Commentary on commentaries

Continuing to occasionally bitch about DVDs, I want to talk about commentaries. Of course, all DVD should have commentaries on them (indeed, the mission of The Film Crew is to give commentaries to movies that don't have them!), and there are very few DVDs I will consider getting that don't have them (unless they are very cheap).

But some commentaries really aren't worth the effort. Some are just details about the technical details, but I will forgive those as they are still attempting to provide information, just not information I care about.

There are two unforgivable commentary traits, and I have encountered them both.

One: Saying what's happening on screen. We know what's happen, because we can SEE what's happening. Most likely, we watched the thing before we listened to the commentary, so we probably know what's going on better than the commentators do! (As has been the case on a few occasions.) Often a bad sign of a commentary if the people resort to saying "and this person goes here..."

Second: Catching up with their own lives. Is it really the case that commentators haven't seen each other right before been ushered into the booth, even for, say, half an hour before they get started? All too often we have been treated to "so, what happened to you after blah?" or "how's thingy doing?" I'm sure the people concerned are very interested, and some people might be wanting to hear the cosy intimate details... but this isn't what commentaries are about! They want to chat? Fine! Just don't bother to record it for posterity!

I'm sure there are other horrendous commentary faux pas, and feel free to mention them, but those are the worst two for me.

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