Playing By Heart (1998) - March 26, 2013

[Akijama]

Playing By Heart Blu-ray

Sophomore writer/director Willard Carroll weaves together an all-star cast in interlocking stories about finding love in Los Angeles. The film's theme is spoken by young club-hopper Joan (Angelina Jolie). Taken by the mysterious Keenan (Ryan Phillippe), she tells him that "talking about love" is like "dancing about architecture" (the original title until the studio thought it would be confused with Dancing at Lughnasa), meaning speech is not the medium to adequately express the details of love. They all try, anyway. Others up for the dance include a TV cooking-show hostess (Gena Rowlands) and her husband (Sean Connery) who still fight over his one brief infidelity 25 years earlier; two lovers (Madeline Stowe, Anthony Edwards) who discuss their unhappy marriages; and a theater director (Gillian Anderson) and her architect, Mr. Right (Jon Stewart). Also searching are Dennis Quaid, Nastassja Kinski and Patricia Clarkson. For a familial sort of love, there's Ellen Burstyn as the estranged mother to her son (Jay Mohr) dying of AIDS.

trailer

[James Luckard]

Excellent! I love this little film, it's kind of like a rom-com version of "Magnolia" and features an amazing early Angelina Jolie performance, along with a gorgeous score by the late John Barry.

I hope the BD is in 2.39:1, the DVD was either cropped or had the mattes opened up to somewhere between 1.85:1 and 2.0:1, altering the compositions of the great Vilmos Zsigmond.

So glad to see even the most obscure films in the Miramax library getting released by Lionsgate. They may not be brand new, shiny transfers, but they're still vast improvements over the old DVDs.

[abintra]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

So glad to see even the most obscure films in the Miramax library getting released by Lionsgate.

Playing by Heart, Marvin's Room and Beautiful Girls are each Echo Bridge releases rather than Lionsgate.

Edit.. And thanks Akijama.

[JTStarkiller]

Gillian Anderson was so hot circa 1998.

[movieman1979]

Originally Posted by abintra

Playing by Heart, Marvin's Room and Beautiful Girls are each Echo Bridge releases rather than Lionsgate.

Edit.. And thanks Akijama.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

I have SO much nostalgic love for this little film (have owned the DVD/soundtrack/score for years and have shown it to countless others who had never heard of it) that to see it in the hands of the butchers at Echo Bridge...UGH!

There go my hopes of a few little bonus features the DVD was never afforded

[Akijama]

Originally Posted by abintra

Playing by Heart, Marvin's Room and Beautiful Girls are each Echo Bridge releases rather than Lionsgate.

Edit.. And thanks Akijama.

Np

March 26th is crowded with Miramax's / EB Blu-ray releases. Apart from the titles mentioned in your post, following titles are coming as well :

The Shipping News
Music Of The Heart
Immortality (The Wisdom of Crocodiles)
Senseless
Down To You
Bounty Hunters (1996)
Best Of The Best 3: No Turning Back
Benefit Of The Doubt

[movieman1979]

Playing By Heart, that is. Maybe we'll luck out and the transfer will be akin to that of 'Proof', one of the few transfers Echo Bridge apparently got right.

[abintra]

Originally Posted by Akijama

Np

March 26th is crowded with Miramax's / EB Blu-ray releases. Apart from the titles mentioned in your post, following titles are coming as well :

The Shipping News
Music Of The Heart
Immortality (The Wisdom of Crocodiles)
Senseless
Down To You
Bounty Hunters (1996)
Best Of The Best 3: No Turning Back
Benefit Of The Doubt

Thanks again Akijama.

They are going individual releases for all these (at first anyway)?

Beautiful Girls and The Shipping News have been released elsewhere already correct? If memory serves, both using poor masters. Anyone know if that is accurate?

Interested in the three you made threads for and a couple in this list also. But, with Echo Bridge, I sit back and wait for things to settle before even considering a purchase personally.

[Adam_ME]

Please get the aspect ratio right this time. The DVD is cropped and non-anamorphic. Not to mention bare bones and very expensive at the time of its release.

[klauswhereareyou]

Looks like Connery is about ready to say, "Do you smell what the Rock is cooking?" on the cover.

[Akijama]

Originally Posted by abintra

Thanks again Akijama.

They are going individual releases for all these (at first anyway)?

Beautiful Girls and The Shipping News have been released elsewhere already correct? If memory serves, both using poor masters. Anyone know if that is accurate?

Interested in the three you made threads for and a couple in this list also. But, with Echo Bridge, I sit back and wait for things to settle before even considering a purchase personally.

Yes, they are all individual releases. Source is VideoETA, btw. You can find them all there.

Here's the review for UK release of Beautiful Girls http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Beauti...Blu-ray/28881/

A good score for PQ, considering their usual high standards

[abintra]

Originally Posted by Akijama

Yes, they are all individual releases. Source is VideoETA, btw. You can find them all there.

Here's the review for UK release of Beautiful Girls http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Beauti...Blu-ray/28881/

A good score for PQ, considering their usual high standards

You weren't kidding about "crowded". Even American Son is getting a solo release.

Hoping they can retain the extras for Music of the Heart and The Shipping News which were worthwhile.

[Akijama]

Amazon pre-order link http://www.amazon.com/Playing-By-Hea...939676&sr=1-53

[Veronica Mars]

Originally Posted by Akijama

Yes, they are all individual releases. Source is VideoETA, btw. You can find them all there.

Here's the review for UK release of Beautiful Girls http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Beauti...Blu-ray/28881/

A good score for PQ, considering their usual high standards

If the "consensus" is that this and Playing By Heart are 3.5 pq worthy, I'll be doing cartwheels.

Beautiful Girls is one of my top 10 catalog wants and Playing By Heart is a nice, little film too.

[Akijama]

Audio : English 5.1 DTS ; Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital ; English 2.0 Stereo

[Show spoiler]

Heads up :

Originally Posted by MileHigh AI

Also guys, the following titles are showing May 7th, 2013 releases.......Will be in stores on Sunday on an endcap (some stores may not have this endcap, titles should be inline)

all BEST BUY EXCLUSIVES for now. $5.99 Blus

American Son
Beautiful Girls
Benefit of the Doubt
Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back
Bounty Hunters
Down to You
Dragon Lord
Fortress
Grifters, The
Immortality
Marvin's Room
Music of the Heart
Playing By Heart
Senseless
Shipping News, The
Teaching Mrs. Tingle

[Arlington]

Originally Posted by Akijama

Audio : English 5.1 DTS ; Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital ; English 2.0 Stereo

[Show spoiler]

1.78:1? Crap. Wasn't this 2.35:1 or 2.20?

[Akijama]

Originally Posted by Arlington

1.78:1? Crap. Wasn't this 2.35:1 or 2.20?

According to IMDb 2.35 :1

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Arlington

1.78:1? Crap. Wasn't this 2.35:1 or 2.20?

I say let's what for the actual release. It could very well end up as 1.78:1 but EB's initial specs can't always be trusted and I believe they usually list 1.78:1 as the AR. Seems like they have no concept of the actual AR of a film.

EDIT: A few examples from their past releases, the back cover art stated that The Faculty was 1.78:1 but the actual AR on disc is 1.85:1. They also stated that the Imposter was 1.85:1 but the AR on disc is 1.78:1.

[Veronica Mars]

Very disappointing the didn't give us OAR. Any chance they are just sloppy in printing their back covers? This is really the only other title I was excited about, Beautiful Girls is on a whole different level, but for $6 I might pick it up anyway if it looks good.

Very conflicted. Everything hinges on how good Beautiful Girls looks like. If it's a mess, I won't be in the mood to give them even $6 more of my dollars.

[Veronica Mars]

I guess this release has never been out with the proper AR. I assume this info I grabbed from dvdcompare is mostly correct. I guess they never decided to fix the problem on dvd and it's not a surprise Echo Bridge wasn't going to make any effort.

According to IMDB, this movie was filmed in Panavision (anamorphic) and released theatrically with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. IMDB also says that the first batch of R1 DVDs was wrongly formatted as 1.85:1, although the producer intended to correct this mistake. We do not know whether this was actually done. For the time being, the R2 wins with an anamorphic transfer, but it is possible that both R1 and R2 editions are cropped!