April 16th, 2013 will mark the arrival of the new Weinstein Company/Anchor Bay Blu-ray release for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

The movie is an epic western where a freed slave teams up with a bounty hunter to rescue his wife.

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz) and Best Original Screenplay for the writer/director Quentin Tarantino.

The cast includes Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher and James Remar.

Django Unchained director Quentin Tarantino has had a celebrated career with films like Reservoir Dogs, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill: Volume 1, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown.

The critical response to the film was very positive, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 88%, and an IMDb score of 8.6/10.

Django Unchained was also huge at the cinema, reaching $159.6M at the US box office.

This release will include a DVD and a Digital Copy.

The retail price is $39.99, or pre-order it from Amazon for $22.99, saving 43%!

Alternatively you can add it to your Blu-rayStats Wishlist.

Synopsis:

Django (Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx) a former slave-turned-hired gun heads back to the plantation to free his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from a tyrannical plantation owner Calvin Candie (Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio),with the help of a German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz).

Anchor Bay Entertainment has Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest movie The Master on Blu-ray Disc this week, on shelves February 26th.

The movie is set in the early fifties and has similarities to Magnolia and There Will Be Blood.

The story follows Freddie Quell as he stumbles, plagued by his alcoholic tendencies, through the post-war years and joins a new religious movement called “The Cause”.

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Brad Pitt movie Killing Them Softly has been announced by Anchor Bay Entertainment, scheduled for a Blu-ray DVD and Digital Copy Combo release March 26th, 2013.

The movie is a neo-noir crime film based on the 1974 novel Cogan’s Trade by George V. Higgins.

Along with Brad Pitt, the cast includes Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn and Sam Shepard.

Killing Them Softly was written and directed by Andrew Dominik, who also wrote and directed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

The movie was met with largely positive reviews, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 75% and an IMDb score of 6.6/10.

Killing Them Softly earned $14.9M at the US box office.

Planned features for the disc include an 1080p encode presented at 2.40:1, with lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.

The retail price is $39.99, or pre-order it from Amazon for $29.99, saving 25%!

Alternatively you can add it to your Blu-rayStats Wishlist.

Synopsis:

Adapted from George V. Higgins’ novel and set in New Orleans, Killing Them Softly follows professional enforcer, Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), who investigates a heist that occurs during a high stakes, mob-protected, poker game. The film also features Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, with James Gandolfini and Sam Shepard.

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for this week reveals quite a number of new day and date releases, though it is difficult to call any of them high profile releases.

Paramount has their spooky sequel Paranormal Activity 2 and internet porn story Middle Men.

Universal Studios is releasing It’s Kind of a Funny Story and My Soul to Take while Sony has Tamara Drewe.

Warner released Life as We Know It and Disney is releasing You Again.

Anchor Bay has the I Spit on Your Grave remake as well as the original I Spit on Your Grave.

Fans of art house cinema will enjoy Criterion Collections titles Still Walking and Fellini’s Amarcord.

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

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 21st of March 2010 features a lot of strong releases ranging from classics to Oscar Winners.

On the Academy Awards side we have Best Actress Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side as well as the original Toy Story which one a special achievement Oscar in 1996.

The sequel Toy Story 2 also hits shelves today.

With regard to classic cinema, Paramount has The African Queen and an African Queen Commemorative Box Set  today while Criterion Collection honours Akira Kurosawa with releases for Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

We have some quirky new titles with Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and Anchor Bay’s The Men Who Stare at Goats on Blu-ray today.

All in all a good selection for the discerning cinemaphile and it is additionally interesting to see that most of the new release titles come with a DVD, Digital Copy or both.

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

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 7th of March 2010 features the first Paramount title in a little while – Up in the Air is a great little film and well worth a look.

Other day and date titles for today from Sony and Disney both include DVD and Digital Copy, though neither Planet 51 nor Old Dogs were well received by the critics.

On the more dramatic side, Lionsgate has Precious and The Stoning of Soraya M., while Sony goes with a family movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale and ultraviolence with The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.

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

The Blu-ray market share was at a 2010 low of 8% and the for the week ending February 21st, according to Home Media Magazine.

On the other hand the weekly revenue was still a fairly healthy $18.58M – up from last year and not bad for a week with no big releases.

The top sellers for the week were new releases – Law Abiding Citizen from Anchor Bay, followed by Halo Legends from Warner in 2nd place.

Recent releases Couples Retreat from Universal, Zombieland from Sony Pictures and last year’s Up from Disney filled out the top 5 on the chart.

The market share by title list shows why the market share was so low.

While Law Abiding Citizen managed a healthy 28% market share on Blu-ray Disc, other typically strongBlu-ray titles did quite poorly, like Up with 4%, The Hangover with 3% and Star Trek from Paramount with only 9% market share on Blu-ray Disc.

It seems likely that promotional DVD pricing helped skew these titles strongly towards DVD for the week.

Halo Legends and The Hurt Locker from Summit market share were in the 30% to 31%, which is more in line with my expectations.

Zombieland also continues to have a solid 29% market share on Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 29th of November 2009

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

Best Buy has also dropped a bunch of prices for Cyber Monday, including many great bargains on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and TV on DVD.

There is a selection of sub-$10 titles, including Henry Poole Is Here, Sleepwalking, Hellraiser and Children of the Corn at only $6.99.

This sale ends tonight so get in quick if you haven’t already.

Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 18th of October 2009:

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