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Posts tagged as: blu-ray
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 Despite having already come out on regular DVD weeks ago, the monster movie Cloverfield is now being released on Blu-ray. The same goes for There Will Be Blood.
This is just my personal opinion, but I think studios should get their act together and release the Blu-ray version at the same time they release the regular DVD version. I would have bought a Blu-ray version of Cloverfield, in fact I asked the kid at Best Buy where it was. But since I bought the regular version, thinking there wasn’t going to be a Blu-ray version, I’m not going to purchase the newly released Blu-ray version. There goes the extra $10 they would have made on the price of the Blu-ray disc.
Also out this week is the DVD version of The Andromeda Strain miniseries that aired last week, and that I failed to correctly schedule in my TiVo as a two-night event.
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 This week’s new releases include two very well placed releases, one thriller that I’m bummed I missed in theaters, and two movies that are probably not worth watching, let alone buying.
Indiana Jones - The Adventure Collection is perfectly timed to get fans ready for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, while The Chronicles of Narnia Blu-ray release is just in time for the release of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
I’m quite looking forward to watching the Diane Lane thriller Untraceable, but I’m actually a little ashamed to have included Mad Money and The Great Debaters in this list.
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I went out and bought Cloverfield on DVD on April 22nd like a good little DVD-buyer, despite the fact that it wasn’t released on Blu-ray yet.
Of course, now Bloody Disgusting has the news of a June 3rd release date for the Blu-ray edition. Was this a clever ploy to get those of us that still purchase DVDs to double buy, or were they just not ready to release the Blu-ray because they’ve added tons of extra features to it?
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After having seen I Am Legend at the premiere in New York City, I was thoroughly satisfied with the film. It had an elegant ending that left viewers with an explanation, if even a typical Hollywood one.
When the DVD release announcement was made, with the news that an alternate ending would be included, I was anxious to see the “controversial” ending. I had heard that the movie’s original ending was extremely different from the original Richard Matheson novel, so I picked up the book.
For those that don’t know the ending of the Matheson novel, and don’t mind me spoiling it, Show Spoilers
Neville realizes he is now the outsider, the abnormal one. The creatures fear him and hate him. Rightfully so, since he’s been hunting and killing them every day since the world ended. He accepts that he has become a legend, and that they must kill him, because he is no longer the way humans are supposed to be. This is a new species, one where he is the one that’s out of the ordinary.
The ending of the book intrigued me, mainly because I think Will Smith would have done a fantastic job with it. This isn’t the ending that the filmmakers made as the alternate ending, but it has similar themes.
The alternate ending is detailed below, behind spoiler hiders. Read on if you have seen the alternate ending, or don’t mind heavy spoilers.
Show Spoilers
When Neville, Anna, and Ethan barricade themselves behind the Plexiglass in Neville’s lab, we see the alternate ending. After realizing the creature has been cured, Neville doesn’t send Anna and Ethan away with the cure to find the colony of healthy people in Vermont, nor does he grab an old Army grenade and take as many creatures with him as he goes.
While watching the Alpha Male creature’s actions, he realizes that in taking a creature for his studies, he was intruding on their society. It’s a similar concept to that from the book - that the creatures are existing as they should, and Neville is interfering. The Alpha Male (played by Dash Mihok of Romeo & Juliet) hunted Neville down, not to kill him and satisfy his basic instincts, but to rescue one of his own. Contrary to Neville’s assumptions, the creatures have not completely devolved and lost all human traits.
Neville calmly opens the Plexiglass doors and rolls the subject out into the destroyed lab full of creatures. The Alpha Male screams at his subordinates, and while they hiss and growl at Neville, they do not harm him as he retrieves the injection to revive his subject. After reviving her, the test creature and the Alpha Male have a tender moment, showing that the creatures are still capable of love. The creatures take their rescued hive member back, and leave Neville, Anna, and Ethan unharmed.
The creatures weren’t after Neville to kill him and eat him. All they wanted was to take back what he stole from them. They go back to their existence as a new kind of society, a variety of the human species, while Neville, Anna, and Ethan start out on the road to Vermont.
The alternate ending has points that I prefer to the original, such as the fact that the creatures can still think, plan, and love. I also enjoy the open-ended feel to it. Rather than show the viewers that Anna and Ethan arrive at a colony in Vermont, and that the world will eventually be okay, all we know is that Neville and his new friends head towards Vermont, leaving the creatures behind to live their lives. What did you think of the alternate ending of I Am Legend? Did you prefer it over the original ending?
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 This week’s new releases are powerhouse films starring big stars. I Am Legend stars Will Smith as Robert Neville, the last man on Earth. Atonement stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as lovers torn apart when he’s wrongfully accused of a crime. Enchanted stars the adorable Amy Adams in her own Cinderella-story, where Prince Charming could be James Marsden or Patrick Dempsey (I’m sold either way).
Tagged as: amy adams, atonement, blu-ray, enchanted, i am legend, james marsden, james mcavoy, keira knightley, New Releases, patrick dempsey, will smith |
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In addition to the news that Netflix will be dropping HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray, we now have two other companies joining the Blu-ray bandwagon.
The New York Times reports that Best Buy, clearly an influential power in this field, will be “strongly recommending” Blu-ray to customers as the high definition format of choice.
Further digging the hole is the news that Blockbuster will also be joining the Blu-ray bandwagon. Hacking Netflix reported the news, and received confirmation from a Blockbuster spokesperson who said that they had 250 stores with HD-DVD, and 1700 with Blu-ray. They clarified by saying that the 250 were the first stores they rolled both high definition formats out to, where they watched customer rental trends and determined Blu-ray was the clear winner.
I guess this means I’m buying a Blu-ray player or PS3.
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Release Date 7/2/2008 
Amazon has an awesome 
that includes
This week there’s a very special Blu-ray release - the 1996 movie Twister. While I was living smack in the middle of tornado country at that time, I still loved this movie and was looking forward to the Blu-ray release.
This week’s new releases include a kiddie flick about the Loch Ness Monster, and three serious movies.
This week’s new releases are a Golden Globe winner, a re-envisioning of a classic children’s cartoon from the 80s, and a Blu-ray release of M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable.
