I hope this materializes. The Australian release from Transmission Films appears to have been cancelled, so the only other option is the Universal / Neon disc. It looks like the UK disc will have a costumes featurette in addition to the making of, which is only 6 minutes on the US BD.
Will be interested to see if this does still have a Digital Copy Code on the UK release.
Lionsgate are the last UK studio offering them. Redeemable on Google Play Store. It's hit and miss which of their titles have them though. Tends to be their "bigger" new releases only.
Glad to have watched this in ODEON during LFF, I believe it was the only time the film played in a UK cinema, so for a day essentially.
I think people have been overly harsh towards the film, because it's a work of historical fiction (the romance didn't really happen), people don't see it as being as strong as God's Own Country, and Portrait of a Lady of Fire had come out the same year so people perceive it as a rip-off of a critically acclaimed film, when as a twin film it's probably more of a coincidence. Some people seem to think the romance is flat with no chemistry.
But I think Ronan and Winslet do a good job, the film has some great period details and textures (even the closing credits feel ornate), the sex scenes are filmed well and it presents some interesting dilemmas both in pursuing a queer romance at that time, and also with what being a woman is like away from a man and the misogynistic ideas that they project onto them.
There was also a short film about her which I expect is more true to life, although I haven't watched it yet.
I hope this materializes. The Australian release from Transmission Films appears to have been cancelled, so the only other option is the Universal / Neon disc. It looks like the UK disc will have a costumes featurette in addition to the making of, which is only 6 minutes on the US BD.
Yes this looks like the release to get since it features 1 extra special feature compared to the US release from Universal.
The 2.0 track is described audio. English subtitles are HoH in a white font.
In addition to the second short featurette on the costumes, which looks like it was produced for the Neon release (their logo is on it), there are 63 minutes of cast and crew interviews with Francis Lee, Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Alec Secăreanu and James McArdle, each of which runs about 10-15 minutes, with Lee's being the longest. Brief parts of these interviews were also used in the Neon featurettes.
EDIT: My apologies, I forgot that the US Blu-ray has a making of featurette that runs 5:43, so it may be different to the UK one, which includes the Neon logo but runs 4:52. Perhaps the US disc edited the UK making of and costumes featurettes into a single video.
Code:
Total Video
Title Codec Length Movie Size Disc Size Bitrate Bitrate Main Audio Track Secondary Audio Track
----- ------ ------- -------------- -------------- ------- ------- ------------------ ---------------------
00000.MPLS AVC 1:57:32 34,857,056,256 46,714,862,785 39.54 31.99 DTS-HD Master 5.1 3320Kbps (48kHz/24-bit) LPCM 2.0 2304Kbps (48kHz/24-bit)
I watched this a day or two ago and I liked it, but I also understand the criticism. Winslet's performance is a bit too stiff and understated and the film doesn't really know what it wants to say, probably because so little is known about Mary Anning. Still, performances are generally strong, with key support from Gemma Jones and Fiona Shaw. It certainly isn't a happy or romantic movie, though, so it isn't surprising that in a pandemic it hasn't lived up to expectations. Perhaps in happier times for the world, the film might have done much better with critics and audiences.
I got Lionsgate's UK disc after learning that Universal / Neon's disc was a near-featureless BD-25 with a modest video bitrate. Unfortunately, despite the high bitrate, which is over 12 Mbps higher on average, there is banding in many of the darkly lit areas, sometimes rather severe, as well. If I can see it on only a 50" HDTV then it was surely noticeable during encoding, so I'm not sure how this sort of thing keeps happening in 2021. The only thing I will say is that it is only noticeable in a few scenes so it doesn't distract from the film, but it is there and there is really no excuse for it so late in the Blu-ray format's life.
That issue aside, the presentation is excellent, as would be expected from a new release film. The sound design is intense at times, especially on the beach with the sound of crashing waves being surprisingly loud. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track renders all of this perfectly.
The other area in which Lionsgate vaults over the US disc is in the extras, where they include over an hour of raw interview footage with question cards. These are broken up into five segments and presented in 1080/50i, presumably as shot. Winslet's is the shortest at under 9 minutes, while director Francis Lee's is the longest at just over 18 minutes, with three others between 10-15 minutes.
Lionsgate also includes two promotional featurettes that include Neon's logo, although apparently only one of these actually made it onto the US Blu-ray, while a shorter costumes featurette seems absent. Snippets from the above-referenced interviews were used in the creation of the promotional featurettes, along with additional crew interviews and raw footage from the set.
(EDIT: My apologies, I forgot that the US Blu-ray has a making of featurette that runs 5:43, so it may be different to the UK one, which includes the Neon logo but runs 4:52. Perhaps the US disc edited the UK making of and costumes featurettes into a single video.)
P.S.: Yes, I did go back and re-watch the big sex scene with the audio description on. The reader did an okay job, but she could have done better, in my opinion.
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