"Showtime."

I was told that Ebert's commentary on "Citizen Kane" is excellent. That is not wrong. Some of the best commentary on a film that I've heard.

The commentary on "Strictly Ballroom" is really good, but Baz thinks far too highly of himself and wears a listener out with all of his talking.

I tend to watch extra features quite a lot when I rent movies.

Seth Green on Can't Hardly Wait remains my high-water mark for commentary.

No, wait! The film historian who does the wise and deeply affectionate commentary on the Criterion edition of The Lady Eve comes pretty damn close. But I think Seth Green is still just a bit better.

The first commentary I ever listened to was for Toy Story 2, and it remains to this day one of my all-time favorites. The writers/directors are all very funny and have a lot of great stories to tell. Toy Story 1 isn't quite as scintilating, though.

Dogma was always my favorite commentary (nothing special, just a bunch of friends having a great time) until I watched Tropic Thunder with commentary. If we count TV shows, the USian edition of Spaced has some real gems.

I really really missed the almost lyrical rhythm of the words and imagery of the graphic novel and now little details were layered in and eventually brought to bearing later on.

There were several moments where they seemed to have a "big reveal" only they tipped their hand way earlier and then realized that they forgot to also share some other pertinent info, and hasten to remedy that. Basically showing scenes in order of 3 1 4 2. Maybe it's the fresh memory of reading forming this opinion, but I really do think it was a failed narrative structure.

I decided that it was Ozy's hair, and not the actor himself that looked like Dana Carvey.

If I concentrated on his pretty eyes, things were better.

Maybe it's the fresh memory of reading forming this opinion, but I really do think it was a failed narrative structure.

I've been trying to decide if it was a fresh reading being compared in my head or if it failed on its own merits and I think it's a mixture of both. Moore and Gibbons' use of pseudo-cinematic "tricks" with their panels and their application of symmetry would be hard as hell to duplicate effectively on the screen, I would imagine, yet at the same time...I don't think Snyder really got the effective use of non-linear storytelling they employed. I got the feeling he was trying to be Moore/Gibbons level artsy and wound up just muddled.

Speaking of trippy and weird, I caught some of Beetlejuice yesterday. I forgot how bizarre that movie is.

"This thing reads like stereo instructions!"

The commentary on Fellowship of the Ring, with all the hobbits together so Dominic Mongahan and Billy Boyd can jump all over Sean Astin when Astin starts getting preachy are wonderful.

would be hard as hell to duplicate effectively on the screen

I'll adamantly and ignorantly disagree. It's called editing. Using shorter segments. Mixed together.

But I'm sure they figured that the stupid masses couldn't follow something like that, so it all becomes one big huge unedited, overblown scene, losing all it's tantalizing characteristics. It's not that I was head over heels in-awe of the written story, but I did enjoy it, and I did snicker and cringe through most of the movie.

Having a complementary score instead of a blaring, soundtrack that was not at all well integrated might have helped with the tone as well. But they went all ACTION! rather than the hypnotic metronome of the slowly unfurling story of the page.