Here’s a look at this week’s new Blu-ray releases:
To quote Nelson Muntz, “I can think of two things wrong with that title.”
The notion of an unfilmable novel is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. You can film anything. You might film it badly, but you can film it. David Cronenberg proved that in 1991 when he adapted William S. Burrough’s novel Naked Lunch for the big screen. Good or bad doesn’t quite enter into it – to dive into Burroughs is to experience madness in its purest form – but if anything could defy adaptation, that book would be it. And if any director could find a way to crack its code, it would be Cronenberg. Hit the jump for my review of Naked Lunch on Blu-ray.
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Amazon has some great deals on a number of Blu-rays and I’ve grabbed the highlights and linked them below. In addition, if you’d like to avoid waiting on lines later this year for the PS4 and XBOX ONE, Amazon is still accepting pre-orders on both consoles and the best part is they don’t charge your credit card until it ships! Links for both consoles below.
- Sony PS4 $399.99
- Xbox One Console – Day One Edition $499.99
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Five-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy) $12.90 (74% off)
- Sin City (Two-Disc Theatrical & Recut, Extended, and Unrated Versions) [Blu-ray] $4.99 (75% off)
- The Wire: The Complete Series $79.99 (60% off)
- The Woody Allen Blu-ray Bundle (Annie Hall, Manhattan, Sleeper, Hannah and Her Sisters) $31.49 (65% off)
- The Ultimate Sports Blu-ray Bundle (Rocky, Bull Durham, Raging Bull, Hoosiers) $25.49 (64% off)
- The Ultimate Chuck Norris Blu-ray Bundle (Missing in Action, Missing in Action 2, Delta Force, Lone Wolf McQuade, Code of Silence) $24.99 (64& off)
- 21 Jump Street (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] $12.00 (56% off)
- Skyfall (Blu-ray/ DVD + Digital Copy) $12.00 (70% off)
- Ted (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) $12.00 (48% off)
- Jack Reacher (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) $13.00 (67% off)
- Django Unchained (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) $13.00 (67% off)
- Zero Dark Thirty (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy) $14.99 (63% off)
- Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray/DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy Combo Pack) $14.99 (58% off)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Blu-ray/DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy Combo Pack) $14.99 (58% off)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy Combo Pack) $19.99 (56% off)
- The Godfather Collection (The Coppola Restoration) [Blu-ray] $22.87 (61% off)
- Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy [Blu-ray] $24.49 (59% off)
- Star Trek Into Darkness Starfleet Phaser Limited Edition Gift Set (Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack) $79.99 (20% off)
Blumhouse Productions (Insidious, Sinister, Paranormal Activity, The Purge) has become known for micro-budget horror films that go gangbusters at the box office. With Dark Skies, Blumhouse combined their well-honed approach to horror with a sci-fi twist, namely a threat from extraterrestrial beings. While it’s certainly not the biggest money-maker for the production company, Dark Skies might be my favorite of their films so far. Not only does it feature an exceptional cast in Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, Annie Thurman and J.K Simmons, but writer-director Scott Stewart combines the best of Steven Spielberg’s family-centric films with a hint of Stanley Kubrick’s psychological horror. Now that Dark Skies is available on Blu-ray, you can check it out for yourself. Hit the jump for my Blu-ray review.
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Calling all Trekkies. Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day involves the Blu-ray box sets for Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, so if you’ve been holding off on grabbing these fine TV series on Blu-ray, now’s the time to pull the trigger. The Original Series is on sale for $88.99, which is 51% off, while seasons 1-3 of The Next Generation are up to a whopping 62% off at $49.99 each. Click here to make your purchases.
Note: Collider earns a small referral fee when our readers purchase something on Amazon through one of our links. The money generated helps pay our staff and keep the site running. Thank you for reading and supporting Collider.
The Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas was tragically the most under-appreciated and under-seen film of 2012. It had to be a marketing mishap. How else do you explain the poor performance of a film that encompasses multiple genres over vastly different time periods with high-caliber actors like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant and Jim Broadbent (just to name a few) taking on multiple roles? But wait, there’s hope! You can help remedy this glaring oversight by picking up the ambitious and epic movie on DVD and Blu-ray now. Hit the jump for my review of Cloud Atlas on Blu-ray.
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Although Walt Disney never got a chance to see his own version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz stories brought to the screen before his death in 1966, director Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful makes a valiant attempt at recreating Disney’s vision. The big-budget, 3D reimagining of Baum’s collection of stories introduces small-time magician turned prophecy-fulfilling wizard, Oscar Diggs (James Franco) as he’s swept up into the magical world of Oz where must sort out the intentions of three very attractive witches (Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz). Accompanied by a flying monkey and a china doll (voiced by Zach Braff and Joey King respectively), Diggs must discover the goodness within him if he’s to save the people of Oz from the tyranny of the wicked witch.
Now available on Blu-ray, Oz the Great and Powerful is a visually dazzling addition to the Oz films that acts as a prequel to 1939′s The Wizard of Oz. While it comes nowhere near the caliber of that classic tale, this new imagining is a welcome journey back into the Emerald City and the unique lands that surround it. Hit the jump for my Blu-ray review.
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Here’s a look at this week’s new Blu-ray releases:
In many ways, Tom Cruise never escaped the fallout from that infamous 2005 ride on Oprah’s couch. His box office returns have gradually slipped and the sheen of “Scientology Weirdo” still hangs around him in the public mind. It’s quite unfair because 1) the man’s private life is still his own business and 2) the quality of his films in recent years has been quite good. From his brilliant cameo in Tropic Thunder to the slick thrills of Valkyrie and the unexpected triumph of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, he’s pretty much firing on all cylinders these days… despite comparatively poor box office. Jack Reacher is a sad testament to the bind he finds himself in: a smart, intelligent action thriller that got lost amid bad timing. The Blu-ray release is a perfect opportunity to catch what you probably missed. Hit the jump for my full review.
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Creator Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama series The Newsroom returns for its second season next month, but the first season of the cable news-set show hits stores on Blu-ray and DVD soon, and we here at Collider are happy to share an exclusive clip from one of the bonus features included on the set. In this clip from the bonus feature called “The Rundown,” Sorkin, Jeff Daniels, and Sam Waterston discuss Waterson’s wonderfully charming comedic performance as Charlie Skinner. In the clip, Waterston admits that he never knows when Sorkin is writing Skinner drunk and when he’s writing him sober, so he has to decide just how loose to play Skinner in any given scene.
Hit the jump to watch the clip. The Newsroom: The Complete First Season will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on June 11th, and the set also includes the full “The Rundown” roundtable interview feature, a behind-the-scenes look at the show’s sets, deleted scenes, audio commentaries, interviews with Sorkin about each episode, and more. Season two of The Newsroom premieres on HBO July 14th.
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Fans of the gangster genre rejoice! We here at Collider are giving away two copies of the Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Contemporary on Blu-ray to a couple of lucky readers. The Blu-ray set includes copies of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and The Departed, along with Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables and Michael Mann’s Heat. The box set is valued at nearly $40, so this is most definitely a worthwhile prize pack. Hit the jump to find out how you can win.
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HBO has become one of the great places for auteurs to make cheaper movies. Of late we’ve seen Todd Haynes and Steven Soderbergh turn to the channel to get films made, and now Philip Kaufman has joined their ranks. The man behind The Right Stuff and The Unbearable Lightness of Being directed Hemingway & Gellhorn, a biopic about Ernest Hemingway’s one-time wife and reporter Martha Gellhorn. And for the film he got Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen to star as his drunken lovers. Our review of the Blu-ray of Hemingway & Gellhorn follows after the jump.
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Here’s a look at this week’s new Blu-ray releases:
Today, Amazon has cut the price on Star Wars: The Complete Saga by 50%, so you can get it for $69.99. Some of you might say, “Why would I want to get the prequels when I can just spend $30 to get the “Original” Trilogy (remember, these are the special editions with even more tweaks), or if I wanted the Prequel Trilogy as well, I could spend another $30, and get them both for $60? Well, you’d be right except you’d also be forgetting that The Complete Saga comes with a bonus disc of special features that’s not included in the Original Trilogy or Prequel Trilogy box set. The choice is yours. Click here to get the Star Wars: The Complete Saga for $69.99 (50% off), Click here to get Star Wars: The Prequel Trilogy for $29.99 (57% off), and/or Click here to get Star Wars: The Original Trilogy for $29.99 (57% off).
In addition, Amazon has select Criterion Blu-rays on sale for 50% off.
Note: Collider earns a small referral fee when our readers purchase something on Amazon through one of our links. The money generated helps pay our staff and keep the site running. Thank you for reading and supporting Collider.
The Impossible is a tricky film to write about because there’s just something inherently tricky about the film itself. Maybe that’s because it’s based on a true story that often feels a little too impossible to believe. Or maybe it’s because that story has been so blatantly Hollywood-ized – with Spanish 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami survivors María Belón Alvárez and Tomás Belón recast as the impossibly blonde-haired and blue-eyed Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Or maybe it’s because the finished film falls into a Hollywood genre that typically encourages us to revel in the onscreen wreckage, only here it’s impossible to do so without feeling weird – I mean, over 200,000 people died as a result of that really cool-looking wave! Anyway, these were the issues I had when I first saw The Impossible and which resurfaced while watching it on Blu-ray. Hit the jump for my review.
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