If there’s anything I will continually go to bat for, it’s physical media. I own around 1,000 Blu-Rays/DVDs, I prefer to buy hard copies of video games if I can, and while I love my Kindle, nothing beats cracking the spine on an actual book. (Taylor has not killed me for this…yet.)
One of the best parts of DVDs is all the special features and commentaries, which were influential on me as a kid. Long before I studied film in school or knew how to properly analyze a movie, directors’ commentaries and behind-the-scenes features showed me the actual work behind my favorite movie magic.
Now, if a movie gets a physical media release at all, you’re lucky to get a few featurettes that you could also just as easily find on YouTube. It’s not cost-effective to load up a Blu-Ray with extras for a mid-budget movie anymore, and it’s a rare feat to get any sort of bonus features on a streaming movie or digital copy.
But every so often, a filmmaker comes along who loves the nerdery as much as I do, and right now, that filmmaker is Rian Johnson. Last week, Johnson recorded a director’s commentary for “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”
(One minor quibble: Why do I need to play a podcast audio track along with the film on mute? Would it have been that much more expensive to layer another audio track on top of the digital file already on Netflix and just give users that audio option? Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.)
I’m excited to dive in and listen, but before I do that, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite film commentaries I’ve listened to over the years.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Obviously. I’ve written about this before, but the care and detail put into everything about this trilogy are highlighted in the multiple filmmakers’ commentaries available on the special edition DVDs. Listen to all of them and you have your own little film school.
Armageddon
The cast commentary on the Criterion DVD with Ben Affleck is hilarious, and worth it for this exchange alone:
Big Fat Liar
This might have been the first audio commentary I ever listened to - I think I was 9?The cast commentary with Frankie Muniz has a lot of behind-the-scenes tidbits and location info, as well as stories about what it was like to meet Paul Giamatti.
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out
Independently released as an audio track before it was included on the DVD, this one showcased how Johnson plotted the film and goes into detail on how he got the lighting and camerawork just right.
Holes
If you loved “Dig It,” then listen to the cast commentary. It’s got the whole cast singing and rapping along. Also a lot of teenage boy openly crushing on Sigourney Weaver. The director’s commentary goes into detail about what it was like to adapt the book for the screen. I rewatched both constantly as a kid (further proving I have always been who I am).
Talladega Nights
The whole thing features Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in character. Absolutely bonkers.
Tropic Thunder
Robert Downey Jr.’s character Kirk Lazarus has a great joke: “I don’t drop character ‘til I done the DVD commentary.”
He stays in character the whole movie until the credits hit, and then he starts using his real voice.