Originally Posted by obscurelabel

James Stewart on Winchester 73. This is from all the way back in the laserdisc days and is a great listen if you like Stewart (who doesn't?). He talks about the movie at hand, although not really specific to scenes, and then goes on to discuss his entire career over 90 minutes. Great.

Originally Posted by Race Bannon

Did not know this one was out there. Now I have a sad that there's no blu-ray. Maybe it's on a DVD release.

My comment was a little misleading; the James Stewart commentary is also on all the the U.S. DVD releases of Winchester 73. For some reason it is listed as a "James Stewart Interview" although it is an actual commentary track accompanying the movie (even though it is not scene specific). To be fair there is an interviewer to keep things moving, but Stewart speaks almost the entire time.

Winchester 73 really is a top, top Western. I always get a kick from

[Show spoiler]Stewart being absent from the screen for long stretches, even though he is the main character, as if the movie has a mind of its own and goes off to follow the story (and the title rifle) wherever it leads. I'm sure there are other movies that do something similar but W73 always stands out in my mind for this.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

The ones for Evil Dead 2 and Resident Evil (there appears to be a theme here) are hilarious.

That Resident Evil commentary is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

[Jakdonark]

Most of my favorites have already been listed (Carpenter, Scotts (both of them!), Fincher, PTA)

One of the funniest though I have to mention is the Commentary for the live action Jungle Book with Stephen Sommers. He mentions how King Louis was urinating on the green screen, and I think it was a lighting guy got sick while setting up lights in the temple because he was wading in the water and all the monkeys had been using that water for their "business". I'm trying to remember if he was laughing about it during the commentary, but either way overall it was funny. I wonder if that's part of the reason the disc is oop? Would have been a nice tie in with the new one. Also on the mummy he mentions that Arnold Vosloo was only wearing a thong under his robe so during the sandstorm scene his robe flew up and they had to alter the framing to hide it. Couldn't they have used cg?

[Michael24]

The very first commentary I ever heard was Scream with Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson. And it was on VHS! When it came out I bought a collector's edition box set that had two copies of the movie in widescreen. The case for tape two said "Audio Commentary." My family never owned Laserdiscs, so I had no idea what this 'commentary' thing was and thought maybe it was just an interview. So I popped it into the VCR and sat enthralled for the next two hours. I loved it and thinking it was a new concept was like "This is awesome! I hope they start doing this for more movies." Haha!

Originally Posted by Gerby

Samurai Cop - Joe Bob Briggs.

The first time I stumbled across this clip with his commentary, I was like "I need to get this just for Joe Bob."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXczvXxdspE

Originally Posted by obscurelabel

James Stewart on Winchester 73. This is from all the way back in the laserdisc days and is a great listen if you like Stewart (who doesn't?). He talks about the movie at hand, although not really specific to scenes, and then goes on to discuss his entire career over 90 minutes. Great.

Wow! I had no idea that existed. I've only seen the movie once when I was a kid but I remember liking it. Knowing there's a Jimmy Stewart commentary makes me want to get the DVD now.

Originally Posted by Jakdonark

One of the funniest though I have to mention is the Commentary for the live action Jungle Book with Stephen Sommers. He mentions how King Louis was urinating on the green screen, and I think it was a lighting guy got sick while setting up lights in the temple because he was wading in the water and all the monkeys had been using that water for their "business". I'm trying to remember if he was laughing about it during the commentary, but either way overall it was funny.

Sommers' commentaries are pretty fun. I wish there was one for Deep Rising.

[starman15317]

Any Roger Ebert commentary is great. He did commentaries for Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Crumb, Dark City and Floating Weeds (one that Criterion needs to upgrade to Blu).

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by starman15317

Any Roger Ebert commentary is great. He did commentaries for Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Crumb, Dark City and Floating Weeds (one that Criterion needs to upgrade to Blu).

I was about to post that I have yet to hear a better commentary track than Roger Ebert's commentary on Citizen Kane.

Criterion's first LD release was Citizen Kane on December 1, 1984. If I'm remembering correctly (and I might not be), Criterion was in talks with Orson Welles to provide a commentary track, and he agreed to do one for a reissued LD release of the film, but he died before it happened. (Criterion would eventually release four different LD editions of the film.)

For me, that would have been the ultimate bonus feature.

[HoleRock]

I really enjoyed the John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis commentary on the 35th anniversary blu ray of 78' HALLOWEEN