They Came Together (David Wain)

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Cliff

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.

Hi Cliff,

I couple of comments for you since you moved from addressing my colleague Jeff's review to producing generalizations addressing other labels' output.

1. You may think that certain labels are favored, but I am the last person on this site to play favorites. In fact, I have gone out of my way to provide as wide coverage as possible (this includes titles that virtually no other site would touch) so that smaller labels can get as much exposure as possible. This hasn't been easy, but I can assure you that I have done my best.

2. Grading. I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but I will repeat it here: I don't grade based on volume. So, exclusive new English-friendly supplemental features for a release such as Criterion's Marketa Lazarova -- which require different resources and are far more time consuming -- are far more valuable to me. Similar is the case with providing important archival content which has not been previously used on a DVD release. In other words, I do not grade the volume, I grade the quality of the content. Example: If Universal were to bring Michael Cimino's fantastic commentary for The Deer Hunter to the U.S., I would grade it higher than all of the content found on their current release (which includes Vilmos Zsigmond and Bob Fisher's commentary). In other words, 4 hours of supplemental features will not automatically get a higher score from me over an hour of terrific supplemental features. For me, it is quality over quantity.

3. Harold and Maude also has an excellent booklet with writings on the film, which I have factored into the final score.

4. As far as detailing of supplemental features is concerned, it should be pretty obvious that the favoring practice you refer to is non-existent in my work. A couple of examples for recent releases from all over the world (all from different labels):

a) The Assassin

b) La Reine Margot

c) That Sinking Feeling

d) Crying Freeman

Have a great week, Cliff.

Pro-B

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by wormraper

A common tactic is how they LIKE the special features. Many times if a reviewer finds the features boring that weighs heavily on their score. Kind of how if they don't like a movie it gets a lower rating. Same with the features. Its about how they view the perceived QUALITY of the features. Not the quantity

Different forums/magazines etc have different criteria on how to grade features while others allow their reviewers freedom to judge based on their own criteria individually

And I totally get that. As a former reviewer myself I often wrestled with how to weight/grade special features. Because even if I didn't care for a commentary, that didn't mean someone else wouldn't. But when I was a reviewer, I reviewed the supplements and discussed the quality of the features. So even if you didn't understand the numerical rating, you had the body of the review that discussed the features. Going back to the afore mentioned Blended review, here's the body of the extras portion:
Safari (HD, 3 minutes): Executive producer Allen Covert, actors Adam Sandler and Terry Crews, and other members of the film crew scout locations in Africa in the first of the disc's short Focus Point-esque featurettes.
Adam and Drew: Back Together Again (HD, 2 minutes): A much too short mini-mini-featurette that focuses on Sandler and Drew Barrymore's latest big screen team-up and their behind-the-scenes antics.
Animals (HD, 4 minutes): Sandler his screen daughters cuddle with baby animals and... not-so-baby animals.
Parasailing (HD, 2 minutes): Taking to the skies with Barrymore.
Ostriches (HD, 2 minutes): Creating and filming Blended's ostrich rodeo.
Bella Thorne's Makeover (HD, 2 minutes): De-feminizing Thorne.
Herlihoops: Basketball Actor (HD, 1 minute): Tim Herlihy tries to sink baskets on the court.
Dick's Customer Service (HD, 2 minutes): On the Dick's store floor, with Sandler and Shaq.
Nickens (HD, 2 minutes): Crews sings, dances and shakes his way into Nickens' leather shoes.
Georgia (HD, 3 minutes): The first day of filming in Gainesville, Georgia.
Deleted Scenes (HD, 6 minutes): A series of deleted and extended scenes, plus a few alternate takes.
Gag Reel (HD, 6 minutes): Line flubs and crack-ups.

So other than mentioning that the Adam and Drew piece is much too short, that's not a review... that's a press release.

For They Came Together:
Audio Commentary with Director and Co-Writer David Wain and Producer and Co-Writer Michael Showalter. This is a perhaps surprisingly straightforward affair, with relatively little of the raucousness on display that the film itself includes. There's quite a bit of information here on the rather long gestational process, as well as some aspects of the shoot.

They All Came Together Featurette (1080p; 23:59) is a standard EPK with some enjoyable enough interviews.

San Francisco Sketchfest Table Read (480i; 1:43:58) is a 2012 table read. Video quality here is middling at best.

Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:24)

Deleted Scenes (1080p; 34:23)

So just going by the body of each review, can you decipher why each gets a 2/5? Because if various reviewers are not going to provide context for the scores in the actual review (and different reviewers are better at this than others^^^^), I don't know how you make sense of the scores?

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Grading. I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but I will repeat it here: I don't grade based on volume. So, exclusive new English-friendly supplemental features for a release such as Criterion's Marketa Lazarova -- which require different resources and are far more time consuming -- are far more valuable to me.

Agreed... which is why it bothered me that a complete, new from the ground up featurette or documentary that goes out of its way to shoot all new interviews and aspires to be more than a marketing tool or bulletpoint would rate the same OR LOWER than a different title with 5 or 6 short, far more superficial pieces, many of which WERE created by a studio's theatrical marketing team and recycled for the disc. Yes, a terrible 60 minute doc is going to be worse than a fantastic 10 minute featurette, but that doesn't seem to be how some of these things are being graded. If the TCT or Draft Day pieces were bad enough to warrant being dinged in the grading process, I would certainly appreciate hearing that criticism. But it just seems to be arbitrary, which burns a bit after spending months and months creating these featurettes and docs. It's not meant to be an indictment of anyone personally. Think of this as a review of BD.com's reviews.

[snowman]

I thought this was the worst film I've seen in years. Most jokes fell flat or went on tooooooooo long. Unfunny mess. And I watched David Wain's Wanderlust 3 times so far and loved it. Stay away from They Came Together. Uggh

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by snowman

I thought this was the worst film I've seen in years. Most jokes fell flat or went on tooooooooo long. Unfunny mess. And I watched David Wain's Wanderlust 3 times so far and loved it. Stay away from They Came Together. Uggh

I envy the cinematic winning streak you've been on if this is the worst thing you've watched in years

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by GimmeFiction

What kind of digital copy does this come with? Does it include iTunes?

UV only

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by GimmeFiction

Thank you for the response. The listing on this site says it also includes a "Digital copy (as download)", in addidtion to the UV digital copy, would does that mean exactly?

the site has a habit of automatically listing an Itunes dc when no specs are listed, it was most likely never removed... there is only UV (although vudu does allow a download of their UV digital file to be downloaded to your devices)

[Ubertrout]

So, the girlfriend and I just watched They Came Together, and it's bizarrely terrible in a half-baked sort of way. People forget that Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies were the products of really intense and focused writing. This just felt like some ideas being thrown at the screen, not really working, and it not mattering. The cast is first-rate but they really don't have much to do with this sort of material.

The deleted scenes are fun though - in some cases better than most of what's in the movie - and there's a lot of them.

[D00mM4r1n3]

Just picked this up and popping in to say the digital code still works and redeems through Fandango At Home via the "redeemmovie" URL on the flyer.