Category: DVD & Blu-ray

Robert Redford has mixed feelings about Blu-ray
Robert Redford is pleased that The Natural will finally look the best it ever has on home video. The new Blu-ray Disc (out Tuesday, Sony, PG, $25) makes Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography and Randy Newman’s score ó both earned Oscar nominations for the 1984 film ó look and sound immaculate.
Yet Redford throws a curve when asked about the other trimmings on the disc, such as the new MovieIQ+sync feature that displays facts on screen or on your iPhone as the film plays and the behind-the-scenes extras carried over from the 2007 DVD. “I’m just a purist. I know it is fascinating to people, but I never ascribed that you should have a documentary about the making of a film,” he said this week in a phone conversation from an editing bay in Napa Valley, Calif.
“Films were meant to be a kind of magic that transports you somewhere else because you can imagine on your own and not have everything spelled out about this trick and this explosion. I would be just fine with none of that.”
For many, The Natural remains one of the best sports films of all time. But upon its release, some critics faulted the script’s changes to the Bernard Malamud novel. Instead of the failure that met the aged rookie ballplayer Roy Hobbs in the book, the film finishes off his mythological journey with a ninth-inning blast of glory.
Along with director Barry Levinson, Redford “agreed that to really follow Malamud’s book right to the very end was a massive downer. I loved the book, but the redemption was the issue.”
A pitcher at the University of Colorado, Redford, now 73, says that “at one time, I wanted to be a pro ballplayer. So it was very much in my DNA, and I always wanted to make a film about baseball.”
Beyond the spread of Blu-ray Disc, other technological advances are drastically changing filmmaking, he says. At this year’s Sundance Festival, eight films were simultaneously distributed digitally to theaters in eight U.S. cities. “There was a tremendous response,” says Redford, whose Sundance Institute has sponsored the festival since 1985.
The U2 3D concert film premiered at the 2008 Sundance Festival. “That was very effective and very powerful,” Redford says. “Avatar is very effective and very powerful because you can be absorbed in the imagery. I think (3-D) will work for larger, major films that are more blockbuster in shape and the IMAX films. I’m not so sure about the smaller independent films or television.”
In general, he says, “I think technology is driving things to the point where it is beginning to dictate the spirit of something. … But I think a good story well told will always be the name of the game.”
And Redford still has some stories of his own he’s working on. He plans to finish editing The Conspirator over
the next month. The independent film, which Redford directed and produced, follows the trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright Penn), who was implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln.
Another project has a baseball tie-in: “Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson is one project I have got in development. I would like to play (legendary baseball executive) Branch Rickey,” who signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Beauty And The Beast will sparkle like a diamond this fall
Walt Disney Home Entertainment has announced a Diamond Edition release for their animated feature Beauty And The Beast, bringing the film to Blu-Ray Disc for the first time.
Set in and around a quaint French village during the late 18th century, ìBeauty and the Beastî follows the fantastic adventures of Belle, a bright and beautiful young woman who finds escape from her ordinary life, and the advances of a boorish suitor, Gaston, by reading books. Meanwhile, off in a castle in the distance, a cruel young prince is cast under the spell of an enchantress who turns him into a tormented beast, while transforming his servants into animated household objects. In order to remove the curse, the Beast must discover a true love who will return his affection before the last petal falls from an enchanted rose. When Belleís inventor father stumbles upon the Beastís castle and is taken prisoner, Belle comes to the rescue and agrees to take her fatherís place. With the help of the castleís enchanted staff, she sees beneath the Beastís exterior and discovers the heart and soul of a human prince.
Arriving for the first time on home video since 2003, this high definition version will arrive on 3 discs, offering up the movie itself in a newly restored 1080p high definition transfer that presents the film in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, complemented by a DTS 7.1 HD Master Audio track. The Fast-Play enabled disc will also offer hours of additional viewing experiences that include Behind-the-scenes Features, Deleted Scenes, Enhanced Music Tracks, Immersive Games and a whole lot more.
Mark your calendars! ìBeauty And The Beastî will arrive in high definition on October 5. A 2-disc DVD version will also arrive seven weeks later, on November 23.

‘The African Queen’ arrives on DVD today
The African Queen is finally shipping out on DVD.
Among the classics on the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time, the Humphrey Bogart/Katharine Hepburn movie is the last to come to home video. For its arrival today on DVD ($20) and Blu-ray ($27), The African Queen has been digitally detailed and buffed.
The John Huston-directed World War I adventure was first released in 1951. “It turned out a whole lot sharper than we had hoped for,” says Ron Smith, vice president of restoration for Paramount Pictures. “You can really see the years on Bogey’s face, for instance, and the real sweat pouring down his face.”
Viewers can even make out Hepburn’s freckles, too. “They both look spectacular throughout the movie, especially as they get more disheveled,” Smith says.
The story of a boorish steamboat captain ó for which Bogart won an Oscar ó and a missionary who set out to sink a German ship was not among those that hit DVD during the digital disc’s overthrow of VHS.
“I would say certainly those under the age of 50 have only seen it on TV,” says Lynn O’Leary of Paramount Home Entertainment. (O’Leary oversaw a documentary about the making of the film, included on all editions. A $35 DVD box set and $44 Blu-ray box set also includes a reprint of Hepburn’s memoir about the film.)
But the film was a trailblazer, says actor Theodore Bikel, 85, who played a German officer. “The restoration gives it a vividness of color. It is phenomenal.”
Bikel has fond memories of his two famous co-stars. (Bogart died in 1957, Hepburn in 2003.)
About Bogart, he says: “I would sit next to him in the makeup trailer, and the script supervisor would sit next to him, and he would sort of go through the lines in the scenes to shoot and he would kind of mumble the lines, just the pure text, expressionless almost. Twenty minutes later, we were on the set, and there was this full-blown performance. I swear to you, to this day, I don’t know where or when it all came together.”
Hepburn, he says, was “very helpful and very kind. In fact, when we were shooting the scenes in the water, she would show up in a little rowboat. She wasn’t even in the shot that we were doing, and … she had two bottles, one of rum and one of brandy, and she gave it out to everybody in the water so we wouldn’t catch cold.”
Paramount is planning to show the film in theaters later this year.
“The film is a classic and has only been available on bad-quality imported bootlegs for years now,” says Bill Hunt, editor of TheDigitalBits.com, a home video news-and-reviews site. “Fans have been waiting for it for a very long time.”

‘Avatar’ will hit Blu-ray and DVD on Earth Day, April 22
“Avatar” may be the ultimate big-screen experience, but how will it fit into the living rooms of the world?!
That’s the challenge presented to Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, which on Tuesday will announce some unconventional plans for the DVD and Blu-ray release of the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood box office.
“Avatar” will hit stores on April 22, and instead of a disc loaded with extras, it will be just the opposite — a lean-and-mean approach with only the movie and a relatively simple menu function, a move made to exploit every bit of disc space for the top-of-the-line audio and video presentation of the film, according to the movie’s producer, Jon Landau.
In fact, according to sources at Fox, “Avatar” will make history as the first Blu-ray new release from a major studio to hit stores without a single trailer or promotional content of any kind.
“We went to Fox and told them that, for this movie, we wanted to do something really special and reach for the best presentation of any film in the history of the format,” Landau said. “This is a movie that has done the unexpected every step of the way. Fox agreed with us and the result is amazing. Everything that is put on a disc takes up room — the menus, the extras, the trailers and studio promotions — and we got rid of all of that so we could give this movie the best picture and sound possible.”
In another unusual wrinkle, “Avatar” will reach shelves on a Thursday as opposed to the traditional Tuesday release day, so it can coincide with Earth Day. Fox is poised to announce a special environmental campaign that will key off of that date and the film’s themes of ecological harmony. Landau and writer-director James Cameron will attend an March 23 press event in West Hollywood where they will discuss the release, the environmental tie-in and plans for a multi-disc “ultimate version” that will follow in November.
One thing the home-video release won’t be is 3-D. Just as Cameron took years to make “Avatar” while waiting for the technology that lived up to his visual aspiration, the filmmaker is holding back the 3-D-in-the-home version until the nascent marketplace catches up. Reports that the 3-D version will be released later this year are wrong, according to Fox sources.
Nonetheless, Landau said anyone who watches the 2-D home-video version of the film — especially the Blu-ray edition — will be “blown away” by the clarity, color and depth of the image. Typically, the compression sessions that take a theatrical release into the Blu-ray version last two weeks, but for this project the labor stretched out to six weeks.
Consumers will not be getting that hard work for cheap; “Avatar” arrives at retail with premium pricing. For the Earth Day release, the single-disc version of “Avatar” will have a suggested retail price of $29.98 on DVD and $39.99 on Blu-ray. A source at Fox said the “shelf” prices at many retailers will be closer to $19.99 for the DVD and $29.99 for the Blu-ray.
Fox is hoping “Avatar” will make home-video history, rivaling the fastest-selling title ever, “The Dark Knight,” which sold 3 million copies its first day in stores in December 2008 (600,000 of those on Blu-ray). CinemaScore, which has been doing consumer research with the Blu-ray format since October 2008, reports that “purchase intent” among consumers is higher for “Avatar” than any previous title. Also, Fox research suggests that a significant percentage of surveyed moviegoers said they plan to use the arrival of “Avatar” as an impetus to switch to the Blu-ray format.
“Avatar” opened in theaters on Dec. 18 and has grossed $2.6 billion worldwide. Landau said he believes the film will continue to do well at theaters and find a different sort of success on home video. He dismissed the suggestion that the 3-D epic will be cramped in the far smaller 2-D home-theater setting.
“There are details that you can see on the Blu-ray that are just amazing,” Landau said. “And the reason the movie has done so well isn’t because of the 3-D, it’s because of the story and the messages and the imagination. The way I view the Blu-ray is a chance for people to go back to Pandora.”

A wonderland of ‘Alice’
With Tim Burton’s 3-D version a hit in theaters, a raft of vintage takes on the Lewis Carroll work are now available on DVD.
More than a children’s classic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the 1865 book by Lewis Carroll, is ground zero for a multi-tentacled media franchise that has been going strong for nearly 150 years.
The Victorian forebear of a variety of 20th century artistic movements, drug cultures and fashion trends, it has inspired untold authors and musicians, served as the basis for dozens of film and television versions, and been tailored and twisted to fit almost every narrative form imaginable, from musical theater to soft-core porn to video game.
Tim Burton’s 3-D “Alice,” which opened March 5, has brought with it a DVD deluge of earlier adaptations. New and upcoming releases include an improbably star-studded 1933 Hollywood production with Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and many others (Universal, $19.98); Disney’s animated take from 1951 (a two-disc “un-anniversary” edition, $29.99); a 1966 version made for British television with Peter Sellers, John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave (BBC Warner, $14.98); an NBC TV movie from 1999 with Ben Kingsley, Miranda Richardson and Whoopi Goldberg (Vivendi, $19.93); and a miniseries that aired on the SyFy Channel last year with a somewhat oddball cast including Kathy Bates, Tim Curry and Harry Dean Stanton (Lionsgate, $19.98).
Besides attesting to the caliber of actors who have ended up in “Alice” projects over the years, the various productions suggest how malleable Carroll’s fable has always been. Though far from a classic, the upbeat 1951 Disney animated version remains the standard bearer for a kid-friendly “Alice.”
The black-and-white British TV film, directed by Jonathan Miller at the height of the Swinging ’60s and featuring a Ravi Shankar score, avoids the expected psychedelic clichÈs, reveling in subtler druggy atmospherics.
The recent miniseries, in which a modern-day Alice is a martial-arts expert, fits with the ongoing revisionist vogue for empowered Alices. (In Burton’s film, she’s 19 and more action heroine than passive visitor.)
The most satisfying of all the reissues, the 1933 “Alice in Wonderland” — actually the second sound-era “Alice,” after an obscure 1931 version — is reasonably faithful to the original and, as such, gratifyingly weird. Combining elements of “Alice’s Adventures” and its 1872 sequel “Through the Looking-Glass,” the film was directed by the unheralded Norman McLeod; in almost every other respect, though, it was an A-list endeavor.
The screenplay is credited to Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, both of whom would become important filmmakers in their own right. Menzies, already an Oscar-winning art director, was also responsible for the off-kilter sets and visual tricks.
The cast includes W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as the White Knight and Edward Everett Horton as the Mad Hatter.
It would be misleading, though, to say that the film is full of recognizable faces, since most of the actors are masked, suited and heavily made up (in the spirit of the indelible original illustrations by John Tenniel). The actors get into the romper-room spirit that an “Alice” production invariably induces, but the film’s real pleasure is in the ingenuity of its old-school effects.
Of the other screen adaptations of “Alice,” the one that stands furthest apart from the pack is the 1998 stab by the master Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, a combination of live action and stop-motion animation in which the dream logic of Carroll’s story shifts decisively to nightmare. (It’s available on DVD through First Run Features, $29.95.)
And then, of course, there are the countless works that have simply been inspired by Carroll’s Alice. There are traces of her wild trip in films such as Jacques Rivette’s 1974 masterpiece “Celine and Julie Go Boating,” in which two Parisian friends wander into a mansion whose occupants are stuck in an eternal loop, and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), about a girl who discovers a fantasy underworld during the Spanish Civil War. “Alice in Wonderland” is also the founding text for alternate-reality tales such as “The Matrix” and “Lost.”
It’s no wonder that Carroll’s premise has proved so endlessly inspiring. In some ways, it is the most open-ended of templates. All versions of the Alice story are defined by that thrilling initial breach: down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass. What exactly we find on the other side remains up for grabs.

‘Avatar’ DVD release tied to Earth Day
Blue is the new green ó so get ready to return to Pandora on Earth Day in April.
James Cameron has scheduled the DVD and Blu-ray release of his mega-hit Avatar for April 22 in a deliberate attempt to parallel his science-fiction fantasy, and its simple-minded ecological messages, with the real-life environmental movement.
Call him naive ó and most critics and audiences have done so ó but Cameron is obviously hard-wired into the eco-zeitgeist because Avatar is running away with box-office records.
There is no reason to believe that the home entertainment releases will not do incredibly well, too, even though the April DVD and Blu-ray products will be bare-bones ëvanillaí versions with few if any bonus materials. Cameron has hinted that the fully loaded editions will arrive in November, although that may be optimistic, depending on whether there is an attempt to show Avatar in 3D (that technology for current home entertainment systems is still crude). But Cameron is known from past DVD releases, such as for The Abyss and Titanic, to be extraordinarily generous and comprehensive when he does deliver the goods in bonus materials.
The scheduled Avatar release is one of many involving Oscar-nominated pictures. There are 22 feature films with at least two noms. Five have already been released to home entertainment. Another seven are scheduled for March, including both Up in the Air and Precious next week. Another three, including Avatar, will debut in April. One more is confirmed for May while five are waiting for their release dates. Of the 10 best picture contenders, five are already on DVD and Blu-ray ó which has been helpful in their Oscar campaigns ó while the other five are scheduled.
If you want to catch up on your Oscar nominees, here are time-lines, along with the number of nominations, for the 10 best picture candidates (dates are subject to change, depending on the whims of distributors):
ï Avatar (9 Oscar nominations): April 22.
ï The Hurt Locker (9): Already released Jan. 12 with a strong Blu-ray version.
ï Inglourious Basterds (8): Already released Dec. 15 with excellent DVD and Blu-ray editions.
ï Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (6): March 9.
ï Up in the Air (6): March 9.
ï District 9 (4): Already released Dec. 22 with an excellent Blu-ray that includes the original Canadian-made short that inspired the feature.
ï An Education (3): March 30.
ï The Blind Side (2): March 23.
ï A Serious Man (2): Already released Feb. 9 with a decent DVD and Blu-ray.
As for films that did not make it as a best-picture candidate but which factor into the Oscar race in other categories, here is information on their home entertainment releases:
ï Nine (4): Not yet scheduled.
ï Star Trek (4): Already released Nov. 17 in terrific, fan-friendly DVD and Blu-ray releases.
ï Crazy Heart (3): Not yet scheduled.
ï The Princess and the Frog (3): March 16.
ï The Young Victoria (3): April 20.
ï Sherlock Holmes (2): March 30.
ï Invictus (2): Not yet scheduled.
ï The Messenger (2): May 18.
ï The Last Station (2): Not yet scheduled.
ï The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2): March 23.
ï The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2): April 27.
ï The White Ribbon (2): Not yet scheduled.

Disney takes long view in “Alice” theater dispute
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ñ Europe’s top movie theater chain plans to withdraw from screening the Walt Disney Co’s latest film “Alice In Wonderland”, escalating a dispute over the U.S. studio’s proposal to release the movie’s DVD weeks earlier than usual.
But Disney’s long-term strategy calls for less reliance on those chains in favor of revenue from Blu-ray video and online distribution, analysts say.
On Monday, less than two weeks before the movie’s March 5 debut, exhibitor Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group, owned by the London-based private equity firm Terra Firma, said it does not plan to show the movie in its UK, Irish or Italian cinemas because Disney wants to sell the DVD five weeks earlier than usual.
Theater owners worry audiences will skip seeing the movie on the big screen in favor of a shorter wait for the DVD, if Disney moves up its release.
A decade ago, DVDs were typically released six months after a film’s theatrical debut. But Hollywood studios have been gradually moving up their DVD releases, to tap those consumers who rarely go to the theater. Disney’s move will shrink that time to 12 weeks.
Odeon Cinemas operates 110 theaters in the UK and 22 in Italy.
Negotiations continued this week between Disney and No. 2 U.S. chain AMC Entertainment Inc, which boasts more than 4,500 screens.
Still, analysts said U.S. theater chains are unlikely to boycott en-masse the year’s first blockbuster release, wary of the hit to their bottom line — at least for now.
AMC did not return calls, and Disney declined comment.
“AMC’s a major exhibitor chain, obviously that makes a difference, but my guess is this (dispute) will be settled close to the opening-day release,” said analyst Hal Vogel of Vogel Capital Management.
“Disney understands the implications of what they’re doing,” Vogel said. “They’re looking to the long-term future, and the long-term future is less reliance on theaters and more reliance on new technology.”
That new technology involves getting movies into homes through Blu-ray discs, as well as other delivery methods such as video-on-demand.
“Theaters are obviously very important still, and any distribution company would be foolish to upset the relationships to any great degree,” Vogel said.

James Cameron Reveals Avatar Blu-ray Release Date
In an interview yesterday, director James Cameron leaked the release date for what will be the first Blu-ray edition of his megablockbuster movie Avatar: it will be on Earth Day. “It’s all right on schedule,” said Cameron. “We’ll do the Blu-ray and the standard def DVD April 22nd, that’s our plan as of right now, and that’ll be pretty much bare bones. And then we’ll do a value-added DVD and a 3D Blu-ray in I think November sometime.”
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment couldn’t confirm the release date.
Cameron also said that with a wave of companies set to release 3D-compatible TVs, the time was right to issue his film in 3D for the home viewer.

Saving Private Ryan appears in high definition
Paramount Home Entertainment and Dreamworks Home Entertainment this morning also officially announced the Blu-Ray release of Saving Private Ryan, scheduling the title for May.
Steven Spielberg directed this powerful, realistic re-creation of WWII’s D-day invasion and the immediate aftermath. The story opens with a prologue in which a veteran brings his family to the American cemetery at Normandy, and a flashback then joins Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) and GIs in a landing craft making the June 6, 1944, approach to Omaha Beach to face devastating German artillery fire. This mass slaughter of American soldiers is depicted in a compelling, unforgettable 24-minute sequence. Miller’s men slowly move forward to finally take a concrete pillbox. On the beach littered with bodies is one with the name “Ryan” stenciled on his backpack. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell), learning that three Ryan brothers from the same family have all been killed in a single week, requests that the surviving brother, Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon), be located and brought back to the United States. Capt. Miller gets the assignment, and he chooses a translator, Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davis), skilled in language but not in combat, to join his squad of right-hand man Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore), plus privates Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Medic Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), cynical Reiben (Edward Burns) from Brooklyn, Italian-American Caparzo (Vin Diesel), and religious Southerner Jackson (Barry Pepper), an ace sharpshooter who calls on the Lord while taking aim. Having previously experienced action in Italy and North Africa, the close-knit squad sets out through areas still thick with Nazis. After they lose one man in a skirmish at a bombed village, some in the group begin to question the logic of losing more lives to save a single soldier. The film’s historical consultant is Stephen E. Ambrose, and the incident is based on a true occurance in Ambrose’s 1994 bestseller D-Day: June 6, 1944.
ìSaving Private Ryanî will boast a 1080p high definition transfer with lossless high definition audio. As extras you will find the Featurettes îShooting Warî and the making-of îSaving Private Ryanî on the release. Additional bonus materials may yet be announced.
The Blu-Ray version will be in stores on May 4 for $39.99.

Apollo 13 on a course for Blu-ray
40 years after the launch of Apollo 13, the film which bears its name comes to Blu-ray from Universal.
Like many Univeral titles, Apollo 12 will contain U-Control, and will also carry the audio commentary from the DVD along with the featurettes Lucky 13, Lost Moon and Conquering Space. Th edisc also includes BD-Live and D-Box as well as pocketBlu controls.
No problems here as the 50Gb disc arrives on April 13th.