
Here’s a look at this week’s new Blu-ray releases. What will you be picking up?
Click here for hundreds of other Blu-ray deals. 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.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Upstream Color opens today in limited release.]
With Primer and his latest film Upstream Color, writer-director Shane Carruth has clearly established a unique cinematic voice. With the exception of a few filmmakers, Carruth demands every ounce of his audience’s attention. It’s great to have a filmmaker like Carruth out there who has an unmistakable style and knows how to keep us captivated. But in his films, holding our attention is a trick to get us to invest in solving his characters and story. Carruth hopes that his abstract, dreamlike narrative can hold us in its sway, and that by struggling to follow the plot, we will somehow care about the characters’ problems. Upstream Color is masterful at keeping our attention through its complex storytelling, but it ironically makes its emotions as nebulous as its plotting and characters.
Continue Reading

The spring is usually a dumping ground for studios, and while there were big misfires in spring 2013 like A Good Day to Die Hard and Jack the Giant Slayer, there were also some nice gems like Warm Bodies, Stoker, and the great The Place Beyond the Pines. Now we move towards the heavy hitters of summer, and it’s tough to choose just five among the many choices headed our way. Summer 2012 was a slog, but hope begins anew with summer 2013.
Hit the jump to see the films that Matt, Adam, and Dave are most anticipating in from April to June.
Continue Reading

Writer/director Shane Carruth’s long-awaited follow-up to the smart (and more than slightly perplexing) 2004 film Primer is poised to be released on April 5th, and now the entire score for the pic, titled Upstream Color, has been made available online for your listening pleasure. The official logline describes the film thusly: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism.” I caught the pic at Sundance and thought it was great, but if you’re hoping for a more accessible film than Primer, prepare to be let down. I’m still trying to formulate my own idea of what Upstream Color means/what happened in the film, but it’s nothing if not ambitiously original and it’s constantly engaging. You can read Matt’s review right here.
Carruth composed the film’s score himself, and it’s a great piece of music that works wonderfully within the context of the movie. Hit the jump to take a listen. Upstream Color opens in limited release on April 5th followed by a gradual expansion before hitting DVD and Blu-ray on May 7th.
Continue Reading

Earlier this month, we reported on the first wave of SXSW 2013 films, which includes The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Evil Dead. Today, the full line-up has been announced, and it feels like Sundance all over again when it comes to plenty of unknown films. The chance of discovering a gem is high, and I look forward to hearing the buzz that arises from some these movies. There’s also a second chance at festival films I missed like The Act of Killing (from TIFF) and Pit Stop (from Sundance). I thought Toy’s House would make it in to SXSW, but I’ll see it eventually since it picked up distribution.
Hit the jump for the full line-up. The 2013 SXSW Film Festival runs from March 8 – 17th.
Continue Reading

Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale made audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival weep with the true story of Oscar Grant, who was murdered by BART Station police in 2009. At last night’s awards ceremony, Coogler’s debut feature was awarded with both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, which made it the first film to win in both categories since 2009′s Precious. The Weinstein Company picked up the movie for $2 million after a heated bidding war, and I would expect a release sometime later this year. Click here for my review.
Other winners included This Is Martin Bonner for “Best of NEXT” (voters must have connected with a movie where nothing happens), best screenwriting for Lake Bell for In a World… (click here for my review), and Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley for their tremendous performances in The Spectacular Now. Hit the jump for the full list of winners.
Continue Reading

With Primer and his latest film Upstream Color, writer-director Shane Carruth has clearly established a unique cinematic voice. With the exception of a few filmmakers, Carruth demands every ounce of his audience’s attention. It’s great to have a filmmaker like Carruth out there who has an unmistakable style and knows how to keep us captivated. But in his films, holding our attention is a trick to get us to invest in solving his characters and story. Carruth hopes that his abstract, dreamlike narrative can hold us in its sway, and that by struggling to follow the plot, we will somehow care about the characters’ problems. Upstream Color is masterful at keeping our attention through its complex storytelling, but it ironically makes its emotions as nebulous as its plotting and characters.
Continue Reading
by Jason Barr Posted: January 19th, 2013 at 3:01 pm

This time last week I was two movies into the triple feature I teased the last time we met. While I can’t say I was overly impressed by Gangster Squad, both Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained made their respective cases as qualified Best Picture nominees. Of the two, Zero Dark‘s unrelenting final act not only made it my top pick of the day but also provided some of the most sustained tension I can remember experiencing in a movie theater. Having now seen it for myself, I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with those who have voiced their disbelief at Kathryn Bigelow‘s Best Director Oscar snub.
Zero Dark Thirty praise aside, on tap in this week’s Top 5 are The Last Stand interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johnny Knoxville, and more, a live-action remake of Toy Story, a new trailer for Primer writer/director/star/almost literally everything else Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color, Mama interviews with Guillermo del Toro and more, and all of our Sundance 2013 coverage to date. For your reading pleasure, a recap and link to each awaits after the jump.
Continue Reading

A new trailer has gone online for Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color. The film is Carruth’s first since 2004′s Primer, and his new movie carries the enigmatic synopsis, “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism.” After watching the trailer, I still have no idea what the plot is about. I’ve seen Primer three times, and trying to understand the time travel mechanics still creates a barrier between me and the film’s subtext and emotions. While Upstream Color will probably be just as complicated (if not more so), this new trailer does a good job at playing to the romance and thrills of the story even though the plot remains unclear. Hopefully, I’ll understand the tagline, “You can change your story’s shape, but the color will always bloom upstream,” after seeing the movie at Sundance.
Hit the jump to check out the trailer. The film stars Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Andrew Sensenig, and Thiago Martins. Upstream Color opens April 5th.
Continue Reading

A new teaser trailer for Primer writer/director Shane Carruth’s follow-up film Upstream Color has been released online, and the trippiness continues. The first teaser trailer arrived on the heels of the news that the film will debut at the Sundance Film Festival next month, and it provided an incredibly surreal and intriguing look at the mind-bending pic. The logline describes the film thusly: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism.” Two trailers in I still have no idea what this film is about, but it looks like a sufficiently wild ride and I’m really looking forward to checking it out at Sundance.
Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The film stars Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Andrew Sensenig, and Thiago Martins. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27, and Upstream Color is set for a theatrical release on March 22nd.
Continue Reading

Among the stellar lineup of films that were announced for the upcoming 2013 Sundance Film Festival was the welcome news that Primer writer/director Shane Carruth’s new film Upstream Color is set to debut at the festival. Now the first teaser trailer for the follow-up to Carruth’s 2004 time travel pic has been released, and it’s appropriately intriguing. The short logline we have for Upstream Color describes the story thusly: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism.” This trailer doesn’t really elaborate on the film’s plot, but it does a hell of a job of teasing the wonderfully strange and perplexing world that Carruth has crafted.
Hit the jump to watch the teaser trailer. The film stars Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Andrew Sensenig, and Thiago Martins. Upstream Color will premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January, followed by a theatrical release on March 22nd.
Continue Reading

Moments after writer/director/star Shane Carruth’s new film, Upstream Color, was reported as one of the films premiering at Sundance 2013, the first images, poster and synopsis from the picture were made available. Carruth’s previous film, the mind-bending Primer, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2004. Our brains have had eight years to heal from the time-traveling plotline, so we should be ready for another go-round with Carruth. But prepare yourselves, Upstream Color sounds like it’s anything but mainstream. Hit the jump for the synopsis, images and poster.
Continue Reading

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival is a little under two months away, and the first exciting lineups of films have been announced. Today the lineups for U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions were unveiled, as well as the lineup for the out-of-competitions NEXT section. A few highlights include the Daniel Radcliffe-fronted Kill Your Darlings, the outlaw pic Ain’t Them Bodies Saints with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, the strong ensemble The Spectacular Now, Primer director Shane Carruth’s new film Upstream Color, and many, many more.
Hit the jump to check out the full lineups, and be sure to check back here on Collider in January for our in-depth coverage from the festival including reviews and interviews. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27.
Continue Reading

Shane Carruth’s debut indie sci-fi flick Primer developed a devoted following, but he’s been trying to get his follow-up off the ground for the past seven years. Now it looks like he got his next film off the ground, According to CHUD, the new film is called Upstream Color and is being billed as a “romance/drama/thriller”. Upstream Color is unrelated to Carruth’s previous-rumored film A Topiary, which reportedly had an “insane” script and the plot was described as “an abstract arthouse take on Pokemon.”
The writer-director is planning a 40-day shoot beginning in early November through the end of January with casting currently underway in Dallas, Texas (where Carruth shot Primer). Carruth recently worked on the time travel effects for Rian Johnson’s upcoming sci-fi film Looper. Hit the jump for more details on the film.
Continue Reading