Blu Monday
Blu Monday: Criterion and The Coen Brothers
Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
THE 5TH QUARTER: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
BEREAVEMENT (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena
- Behind the scenes featurette
- Deleted scenes
- Theatrical Trailer
BKO: BANGKOK KNOCKOUT (2010)
Synopsis: Rittkrai is a legend in Thai action cinema. The director of Born to Fight and fight coordinator for such classics as Ong Bak and Chocolate, he was the star of many action films in the 70s and 80s, and is famously a mentor to some of the top action superstars working today, including Tony Jaa (Ong Bak), Dan Chupong (Dynamite Warrior) and Jija Yanin (Chocolate). BKO features a range of martial art disciplines. A group of ‘fight club’ pals whose styles vary from Muay Thai and Capoeira to Kung Fu and Tai Chi must fight for their lives when one of their friends is kidnapped. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Behind the scenes featurette
- International trailer
BLOOD SIMPLE (1985)
Synopsis: From the celebrated filmmaking team of Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo, No Country For Old Men), comes this visually stunning tale of a double-cross – and murder – in a small town. Starring John Getz, Frances McDormand and Dan Hedaya this “fiendishly clever” (Roger Ebert) movie will grab you by the throat – and never let go until the final frame! When Marty (Hedaya), the owner of a backwoods bar, hires a man to kill his cheating wife and her boyfriend, he opens a door into the criminal world that he’ll never be able to shut. The sleazy hit man (M. Emmet Walsh) decides instead to shoot Marty, thereby collecting his unearned fee and eliminating the only person who could implicate him. Or so he thinks. Featuring the maddeningly taut script from the Coen Brothers, Blood Simple hurtles forward with the speed and intensity of a fired bullet… and delivers as devastating an impact as has ever been felt from a noir film! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Commentary with Kenneth Loring of Forever Young Films
- Cast and crew biographies
- Production notes
- Theatrical trailer
CHILDREN OF THE CORN: GENESIS (2011)
Synopsis: TIM and ALLIE seek shelter in a remote desert compound after becoming lost and stranded. A strange Manson-like character, PREACHER (Drago), reluctantly allows them inside with strict orders to be gone by morning and not wander “where you are not invited. (amazon.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
The Coen Brothers Collection
Synopsis: This boxed set includes BLOOD SIMPLE, MILLER’S CROSSING, RAISING ARIZONA, and FARGO.
Special Features:
- Commentaries
- Featurettes
- Galleries
- Interviews
- Trailers and TV spots
The Complete Jean Vigo: The Criterion Collection
Synopsis: Even among cinema’s legends, Jean Vigo stands apart. The son of a notorious anarchist, Vigo had a brief but brilliant career making poetic, lightly surrealist films before his life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis at age twenty-nine. Like the daring early works of his contemporaries Jean Cocteau and Luis Buñuel, Vigo’s films refused to play by the rules. This set includes all of Vigo’s titles: À propos de Nice, an absurdist, rhythmic slice of life from the bustling coastal city; Taris, an inventive short portrait of a swimming champion; Zéro de conduite, a radical, delightful tale of boarding-school rebellion that has influenced countless filmmakers; and L’Atalante, widely regarded as one of cinema’s finest achievements, about newlyweds beginning their life together on a canal barge. These are the witty, visually adventurous works of a pivotal film artist. (Criterion.com)
Special Features:
- Audio commentaries featuring Michael Temple, author of Jean Vigo
- Alternate shots from A propos de Nice, featuring footage Vigo cut from the film
- Animated tribute to Vigo by filmmaker Michel Gondry
- Ninety-minute 1964 episode of the French television series Cineastes de notre temps on Vigo, directed by Jacques Rozier
- Conversation from 1968 between filmmakers François Truffaut and Eric Rohmer on L’Atalante
- Les voyages de “L’Atalante,” Bernard Eisenschitz’s 2001 documentary tracking the history of the film
- Video interview from 2007 with director Otar Iosseliani on Vigo
- A booklet featuring essays by film writers Michael Almereyda, Robert Polito, B. Kite, and Luc Sante
DEADGIRL: Unrated Director’s Cut (2008)
Synopsis: It has been called audacious (Hollywood Reporter), unsettlingly sexual (IndieWIRE) and pretty much f***ing brilliant (Ain t It Cool News). Thought to be too controversial to release, it would go on to shock festival audiences, outrage religious groups, and blow away midnight movie crowds from coast to coast. It remains one of the most daringly original and disturbing films of our time. Shiloh Fernandez (RED), Noah Segan (BRICK), Michael Bowen (KILL BILL) and Candice Accola (JUNO) star in this story of two high school misfits who cut school to explore the remains of an abandoned hospital. The gruesome discovery they make will test the very limits of their sanity and tear apart their young lives forever: A woman stripped naked and chained to a table. She s abandoned, beautiful and dead…or is she? From the producer of HELLRAISER and HEATHERS comes this depraved, poignant and genre-busing new indie classic about intimacy, morality and the horror of growing up. You may scream in terror, gasp with disgust, or debate it for days, but one thing is for certain: You will never forget DEADGIRL. (amazon.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
FINAL DESTINATION 2 (2003)
Synopsis: When Kimberly has a violent premonition of a highway pileup she blocks the freeway, keeping a few others meant to die, safe…Or are they? The survivors mysteriously start dying and it’s up to Kimberly to stop it before she’s next. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
FINAL DESTINATION 3 (2006)
Synopsis: In this third installment of the Final Destination series, a student’s premonition of a deadly rollercoaster ride saves her life and a lucky few, but not from death itself which seeks out those who escaped their fate. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
FORKS OVER KNIVES (2011)
Synopsis: This feature film examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- New and deleted scenes
- Vegan recipes
- Dr. Neal Barnard Explains Diabetes Video
- Discussions with the Filmmakers
GANTZ: 3-Disc Set (2011)
Synopsis: Kei Kurono and his childhood friend Masaru Kato attempt to save a man who has fallen onto the train tracks but are run down by an oncoming train. However, rather than finding themselves dead, they are transported to a strange apartment in which they find a mysterious black orb known as ‘GANTZ’. Along with others there, they are provided weaponry and sent on missions to battle alien beings. Is this world, which tests your will to survive, a game or reality? (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Interviews
- Theatrical trailer
GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)
Synopsis: Good Will Hunting is in a rare breed of movies. A movie that not only lives by formula, but thrives on it. So often we look at formula as a bad thing in movies, but ‘Good Will Hunting’ shows us that’s not always the case. We know how the entire story will play out, more or less. We have a good idea of where the movie’s heading, but that isn’t the payoff here. The real treat about ‘Good Will Hunting’ is its rich characters and their very personal, very touching interactions with each other. Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a genius, but he doesn’t want to be. He’d rather spend the rest of his days swinging a sledge hammer at construction sites than use his awesome intelligence to figure out impossible equations. Will could do anything he wants in the academic realm, but he chooses to be a janitor instead. Why? Well, because he doesn’t care much for being smart. He likes to show it off every once and a while when it’s needed, but he doesn’t have any big plans to do anything with it. His rocky past holds him back from truly achieving what he could. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Behind-the-scenes footage
- Production featurette
- Deleted scenes
- “Miss Misery” music video by Elliott Smith
- Theatrical Trailer
- Audio commentary with director Gus Van Sant and writers/stars Ben Affleck & Matt Damon
IF… The Criterion Collection (1968)
Synopsis: Lindsay Anderson’s If…. is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior in the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…. remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells. (Criterion.com)
Special Features:
- Audio commentary featuring film critic and historian David Robinson and actor Malcolm McDowell
- Episode of the Scottish TV series Cast and Crew from 2003, featuring interviews with McDowell, Ond?Ã?ek, Rakoff, director’s assistant Stephen Frears, producer Michael Medwin, and screenwriter David Sherwin
- Video interview with actor Graham Crowden
- Thursday’s Children (1954), an Academy Award–winning documentary about a school for deaf children, by director Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton and narrated by actor Richard Burton
- A booklet featuring an essay by critic David Ehrenstein as well as reprinted pieces by Sherwin and Anderson
IN A BETTER WORLD: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo (2010)
Synopsis: The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Interview with Susanne Bier.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957)
Synopsis: Scott Carey and his wife Louise are sunning themselves on their cabin cruiser, the small craft adrift on a calm sea. While his wife is below deck, a low mist passes over him. Scott, lying in the sun, is sprinkled with glittery particles that quickly evaporate. Later he is accidentally sprayed with an insecticide while driving and, in the next few days, he finds that he has begun to shrink. First just a few inches, so that his clothes no longer fit, then a little more. Soon he is only three feet tall, and a national curiosity. At six inches tall he can only live in a doll’s house and even that becomes impossible when his cat breaks in. Scott flees to the cellar, his wife thinks he has been eaten by the cat and the door to the cellar is closed, trapping him in the littered room where, menaced by a giant spider, he struggles to survive. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
INDIAN SUMMER (1993)
Synopsis: Settle back for a delightful INDIAN SUMMER — the heartwarming comedy about eight friends who reunite at their summer camp after 20 years! Starring an impressive ensemble cast including Elizabeth Perkins (CATS AND DOGS, 28 DAYS) and Alan Arkin (AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS, GROSSE POINTE BLANK), no sooner do the visitors arrive than they return to the best summer of their lives — practical jokes, midnight kitchen raids, boat races, campfire stories and secret romances pick up right where they left off! And with so much hilarity and excitement, the fun never stops. Pack your gear, this week at camp is sure to be a hilarious, feel-good treat for everyone. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
LATTER DAYS (2003)
Synopsis: A promiscuous gay party animal falls for a young Mormon missionary, leading to crisis, cliché, and catastrophe. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
MADEA’S BIG HAPPY FAMILY (2011)
Synopsis: Madea, everyone’s favorite wise-cracking, take-no-prisoners grandma, jumps into action when her niece, Shirley, receives distressing news about her health. All Shirley wants is to gather her three adult children around her and share the news as a family. But Tammy, Kimberly and Byron are too distracted by their own problems: Tammy can’t manage her unruly children or her broken marriage; Kimberly is gripped with anger and takes it out on her husband; and Byron, after spending two years in jail, is under pressure to deal drugs again. It’s up to Madea, with the help of the equally rambunctious Aunt Bam, to gather the clan together and make things right the only way she knows how: with a lot of tough love, laughter… and the revelation of a long-buried family secret. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: 4 Featurettes.
MILLER’S CROSSING (1990)
Synopsis: Tom Regan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Shooting Miller’s Crossing: A Conversation with Barry Sonnenfeld featurette
- Interview Soundbites with cast members Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, and John Turturro
- Stills gallery
- Theatrical trailers
THE MUMMY Trilogy
Synopsis: Embark on the ultimate action adventure that spans continents and centuries in the spectacular Mummy Trilogy: The Mummy Deluxe Edition, The Mummy Returns Deluxe Edition and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Deluxe Edition! Follow the exhilarating journeys and exploits of daring explorer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and his family as they combat the evil undead from the dusty tombs of Egypt to the hidden catacombs of China. Filled with amazing special effects, breathtaking battles and thrilling bonus features, it’s a passport to spellbinding entertainment you can watch again and again! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS 3D (1993)
Synopsis: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is an ingenious and inspired fable that cleverly mixes Halloween and Christmas for an eerily unexpected holiday celebration. The film brilliantly combinesstop-motion animation with three-dimensional sets and superb graphics to create a stunningly original movie experience. With a Grammy® nominated soundtrack by Oscar® nominee Danny Elfman (Corpse Bride, “The Simpsons”), Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is a modern holiday classic. Bored with his perennial role as Halloween Town’s frightening Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington wanders off and discovers the cheerful village of Christmas Town. Determined to shake things up in Halloween Town, he enlists the help of some mischievous trick-or-treaters to kidnap Santa Claus and takes over the job of delivering gifts to the children of the world himself. When his plan goes awry, Jack attempts to restore Santa to his rightful place. But first, he must rescue St. Nick from the clutches of the evil Oogie Boogie! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- What’s This? Jack’s Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour
- Frankenweenie and Vincent Short Films
- Tim Burton’s Original poem narrated by Christopher Lee
- Commentary by producer and writer Tim Burton, director Henry Selick and composer Danny Elfman
- The Making of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas
- The Worlds of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Deleted scenes
- Storyboard to Film Comparison
- Original Theatrical Trailers and Posters
- Introduction by Tim Burton
ORPHEUS: The Criterion Collection (1950)
Synopsis: Jean Cocteau’s update of the Orpheus myth depicts a famous poet (Jean Marais), scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa), and a mysterious princess (Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead, through Cocteau’s famous mirrored portal. Orpheus’s peerless visual poetry and dreamlike storytelling represent the legendary Cocteau at the height of his powers. (Criterion.com)
Special Features:
- Audio commentary by French film scholar James Williams
- A booklet featuring an essay by author Mark Polizzotti, selected Cocteau writings on the film, and an essay on La villa Santo-Sospir by Williams
- Jean Cocteau: Autobiography of an Unknown, a 1984 feature-length documentary
- Video piece from 2008 featuring assistant director Claude Pinoteau on the special effects in the film
- 40 Minutes with Jean Cocteau, an interview with the director from 1957
- In Search of Jazz, a 1956 interview with Cocteau on the use of jazz in the film
- La villa Santo-Sospir, a 16 mm color Cocteau film from 1951
- Gallery of images by French film portrait photographer Roger Corbeau
- Raw newsreel footage
- Theatrical trailer
THE PERFECT HOST (2010)
Synopsis: A criminal on the run cons his way into the wrong dinner party where the host is anything but ordinary. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Trailer
- Making Of
- Featurette/Promo
PROM (2011)
Synopsis: At Prom, every couple has a story and no two are exactly alike. Several intersecting stories unfold at one high school as the big dance approaches; ‘Prom’ portrays the precarious passage from high school to independence as some relationships unravel and others ignite. For Nova Prescott (Aimee Teegarden), it’s a battle of wills as she finds herself drawn to the guy (Thomas McDonell) who gets in the way of her perfect prom. Fellow seniors Mei (Yin Chang) and Tyler (De’Vaughn Nixon) harbor secrets, while others face all the insecurity and anticipation that surrounds one of high school’s most seminal events. There are hundreds of nights in high school, but there’s only one Prom. (blu-ray.com)
Special Features:
- “Last Chance Lloyd” Exclusive Short — Laugh out loud at all the creative and hilarious ways Lloyd (Nicholas Braun) asks girls to Prom in his heroic quest for the perfect date…actually, any date!
- 4 Deleted Scenes—With introductions by producer Justin Springer and director Joe Nussbaum.
- 7 Music Videos
- Putting on PROM: Making of Featurette
- Bloopers
Radley Metzger’s Erotica Psychedelica: 3-Disc Set
Synopsis: This boxed set includes the films SCORE; CAMILE 2000; and THE LICKERISH QUARTET.
Special Features: Unknown.
RAISING ARIZONA (1987)
Synopsis: When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family’s quintupelets, their lives get more complicated than they anticipated. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
- Theatrical trailer
- TV spots
SHREK: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo (2001)
Synopsis: Relive every moment of Shrek’s (Mike Myers) daring quest to rescue feisty Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) with the help of his loveable loudmouthed Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and win back the deed to his beloved swamp from scheming Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow). Enchantingly irreverent and “monstrously clever” (Leah Rozen, People Magazine), Shrek is ogre-sized adventure you’ll want to see again and again! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
SHREK 2: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo (2004)
Synopsis: Happily ever after never seemed so far, far away when a trip to meet the in-laws turns into another hilariously twisted adventure for Shrek and Fiona. With the help of his faithful steed Donkey, Shrek takes on a potion-brewing Fairy Godmother, the pompous Prince Charming, and the famed ogre-killer, Puss in Boots, a ferocious feline foe who’s really just a pussycat at heart! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
SHREK THE THIRD: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo (2007)
Synopsis: Get ready for Thirds – the greatest fairy tale never told continues with a whole new hilarious comedy of royal proportions. When his frog-in-law suddenly croaks, Shrek embarks on another whirlwind adventure with Donkey and Puss In Boots to find the rightful heir to the throne. Everyone’s favorite cast of characters is back, along with a magical misguided Merlin, an awkward Arthur, a powerful posse of princesses, and a bundle of unexpected arrivals. Only Shrek can tell a tale where everyone lives happily ever laughter! (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
SKATELAND (2010)
Synopsis: An iconic tribute to a culture, place and state of mind that defined small town America in the early 80s. It is a universal moment in time, when everything you know to be true starts fading. The story is personal, yet familiar, set against a visually arresting landscape of music and vistas of Americana. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Deleted Scenes.
STRIKE: Remastered Edition (1925)
Synopsis: The first feature film by the director of Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein’s STRIKE is a visual tour-de-force that employs dynamic editing and experimental camerawork to dramatize the saga of a bitterly-fought factory strike in 1903. Often compared to Citizen Kane in terms of audacious directorial debuts, STRIKE embodies the revolutionary spirit of the Soviet people of the 1920s, cresting the waves of artistic and political idealism. This edition of STRIKE was mastered in HD from a 35mm film element restored by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, with a newly-recorded score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, adapted largely from the works of traditional Russian composers. (kino.com)
Special Features:
- GLUMOV’S DIARY (1923, 4 min.) For years considered lost, Eisenstein’s first film is a playful experimental short made for his stage production of Alexander Ostrovsky’s Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man.
- EISENSTEIN AND THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT (2008, 37 min.) Film historian Natacha Laurent places Eisenstein’s work in the context of the Communist Revolution and contemporary Soviet filmmaking.
TOP GUN: 25th Anniversary Edition (1986)
Synopsis: Top Gun takes a look at the danger and excitement that awaits every pilot at the Navy’s prestigious fighter weapons school. Tom Cruise plays Maverick Mitchell, a daring young flyer who’s out to become the best of the best. And Kelly McGillis is the civilian instructor who teaches Maverick a few things you can’t learn in a classroom. (blu-ray.com)
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary
- Documentary
- Featurettes
- Music Videos
- TV Spots
WRECKED (2011)
Synopsis: A man trapped in a car wreck at the bottom of a ravine must overcome incredible odds to survive. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Unknown.
0 comments