Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 3, 2017 Price: DVD $12.99, Blu-ray $18.99 Studio: Lionsgate
Written and directed by David Lowery, the fantastical drama-romance A Ghost Story re-unites the filmmaker with the co-stars of his well-liked 2013 film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints: Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
The vaguest of plot descriptions (as it was wisely stated with a degree of subtlety on the press release) ) describes the film as being about a young couple who — after being separated by loss — discover an eternal connection and a love that is infinite. Er…we think it has something to do with a ghost (see picture)….
A Ghost Story is not particularly scary, nor all that creepy. What it is is sad and even a bit absurd (as can be seen in one of the ghosts who wears a decorative sheet). And with its gentle acknowledgement of the afterlife—the existence of a life outside of our own world–A Ghost Story all proves to be quite a gentle piece.
A “surprise” movie that was reportedly crafted in secret and cost a tiny budget of $150,000, A Ghost Story received raves from the critics, garnering a 98% Fresh Rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 197 published reviews. Sadly, the critical praise didn’t translate into strong box office returns, with the movie ringing up a lousy $1.6 million at the box office during its limited theatrical run in July.
The Blu-ray and DVD feature an audio commentary, two never-before-seen featurettes and a deleted scene.
Digital Release Date: June 27, 2017, Blu-ray, DVD, 4K Ultra HD Release Date: July 4, 2017 Price: DVD $12.84, Blu-ray $14.98, 4K Ultra HD $19.96 Studio: Broadgreen
In this modern love story set against the Austin, Texas music scene, two entangled couples – struggling songwriters Faye (Mara) and BV (Gosling), and music mogul Cook (Fassbender) and the waitress whom he ensnares (Portman) – chase success through a rock ‘n’ roll landscape of seduction and betrayal.
The opening night feature at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival, the R-rated movie includes appearances by rock stars Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, John Lydon, Anthony Keidis, Flea and Florence Welch, among others.
STUDIO: Warner | DIRECTOR: Joe Wright | CAST: Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Levi Miller, Amanda Seyfried RELEASE DATE: 12/22/15 | PRICE: DVD $$28.98, Blu-ray 3D Combo $44.95, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $35.99 BONUSES: director’s commentary, featurettes SPECS: PG | 111 min. | Family adventure fantasy | 2.39:1 widescreen | Dolby TrueHD 7.1/Dolby Digital 5.1 | English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles
RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall
The Peter Pan origin story Pan wins points for imagination and stunning visuals, although it doesn’t quite come together.
Hugh Jackman is Blackbeard in Pan
Beginning in London during the Blitz, we meet an orphan named Peter (13-year-old newcomer Levi Miller), who, even though he doesn’t know it yet, has a great destiny ahead of him. Kidnapped one night by the minions of Blackbeard the Pirate—a resplendent Hugh Jackman (Chappie) —and whisked off to Neverland, he joins the ranks of thousands of other orphaned boys and men pressed into involuntary service in Neverland’s fairy-dust mines. There he befriends one James Hook—Garrett Hedlund (Country Strong) doing his best Han Solo impression—and the two orchestrate a daring escape. They hook up with a tribe of Neverland’s indigenous people, led by the warrior princess Tiger Lily. (It would be a difficult feat for any actress to keep from being overshadowed by Tiger Lily’s amazing Technicolor dream wardrobe, but The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo‘s Rooney Mara pulls off the feat admirably.) Peter plays a crucial role in helping Hook and Tiger Lily overthrow Blackbeard, and becomes the Pan—Neverland’s greatest warrior—in the process. He and Hook return to London to rescue the rest of the boys from Peter’s orphanage, and sail off into the moonlit night sky, swearing each other eternal friendship.
Presumably intended to be the first in a series, Pan didn’t soar at the box office during its wide domestic release, nor did it fly above the inherent clunkiness of its exposition-heavy origin-story requirements. But director Joe Wright (Hanna) brings true whimsy and wonder to his visual imaginings—let’s give a shout-out to the detailed, vividly realized work of cinematographers John Mathieson and and frequent Wright collaborator Seamus McGarvey—so perhaps a sequel could still be in the offing. Think happy thoughts.
Digital Release Date: Dec. 15, 2015, Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 22, 2015 Price: DVD $$28.98, Blu-ray 3D Combo $44.95, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $35.99 Studio: Warner
The question of how did Peter Pan get to Neverland is answered in the family adventure fantasy Pan.
Hugh Jackman is Blackbeard in Pan
In Pan, Peter (Levi Miller) is a mischievous 12-year-old boy with an irrepressible rebellious streak, but in the bleak London orphanage where he has lived his whole life those qualities don’t exactly fly. Then, one night, Peter is whisked away from the orphanage and spirited off to a fantastical world of pirates, warriors and fairies called Neverland. There, he teams with the warrior Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo) and a new friend named James Hook (Garrett Hedlund, Country Strong), fighting to defeat the ruthless pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman, Chappie) to save Neverland and discover his true destiny.
Directed by Joe Wright (Hanna) from a screenplay written by Jason Fuchs, the PG-rated Pan is considered to be a critical and commercial disaster, garnering a lousy 26% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 154 published reviews and ringing up a soggy $33 million at the domestic box office since opening wide in early October.
The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in 3D hi-definition, hi-definition and standard definition; the Blu-ray Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in hi-definition on Blu-ray; and the DVD features the theatrical version in standard definition.
Here’s the Blu-ray and DVD supplemental breakdown.
“Pan”3D Blu-Ray and Blu-ray Combo Pack contains the following special features:
Director’s Commentary
Never Grow Up: The Legend of Pan
The Boy Who Would Be Pan
The Scoundrels of Neverland
Wondrous Realms
“Pan” Standard Definition DVD contains the following special features:
Digital Download: May 7, 2013, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 21, 2013 Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $34.98 Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Steven Soderbergh reunited with a bunch of former cast members for thriller movie Side Effects.
First there’s Jude Law, who was in Soderbergh’s Contagion, Catherine Zeta-Jones was in Soderbergh’s Traffic and Channing Tatum was in Soderbergh’s Magic Mike.
The newcomer in Side Effects is Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), who plays Emily Taylor, a woman who suffers from terrifying anxiety when her husband (Tatum) is released from prison after doing time for insider trading. Mara turns to psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks (Law) for help, and he prescribes an experimental drug that has chilling and deadly … er, side effects.
The film grossed $30 million in wide release in theaters, which is relatively low considering the rave reviews critics gave it. Perhaps audiences were scared off after critics lauded Magic Mike, which had as many holes in its story as it did scenes of nearly naked hot men.
Soderbergh’s movie are hit or miss, but Side Effects was called one of the director’s best by Toronto Star critic Peter Howell, who said the film features “electric performance by Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum.” If that’s the case, hopefully the movie is closer to Traffic and Contagion, which rank at the top of Soderbergh’s filmography. And maybe the performances alone are a reason to watch.
The DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack contain these special features:
“Behind-the-Scenes of Side Effects“
Aliza Website Experience
commercial for Ablixa, the fictional drug portrayed in the movie
STUDIO: Sony | DIRECTOR: David Fincher | CAST: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright, Steven Berkoff, Joely Richardson, Goran Visnjic BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASE DATE: 3/20/2011 | PRICE: Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo $40.99, DVD $30.99 BONUSES: commentary, “Vanger Archives” containing featurettes, interviews, stills, more SPECS: R | 158 min. | Crime mystery thriller | 2.40:1 widescreen | DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1.Dolby Digital 5.1 English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi subtitles|
RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall
David Fincher’s film adaptation of late Swedish novelist Steig Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo finds the director in initially familiar waters — an investigative thriller-procedural movie involving the pursuit of a serial killer. But unlike Fincher’s Se7en (1995), an original screenplay, or Zodiac (2007), which was based on a 1986 non-fiction book, Dragon Tattoo’s source is an international bestseller that has sold some 40 million copies around the world.
That said, the question for many wasn’t “What’s Fincher’s new movie all about?” but more “How will Fincher approach this one?” That a 2009 Swedish movie version was seen by many and well-received took even more mystery away from the possibilities.
Rooney Mara is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
But Fincher is an ace, a visually driven storyteller and unique stylist, and his latest film is an engrossing and well-crafted rendering of a wildly popular mystery novel. And it features one of the strongest fictional female protagonists to emerge in years: Stockholm’s darkly appealing, punked-out, computer-hacking Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, The Social Network), a 20-ish anti-social anti-heroine whose anger at the world is matched only by her hatred of men who abuse women. Isn’t it fortuitous, then, that her expert hacking skills and investigative prowess are tapped by recently disgraced journalist/publisher Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig, Dream House), who’s been hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Wanger (Christopher Plummer, Beginners) to unravel the truth behind the disappearance and possible murder of his grand-niece some 36 years earlier?
Dragon Tattoo’s mystery is complicated, intense and ugly — the nasty history of the Wanger family immediately calls to mind Evelyn Mulray’s brood in Chinatown— and it’s not for all tastes. But the mechanics of Blomkvist and Salander’s probe — using computers, old photographs, archival records, police reports, newspaper clips, maps — make for a fascinating procedural movie, which Fincher expertly constructs, his investigators slowly peeling back the layers of a decades-old mystery. As the filmmaker has shown us before, he knows how to inject viewers into an investigation of deeds most foul. And his vision of Sweden — its capital city, its wintry, wooded northern lands and its deceptively easy-going people — is assured and straight-forward even as it masks a whole lot of menace.
Though they’re surrounded by talented support — Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard (A Somewhat Gentle Man) as Wanger’s eldest son, Robin Wright (The Conspirator) as Blomkvist’s co-publisher and sometimes lover and Yorick van Wageningen (Winter in Wartime) as Lisbeth’s sadistic legal guardian — it’s really all about Mara (who’s excellent) and Craig (also fine in a far less attention-grabbing role). Their characters don’t come together until the film’s midway point, when Blomkvist meets Salander and asks her to “help me catch a killer of women.” The two then engage in a professional and increasingly personal relationship for the rest of the movie, the latter not really playing as well as the former. But that’s okay since the mystery, adapted with appropriate economic and cinematic clarity by top screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Moneyball), at the heart of the movie is the real juice here.
Like the high-definition editions of most of Fincher’s catalog, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo boasts outstanding video and audio quality. The film’s overall look is a muted one, colored with slate grays, muted greens and pale auburns. (Even the snow looks kind of washed out.) It’s an appropriately chilly-looking backdrop, the kind that really feels like it could cover up a mystery for decades. The audio track is similarly studied and effective, serving up the dialog with crisp efficiency, the chatter emerging from a sea of scene-specific sound effects that include rainfall, winter winds and the frequent tap-tap-tapping of a computer keyboard.
The Blu-ray edition of Dragon Tattoo contains hours of bonus materials, most of them housed on their own disc (with the primary exception being Fincher’s commentary track which, like his previous ones, is both engaging and illuminating). Separated into four sections or “files” — Characters, On Location, Post Production, and Promotion — disc two’s collection of interviews, featurettes, behind-the-scenes footage, scene breakdowns, montages and galleries covers virtually every aspect of the film production, from Blur Studios’ creation of the nightmarish opening credit sequence (set to a cover of Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”) up through the various designs for the film’s promotional campaign.
Of particular note among the extras are Rooney’s memories of her nearly year-long road to being cast, a story that finds her dropping F-bombs a’plenty, and a featurette about shooting the film on Stockholm’s streets and in its subways.
Also memorable are Fincher’s comments on why he was attracted to the material and his ideas on what made Larsson’s book so popular.
“I think people are perverts,” he says. “I’ve maintained that. That’s the foundation of my career.”
Daniel Craig (Dream House) plays disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who’s hired by the wealthy Henry Vanger (Christopher Plummer, The Last Station) to solve the 40-year-old disappearance of his neice, sister of Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgard, A Somewhat Gentle Man). To aid him in his investigation, Blomkvist hires computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, Youth in Revolt) — the titular girl with the dragon tattoo — who has issues of her own.
Oscar-nominated David Fincher (The Social Network) did the directing duties, based on a screenplay written by Oscar-winner Steven Zaillian (Moneyball).
Among these big names, only relative newcomer Mara was recognized by Oscar, getting a nomination for Best Actress. The movie also was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
Rated R, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo grossed $100 million in theaters, to much acclaim from both critics and audiences. The main criticism from critics was that Fincher’s adaptation isn’t that much different from the original Swedish film, which was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010, along with an Extended Edition in 2011.
Unlike most three-disc Blu-ray combos that have a Blu-ray, a DVD and digital copy disc, this film comes with the movie on Blu-ray and DVD plus an extra Blu-ray disc with special features. And the extras package is substantial. Here’s the list:
commentary with Fincher
Vangar Archives:
“Men Who Hate Women”
“Characters”
Salander, Lisbeth: “Casting Salander,” “Different in Every Way,” “The Look of Salander,” “Mara/Fincher,” “Irene Nesser” and “Salander Test Footage”
Blomkvist, Michael: “Casting Blomkvist,” “Daniel Craig On Film Acting,” “Dressing Blomkvist,” investigation stills photo gallery
Vangar, Martin: “Stellan Skarsgard On Film Acting,” “Psychopathy, Bondage, Torture,” “Wrapped In Plastic,” set design stills
“On Location”
Sweden: “Stockholm Syndrome,” “Stockholms Tunnelbana,” “Fuck These People,” “The End,” “Picture Wrap”
Release Date: Dec. 13, 2011 Price: DVD $26.98, Blu-ray $29.99 Studio: Anchor Bay
Rooney Mara thinks it over in Tanner Hall.
The 2009 independent drama film Tanner Hall takes a peek into the rarefied world of a privileged all-girls boarding school.
The first film written and directed by Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg, the movie introduces us to the shy and studious Fernanda (Rooney Mara, The Social Network) as she’s entering her senior year at Tanner Hall, a sheltered boarding school in New England.
Fernanda finds she’s got a bit more to contend with during her final year, beginning with the arrival of a manipulative childhood acquaintance named Victoria (Georgia King, One Day). It doesn’t take too long for trouble to begin brewing for Fernanda and her crew of BFFs, which includes adventurous and sexy Kate (Brie Larsen, TV’s United States of Tara) and tomboy Lucasta (Amy Ferguson, Garden State). And Fernanda’s relationship with an older family friend who happens to be a man (Tom Everett Scott, TV’s Southland) makes things even more complicated.
The R-rated Tanner Hall received a very limited release to five U.S. theater screens in September 2011, eliciting average reviews from movie critics.
What makes Tanner Hall most appealing to us is the presence of Ms. Mara, who’s the star of the hotly anticipated Hollywood adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher (The Social Network) and slated to open in theaters in December 2011.
The Blu-ray and DVD include a commentary track by writers/directors Gregorini and von Furstenberg.
STUDIO: Sony | DIRECTOR: David Fincher | CAST: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Rooney Mara, John Getz RELEASE DATE: 1/11/11 | PRICE:DVD $28.96, Blu-ray $34.95 BONUSES: two commentaries, feature-length documentary, featurettes, more SPECS: PG-13 | 120 min. | Drama | 1.75:1 widescreen | Monaural | English and Spanish subtitles
RATINGS (out of 5): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall
One of the most talked about, acclaimed and successful films ($97 million at the domestic box office) of 2010, The Social Network arrived on Blu-ray several days before the Golden Globe Awards, at which it garnered Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Score statues as well as two nominations. The movie went on to be nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards too, but was shut out of the biggest prize, taking home Best Editing, Best Score and Best Adapted Screenplay.
A dramatized (and some say fictionalized) biography of the juggernaut known as Facebook (500 million members around the world and still counting) and its founder, 26-year-old former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, the movie was directed by David Fincher (Seven) and written by Aaron Sorkin (TV’s The West Wing), based on the best-selling book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. We’re talking about a blue-ribbon team of creators here, and they’ve made a very intelligent, professional and well-structured piece of entertainment.
Fincher and Sorkin’s strengths leap to the fore in the film, as it jumps back and forth between the early 2000s at Harvard when the socially awkward Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, Solitary Man) and his fellow collegians first develop Facebook and a more recent time that finds Zuckerberg being sued by said “colleagues” for stealing their ideas and finagling them out of the now multi-billion-dollar business.
Shooting with the high-definition Red Camera that he has embraced over the past decade in such films as Zodiac and Panic Room, Fincher plays down his usually dynamic visual panache and color palette and opts for a more muted design to allow more headspace for Sorkin’s screenplay.
Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialog is at its best when thwacked back and forth by two actors playing a game of verbal tennis, and it certainly works in The Social Network. All technological stuff and business speak, meanwhile, sounds as appealing as it ever has in a mainstream film. Also, the work of both gentlemen looks and sounds outstanding in the high-definition Blu-ray presentation.
The solid cast of supporting players — including Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) as Zuckerberg’s partner-turned-foe, Justin Timberlake (Alpha Dog) as the seductively hard-partying Napster founder Sean Parker and Rooney Mara (The Winning Season) as the ex-girlfriend that Zuckerberg can’t get out of his mind — are excellent, but it’s really all about Eisenberg. His wired-up, eyes-a-darting portrayal presents Zuckerberg as an insecure artist who paints with computer programs and wants to be recognized for the technological canvasses he creates. His Zuckerberg is a complicated, quite-modern character who warrants some sympathy, yes, but as he drops his friends and business partners because he thinks they might have done him wrong along the way, he’s also far from innocent.
The Blu-ray has lots of special features, including two separate commentaries: One with Fincher and the other with Sorkin and members of the cast. As he usually does in his commentaries, Fincher talks extensively about the physical aspects of the production — lighting, casting, location work and so on. He comes down particularly hard on Harvard University, claiming they didn’t do much to assist in the making of the film. “They weren’t very helpful,” he insists. “They sandbagged us, and they were f-ing atrocious as far as what they would allow us to do.” Ultimately, most of the campus scenes were shot at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
The second commentary isn’t as informative, probably because there isn’t enough of Sorkin. Most of the chatter is taken up by various cast members, who mainly laugh a lot and talk about how brilliant the filmmakers are.
Among the other bonuses are an exhausting feature-length making-of documentary that, again, focuses on the movie’s details and doesn’t delve into the ramification or debatable factual accuracies that everyone else seems to be talking about. There’s also a handful of featurettes on the film’s editing, visual style and music.
David Fincher’s Golden Globe-nominated biography drama The Social Network was released on DVD and Blu-ray on Jan. 11, 2011, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Nominated for six Golden Globe awards (including best drama movie, best actor for Jesse Eisenberg, best director and best screenplay), the film tells the story of how Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. Coincidentally, as the disc release was being announced, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for the influence his Facebook has had on society.
Director Fincher’s The Social Network didn’t paint the starting of the Internet company as roses. Zuckerberg himself is shown as an anti-social, obsessive and self-absorbed computer genius.
The vaguest of plot descriptions (as it was wisely stated with a degree of subtlety on the press release) ) describes the film as being about a young couple who — after being separated by loss — discover an eternal connection and a love that is infinite. Er…we think it has something to do with a ghost (see picture)….
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STUDIO: Sony | DIRECTOR: David Fincher | CAST: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Rooney Mara, John Getz
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