More DVD Bonus Features

A few days ago I did up a Good/Bad/Ugly rating of DVD Bonus Features (go read that one first if you haven't yet). Thing is, there are a lot of different bonus features out there, and I only rated five. Here's a second edition, with five more bonus features. There are so many different DVD bonus features out there that I'll probably be doing a third edition soon enough. Can't stop beating this horse until it's good and dead, of course.

Commentaries: The most common commentary is the director commentary, which generally features the director of the movie talking about how and why he made the movie the way he did. There are lots of other types of commentaries, though. Common ones are commentaries with one or more of the stars, special effects supervisors, screenwriters, and producers. A few movies have more than one commentary track, but that's rare. Like most features, commentaries vary in quality, but most do have interesting insights into the production of a film. Nice to have on a movie that you really like. Commentaries are Good.

Original Theatrical Trailers: It's always mildly interesting to watch the trailer just after the movie and see just how misleading the trailer really is. While I think it's a cool idea having trailers on the disc, the thing is most trailers suck on a level that's hard to express in words. I'm probably going to do a big rant about trailers some day soon, so I'll hold off on spewing my venom right now. So I guess that makes this feature Bad.

Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes: Want to know how they did those oh-so-cool 360 wraparound shots in The Matrix? Just pop in the DVD and go to special features, and select the Follow the White Rabbit. The movie will play, and from time to time a white rabbit icon will appear on the screen. Hit enter while the rabbit is there, and you will leave the movie for a moment to see some footage of how they did the scene that's playing. Lots of action movies have features along this line (although few are done in so cool a manner as The Matrix). These are almost inevitably cool, but at the same time when you know how particularly amazing stunt was done, some of the magic is lost. Still, this is what bonus features are all about, and that's Good.

Making-of Documentaries: These run the gamut from 10 minute items produced for television to the exclusive hour long Battle of Brazil documentary in the Criterion box set I'm featuring in Stuff of the Week this week. Like most features these documentaries vary widely in quality and interest. In general they offer a decent amount of insight into the production of a film. And if that expression sounds vaguely familiar, it's because I used a very similar one to describe commentaries. And yes, I'm too lazy today to come up with another way to say exactly the same thing. Guess this means I'm filing this category under Bad.

Chapter Indexes: This is a feature that has me somewhat conflicted. Yes, chapter indexes are a very handy feature, and pretty much ubiquitous. So much so that they are considered pretty much a standard feature. Thing is most discs list this as a feature on the back of the case, often calling it "scene access" or something similar. So while I like chapter indexes, I'm hesitant to call this an bonus feature. This is a bonus feature for DVDs like tires are a bonus feature for cars. So I'm going to have to file this under Ugly.