The second Blu-ray Disc release from Magnolia Home Entertainment on February 9th was the romantic comedy Serious Moonlight.

Essentially the plot revolves around Louise and Ian, who have been married for thirteen years, though the magic has worn off for Ian.

While he is setting up for a romantic interlude with his mistress, Louise arrives unexpected and discovers his plan to run off to Paris and leave her.

Unwilling to accept her situation, Louise conks him over the head and while he is unconscious she duct tapes him to a chair, and later a toilet, vowing to keep him captive until their love is rekindled.

To complicate this seemingly impossible process, the house is taken over by burglars and the couple ends captive in their bathroom.

While the premise of the movie seemed interesting, the film has a number of weaknesses.

The film is surprisingly violent and mean spirited at times for a comedy, and often the dialogue and actions do not ring true.

The characters are pretty shallow, especially that of the mistress.

The movie was the last screenplay written by Adrienne Shelly before her untimely death, the writer and director of the movie Waitress, and was produced by her friends as a tribute to her.

In reality I think that the screenplay was not really completed, and it seems that the film makers were either unable or unwilling to revise it.

The film attracted a pretty decent cast, including Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton in the lead roles, as well as Kristen Bell and Justin Long.

Serious Moonlight was directed by Cheryl Hines, who also appeared in Waitress.

The movie was panned by critics, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 28% and an IMDb score of 5.6/10.

Serious Moonlight also had a small run in the cinema, earning $25.3k at the US box office.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 26 Mbps, and is presented at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, filling the HDTV screen.

The image quality is surprisingly poor, perhaps due to it being a low budget production.

Check out the details page for Serious Moonlight 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.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 23.2 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

The supplements are a little limited, but include an audio commentary with Cheryl Hines (director), Andy Ostroy (producer) and Michael Roiff (producer).

A look behind the scenes  is offered with the Making of Serious Moonlight featurette and the HDNet: A Look at Serious Moonlight.

All in all I think Serious Moonlight was an honorable attempt to honor the writer, though the result is sadly a film without much merit.

The Blu-ray release is from Magnolia Home Entertainment is probably about as much as one could realistically hope for.

The retail price is $29.98, and it is available at Amazon for $23.49, saving 22%!

Extras:

• Commentary with Cheryl Hines (director), Andy Ostroy (producer) and Michael Roiff (producer).
• The Making of Serious Moonlight (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:12.21)
• HDNet: a look at Serious Moonlight (1.78:1; 1080i/60; 0:04.40)

Synopsis:

Things aren’t going exactly as planned for high-powered, Manhattan lawyer Louise (Meg Ryan). Her husband of 13 years, Ian (Timothy Hutton), announces to her that he’s leaving her for a younger woman (Kristen Bell). Taking things into her own hands, Louise holds Ian captive until he agrees to work on their marriage. The unexpected arrival of a gardener turned opportunistic thief (Justin Long) and Ian’s impatient mistress serve only to complicate the spiraling situation further.

Continuing the biographical theme, February 9th marked the Blu-ray release of the Magnolia Home Entertainment title Bronson.

This British film is based on the life of Britain’s most violent prison inmate Michael Peterson, who later adopts the name Charles Bronson.

This film is no ‘ordinary’ biopic though, as it switches between reenactments of Bronson’s life and a surreal theatrical narration of the events, which somehow feels very fitting for this larger than life character.

While Michael Peterson’s original sentence for robbing a Post Office of a little under 30 pounds, his violent behavour in prison has led to him being shifted from prison to asylum to prison, spendng less than 5 months of his life in since 1974 as a free man.

Due to his penchant for hostage taking, Peterson has also spent most of his prison time in solitary confinement.

Charles Bronson is still alive and incarcerated, and will probably never see the film about his own life.

The film is a very interesting watch - both violent and artistic in equally extreme measures - certainly an interesting approach that entertains and offers insight into the psyche of Bronson.

The main character is portrayed by Tom Hardy, who not only did an amazing job capturing the essence of the character but also underwent significant physical training in order to properly represent Charles Bronson.

Additionally the cast includes Hugh Ross, Juliet Oldfield, Jonny Philips, James Lance, Amanda Burton, Matt King and Kelly Adams.

Bronson was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who also directed the Pusher series of films.

The movie was pretty well received by critics - it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 78% and IMDb score of 6.6/10.

Bronson had a small run at the cinema, reaching $105k at the US box office.

The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 34 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

It is great to see Magnolia giving this title the bitrate needed to represent the significant film grain.

Since a lot of the film was shot on 16mm film, don’t expect the sharpest of image for this title.

See the details page for Bronson for 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.

The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 34.3 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

Again, well done to Magnolia for choosing to go to a dual layer disc for this title - one of their few.

There are quite a decent number of supplements for this title, including BD Live Network connectivity.

Perhaps the most interesting are the Charles Bronson Monologues, featuring audio recordings of the real Charles Bronson which caused some consternation when they were played at the premiere since the prison system had no knowledge of how they were made.

Production details are offered in both a Making Of featurette and some fairly raw Behind The Scenes footage.

The extent of Hardy’s efforts to bulk up to play the lead role is documented in the Training Tom Hardy faeturette.

Further insight into the film making comes with extensive interviews with director Nicholas Winding Refn, and actors Tom Hardy and Matt King

The film’s Trailer is also included.

I found Bronson to be a pretty interesting film and one I can recommend to fans of something outside of the Hollywood norm.

This is certainly a great choice of release from Magnolia Home Entertainment and they have put together a pretty solid release here.

The retail price is $29.98, or order it right now at Amazon for $17.99, saving 40%!

Extras:

• Charles Bronson Monologues
• Making Of
• Training Tom Hardy
• Interviews With: Nicholas Winding Refn, Tom Hardy, and Matt King
• Behind The Scenes
• Trailer

Synopsis:

In 1974, a misguided 19-year-old named Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy) decided he wanted to make a name for himself and so, with a homemade sawed-off shotgun and a head full of dreams, he attempted to rob a post office. Swiftly apprehended and originally sentenced to seven years in jail, Peterson has subsequently been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement. Shot from an intelligent, provocative and stylized approach, Bronson follows the metamorphosis of Mickey Peterson, who nicknamed himself Charles Bronson, into Britain’s most dangerous prisoner.

The second dose of Thai martial arts comes with the Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray Ong Bak 2: The Beginning, also released on February 2nd, 2010.

The film is marketed as the prequel to the original Ong-Bak movie, though in reality it is not directly associated in any recognizable way.

It is generally assumed though that the two will be tied together in the third film in the series, which is expected to pick up where this one left off.

The film tells the story of Tien, the son of provincial ruler who is left orphaned and captured by slavers.

His fate takes a turn though when he is rescued by bandits and trained in the martial arts.

Once grown and fully trained, Tien sets about taking revenge on the slavers and the men that killed his parents.

To be honest the plot is very weak and confusing in this film, and feels like a poor attempt to emulate the currently popular Asian Historical Epic genre and showcase a lot of martial arts and Thai custom.

The movie was largely written and directed by the star Tony Jaa, which might account for some of the trouble.

Additionally the film had schedule and funding issues, and from an early trailer it is clear that the film changed direction significantly during production, which no doubt resulted in compromise.

We can expect some of the footage that was discarded to appear in Ong-Bak 3.

On the other hand, Ong-Bak 2 looks a lot nicer than the original and the fight sequences are strong and entertaining.

Along with Tony Jaa, the cast includes Sorapong Chatree, Sarunyu Wongkrachang and Nirut Sirijunya.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning was directed by Tony Jaa, with additional help from Panna Rittikrai.

The critical reception for the movie was luke warm, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 48% and an IMDb score of 6.4/10.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning was pretty small in the USA, earning only $102.5k at the US box office.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 24 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

This time around the image quality is actually very good compared to the original movie.

Check out the details page for Ong Bak 2: The Beginning 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.

The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 48.9 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

The need for the BD50 results from the inclusion of an Alternate Cut that features Thai audio only, while the theatrical cut additionally features an English dub.

The supplements are pretty extensive on this release, including three ‘making of’ featurettes - The Story and Characters of an Epic, Revealing Majesty and The Art of War.

Additional behind the scenes footage covers Capturing a Warrior, The Kingdom and The Community.

Further insight can be found with cast and crew interviews and the HDNet show A Look at Ong Bak 2.

The disc also features and exclusive sneak peek at footage from Ong Bak 3.

Promotional materials include both the International and U.S. Trailers, and the disc is also enabled with BD-Live Network connectivity.

For me, Ong Bak 2: The Beginning was not as strong a film as the original, and I imagine that interest in it will be largely confined to hard core martial arts fans, as the story is not strong enough to pull in a larger audience.

The Blu-ray Disc is a pretty strong release from Magnolia Home Entertainment, with two cuts of the movie and abundant supplemental material.

The retail price is $29.98, and it is a bargain right now at Amazon for $14.99, saving 50%!

Extras:

• Alternate Cut
• The Making of Ong Bak 2: The Story and Characters of an Epic
• The Making of Ong Bak 2: Revealing Majesty
• The Making of Ong Bak 2: The Art of War
• Behind the Scenes: Capturing a Warrior
• Behind the Scenes: The Kingdom
• Behind the Scenes: The Community
• Interviews with Cast and Crew
• HDNet: A Look at Ong Bak 2
• International Trailer
• U.S. Trailer
• Ong Bak 3 — Exclusive Footage
• BD-Live

Synopsis:

Tony Jaa, the martial arts master who “is as mesmerizing as ever” (Entertainment Weekly), stars in this epic tale of revenge set hundreds of years in the past. This prequel to Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior takes Jaa’s skills to the next level, showcasing him as a master of a wide range of martial arts styles. “The beatdowns are epic, with several jaw-dropping set pieces. The climactic scene qualifies as one of the best martial arts fight scenes ever.” (LA Daily News)

Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 7th of February 2010 reveals a number of catalog titles from Lionsgate including Arnold in The Running Man, along with fresh titles from Universal in the form of Couples Retreat and A Serious Man.

Maybe someone can get A Serious Man, watch it and explain it to me…!

Warner is also releasing The Time Traveler’s Wife while Magnolia also has a couple of new titles - the comedy Serious Moonlight and the British film Bronson.

Stargate fans are also treated to a Blu-ray release of SGU Stargate Universe: Season One.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 31st of January 2010 reveals a lot of releases, though many of them are pretty basic titles from Anchor Bay.

New Day and Date titles include Zombieland and Amelia, while catalog titles include The Last King of Scotland, Walk the Line, Mystic River and individual releases for The Godfather and The Godfather Part II.

BBC SciFi fans will flip over the range of Dr Who titles, including Doctor Who: The Waters Of Mars, Doctor Who: The End Of Time and the whole shooting match in Doctor Who: The Complete Specials.

Warner also released less expensive ‘regular’ editions of Gone with the Wind and Bonnie and Clyde, along with The Music Man.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

The Burning Plain is the most recent independent film Blu-ray title from Magnolia Home Entertainment, released January 12th 2010.

I love it when Magnolia sends a disc to cover since it is always a great chance to see something out of the main stream.

The Burning Plain was written by Guillermo Arriaga - most famous for his collaborations with Alejandro González Iñárritu that include Amores Perros, Babel and 21 Grams.

In a similar fashion to Babel, this movie starts with a number of separate story-lines that are separated by time, space and nature, and as the film progresses the relationships between the stories become clearer.

Each of the stories ties in to the elements of Water, Earth, Fire and Wind, and often contain characters with inner conflict and troubled relationships.

The Water story follows Sylvia, played by Charlize Theron, a deeply troubled restaurateur in Portland Oregon who has seems to prefer casual intimacy to committed relationships and resorts to self inflicted physical punishment.

In the Earth story, Gina is an unfulfilled mother of four who maintains an extra-marital affair with Nick in a trailer near the Mexican border.

Nick’s son and Gina’s daughter form a relationship after their cheating parents die in a fire at the start of the film, and Fire features often in their story.

Lastly the Wind element relates to the story of a crop duster in Mexico whose 12 year old daughter witnesses his plane crash and subsequent hospitalization.

I found that the movie started off a little low energy - it took some effort to follow it and the characters were not sufficiently compelling to keep you engrossed.

That said it did get better and the characters came across as fairly believable, although I found some of the ‘twists’ to be somewhat inevitable.

All in all I would say that it is a decent drama, though nothing spectacular.

Along with Charlize Theron, the cast includes Kim Basinger, Joaquim de Almeida, John Corbett, Danny Pino, Jose Maria Yazpik and Jennifer Lawrence, who did a great job in her role of Mariana.

The Burning Plain was also directed by the writer Guillermo Arriaga, his first feature length gig.

The movie was somewhat panned by critics with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 32%, though I think that the IMDb score of 6.8/10 was closer to the mark.

The Burning Plain had a very limited cinema run, earning $200.7k at the US box office.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 19 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1.

No real surprises with the image quality for a recently shot movie.

You will find full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc at the details page for The Burning Plain.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 24.3 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

Supplements include a number of featurettes and BD Live Network features.

The Making Of featurette is very extensive and covers practically every crew and cast member you can imagine, narrated by the writer/director Guillermo Arriaga.

It is interesting to see how extensive the crew is, even with a relatively small independent movie.

There is also a 15 minute featurette covering the music of the movie, and the HDNet: A Look At Burning Plain featurette is also included on the disc.

The Burning Plain is a pretty decent movie - a good choice for fans of drama, especially if you like a number of characters with intersecting storylines.

The Blu-ray release from Magnolia Home Entertainment is also a pretty competent effort.

The retail price is $34.98, and while it is out of stock at at Amazon, you can find it at the Market Place for $21 or so.

I’ll have to check with Magnolia to see if there is some issue with supply for this title.

Extras:

• The Making Of
• The Music Of
• HDNet: A Look At Burning Plain

Synopsis:

Academy Award winners Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger star in this romantic mystery about hope, redemption and second chances. Sylvia (Theron) is a woman on the edge whose cool, professional demeanor masks a deeply troubled, sexually charged storm within. When a stranger from Mexico confronts her with her mysterious past, she is launched into an emotional journey back to the defining moment of her life. Gina (Basinger) is a housewife trapped in a loveless marriage who finds solace and passion in an illicit affair. Though separated by time and great distances, these women find their lives linked by the forces of love and fate.

Something that has fascinated me a little lately is the trend towards DTS-HD Master Audio, to the point now where it has become the de facto standard for Blu-ray Disc releases.

A couple of studios have used it from the start - Fox, who also distributes MGM, took quite a bit of flack for using DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases back when there were no players capable of decoding it or even passing it on to a receiver.

Universal Studios has also religiously used DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases, though capable players were abound well before they finally started releasing Blu-ray discs after having been exclusive to the HD DVD format.

Disney and Lionsgate moved to DTS-HD Master Audio from Linear PCM and smaller distributors like Image Entertainment, the Criterion Collection and Magnolia Home Entertainment have started using DTS-HD Master Audio as a matter of course.

More interesting to me though is the defection of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment from Dolby TrueHD to DTS-HD Master Audio in recent times, as well as an apparent similar defection under way over at Warner Home Entertainment.

Sony has certainly already made the move and newly announced Warner titles inreasingly have DTS-HD Master Audio where in 2009 only a handful of titles used the codec.

While Paramount has also been predominantly using the Dolby TrueHD codec, there have been cases of DTS-HD Master Audio releases, especially associated with the Star Trek franchise.

I talked to both Sony and Dolby at CES this year and got differing answers regarding the SPHE move to DTS-HD Master Audio.

Dolby stated that the work flow for titles with TrueHD and seamless branching had difficulties, which pushed some studios to use DTS-HD Master Audio for certain titles at least.

This may be a credible reason that we see DTS-HD Master Audio on the Warner release for Watchmen, which used seamless branching for the Maximum Movie Mode on the title.

However we are seeing DTS-HD Master audio listed for upcoming Warner titles like Poseidon and The Box, which seem like fairly standard releases.

Talking to Sony I got a very different answer - they said that the move to DTS-HD Master Audio was one of consumer preference measured by an internet poll.

Regardless of the reasons behind the moves, it is interesting to see the DTS codec now dominating the Blu-ray landscape with over 45% percent of the lossless audio Blu-ray releases, when at launch it looked like it simply wasn’t ready for prime time at all.

If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to add your comments.

Looking over the Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 10th of January 2010, the titles that stand out for me are the new release from the Criterion Collection 8 1/2, the remake of Fame, critically acclaimed The Hurt Locker and perhaps Rob Zombie’s remake sequel Halloween II.

Science fiction fans might find the movie Moon to be down their alley, as well as a single disc, regular packaged version of The Matrix.

The Simpsons have their Complete Twentieth Season on Blu-ray, with a mixture of upconverted and true HD sourced episodes.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 6th of December 2009

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

Magnolia Home Entertainment adds another foreign title with the Blu-ray release of Is Anybody There? on November 17th, 2009.

This British drama is the story of Edward who lives in his family’s home for the elderly.

Edward is fascinated with the afterlife, and runs experiments to contact the dead.

When retired magician Clarence arrives at the rest home, he seems even more annoying to Edward than current residents, though eventually the two become friends.

Relationships develop as they all cope with the loss of loved ones, the idiosyncrasies of the elderly residents and frustrations and regrets from life’s decisions.

Overall I found the movie to be a fairly satisfying drama with a decent mix of lighter and sadder moments.

The performances were strong, with Michael Caine in the role of Clarence and Edward played by Bill Milner from Son of Rambow, while David Morrissey and Anne-Marie Duff played the roles of Edward’s parents.

Is Anybody There? was directed by John Crowley, the director of the British films Intermission and Boy A.

With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 65% and an IMDb score of 7.1/10, the movie had a fairly average reception from the critics.

Is Anybody There? earned $2M at the US box office.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 24 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

Check out the details page for Is Anybody There? 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.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 22.8 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

The disc includes a selection of deleted scenes and also BD Live Network features.

The Is Anybody There? Blu-ray release from Magnolia Home Entertainment is light on supplements, though the film is one I can recommend to fans of the British drama.

The retail price is $29.98, or order it right now at Amazon for $17.99, saving 40%!

Extras:

• Deleted Scenes

Synopsis:

Ten-year-old Edward lives in his family-run retirement home. While his mother struggles to keep the family business afloat and his father copes with the onset of a mid-life crisis, Edward leads an increasingly lonely existence until he meets Clarence (Caine), a retired magician and grieving widower who refuses to give in gracefully to old age. The two strike up an unlikely friendship that helps them both remember what magic is possible when life is lived to its fullest.