Burd and Albarn have some nice thoughts and anecdotes, without falling into silence, praise or plot narration very often. They discuss many production challenges, to include weather, budget and studio interference. It is refreshing to have s composer paired with another commentator so it is not just talking between musical cues. This is a candid and appreciative commentary for a film that is impossible to classify.

I felt they fell into silence quite often, although it wasnt always a bad thing as they rarely said much that was interesting or wasnt something said earlier.

There are a few moments where something interesting is pointed out, even maybe about the music score, but it is hard to recommend the commentary just for those instances. (Too bad most of the interesting points arent mentioned in the IMDB trivia.)

They do discuss how odd it was to record some conversations from one side three months later than the other, with one side on location and the other on a sound studio. Some ideas are explained that werent clear watching the film. She discusses some ideas about immigrants, natives, and their clashing of ideas. And general praising of actors, and mentioning things they came up with something that wasnt in the script

One inspirational moment is when she argued about how hard she needed to put in some bloody throat cutting, but the studio wanted more of a hollywood slash than a real one, and she had to relent because if the film got an X rating it wouldnt be allowed to be shown in most theaters. So she had to find various ways to show violence without really showing it.

It still remains an odd pairing to have character actor Jeffrey Jones alongside writer Ted Griffin for this one, but it works well. Jones speaks to his experiences filming on set and location, where Griffin was not always present. Additionally, Jones prompts Griffin as a quasi-interviewer for insights on story origins and changes. Griffin, for his part, is engaging, humorous and self-deprecating about his script and how the film was improved by modifying or jettisoning some of his story elements. They recognize that this film did poorly financially but remain proud of it, as they should be.

Bonus: The Robert Carlyle track is middling with much silence and narration. I listened to it years ago but not this time. Skip it.

Odd grouping for the second commentary, an actor who was only in the film for about 20 percent, and the writer. (And how did a movie like this ever get 3 commentaries in 1999?)

About the same as the first one, but in different ways at different times. As a matter of fact, I sort of wish they had spliced these two tracks together to make one good one. That could have actually worked, with each filling in the silence from the other.

Jones had worked in the same area for Amadeus, and spoke of various moments of how others act in the film that were interesting, and writer has plenty of stories about how it was made, what was changed and why, and stuff like that.

Back to complete the trifecta. Carlyle does not speak until chapter 4, and thankfully, this is made clear immediately so you can skip ahead. There is truly much silence in this track as Carlyle makes a point about a scene and then lets it unfold. He talks mostly adapting his performance for the evolution of his character, the constant dangling crucifix, and notes the challenges of certain scenes, including one in which Jeffrey Jones became quite upset. He praises the director Bird with whom he had previously worked, and his fellow actors. He claims that Czech stuntmen are the best. Along the way, you will learn that Carlyle was born on April 14th, the caterers made a tasty stew, and that smoking too many cigars while filming burnt a hole in the back of his mouth. This track is no Taxi Driver but it is slightly better than Brendan Fraser on The Mummy.