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This Week on DVD / Blu-ray: July 23, 2013: GRACELAND, ICE STORM

Arnold Reyes Graceland

Notable releases for today, July 16, 2013, include: Graceland, The Ice Storm, Welcome to the Punch, Trance, The Silence, and Twixt.

Drafthouse Films and Image/RLJ Entertainment releases Filipino crime drama Graceland (2012) today on DVD and Blu-ray. Filipino-American director Ron Morales examines the disproportionate allotment of justice between the rich and the poor in the Philippines through the prism of the story of a father who will stop at nothing on the streets of Manila to save his kidnapped daughter. The film premiered at the April 2012 Tribeca Film Festival to critical acclaim and is available as a single-disc DVD for $27.97 or a single-disc Blu-ray with digital download for $29.97.

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Academy Award Winning Director Ang Lee‘s adaptation of Rick Moody‘s novel The Ice Storm will receive a Blu-ray upgrade of its disc from Criterion today, July 16, 2013. At turns wry and sardonic, the film examines the malaise particular to a certain privileged existence. Criterion presents The Ice Storm (1997) in 1080p resolution in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Supplemental features include an interview with the author, the original trailer for the 1997 film, deleted scenes with audio commentary by producer/screenwriter James Schamus, audio interviews with cinematographer Frederick Elmes, production designer Mark Friedburg, and costume designer Carol Oditz, a conversation with Ang Lee and James Schamus, and an illustrated booklet with an essay by film critic Bill Krohn. The Blu-ray SRP is $39.95.

Writer/Director Eran Creevy‘s (Shifty)visually sleek crime drama Welcome to the Punch (2013) streets today with an SRP of $29.98 for the Blu-ray and $24.98 for the DVD. The stylized British film sports a tension-producing blue-green gradient to London’s gritty Canary Wharf district. From its opening scenes where detective Max Lewinsky (Scottish actor James McAvoy) gets shot in the leg by notorious criminal bank robber Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) we watch him battle it out with his nemesis and his own demons. Full of action and angst, Welcome to the Punch draws heavily on predecessors such as Michael Mann‘s Heat and John Woo‘s Hard Boiled.

James McAvoy also stars in Danny Boyle‘s Trance (2013) which hits the shelves today. McAvoy’s art auctioneer Simon attempts to double cross crime boss Franck (Vincent Cassel) prompting a savage amnesia-inducing beating. Desperate to find his prized (and pinched) Goya painting, Franck brings in hypnotist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to probe his psyche to determine the location of the masterpiece. The Twentieth Century Fox release comes as either a single disc DVD (SRP $22.98) or a single disc Blu-ray with UltraViolet and Digital Copy (SRP $29.99).

Music Box Films finally releases The Silence (2010) on DVD and Blu-ray today. In the German film based on the Jan Costin Wagner novel of the same name, Peer attacks and murders a young girl on a hot summer day as his friend Timo watches. 23 years later, a young girl goes missing in the exact same spot on the anniversary of her death; the police suspect a serial killer. The Silence was nominated for Best Film at the Nuremburg Film Festival, the Golden Lady Harimaguada at the Las Palmas Film Festival, and the Critics Award by the German Film Critics Association; director Baran bo Odar won the ‘Directors to Watch’ award at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival.  The film is available as a single disc Blu-ray for $34.95 or a single-disc DVD for $29.95.

Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola brings a horror offering to home video today with Twixt (2011). Writer Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) visits a small town during his struggling book tour and attempts to save his failing career (and his rare first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass) by co-authoring a murder tale with the town sherrif. A young female ghost, V, (Elle Fanning)approaches him in his dreams along with a ghostly rendition of Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin), guiding him in the writing of the book of mysterious murder of a beautiful young girl. The Twentieth Century Fox release comes as either a single disc DVD (SRP $22.98) or a single disc Blu-ray with UltraViolet and Digital Copy (SRP $29.99).

Other new releases include:

Babette’s Feast (Babettes gæstebud) (1987)

The Driver (1978) (Blu-ray Limited Edition limited to 3000)

Home Run (2013)

Hammerhead (2013)

Pieta (2012)

Kiss of the Damned (2012)

The Gangster (2012)

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Love and Honor (2012)

Super Tanker (2011)

Harlow (1965)

Summer and Smoke (1961)

WUSA (1970)

Once is Not Enough (1975)

The 300 Spartans (1962)

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Romney J. Baldwin

Romney Baldwin, Former FilmBook Writer, and Roaming, Pouncing writer-for-hire.
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