No one seems to want to compete with The Twilight Saga this week, making this week’s home entertainment releases almost as dismal as the stuff at the box office this past weekend. The final installation in the franchise drops on Saturday, making the rest of the week’s releases a barren wasteland of lower budget fodder, including Barbie in the Pink Shoes. If that’s not on your must-have list, I don’t know what is. Seriously though, the one great release to slog through this week is P.T. Anderson’s The Master, available in a Blu-ray combo pack and on DVD. Read on to learn more about the release, below.
The Master
The Master is a lengthy and complex film about the rise of a religion, dysfunctional relationships, and the world post WWII. It follows Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix), a jobless war veteran with more than a penchant for alcohol and sex who finds salvation of a sort in “The Cause,” a movement led by a strong-willed man named Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who fancies himself “The Master.”
We spend a good chunk of the first part of the film mesmerized by Freddie’s wild behavior. He hops from setting to setting, job to job until he finds himself on a grand old steamship, directly in the path of Dodd. It’s Freddie who has the more impressive facial tweaks and gaunt physique, but it’s Hoffman that’s truly fun to watch, whether he’s sitting down to dinner or impressing his ideals and miracle cure on others. The moments between the two men are even more magnetic.
The journey the two men subsequently take is one of intricate conversations and side narratives and even though it’s lengthy it’s worth a watch. It’s hard to compete with 70 mm film the movie was frequently presented in theaters, but watching the flick on Blu-ray is your second best option. The Blu-ray comes with a DVD and digital copy, which isn’t splashed like an advertisement all over the box, but just know those extras are there. Additionally, the Blu-ray comes with a strange postcard featuring Lancaster Dodd.
Best Special Feature: If you haven’t caught John Huston’s famous WWII documentary, Let There Be Light, it’s certainly worth a watch. However, if you’ve already caught the documentary, which follows soldiers recovering from WWII, you’ll probably find the outtakes to have the most merit. Some of these scenes are well shot, but don’t really seem to be scenes that were necessary for the final product and were likely cut for time. There’s another shot with the weird female sand sculpture and some more shots of Freddie getting lose with women, but there also plenty of moments that are just plain pretty to look at and help to develop Freddie a little more.
Other Special Features:
Let There Be Light Documentary
Teasers and Trailers
“Unguided Message” behind-the-scenes short
Other February 26 Releases
Both the extended edition and regular edition of Breaking Dawn-Part 2 are out this week, which mean’s a full saga set is likely on the way. The release really feels like the end of an era, and for fans, it may also signal finishing out a complete collection. If Twilight fans are die hard, I wonder how staunchly fans will come out to purchase the brilliant brand new Rocko’s Modern Life complete series set. If it helps, I heard there is brand new cover art.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 2
Chasing Mavericks
Silent Hill: Revelation 3D
The Client List: The Complete First Season
Rocko’s Modern Life: The Complete Series
Barbie in the Pink Shoes
Adventure Coral Reef 3D
