Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Jan. 19, 2015
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Written and directed by Joel & Ethan Coen (A Serious Man), the 2013 music-filled drama Inside Llewyn Davis follows a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene in the pre-Dylan year of 1961.
Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac, Drive) is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles—some of them of his own making. Living at the mercy of both friends and strangers, Llewyn’s misadventures take him from the basket-houses of Greenwich Village to an empty Chicago club—on an odyssey to audition for a music mogul—and back again.
Oscar Isaac is a cool folk cat in Inside Llewyn Davis.
Along side Oscar Isaac, the ensemble cast of the Coen Brothers’ latest film includes Justin Timberlake (Friends with Benefits) , Carey Mulligan (An Education), F. Murray Abraham (TV’s Homeland), John Goodman (Argo) and Adam Driver (TV’s Girls). The executive music producer of the film’s soundtrack is the great T-Bone Burnett, who last collaborated with the Coen Brothers on their 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
A critics’ darling that won the Grand Prize of the Jury at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, (it garnered an 8.5/10 rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 229 reviews), Llewyn Davis was seriously snubbed by “The Academy” in terms of any substantial Oscar nominations. Nonetheless, it grossed a solid $12 million at the domestic box office in its limited theatrical release in December, 2013.
The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film–the first-ever Coen Brothers title to ever receive the Criterion treatment–contain the following:
• New audio commentary featuring writers Robert Christgau, David Hajdu, and Sean Wilentz
• The First Hundred Feet, the Last Hundred Feet, a new conversation between filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and directors Joel and Ethan Coen about the evolution of their approach, from Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis
• Inside “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a forty-five-minute 2013 documentary
• Another Place, Another Time (2014), a 101-minute film documenting an Inside Llewyn Davis tribute concert, featuring Joan Baez, Mumford & Sons, Punch Brothers, Gillian Welch, Jack White, and others
• New piece on the history of “Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song),” featuring music producer T Bone Burnett and the Coens
• New piece about Dave Van Ronk and the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early sixties, featuring music writer and historian Elijah Wald
• Sunday, a short 1961 documentary by Dan Drasin about the riots that took place in Washington Square Park after folk musicians were prevented from gathering and playing there
• An essay by film critic Kent Jones
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Buy or Rent Inside Llewyn Davis
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Glad I waited out on buying this one, this version sounds like a “must own.” Seriously underrated movie which cemented Oscar Isaac as my favorite current actor.
Agreed–it’s an outstanding film! And it’s great that Criterion is finally doing up a Coen Brothers film. Hard to believe that it’s taken this long, but Llewyn Davis is a fine choice for their first Coen flick!