Best Buy has a number of new Blu-ray promotions this week, including Half Off, Oscar titles and movies from $10.99.
Titles at $10.99 include Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Dark City, Blow, The Perfect Storm, The Lost Boys and Final Destination.
As always you can order online and have them shipped or pick them up in store.
The Time Traveler’s Wife, released on Blu-ray by New Line Home Video on February 9th, is an interesting fusion of a love story with science fiction.
The film follows Clare and her unusual relationship with the time traveling Henry, who mysteriously travels through time and space when he becomes emotional.
When Henry travels he finds himself naked in his new location, and has to find the nearest shelter and clothing, never sure when he will return to the present time.
Henry has no control over when he travels, where and when he ends up, nor how long he stays, and he travels into both the past and future.
The film mostly follows Henry’s time line, with occasional flash backs to help establish Clare’s time line also.
When Henry first meets Clare, he does not know who she is, though she has already fallen in love with him through his many visits into the past.
The truth of the time line in the movie is well maintained, and the characters struggle with the facts that they know from the future and the possibility of changing their destiny.
Personally I found the concept intriguing and the movie to be quite enjoyable, though it fits into the thought provoking side rather than the action side of science fiction.
The cast features Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana in the lead roles, as well as Ron Livingston, Arliss Howard, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jane McLean and Brooklyn Proulx.
The Time Traveler’s Wife was directed by Robert Schwentke, the man behind the thriller Flightplan.
The movie had a mixed reception from the critics wiith a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38%, and a much better IMDb score of 7.2/10.
I would tend to side towards the IMDb score for this one.
The Time Traveler’s Wife did fairly well in the cinema though, reaching $63.4M at the US box office.
The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 17 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
You will find full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc at the details page for The Time Traveler’s Wife.
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 23.6 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
Along with a couple of featurettes, his release includes a Digital Copy for both Windows Media and iTunes.
An Uncoventional Love Story features Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams and their views on the characters they portray.
The other featurette - The Time Traveler’s Wife: Love Beyond Words - is a 20 minute behind the scenes ‘making of’ documentary.
I quite enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife myself, though I can see that this style of movie is not for everyone.
The Blu-ray release from New Line Home Entertainment is another fairly light weight release from parent company Warner, though the movie itself gets a fairly decent presentation.
The retail price is $35.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $23.99, saving 33%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
Lose yourself in timeless love with this gloriously romantic story of the journey of two hearts. Artist Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams of The Notebook) shares a deep emotional bond with Henry De Tamble (Eric Bana of The Other Boleyn Girl), a handsome librarian who travels involuntarily through time. Knowing they can be separated without warning, Clare and Henry treasure the moments they have together, imbuing them with the yearning and passion of two people imprisoned by time - and set free by love. Based on the #1 bestseller, The Time Traveler’s Wife weaves together destiny and devotion, past and future to turn an extraordinary love into an extraordinary love story.
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.
Amazon has added a number of new titles to their list of $7.99 Warner Home Video titles.
Most recently added are Wedding Crashers, Ocean’s Eleven and Alexander, Revisited - The Final Cut.
Certainly $8 is a great price for Blu-ray movies, and there are some nice titles here.
See a growing list of $7.99 after the break:
Amazon has listed a number of Warner Home Video titles at $7.99, saving 72% off the retail pricing.
Titles in the promotion include The Aviator, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Perfect Storm, Constantine and Wyatt Earp.
A good chance to fill out your catalog collection a little!
See a full list after the break:
Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 17th of January 2010 - not a lot of stunning releases this week.
Perhaps of most note is the The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum releases on flipper discs with DVDs stuck on the top of the Blu-ray Discs.
Lionsgate has Weeds: Season Five and the movie Gamer that comes with a Digital Copy.
Warner also has a pair of day and date releases today with The Invention of Lying and Whiteout, while Universal is also releasing Smokin’ Aces along with the direct to video Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball.
Criterion Collection has a new release today too with Steven Soderbergh’s biopic Che, with both parts 1 and 2 included in the package.
Click on any cover to see the details for the title.
Maybe the last anaglyph 3D Blu-ray has hit the shelves with the New Line Cinema title The Final Destination released January 5th.
This is the fourth in the Final Destination franchise, and while it is perhaps not as good as the first two, it is certainly an improvement over the third one.
The same theme is played out here - one of a group of teens sees a horrible disaster in their future and freaks out about it, saving them and some others from certain death when it all goes down.
Having cheated death, the group must then face death catching up with them, killing them one by one unless the chain can be broken.
This time around the main disaster is a speedway crash and subsequent stadium collapse.
The main character continues have visions of the new death destiny of the characters, and works to change the course of future events to save himself and his friends.
There are a few quirky aspects to the movie, including one character that wants to die and fails to kill himself since it is not his destiny to die next.
The film was obviously written with 3D in mind and a number of the ‘execution’ sequences and effects take advantage of the extra dimension.
While I am sure that the 3D came across well in the theater, the Red/Cyan eye channel separation for anaglyph 3D can be distracting and is not the best for channel separation, especially on uncalibrated displays which may have colour shifts.
On the fun side, the opening sequence pays homage to the previous installments in the movie franchise.
I did like that the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it is almost like death is fricken McGuyver this time around - a lot of the accidents don’t seem so ‘accidental’, and one or two keep you guessing as to how it will eventually play out.
It is pretty clear that death has no time for racist red necks!
The cast is essentially a host of unknown actors including Shantel VanSanten, Bobby Campo, Haley Webb, Nick Zano, Krista Allen, Andrew Fiscella, Richard T. Jones and Mykelti Williamson.
The Final Destination was directed by David R. Ellis, who was the man behind Final Destination 2 and more recently Snakes on a Plane.
The movie received a fairly harsh critical response with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 28% and an IMDb score of 5/10.
The Final Destination was fairly successful in the cinema though, reaching $66.5M at the US box office.
The video for the 3D version is a VC-1 1080p encode at 24 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1.
The regular 2D version of the movie has a significantly lower bitrate - less than 16 Mbps - though is still VC-1 at 1080p.
Check out the details page for The Final Destination to see full resolution PNG screen captures from both the 3D and 2D versions.
The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 16 bits resolution at 48 kHz.
It is interesting to note that a number of Warner releases coming up have DTS rather than their traditional Dolby TrueHD audio codec.
The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 34.2 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
The disc features a selection of supplements that include BD Live Network features and a Digital Copy for both Windows Media and iTunes.
As previously noted, the disc includes both 2D and 3D versions of the film, which are by necessity completely different encodes of the movie due to the cyan/red right/left eye arrangement.
It will be interesting to see if New Line releases this title down the line using the new Blu-ray standard for 3D which would no doubt result in a much better presentation.
Additional footage is presented in the form of a pair of alternate endings and a selection of deleted scenes.
Body Count: The Deaths Of The Final Destination covers a selection of the death sequences in the movie and storyboard and previsualization comparisons are presented for the two main disaster sequences.
Lastly the disc features an exclusive first look at the new A Nightmare On Elm Street remake due in theaters soon.
The Final Destination was made for a specific audience who will no doubt appreciate this tongue in cheek yet graphic installment from the franchise.
The Blu-ray Disc is a pretty tidy release from New Line Cinema, though I have to wonder if there is a Full HD 3D Blu-ray release coming down the line some time.
The retail price is $35.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $19.99, saving 44%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
A strange premonition causes friends to abandon their day at the speedway, just before a crushing pileup hurtles cars into the bleachers with fiery consequences. They have cheated Death. But Death is only getting started.
Warner had some interesting press this week on a number of fronts.
Firstly, Warner has issued a formal release date for one of the ‘holy trilogies’ - The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy will street April 6th 2010 in the original theatrical versions.
Expect the extended versions to be released at a later date.
Additionally Warner has announced the intention of releasing ‘double feature’ titles on Blu-ray Disc.
The double features will be priced at $24.98 and will see release starting February 23rd.
Watch for movie pairings such as Dirty Harry / Magnum Force with Clint Eastwood, Analyze This / Analyze That with Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro, Presumed Innocent / Frantic featuring Harrison Ford, Miss Congeniality / Miss Congeniality 2 starring Sandra Bullock and Grumpy Old Men / Grumpier Old Men with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
Warner Home Video will also be releasing their entire Theatrical New Release slate as Blu-ray combo packs, including a standard-definition DVD and a Digital Copy of the film along with the Blu-ray Disc of the film.
At no additional cost, these Blu-ray combo packs offer consumers the quality of Blu-ray with the convenience of being able to watch the film in any format.
We have also seen this kind of approach for certain titles from Fox, MGM and Disney - it will be interesting to see if more studios follow suite.
Amazon continues to beef up its list of heavily discounted titles, adding a few more $9.99 titles.
Recent additions to the list include Run, Fatboy, Run, P.S. I Love You and Music and Lyrics.
The surprising thing about this is the discount - these titles are reduced over 70% from the retail prices.
See more $9.99 titles at over 70% off after the break:
Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past is the latest romantic comedy to be released by New Line Home Entertainment, hitting the shelves in a September 22nd 2009 release.
Ghosts of Girlfriends past features the story of Connor Meads, a star photographer who uses his charms to win the heart of any woman he chooses, only to break it at the next opportunity.
When returning to his home for his brother’s wedding he runs into his childhood sweetheart Jenny Perotti.
However his free and easy, no commitment lifestyle gets called into question when the ghost of his suave mentor Uncle Wayne appears to show him the errors of his ways, with the help of the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future.
One thing I can say about this movie - it delivers exactly to your expectations, with a relationship based retooling of the Christmas Carol story.
Overall I found it to be quite enjoyable, especially good for one of those evenings where you don’t want to be challenged by your entertainment.
The movie stars the king of the romantic comedy Matthew McConoughy, with Jennifer Garner playing his love ‘disinterest’.
The cast includes Michael Douglas, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Emma Stone, Anne Archer, Robert Forster and Amanda Walsh.
Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past was directed by Mark Waters, the man behind The Spiderwick Chronicles, Just Like Heaven and Mean Girls.
The movie was fairly poorly received by critics - it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 28%, though did better at the IMDb with a score of 5.7/10.
Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past was fairly successful in the cinema for a romantic comedy, reaching $55.3M 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.
Check out the details page for Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past to see full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.
The main audio is lossless Dolby True HD with 5.1 channels - 16 bits resolution at 48 kHz.
The disc is a single layer BD25, with 20.8 GB used and is coded for All Regions.
Special features are numerous and include BD Live Network features and a Digital Copy for both Windows and iTunes.
Along with the ‘behind the scenes’ featurette, the disc contains a couple of additional interview segments.
Matthew McConaughey and Michael Douglass compare notes on playing ‘Ladies Men’ on film in the The Legends, The Lessons, and The Ladies featurette.
It’s All About Connor presents the inside track on Matthew McConaughey from his female costars in the movie.
Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past is a competent release from New Line Home Entertainment - one that will be primarily of interest for fans of the genre or those with significant others that need to be appeased.
You can check out the official website for the movie here.
The retail price is $35.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $24.99, saving 31%!
Extras:
Synopsis:
Connor Mead is the kind of guy who dumps three girlfriends. At the same time. By teleconference. So when he attends his brother’s wedding he has a single goal: score with the only bridesmaid he somehow missed. But the ghost of his departed Uncle Wayne - who taught him to love ‘em and leave ‘em - has another goal in mind: restore Connor’s lost faith in true love, a tough assignment requiring the services of many, many Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas and director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Just Like Heaven) uncork a romantic romp as bubbly as wedding-toast champagne. It’s the perfect comedy for anyone who believes in laughs and love. Or needs to.
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