They Came Together (David Wain)

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by lolwut

The rating scale for Special Features on this site is unusually harsh. Blu-rays with lots of good special features get much lower scores than the PQ and AQ, even if there's nothing negative the reviewer says about them. With the exception of Criterion releases which get high marks in that area even if there are only a handful of special features.

Agreed. If the ratings don't mean anything then how are they supposed to be interpreted? I agree about certain titles/labels seemingly being favored. Criterion's Harold and Maude contains a commentary, a 12 minute featurette and about 28 minutes of archival audio excerpts, yet rates a 4/5 for extras. Shout also seems to get love on occasion. The Shadow has a 23 minute featurette (the same as They Came Together), a trailer (the same as TCT), and a still gallery (but lacks TCT's commentary, 100 minute table read or 30+ minutes of deleted scenes) and rates a 2.5 from Mr. Kauffman versus TCT's 2/5. Yet he's less favorable to their Cat People, which gets the same 2.5 for having nearly 45 minutes of new interviews with cast and crew.

I guess I can't figure out if he and the rest of the reviewers are grading based on -number of features, -quality of features, -length of features, or just some random methodology that only they understand. Why, for example, does Captain America The Winter Soldier score 3/5 with a commentary and approx 22 minutes of features total (Kenneth Brown even comments on the light supplemental package) against Draft Day (another title I produced releasing this week) which contains a commentary, about 8 minutes of deleted scenes, trailer, a 10 minute featurette on the NFL Draft, and... oh yeah, a brand new, exclusively produced 60 minute documentary on the making of the movie featuring all-new interviews with Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Ivan Reitman, the screenwriters, the editors, the VFX artists, the composer, and additional actors? Cause Draft Day also rated a 3/5. Is it JUST because it's Captain America or is it because Captain America breaks that 22 minutes up into 5 different pieces... creating the illusion of more content versus our decision to present a full, self-contained 60 minute making-of doc? It's frustrating because I respect Blu-ray.com and their reviews. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit.