Displaying items by tag: Damien Chazelle

We have a bunch of new title announcements to start the week off right today...

First up, Paramount has just officially set Damien Chazelle’s Babylon for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 3/21, with the Digital release expected tomorrow on 1/31. The Blu-ray and 4K disc will include a trio of behind-the-scenes featurettes (A Panoramic Canvas Called Babylon, The Costumes of Babylon, and Scoring Babylon) along with deleted and extended scenes. Note that a Steelbook 4K SKU will also be widely available the same day. You can see the Amaray art at left and both versions below.

Paramount has now made Adrian Lyne’s Flashdance (1983) official for release in 4K Ultra HD on 4/11 as a new 40th Anniversary Edition. You can see that below as well.

They’ve also set Jon Chu’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) for 4K Ultra HD re-release as well as a 4K Steelbook 10th Anniversary Edition on 3/28 with Dolby Vision HDR.

And on the TV front, Paramount and Comedy Central have announced South Park: The Complete Twenty-Fifth Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/4. [Read on here...]

We have a bit more 4K Ultra HD news for you today...

But first, another new disc review: Tim has given Calvin Floyd’s In Search of Dracula (1975) a review on Blu-ray Disc, from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The film stars Christopher Lee.

Now then, that 4K news... Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has officially set Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash for release on 4K Ultra HD on 9/22 (SRP appears to be $30.99). Audio will be Dolby Atmos with HDR10 high dynamic range.

Extras will include audio commentary with writer/director Damien Chazelle and J.K. Simmons, An Evening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, and Damien Chazelle, Timekeepers: Famous Drummers Discuss Their Craft and Passion for Drumming, the Whiplash Original Short Film with optional commentary, a deleted scene, and the film’s theatrical trailer. You can see the cover artwork at left and also below. [Read on here...]

So I spent a couple hours up in Hollywood yesterday afternoon to cover something pretty interesting…

At a press event at the Screen Actors Guild, members of the UHD Alliance, three major consumer electronics manufacturers, and leading Hollywood filmmakers officially announced a new partnership effort to implement Filmmaker Mode as an extension of the 4K Ultra HD spec.

The idea is to ensure that when you watch a movie at home in 4K on your new Ultra HD display, whether from a disc, stream, or cable/satellite broadcast, it will look exactly as it should. UHD Alliance research suggests that as many as 80% of people who buy 4K TVs never change the settings out of the box. This means irritating features like motion smoothing and unnecessary processing are being applied to the image by default – processing that actually takes the picture away from the filmmakers’ intent.

What the Filmmaker Mode will do is to allow the user – either with one push of a button on the remote, or with a very easy and obvious menu setting – to set the TV’s display parameters to most accurately display the 4K content. This would be a baseline setting for the image – any added adjustments signaled by HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision metadata would happen on top of that setting. [Read on here...]

I had the pleasure last night of attending a press screening of Damien Chazelle’s new Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man. So let me give you my non-spoiler review…

A little background first: As someone who’s been a lifelong supporter and aficionado of the space program, I’ve seen every film there is on the subject, from Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff to the most obscure documentary. I’ve listened to most of the CAPCOM recordings, I have DVDs and Blu-rays containing almost every foot of archival footage shot by NASA and the astronauts during their missions. I’ve been to NASA facilities, I’ve seen launches, and I’m fortunate enough to even know a few astronauts. It’s with that lifetime of experience that I can say this: First Man is the single most realistic dramatic film about the subject yet made.

The level of detail exceeds even Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 and by a good measure. In Howard’s film, great as it is, there are a couple of things that just aren’t quite right. For example, the mission patch plaques on the wall of Mission Control are painted versions of the souvenir patches sold to the public, not the actual patches the astronauts wore. The NASA emblems on characters’ flight suits are modern, not period accurate. They’re little things, sure, but for the knowledgable, they can throw you out of the moment. But Chazelle and his team nail all of those little details, right down to the tiniest stitch. It’s as if First Man was actually shot in the 1960s, a level of verisimilitude and immersion that’s rare, even for a film of this type. [Read on here...]