Good "Making Of....." docs

TheIrishGrover

In another post I was suggesting to view the "Making Of...." Documentary for the 2 Disc version of Magnolia. Anyone got any good recommendations? Mine are:

Magnolia Diary (Magnolia)
Under Pressure (The Abyss)
Hearts Of Darkness (Apocalypse Now. Separately released film. Difficult to get now but AMAZING documentary shot by Coppola's wife. Insanity)

dr.bollocko

Lost in La Mancha is interesting stuff. About the attempts of terry gilliam to film a version of Don Quixote. It's rather a quixotic endeavour in itself!

TheIrishGrover

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Lost in La Mancha is interesting stuff. About the attempts of terry gilliam to film a version of Don Quixote. It's rather a quixotic endeavour in itself!

Oh yeah, heard great things about that. Supposed to be great. Speaking of Gilliam:
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of 12 Monkeys (12 monkeys Special Ed DVD)

ziedth

It's not exactly a making of but there's a film about Troy Duffy when he made the "Boondock Saints" that is absolutely brillant called overnight.

dr.bollocko

ziedth wrote: »

It's not exactly a making of but there's a film about Troy Duffy when he made the "Boondock Saints" that is absolutely brillant called overnight.

Is that movie about hitmen? With Billy Connolly?
I remember it vaguely, would love to see it again but I have never seen it on DVD or anything.
Cant believe it spawned a "making of" and all.

ziedth

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Is that movie about hitmen? With Billy Connolly?
I remember it vaguely, would love to see it again but I have never seen it on DVD or anything.
Cant believe it spawned a "making of" and all.

That's the one, Its actually one of my fav films for some reason. Its easy enough to cop a DVD online as its a bit of a cult following plus its easy enough to aheam find on the internet elsewhere.

The documentry is actually about the director who basically lost his mind with power and it all went to his head he ended up falling out with everyone and basically killed his own chances of working again cause he was so insane during filming. Its actually deadly!

Passenger

Full Tilt Boogie about the making of From Dusk Till Dawn. Very insightful and renowned filmmaking documentary.

Otis Driftwood

30 Days in Hell,the making of the Devils Rejects.
Over 2 hours long and outstanding.

mike65

2001: The Making of a Myth

Mike

Not The Real Scarecrow

+1 for 30 Days of Hell and Overnight.The doc for the making of John Carpenters "Thing" is one of my favs.Heart of Darkness , the doc on Apocalypse Now is also very interesting.All the specials on the Evil Dead flics are very entertaining, the chat track on part one is basically Bruce Campbell ripping the piss in an informative way.One of the worst I've ever seen was on Conan , just try listen to Arnie on the commentary explain every thing that happens on the film.
Haven't seen any really good ones lately though.

bnt

The 2-disc version of Heat has some good ones, about the training the actors went through for the role. Some serious "Method" acting in there. I thought the Lost In Translation one was good, too.

Also: I enjoyed the Making-Of for Jackass: The Movie. As you might imagine, the cameraman totally fails to avoid getting, um, involved in the film-making process. :eek:

MagicMarker

Am i the only one who isn't a fan of extras like these? Personally, for me movies are fantasies almost. When i see stuff 'behind the scenes' it kind of ruins the movie a little bit for me.

TheIrishGrover

MagicMarker wrote: »

Am i the only one who isn't a fan of extras like these? Personally, for me movies are fantasies almost. When i see stuff 'behind the scenes' it kind of ruins the movie a little bit for me.

99% of these Behind The Scenes "Documentaries" are just fluff pieces: Talking heads going on about how great it was to work with these people and you'll never have seen anything like this before etc etc. Just pure publicity stuff for TV spots. The ones I'm on about are the ones that actually go on about the making of the movies in an honest way. Hearts Of Darkness was very frank and honest about how the shoot went out of control and how much of a b*stard Coppola was but it was released as a seperate film so its whole catch was that it wasn't a fluff piece. The most interesting one for me was the one for The Abyss. Released on the 2 disc version, it was VERY frank with the actors being very vocal about how grueling the shoot was and what kind of control freak Cameron is. Should check it out...

ObeyGiant

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

Hearts Of Darkness (Apocalypse Now. Separately released film. Difficult to get now but AMAZING documentary shot by Coppola's wife. Insanity)

For the record - I managed to pick up a DVD of this in the local media shop here in Rome. It's not the greatest transfer I've ever seen - barely above VHS quality - but it's definitely legit. I'm guessing they're preparing to release a DVD of this world-wide soon.

To add to the list of "Making ofs" - Dangerous Days on the new Blade Runner DVDs is the most exhaustive 'making of' I've ever seen.

doubledown

On the Star Wars Episode 1 bonus disc there is a documentary called "The Beginning" and it is a refreshingly frank and no holds barred look at the making of The Phantom Menace.

Highlights include Lucas arguing about the effects budget with ILM, Ewan McGregor choosing his lightsabre, the Tunisian sets being destroyed by sandstorms and a very deflated Ben Burtt talking to Lucas after a screening saying that the pacing of the film just doesn't work. A few curses from McGregor and producer Rick McCallum also seem to have slipped past the censors if you listen carefully.

A great documentary, regardless of what you think of the film.

vincenzo1975

i SAW A 'MAKING OF' DOCumentary on Rumble fish and The Outsiders once about 14-15 years ago. I was recording that late night ( 3AM) show Cinema Cinema Cinema. I used to record it 1/2 hour on each side so as not to miss anything and was waiting (dumb teen as I was)to see if they had info ion Bad Lieutenant. I recorded a 1/2 hour or so of the documentary by accident, it had inputs from Tom Cruise, matt dillon, patrick swayze, nick cage, c thomas howell - all the actors that went on to become big names, and coppolla was great, it was fantastic, never saw it materialise again.

if anyone out there has never seen the Outsiders or rumble fish - make it a priority. Great books too.