Commentary Tracks Of The Damned

By Noel Murray, Keith Phipps, Nathan Rabin, Scott Tobias | September 4, 2002 | 5:00pm

Film Features DVD

When filmmakers began recording commentary tracks for laserdiscs more than a decade ago, they were pioneering a clever use of technology while offering serious film buffs a rare look behind the scenes. Then the feature carried over to DVD, which quickly became a standard format for cineaste and non-cineaste alike. Consequently, the now-commonplace commentary track lost some of its sparkle, as the cast of Dude, Where's My Car? crammed into a recording booth to register their thoughts on the cinematic process. But filmmakers standing up for their failures exude a certain perverse nobility, and command a lingering fascination: Will they shoulder the blame, or point fingers? Will they inadvertently reveal something dense or pretentious about themselves, clarifying how a bad movie came to be? Do they even recognize that something's wrong? For those with the patience to sit through an entire commentary on, say, Battlefield Earth, there's much to be learned. For those without that kind of patience, The Onion A.V. Club presents the Commentary Tracks Of The Damned.

Battlefield Earth

CRIMES

Jakob The Liar

CRIMES

• Applying the standard indie-dramedy coats of "quaint," "quirky," and "mawkish" to a story about hopeful-but-doomed Jews in a 1944 Warsaw ghetto
• Having character actors Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban, and Michael Jeter speak not only with Polish accents, but also in pidgin English
• Starring Robin Williams

DEFENDER
Director Peter Kassovitz

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Confused. English isn't Kassovitz's first language, and he speaks in deliberate, even tones, making it all the more ludicrous when he attempts to explain the film's "mixture of the fatal and the comedy."

WHAT WENT WRONG
Kassovitz blames Hollywood conventions, complaining that "Americans are very much worrying about the audience," and "subtle is a negative meaning in the States." He also seems flustered that he was ordered to bring the film in under two hours—"It's not easy to deal with… how to make understandable the story"—and that he was forced to shoot many takes to satisfy his worrywart superiors. "Coverage… this is an unknown word in European movies," Kassovitz says. "I don't like to use so much the editing."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Kassovitz speaks warmly of Williams, but his comment that the star "was close to this idea of bringing hope… he had seen the possibility of a great performance" may indicate that Williams was exerting his will behind the scenes. Kassovitz says that his star "has like a computer in his mind," and that during the editing process, he was always asking, "Did you use that take?" Even Kassovitz's offhand compliment to bit-player Schreiber ("He's the really intellectual kind of actor, always saying, 'I was thinking…'") says more than Kassovitz may have intended.

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Kassovitz sets the stage for one scene by saying, "I had in mind a scene from The Great Dictator," and later explains away Jakob The Liar's shifts in tone by saying, wishfully, "we've left the vaudeville and we are in Shakespeare."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Kassovitz sighs, "The ghetto wasn't supposed to have trees."

Crossroads

CRIMES
• Bringing the crass calculation of Britney Spears' singing career to a medium with a history of burying hubristic pop icons
• Passing off the sterile verse of Swedish pop machine Max Martin as poetry under the stars
• Pandering to men ages 40 and up by featuring Spears in see-through underwear and hot-pink lingerie
• Pandering to its target audience of girls ages 5 to 12 by featuring rape, anorexia, and a miscarriage

DEFENDERS
Producer Ann Carli, director Tamra Davis, writer Shonda Rhimes, "pop-up" Britney

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Cheerfully oblivious. No mention is made of the film's toxic reception and tepid returns. Carli, Davis, and Rhimes trade compliments on a job well done.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Max Martin and Dido didn't finish the lyrics to "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" until the day before the infamous "poetry" scene. The extensive backstory Dan Aykroyd created for his character, including a stint in the Marines, was left on the cutting-room floor. No mics were around to catch the improvisational riffing of MTV gadfly Jesse Camp. Over one abrupt edit, Davis laments, "We just had too many hugs in the movie."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
In a special feature, the "pop-up" Britney shares her insights on fellow cast members, including Aykroyd ("He's the sweetest guy alive"), Justin Long ("He was so sweet"), and Kim Cattrall ("She was very, very sweet"). The filmmakers praise their star for being able to differentiate between herself and her character.

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
A lot of thought went into the girls' wardrobe. Each girl is associated with a different color until they become close friends again. Then they wear matching colors.

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Panning for the tiniest scraps of Britney Spears trivia? Her favorite meal is tuna salad and crackers.

Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

CRIMES
• Cynically skewering the phenomenon surrounding Blair Witch Project while pandering to the film's fan community with endless inside references
• Creating one-dimensional characters, then using them to exemplify the shallowness of modern life
• Sucking

DEFENDERS
Director Joe Berlinger

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Cocky, cranky, and repetitive. Berlinger, who keeps reasserting his reputation as a respected documentary filmmaker, defensively maintains that studio interference from Artisan botched his intention to comment on the blurred line between fiction and reality. But he exhausts listener goodwill by actually saying "blurring the line between fiction and reality" about 100 times.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Berlinger makes it plain that Artisan and original Blair Witch creators Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez were looking for a quick, cash-in sequel. At the outset of the commentary, Berlinger marvels at how he's gone from agreeing to make the film to recording a DVD commentary track in less than a year. Then the movie starts, and his first comment is "This title card is something that I do not agree with, but it was a studio request." The studio also asked him to add footage of gore, which he "shot in the back of my house literally five weeks before the movie was released in 3,600 theaters," and to replace his opening use of Frank Sinatra's "Witchcraft" with a Marilyn Manson song. As for the Blair Witch originators, Berlinger says, "We had almost zero contact in the making of this movie. They read the script and didn't like it, and that was the last I heard from them until I turned in the movie."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Not so much damned as darned with faint praise: "When I think that I had only six weeks to cast the movie and I had to find undiscovered talent… it amazes me that I got such a wonderful group."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
"I tried to find more subtle ways to connect this film to the documentary tradition," Berlinger says. "This force-feeding is my homage to Frederic Wiseman." He also name-checks "one of my favorite plays in college… Six Characters In Search Of An Author, by Luigi Pirandello," and claims that making a sequel with its predecessor's buzz "would sort of be like going to Europe and trying to bring down the Berlin Wall all over again."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
"I believe the gore in the movie fights with the ambiguity that I purposefully tried to nurture."

The Million Dollar Hotel

CRIMES
• Incorporating excessive genre play, with noir and mystery elements in a science-fiction context
• Using a nonsensical plot as an excuse for a dreary study of L.A. lowlifes
• Inflicting a ridiculous haircut on Jeremy Davies

DEFENDERS
Director/producer Wim Wenders and producer/story provider Bono

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Whimsically chagrined. Bono dominates the track, cracking wise about "getting your favorite director into trouble" while arguing for the value of the attempt. "Every artist… if you're good… you've got to be prepared to jump," he says. "It's a tricky thing to make this kind of love song laugh."

WHAT WENT WRONG
Both complain about the low budget. They also agree that they weren't always sure what they were making. (Bono: "For two years, it was a science-fiction movie.") Neither, however, will call the film a disaster. Bono acknowledges the sense of arty mayhem—"Some of the lines are fairly portentous, even pretentious… we couldn't resist it"—but he also seems to think the collision of styles works. During one scene, he claims, "They knew this could be really cringe-y… so they play it for humor, and that's why it's magical." During another: "This is a really fun scene, where the comedy and the tragedy are at home with each other."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Wenders comments on Amanda Plummer's willfulness ("This is the scene where Amanda didn't want to say a word"), and Bono speculates on Bud Cort's source of inspiration ("It's hard for me to believe that Bud Cort's not on the piss here"). But most of their choice words are reserved for star Mel Gibson, whom Wenders says is an "actor with a capital A," while Bono confesses that putting Gibson in a weird-looking neck brace was "our revenge on him for all those justifiable-homicide movies." Bono does have kind words for Gibson's interrogation scenes with the whacked-out Davies: "The magic that we hoped for was there… it's Abbott and Costello in the best sense of the word."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Bono coos, "This scene really brings me back to a film I loved as a child, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." When the film ends with the fairly common conceit of repeating the opening sequence, he says, "I can't remember a movie that was so perfectly bookended."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Bono talks about how much fun he had on the set, and then admits, "Being there can fool you."

Glitter

CRIMES
• Building a film around Mariah Carey
• Hiring Mariah Carey to play a Mariah Carey-like figure
• Allowing Mariah Carey to perform the soundtrack
• Choosing a script that feels like it's been gathering dust since the early days of the Great Depression

DEFENDER
Director Vondie Curtis-Hall

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Reserved, diplomatic. Curtis-Hall is largely complimentary, but seems to choose his words carefully, perhaps aware that even a post-Glitter Mariah Carey wields power and influence.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Studio meddling and time constraints seem to have played a role. Curtis-Hall is characteristically diplomatic in discussing Carey, who had an on-set acting coach, but alludes to the superstar throwing her weight around behind the scenes.

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
He lavishes praise on the supporting cast. As for his star, Curtis-Hall says he was impressed by the talent she displayed during a screen test for John Singleton's Shaft. It's worth noting that Carey does not appear in John Singleton's Shaft.

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Curtis-Hall states that the film is largely about "male implosion." The veteran actor also throws around terms like "the process" with disturbing regularity.

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Discussing an early version of the script, Curtis-Hall says it was "all over the place" and "needed a lot of work."

Whipped

CRIMES
• Abusing the words "scam," "tailpipe," "stuff," "sturb," and "smoke," as well as the phrases "smoking pole," "love pillows," "the tuck," and "cock-block"
• Failing to understand the distinction between single men and hypersexed coyotes
• Presenting a vision of humanity only slightly less repulsive than that found in a Francis Bacon painting
• Shooting much of the film inside a diner and from the same two angles

DEFENDER
Producer/writer/director Peter M. Cohen

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Gracious, matter-of-fact, and a little uneasy. Cohen is quick to point out how many friends and relatives were featured or involved in the film. "It was all independently financed through 36 friends of mine," he says, "most of them from college, most of whom you'll see throughout this movie." His comments on the filmmaking process tend to be punctuated by pauses and nervous laughs.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Cohen frequently alludes to cuts made in order to satisfy the MPAA's requirements for an R rating. "There's a lot of stuff in these scenes that's been trimmed due to the MPAA… just shortened a lot," he says of the 82-minute movie. "I mean, I think it helps the film, in a way."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Working with friends sounds like it agreed with Cohen in a way that working with outsider Amanda Peet did not. Though the writer/director "went to college with a mutual friend of hers," he still sounds intimidated when describing the early phase of production: "She had a little bit of an attitude. I mean, she doesn't… I learned that it wasn't an attitude at all, but it was just my fear. Heh. I was a little nervous at first, but then everything just kind of fit into place."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Pretension is in short supply, but Cohen still seems wistful about the original cut when he notes, "We used to have interviews of people on the street all throughout the movie, like just random people talking about their sexual experiences, which I actually liked… they kind of wanted to get rid of all that. Which I'm okay with. It took me a while to be okay with it."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
"It's funny, sometimes I watch this now, and I even kind of blush. Heh. It's been a while since we shot this, and looking back, it's just… some things just… It's just so in-your-face."

Psycho (1998)

CRIME
• Shooting a scene-by-scene remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho for no discernible reason

DEFENDERS
Director Gus Van Sant, actors Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Postmodern and chatty. Never afraid to finish someone else's sentence, Heche dominates a commentary that concentrates heavily on the project's acting challenges. Of one scene, she says, "I loved playing how obvious she was without knowing that I was obvious. That was the thing I liked to keep from the original. Her absolute extremes… Even though she probably wasn't thinking she was doing that in the original, I wanted to keep all of the extremes… but without it seeming like it was."

WHAT WENT WRONG
A misplaced sense of confidence seems to have contributed significantly to this misbegotten film. Pointing out a fleeting glimpse of a billboard touting a previous Heche film (Six Days Seven Nights), Heche says, "Hitchcock totally would have done that." Van Sant's own motives remain vague. Why did he make the film? "For me, it was mostly because I'd never heard of it done, and I was aware that a lot of people are averse to watching black-and-white movies today… It's a famous picture. Even then, people knew it, or seem to know it, kind of as an icon, rather than literally seeing the whole movie from beginning to end. This is my theory, which I haven't necessarily proven or disproven."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Everyone loves everyone else, or so it would seem. "That's the beautiful Rita Wilson," Heche notes, her excitement carrying over to the first appearance of James LeGros as a used-car salesman. "He's hilarious. Look at his hair."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
No one is particularly modest, but Heche goes furthest when she says, "I actually think that that younger generation, the younger under-20s who didn't see it this time around, will see it in 10 years as a classic, where I saw the original Psycho as a classic."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Van Sant: "Would it actually be Psycho if you took every single piece and connected it together? Would it in fact be the same film?"

Heche: "And what did you find?"

Van Sant: "I found that it wasn't the same film. Because of all the stuff that we do to make the new film, it completely changed it."

New Best Friend

CRIMES
• Exploring a decadent sorority world of martinis, acid trips, bisexuality, lipstick lesbianism, vibrators, catfights, bulimia, pharmaceutical cocaine, and abortions, and somehow still managing to be a bad movie
• Combining cheap titillation with old-fashioned moral hysteria, not unlike the Starr Report

DEFENDER
Director Zoe Clarke-Williams

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Sanguine. After the film spent two years on the shelf, undergoing numerous Troy McClure-esque title changes (Mary Jane's Last Dance, Depraved Indifference) and obvious post-production tinkering, Clarke-Williams seems at peace with the whole experience.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Some of the film was shot in an old Southern whorehouse haunted by "an awful, prickly, terrible energy." For the vigorous love scene between Mia Kirshner and Dominique Swain, "Mia didn't want to take off her top, and Dominique didn't want to take off her bottoms." For a crucial scene, the filmmakers only had one hour to shoot in a restaurant before it opened for business. While on location in South Carolina, Clarke-Williams got painful chiggers on her skin and had to suffocate them with nail polish. Evidence of studio tampering arrives near the end of the commentary, when Clarke-Williams calls herself a "director-for-hire" and says her version "would have focused much more on the behavior of the girls and much less on the story of the detective [Taye Diggs]."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
At several points, Clarke-Williams calls the female cast members "troupers," including Meredith Monroe (for smoking cigarettes even though she's a non-smoker) and Kirshner and Swain (for practicing kissing at her house so it would look more natural on screen). On her favorite day, Clarke-Williams was the only woman in a locker room full of 32 real, naked hockey players, and she "handpicked the ones with the best asses." For the ladies, she offers this advice: "You cannot tell 'the size' by the size of the man… Some of the shortest guys had some of the biggest things."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
The carnival mirror over the bed where Kirshner and Swain have sex was meant to give "the illusion of them melding into one."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
"I picked out the dildo for the next scene.

The Sweetest Thing

CRIMES
• Inflating a feeble romantic comedy with grotesque scatological humor
• Assuming that casting Cameron Diaz in the lead role made it okay to rip off There's Something About Mary
• Featuring obnoxious girl-talk banter that makes Sex And The City's dialogue sound like the second coming of the Algonquin Round Table

DEFENDERS
Director Roger Kumble, actors Cameron Diaz, Selma Blair, Christina Applegate, and Jason Bateman

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Puerile, self-deprecating, possibly stoned. A flurry of fart noises, belches, and helium-voiced giggling sets the tone for the commentary of a film that few involved will view as a career highlight.

WHAT WENT WRONG
The script apparently left much to be desired. The actresses note repeatedly that their favorite parts weren't in Nancy M. Pimental's script, before issuing a half-hearted caveat that they're only kidding. They also unwittingly confirm that the film was far more fun to make than to watch.

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Cameron Diaz's ass is singled out for high praise. Applegate is hailed for having the stamina to walk up steep hills. Parker Posey, male lead Thomas Jane, and various bit players are lauded for their talent and sweetness.

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Little pretension can be found on a commentary track that proves actresses can be just as boorish and juvenile as any assemblage of Maxim-reading frat boys.

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Commenting on some zany hijinks that resulted in a scene needing to be re-shot, Diaz postulates, "Maybe we should have just made the fucking movie."

Little Nicky

CRIMES
• Shattering the placid surface of a typically low-key, low-ambition Adam Sandler comedy with jarringly ugly special effects
• Giving Sandler's sweet "son of Satan" character an unappealing costume, accent, and facial expression

DEFENDERS
Sandler, director/co-writer Steven Brill, and co-writer Tim Herlihy

TONE OF COMMENTARY
Slack. Sandler frequently comments on scenes as though seeing them for the first time ("Look at that… a running dog"), and pretends to be confused by the special effects ("That's not really hell, right?"). Brill owns up to his ignorance of special-effects-driven filmmaking, while Herlihy seems unsure of what's going on in the film he co-scripted. ("Hey, it's in the movie, you must've thought it was funny," he grumbles.) Most often, the filmmakers discuss how much fun they had making the movie, how nearly everything "made us laugh," and how they'd often stay up late, get drunk, and watch DVDs after the day's shooting.

WHAT WENT WRONG
See "Tone Of Commentary."

COMMENTS ON THE CAST
Everybody's "great" to Sandler. "Here comes a great man… Kevin Nealon," he says, and "Here's Patricia Arquette, bringing greatness to this role." When Rob Schneider pops up with his habitual Sandler film cameo, the star says, "There's Short-Stuff, screaming 'you can do it' for the world to enjoy." Of Quentin Tarantino: "He loves acting, and we love watching him act." As for his own intentionally hideous performance, Sandler is inscrutable: "That was my first time in the costume, the first time I made the decision to talk like this… the first time the studio shuddered."

INEVITABLE DASH OF PRETENSION
Brill states that during a prolonged stretch of Little Nicky, when Sandler was offscreen, "We thought we had to make it up with drama and composition." Sandler replies, "Sandler gone… crowd sad."

THE COMMENTARY IN A NUTSHELL
Brill admits that asking an elderly extra if she'd mind swearing on camera "made us feel like crap for who we were and what we do with our lives." Herlihy's description of one scene's requirements is even more to the point: "That was a great day," he says. "Sandler just punched himself in the nuts repeatedly."