DVD Critics suck

[Lord Dalek]

Yeah the concept for this thread is more or less suggested by Avaitor's thread over in music.

In my time, I've read a lot of reviews for dvds. Many hit the mark right on the head, but a lot are inaccurate, badly written, purely ego drivin, and just downright vague.

There are obvious factors to consider here. Age of technology, looking at older product in hindsight, personal opinions of said writer, etc., but in the end you have to look at a few things...

1. Some critics are just terrible at what they do. Glenn Erickson, the "DVD Savant" at dvdtalk, is a very good example of this because he's a wannabe movie historian who tacks on incredibly underwritten "reviews", with an extremely vague grading scale, at the end of his rambling dementia fueled exercises in bloviation. Furthermore, most of those reviews I've found are factually wrong to the point of being almost comical.

2. Most of these men are payed/given free movies by studios and can be way too forgiving of flaws and defects. I call it Digitalbits-itis as we can obviously tell who suffers from it the most.

3. The greatest critic is the one who owns the disc. I've found myself to be blown away by a dvd or a blu only to find a hilariously bad review from a dump like IGN (oh don't get me started with THEM), trashing it for some inane reason (their infamous Fahrenheit 9/11 review, where the critic's opinions of the disc were influenced by a pro-Bush anti-Moore doc he saw recently comes to mind). Frankly you shouldn't have to depend on critics for your opinions. Most of the time I read reviews to have a good laugh or facepalm.

Yeah by and large, dvd critics suck. Make up your own damn minds.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I don't think I've paid attention to DVD reviews in a long time. I tend to read up on what the bonus features are and if the quality of the actual material isn't awful to look at or listen to, but not opinions on content.

[Angus]

Do the DVD/Blu-Ray critics review the extra features or complain mostly about the movie/show itself? I think it should be the former, since that's what will get folks to make a decision on whether to buy the thing. Netflix now has those "rental copies" where they strip out most of the bonus features.

[Lord Dalek]

Do the DVD/Blu-Ray critics review the extra features or complain mostly about the movie/show itself? I think it should be the former, since that's what will get folks to make a decision on whether to buy the thing. Netflix now has those "rental copies" where they strip out most of the bonus features.

They should be basically looking at extras and transfer quality but the really bad ones seem more involved with the movie itself.

[Angus]

Digital Transfer seems strange sometimes. With Danger Mouse and Tom & Jerry, you can see all the hairs and artifacts from the film.