Considering that I like movies and enjoy watching them on home vid or online, I rarely listen to DVD commentary tracks. The reasons are good, and, from dialoguing with others on the subject, quite common.
In most cases the people in the audio booth have not seen the film or television series in years so they are trying hard to remember anything of substance; and often enough are just enjoying seeing themselves or their work after so much time has passed that they often don't say much over the course of the film as it unfurls before them. Or, and this is worse, in my opinion, they offer nothing more than what amount to platitudes or make comments like "look at that outfit I'm wearing". Worse than that worse is when more than one person or a party of people is in the booth and what we viewers/listeners are offered is "a good ol' time".
There are exceptions for me...
Television producer/writer/director Kenneth Johnson: A pleasure to listen to as he recounts and itemizes everything from a specific memory to what location that is we are seeing. Density is what it's all about with Johnson. I love it!
Any commentary involving director Richard Donner: The Omen; Superman (for instance). He has a great sense of humour ('look at those great titles... white on black'), and a seemingly good memory.
And... the commentary track for the 1976 feature film Logan's Run, starring director Micheal Anderson, lead actor Michael York, and costume designer Bill Thomas. It was a pleasure to listen to the three of them as they are well spoken and interesting.
The only problem is that since I waited to the last minute to sample the commentary track, and I had a busy day ahead of me, in addition to wanting return the DVD to the store as part of my travels for the day, I listened to the first 55 minutes or so... right up to the "Love Shop" scene; or a little after. (Maybe it puckered me out, and I had to stop.)
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