Top New Blu-ray releases for the Week of March 20

Another super-strong week of new Blu-ray releases! My top spots are taken up by some of my new favourite films of all time and a few old gems. Scroll down to check out a few extra decent selections like Polanski‘s Carnage and Kino‘s collection of Lost Keaton films.

As always, clicking the Blu-ray package art will zip you over to Amazon where every purchase you make through our links helps the site stay on its feet. We appreciate every single click and thank you again for continuing to read The Blu-ray Blog.

Blu-ray disc of the week: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011 – Canadian version)

Based on the classic novel of the same name, the international thriller is set at the height of the Cold War years of the mid-20th Century. George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a disgraced British spy, is rehired in secret by his government – which fears that the British Secret Intelligence Service, a.k.a. MI-6, has been compromised by a double agent working for the Soviets.

If I were to judge solely on the last few week’s worth of Blu-ray releases alone, I’d call 2011 an amazing year for movies. And right at the top of the pack of exceptional films is Tomas Alfredson‘s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a new adaptation of John le Carré‘s 1974 spy novel. This is by no means an “easy” film. Even without the complex, non-linear structure of the screenplay, le Carré’s dense plotting and multitude of shifty characters demand constant attention from even the most committed cinephile. But the payoff here is outstanding. Alfredson, along with screenwriters Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, has crafted a brilliantly nuanced and subtle film that refuses to pander to a lazy audience, with gigawatts of pent-up aggression simmering under its proper, gentlemanly veneer. And channeling that subdued energy is one of the finest casts ever assembled in film history (I’m serious. One doesn’t make that claim lightly. This is a stunning collection of actors.)

Just drink in these names, staples of British cinema and Hollywood, all – Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Colin FIrth, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Graham, Kathy Burke, Tom Hardy, Simon McBurney and the list goes on. Any single one of these actors starring in a production would be enough to draw my attention and, most likely, hard-earned bucks for a trip to the cinema and large popcorn. Together, they’re a powerhouse of talent. And it shows on screen. Oldman, in particular, is at his best here, playing against type, aged and attentive, in the role made famous by Alec Guiness back in the 1979 television adaptation of the book. And speaking of the ’70s, Alfredson grounds his film in the era with sumptuous production and costume design that renders it, if you ask me, one of the better looking films of the year.

Thankfully, the Blu-ray disc edition of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is detailed, completely film-like and a perfect representation of the gorgeous images captured on 35 mm by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema. Contrast is solid and colour, while, for the most part, quite de-saturated, is right on the money throughout, with the high-bitrate encode showing nary a sign of digital nastiness. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is also as close to perfection as possible, with clean, clear dialogue, immersive atmospheric environmental effects and a fully dynamic representation of Alberto Iglesias‘ Oscar nominated score.

The Canadian Blu-ray disc from eOne appears nearly identical to the US version from Universal. In fact, it sports Universal’s typical menu and screen saver! It also shares the US discs fine collection of special features, including a quiet, subdued, yet informative commentary track from Alfredson and Oldman. Follow that up with around 57-minutes worth of interview clips with cast and crew (all in standard-def except the nearly half-hour long HD interview with le Carré himself) and you’ll learn just about all there is to know about the production. The disc is rounded out with a collection of deleted scenes. eOne also provides a DVD copy of the film in the package.

Highest possible recommendation!

Special Features

Feature commentary with Tomas Alfredson and Gary Oldman
Behind-the-scenes featurette
Interviews with Tomas Alfredson, Peter Straughan, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Tom Hardy
Interview with author John le Carré
Deleted scenes

AMAZON: CDN$ 24.99

Also available: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011 – US version)

AMAZON: $19.99

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Hoping to distance himself from the fallout of a libel conviction, journalist Mikael Blomkvist retreats to a remote island in Sweden’s far north where the unsolved murder of a young girl haunts her industrialist uncle forty years later. Ensconced in a cottage on the island where the killer may still roam, Blomkvist’s investigation drawn him into the secrets and lies of the rich and powerful. And throws him together with one unlikely ally – tattooed, punk hacker, Lisbeth Salander.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a cracking good story, any way you slice it. Director David Fincher (Se7en, The Social Network), however, has sexed it up and turned it into so much more with his stylish cinematic adaptation, now available in a pristine-perfect 3-disc Blu-ray pack from Sony.

AMAZON: $19.99

BATTLE ROYALE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

In 2000, director Kinji Fukasaku unleashed BATTLE ROYALE, his violently poetic epic about an innocent group of Junior High students forced by the government to hunt and kill their classmates for sport. It was nominated for 10 Japanese Academy Awards, launched a global phenomenon, and banned from screens by frightened civic groups and distributors across America. Three years later, the equally disturbing sequel — featuring a new class, new rules, and a brutal terrorist plot by the first film’s young survivors — triggered its own tragic firestorm around the world. Now for the first time ever, you can see it all: Experience the entire BATTLE ROYALE saga on 4 discs — including more than 3 hours of definitive Special Features — that forever blasts open one of the most potent, shocking and savagely influential sagas in motion picture history.

HOMAGAHD! Is Battle Royale actually, officially, legitimately available to purchase on some home video medium, here in North America, after twelve long years? Finally? Yes, it is! And there is much rejoicing. Yay!

Anchor Bay has made the wise and timely decision to get their mitts on the two Battle Royale films, releasing them in a gorgeous 4-disc digibook boxed set, just in time to take advantage of the hysteria surrounding The Hunger Games theatrical release (the first film is also available on its own, in a single disc, Director’s Cut version.) The reason that this synchronicity is a smart move is that Games seems to borrow a whole heck of a lot of conceptual cues from BR. I haven’t seen the film or read The Hunger Games books but I understand the Battle Royale influence is fairly prominent. So, if you’re a fan of that series, you’ll no doubt want to check out these films first, before heading to the theatre this weekend to catch the new film.

As to the Battle Royale movies, you’ll find that the original Kinji Fukasaku directed film hasn’t aged a day since it’s 2000 release. It’s still muscular, taught, surprising, inventive and quite bloody and brutal. It’s not a film for the squeamish but incredibly rewarding for those willing to give it a shot. Takeshi “Beat” Kitano steals every scene he’s in, as the tired former-teacher-now-warden and game-master of the group of children attempting to kill their way off of the BR island. It’s a shame he couldn’t have had more screen time in the much weaker, Kenta Fukasaku (son of Kinji, picking up for his father after he passed away a scene into shooting the follow-up film) directed sequel, also included in this boxed set. Battle Royale II: Requiem was made in 2003 as a direct sequel to the original but falls short of its predecessor in many ways. It’s nowhere near as inventive but does feature a good amount of excitement. If you’re a fan of the action in the original, you’ll probably get a kick out of Part 2.

You’ll also, no doubt, be quite pleased with the way both films look on Blu-ray. The original film is available here in both its theatrical and Director’s cuts but both transfers appear identical to my eye. And the sequel shares many of those qualities – desaturated in colour (that sometimes shift tones), relatively soft and all around quite flat. I know, that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement but I’ve watched many a DVD copy of these films over the years and, to be honest, they’ve never looked this good. While these transfers can’t compete with the better Hollywood discs, all three films sport solid, high-bitrate encodes with no digital anomalies present. The Director’s Cut of Battle Royale receives a solid Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack and a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English language dub. The Theatrical Cut and Requiem have Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 only. All feature English subs, of course.

The fourth disc in the set is a DVD with over 3-hours worth of bonus features, almost all featurettes, behind the scenes footage and trailers. Of note, the “Making of” doc runs nearly an hour long and is the essential part of this package. Definitely worth watching for all fans of these films.

Special Features:

The Making Of BATTLE ROYALE
BATTLE ROYALE Press Conference
Instructional Video: Birthday Version
Audition & Rehearsal Footage
Special Effects Comparison Featurette
Tokyo International Film Festival 2000
Battle Royale Documentary
Basketball Scene Rehearsals
Behind-The-Scenes Featurette
Filming On-Set
Original Theatrical Trailer
Special Edition TV Spot
TV Spot: Tarantino Version

AMAZON: $31.99

THE MUPPETS

Muppet domination continues with a hilarious new movie from Walt Disney Studios. Jason Segel, Academy Award(R) nominee Amy Adams (Best Performance By An Actress In a Supporting Role, Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter) and Academy Award winner Chris Cooper (Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role, Adaptation) join everyone’s favorite Muppets and an all-star celebrity cast in a comic adventure for the whole family. While on vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, his brother Gary, and friend Mary uncover the diabolical plot of a greedy oil millionaire to destroy the Muppet Theater. Now, the Muppet-loving trio must reunite Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and their friends to stage the greatest Muppet telethon ever and save their beloved theater. The gang is back together again in a must-own movie full of irresistible music and family fun. Bring home the biggest Muppet adventure ever on Disney Blu-ray(TM) and DVD!

I’ve watched a fair number of Muppet movies in my time. I’ve often been entertained but never to the point of wanting to sit down to them a second time. But clearly the 12-year hiatus between films has been good for the franchise, because this outing is not only clever and quite funny, it’s also an all-around fantastic family film, well represented by Disney‘s new Blu-ray release, that I honestly can’t wait to watch again!

AMAZON: $29.99

LETTER NEVER SENT

The great Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov, known for his virtuosic, emotionally gripping films, perhaps never made a more visually astonishing one than Letter Never Sent. This absorbing tale of exploration and survival concerns the four members of a geological expedition, who are stranded in the bleak and unforgiving Siberian wilderness while on a mission to find diamonds. Luxuriating in wide-angle beauty and featuring one daring shot after another (the brilliant cinematography is by Kalatozov’s frequent collaborator Sergei Urusevsky), Letter Never Sent is a fascinating piece of cinematic history and a universal adventure of the highest order.

I didn’t know quite what to expect from Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent but it’s some of the most moving, beautifully shot 96-minutes of film I’ve ever seen. Criterion‘s new Blu-ray disc, of course, is flawless in presentation but lacks any bonus features, beyond the 16-page booklet, included in the package. I’ll have more on this stunning film in a separate post later in the week.

AMAZON: $19.99

THE WAR ROOM

The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a savvy, youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears.

I haven’t seen The War Room but I hear tell it’s one of the best docs of the ’90s. One of my good pals has been on my ass to check it out for years now. I’m looking forward to grabbing up a copy of this Criterion disc some time soon to finally see what I’ve been missing.

AMAZON: $29.99

DEAD MAN

Johnny Depp delivers a remarkable performance in this highly acclaimed tale of adventure and intrigue in the wild, wild West! A young man in search of a fresh start, William Blake, embarks on an exciting journey to a new town…never realizing the danger that lies ahead. But when a heated love triangle ends in double murder, Blake finds himself a wanted man, running scared – until a mysterious loner teaches him to face the dangers that follow a “dead man.”

If I were having a fever dream of the old west, where significant moments of my journey from banal life to gun-slinging waking-death were punctuated with moody electric guitar riffs over acoustic noodling, I would frantically hustle to write it down and record it in some way. I have a feeling that’s what filmmaker Jim Jarmusch did here. Because there’s no other way to achieve this result. With an extraordinary cast of weirdo talent and an groundbreaking improvised soundtrack by Neil Young, Dead Man is the sort of film that’s more about tone and theme than plot. Don’t get canoodled into believing this to be a typical western about a man on the run from trigger happy cowboys and bounty hunters. Dead Man is more of a waking-dream experience. One well worth falling asleep for.

The Alliance-released Canadian Blu-ray, out this week, is identical in just about every way to the US version released this past August by Echo Bridge. Contrast is solid throughout the presentation of this black and white film and there’s a lot of detail on display. Grain is lighter than expected but seems true to the source. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is a bit sloppy, with levels sort of all over the place and dialogue popping around the sound field. Not one of the best I’ve heard but definitely listenable and dynamic.

Bonus features include 15-minutes worth of deleted scenes and a music video.

AMAZON: CDN$ 22.09

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc: