Today’s most popular bargain at Amazon is Universal Studios’ The Bourne Trilogy on Blu-ray for $34.99.
This price represents half off retail price.
With all three movies included, these titles come in at less than $12 each - a bargain indeed for these excellent action movies.
As always, not sure how long this bargain will last, so get ‘em while you can!
The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for this week reveals a pretty slow week for Blu-ray titles.
Perhaps the top release for the week is the latest season release of Dexter with Dexter: The Fourth Season.
New Day and Date releases include the latest Ricky Gervais production Cemetery Junction and the Miley Cyrus vehicle The Last Song.
Over to classic cinema we have the Criterion release Black Orpheus and Warner adds another Digibook title with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Click on any cover to see the details for the title.
Today’s top Amazon promotion features the Showtime series Dexter on Blu-ray Disc.
Right now you can get Dexter: Seasons One-Three on Blu-ray for only $69.99, a saving of 60% off retail.
Coincident with the release of Dexter: The Fourth Season, this offer gives you the first three seasons for less than $25 each.
Dexter us easily one of my favourite shows, so I highly recommend taking advantage of this offer, especially if you like suspense.
The latest release to get the Digibook treatment from Warner Home Video is the musical documentary Elvis on Tour, released August 3rd 2010.
For the most part the film presents on stage performances from Elvis and his backing band, inter-cut with behind the scenes footage from the tour.
Elvis on Tour also contains scenes from recording studio sessions and a variety of segments featuring screaming Elvis fans, as well as some historical archival footage.
One of the striking aspects of the film is the split-screen style arrangement, often with different views of the same events on stage or even in the behind the scenes sequences.
The movie covers the 15 city tour in April 1972, and features performances from venues in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas.
A number of classic Elvis songs appear in the movie, as well as songs like Proud Mary and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Watch for fan favourites Don’t be Cruel, Love Me Tender, Can’t Help Falling in Love and Burning Love, which was a new song at the time.
In the downside, the original Johnny B. Goode performance has been removed from the opening credits of the film, apparently due to copyright issues.
Elvis on Tour was Presley’s last appearance in a movie, and the film won the 1972 Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary.
In many ways the fascination with Elvis Presley has never completely subsided, with countless references in popular culture - however since Elvis passed away over 30 years ago, we don’t see the real Elvis all that often these days.
When watching this film, I became struck with just how much of a phenomenon Elvis was when he performed, and while the film was intended as a current documentary, it has now become a historical record of one of the most popular performers of all time.
Elvis on Tour was directed by Robert Abel, who worked on other music documentaries like Let the Good Times Roll, with Martin Scorsese supervising the montage sequences.
The movie has a fairly middle of the road IMDb score of 6.9/10.
The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 22 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1.
The original film elements are showing their age somewhat, and there is fairly heavy grain likely due to the ‘low light’ nature of the shows.
However the presentation is clean and has a pretty natural feeling - it looks like I imagine it should, all considered.
Check out the details page for Elvis on Tour to see full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.
The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz, and sounds pretty good considering the age of the recording.
The disc is a single layer BD25, with 19.3 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
While the disc itself has no additional features, the disc is packaged in a 40 page Digibook filled with photographs and information about the tour and about Presley’s life in general.
All in all it is a nicely presented package.
Elvis on Tour is a great testament to Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll - certainly a no brainer for Elvis fans.
While the Warner Home Video Blu-ray release lacks supplements, the Digibook packaging is a nice addition here.
The retail price is $34.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $27.99, saving 20%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
After Elvis: That’s the Way it is, which was filmed live in Las Vegas, the king and his crew were eager to follow that success with another captivating concert documentary. How could they make it different? By going on the road for one thing. And via the innovative split-screen process used in Woodstock to convey the whirlwind, you-are-there energy and performances thrills of Elvis on Tour. More than 25 numbers spotlighting Elvis Presley’s talent, range and showmanship fill this lively chronicle of his multi-city 1972 series of concerts. Plus montage sequences ( supervised by Martin Scorsese) showcase Presley’s early career and movies. And the results of this different look at the king? Fan euphoria - and a Golden Globe for Best Documentary.
Statham fans rejoice with some of Jason’s recent Lionsgate titles on sale for only $9.99 at Amazon.
You can get Crank 2: High Voltage, The Bank Job and Transporter 3 for less than $10, saving 60% - 67%.
I must admit to grabbing a couple of these for my collection.
You can also get The Transporter and Transporter 2 for only $10.
Blu-ray fans received a fresh dose of British television with the BBC Home Video Blu-ray Disc release Being Human: Season One on July 20th, 2010.
This show was popular in the UK and is very much in a similar vein to Torchwood.
While it is partly promoted as witty and occasionally is, this show is far from a comedy, rather more being a stylistic thriller.
As with many BBC shows, the season runs six full one hour episodes.
Being Human is based on an intriguing premise, with a vampire and a werewolf living in a house along with the ghost a woman that died in the house.
While the members of the house are cursed, supernatural creatures, they want nothing more than to be normal and fit in with the civilized world.
Each of the characters is different in nature and handles their affliction in a different way.
George the werewolf is a very sensitive, intelligent and neurotic fellow who now faces the monthly curse of his transformation.
The vampire is Mitchell, who is now 120 years old and has decided to shun the killing and feeding lifestyle and is trying to refrain from drinking human blood.
Annie the ghost unhappily died before her wedding and is still madly in love with her fiance, who has now moved on, though still visits the house in the role of landlord.
For the most part, the episodes cover the trials of each of the characters, often with a focus one particular character.
There is also a season length story arc with the vampires secretly planning to take over the Earth from the humans.
While the show starts off a little slow for my liking, I found after a couple of episodes I was hooked and had to watch the story play out to its conclusion, which also sets up the premise for the second season which will be released later this year.
Overall I found this series to be entertaining and well worth a look, especially for fans of Torchwood and Doctor Who.
The cast features Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow and Aidan Turner in the lead roles, and also includes Sinead Keenan and Jason Watkins in key supporting roles.
Being Human: Season One was created by Toby Whitehouse, who has written for Doctor Who and Torchwood.
The series has a very respectable IMDb score of 8.3/10.
The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080i encode at 30 Mbps, and is presented at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, filling the HDTV screen.
This high bitrate encode does a pretty good job of presenting this show which is often dark and occasionally ‘noisy’.
See the details page for Being Human: Season One for full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.
The main audio is presented in Dolby Digital with 2.0 channels, encoded at 448 kbps.
With many BBC titles featuring DTS-HD audio, it was a bit disappointing to see lossy Dolby Digital used here.
The discs are dual layer BD50, with around 43 GB used and are coded for All Regions.
This release comes with quite a range of supplemental features including a lot of cast and crew interviews.
Additional footage is presented in the form of deleted, extended and alternate scenes.
The Character Profiles featurette runs 20 minutes and covers not only the three main characters but also a number of the key supporting characters.
The nature of the vampire is covered in Vamping it Up, which goes into the vampire ‘rules’ that the show incorporates, as well as some traditional traits that they chose to ignore.
Toby Whitehouse on the Journey has the show creator looking into the history of the show and the direction it took - be sure to not watch this before watching the actual show - many spoilers contained!
The technicalities and techniques of the werewolf transformation that George goes through a number of times in Season One is covered in Becoming a Werewolf.
The Stunts Package studies a couple of the major stunt sequences that appear in the show, one with Annie falling down the stairs and a second that involves a vehicle striking a couple of pedestrians.
The Video Diaries run almost 15 minutes and features a lot of behind the scenes footage and footage of the actors discussing the process as they shoot the production, all shot by the three main actors.
Our Journey’s End is certainly another supplement that you will want to hold off on until you have seen the complete series as this talks about the set up for Season 2.
Additional featurettes cover the show’s locations, sets, costumes and make up.
Being Human: Season One is a pretty strong TV series produced by the BBC in the supernatural thriller genre.
The Blu-ray release is for the most part a strong title from BBC Home Video, with the only down side being the stereo Dolby Digital sound track.
The retail price is $39.98, or order it right now at Amazon for $28.49, saving 29%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
What’s a vampire to do if he wants to live a normal life? In the first hit season of this “engaging, dark and wickedly funny” (SciFi Wire) BBC series, Mitchell swears off blood and shares a house with George-a reluctant werewolf equally committed to escaping the dark side. As luck would have it, though, the house is already occupied by Annie, an insecure ghost. Enjoy the trio’s unconventional friendships and supernatural adventures, starring Aidan Turner (Desperate Romantics) and Russell Tovey (Little Dorrit).
George Lucas told audiences at Celebration V that the Star Wars saga will hit Blu-ray in Fall 2011.
The collection will feature the six live-action Star Wars films, with Blu-ray quality picture and audio, as well as extensive special features.
As an example, the fans at the convention got to see an unreleased deleted scene from Return of the Jedi.
No doubt Star Wars fans will be thrilled that there are finally plans to release these favourites in high definition.
I see that Fry’s Electronics is listing the Mad Men: Season One, Mad Men: Season Two and Mad Men: Season Three on Blu-ray Disc for only $18.99.
It is pretty amazing to see these for under $20, and as much as $10 cheaper than Amazon, so this is certainly a great deal all round.
This pricing is valid at the San Francisco Bay Area Fry’s for sure, though it is entirely possible that other areas have this pricing as well so check the weekend advertising.
This price also appears to be available on Frys.com.
I have heard this is a great series so I am looking forward to picking these up for myself…
The latest Asian movie release from Magnolia Home Entertainment is the film Mother, released on Blu-ray Disc July 20th, 2010.
This Korean drama delves into the sacrifices and lengths a mother will go in an effort to save her only son.
Do-joon is the rather simple minded young Korean man who gets pushed around a lot, though occasionally stands up for himself with the help of his friend Jin-tae.
After a night out drinking, Do-joon ends up being the last person to see a murdered schoolgirl alive.
Do-joon is eventually charged with the murder and his mother can’t believe that it is possibly true.
After the Police close the case, his mother decides that she has to prove her son’s innocence and starts her own investigation into the death and who might have really killed the girl.
Her investigation leads her to discover many unseemly facts that feed her drive to do whatever it takes to free her son.
The film has many excellent qualities, including amazing cinematography, strong themes of family and excellent performances from the cast.
Hye-ja Kim was superb in the role of the mother and the supporting cast including Bin Won as Do-joon and Jin Goo as Jin-tae also came across as natural and realistic characters.
Mother was directed by Joon-ho Bong, the man behind a number of Korean movies including The Host and also a segment for Tokyo!
The movie was very well received by critics - it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% and IMDb score of 8.1/10.
The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 28 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
This high bitrate transfer helps to preserve the intriguing style and cinematographic choices of the film makers.
You will find full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc at the details page for Mother.
The main audio is lossless Korean DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.
On this release there is no English audio, though there are of course English subtitles.
The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 42.0 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
Supplements for this title include the usual BD Live Network features in addition to a wide range of behind the scenes featurettes, which are all subtitled Korean audio.
The main Making Of featurette runs a massive 90 minutes and is loaded with behind the scenes footage and interview material from the cast and crew.
The main focus of this program is the discussion of the themes of the movie and many of the film makers discuss their personal relationships with their own mother, as well as the mother/son relationship we see in the film.
There are also a number of shorter segments that cover specific areas of the film’s production.
The lead actress who portrays the titular Mother is studied in A Look At The Actress Kim Hye-Ja, while a second segment covers the supporting cast.
Further featurettes focus on the production design, cinematography and musical score aspects of the production.
There is an additional teaser Behind The Scenes featurette that covers the basics of the production.
All in all there is a lot of coverage - it is apparent that this film was a fairly big deal over in Korea, and as such the production has been well documented.
Mother is powerful drama with strong performances and story and is beautifully photographed - I don’t hesitate to recommend it fans of foreign cinema or people who just like a well acted drama, though the subtitles may be a negative for some.
Magnolia Home Entertainment has gone the extra mile with this Blu-ray Disc release, offering a high bitrate transfer and hours of behind the scenes coverage on a dual layer disc.
The retail price is $29.98, or order it right now at Amazon for $26.49, saving 12%
Extras:
Synopsis:
Mother is a devoted single parent to her simple-minded twenty-seven-year-old son, Do-joon. Often a source of anxiety to his mother, Do-joon behaves in foolish or simply dangerous ways. One night, while walking home drunk, he encounters a school girl who he follows for a while before she disappears into a dark alley. The next morning, she is found dead in an abandoned building, and Do-joon is accused of her murder. An inefficient lawyer and an apathetic police force result in a speedy conviction. His mother refuses to believe her beloved son is guilty and immediately undertakes her own investigation to find the girl’s killer. In her obsessive quest to clear her son’s name, Mother steps into a world of unimaginable chaos and shocking revelations.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment continues their dedication to family releases with James and the Giant Peach, released on Blu-ray Disc August 3rd, 2010.
The movie is based on the Roald Dahl story and is a combination of live action and stop motion animation in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Another similarity is the inclusion of a number of songs, though in this film the music is courtesy of Randy Newman.
The film follows the story of young James Henry Trotter, who is orphaned when his parents are eaten by a demonic rhinoceros.
His new guardians are his two abusive aunts Spiker and Sponge, who make him work from dusk until dawn and feed him things like fish heads.
Things change significantly though when a mysterious stranger appears with some magic green “crocodile tongues” which should make his life better.
However the tongues escape from the bag and create a magic giant peach which James’ aunts take advantage of financially.
When he follows a spider from the house, James finds one remaining magic crocodile tongue and it transforms him into an animated world where he finds a number of the local insects have grown huge and gained the ability to talk.
James and his new insectoid friends set off in the peach on a journey to New York City, a place his parents promised to take him before their untimely demise.
James’ delightful journey includes harnessing seagull power, a run in with a giant mechanical shark and an appearance by an easily recognized Skellington.
I found the film to be an enjoyable family version of the classic hero’s journey theme, blended with quirky elements that are unmistakably Roald Dahl.
The cast includes Paul Terry as James, Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes and the evil aunts, and the voice talents of Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon and David Thewlis.
James and the Giant Peach was directed by Henry Selick, who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and most recently Coraline.
The critical reception for the movie was very strong, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%, though it didn’t do so well with casual viewers with only 6.7/10 at the IMDb.
James and the Giant Peach was also earned $28.9M at the US box office.
The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 35.5 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1.
The film makers opted for a very grainy look for this title and this style has been well preserved with this high bitrate encoding.
Find full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc at the details page for James and the Giant Peach.
The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.
The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 29.3 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
The Blu-ray disc is somewhat short on new extra features, though it does include Spike The Aunts, a new interactive Java based game.
The game is based on the special sequence at the end of the credit roll, where you control a mechanical rhinoceros and try to spike the two aunts to win points.
The Blu-ray also contains the original DVD features, which include a Behind the Scenes Making Of featurette and Randy Newman’s Good News music video.
The original trailer is also presented, along with a collection of still picture galleries.
It would have been nice to see some of these features, like the trailer, upgraded to high definition.
For a change, the sneak previews are actually well worth a look, with a trailer for the upcoming Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary and The Lion King releases, along with Tinker Bell promoting genuine Disney products over pirated versions and Panasonic advertising.
The package also includes a DVD copy which features the movie in the legacy format for portable players and the kid’s room.
James and the Giant Peach is a fun and entertaining movie that the whole family can enjoy.
While it is not as fully featured as some Disney titles, this Blu-ray release from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment presents a super high bitrate encode of the movie that is sure to please fans of releases that look like film.
The retail price is $39.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $24.99, saving 38%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
In an all-new digitally restored special edition from Tim Burton, the acclaimed director of Alice In Wonderland, comes the astounding film that captured the hearts of fans and critics all across the world. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book, Burton, Denise Di Novi and Director Henry Selick combine a fascinating mix of live-action, stop-motion animation and computer-generated special effects to create a world beyond your imagination. After the daring rescue of a spider, a young boy named James gains possession of some magic crocodile tongues. When James spills them in the garden, out sprouts an enormous peach! Climbing inside, he meets an astonishing cast of characters and embarks on a magical odyssey full of thrills and adventure. Voiced by an all-star cast, including legendary actors Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, Simon Callow and Jane Leeves, and featuring the celebrated music of Randy Newman, this classic story is delicious entertainment for the whole family!
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