{"id":14631,"date":"2012-03-05T10:30:05","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=14631"},"modified":"2012-03-05T10:32:42","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T10:32:42","slug":"uk-dvd-blu-ray-releases-monday-5th-march-2012-ides-of-march-contagion-anonymous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2012\/03\/05\/uk-dvd-blu-ray-releases-monday-5th-march-2012-ides-of-march-contagion-anonymous\/","title":{"rendered":"UK DVD & Blu-ray Releases: Monday 5th March 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ides of March\u00a0<\/strong>(Entertainment One): Adapted from Beau Williams\u2019 stage play Farragut North, the basic story is a cocktail loosely inspired by the skulduggery of recent US presidential primaries.\u00a0It focuses on a young, ambitious strategist (Ryan Gosling) who is assisting his campaign boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in getting an inspirational Democratic candidate (George Clooney) elected. With the Republican field bare, the primary takes on extra significance, especially when a rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti), a journalist (Marisa Tomei) and an intern (Evan Rachel Wood) start to pose ethical and moral dilemmas. With a script credited to Williams, Clooney and Grant Heslov, it seems to be a deliberate attempt to apply the weary but wise tone of classic 1970s cinema to recent times.\u00a0Clooney’s approach as director draws on the best work of Alan Pakula and Sidney Lumet, with moral ambiguity, composed framing and a considered use of long takes all adding to the atmosphere.\u00a0[Read our full review here<\/a>]\u00a0[Buy on Blu-ray<\/a> or DVD<\/a> from Amazon UK]<\/p>\n

Contagion<\/strong> (Warner Home Video):\u00a0Director Steven Soderbergh\u2019s latest is an all-star disaster movie that follows a global killer virus \u2013 think\u00a0Traffic<\/a>, only with disease. When Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a Hong Kong business trip to suburban Minneapolis, her husband (Matt Damon) is alarmed when she falls ill. When the virus spreads, the response team\u00a0at the Center for Disease Control (Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet and Jennifer Ehle) and the World Health Organization (Marion Cotillard) have to stop it spreading, whilst a Bay Area blogger\u00a0Jude Law keeps ahead of the news media. Managing to avoid most horror\/sci-fi\u00a0clich\u00e9s,\u00a0Soderbergh channels to spirit of 1970s films like Earthquake, whilst updating it for out similarly bleak age. The script by Scott Z Burns is alarmingly plausible, drawing on the recent SAARS scare, whilst Soderbergh handles the global locations with such an assured touch, most people probably won’t notice.\u00a0[Buy on Blu-ray<\/a> or DVD<\/a> from Amazon UK]<\/p>\n

Anonymous\u00a0<\/strong>(Sony Pictures Home Entertainment):\u00a0The very idea of Roland Emmerich making a movie about the authorship of Shakespeare\u2019s plays is enough to spark laughter, but the end result is a handsomely staged period piece. The premise\u00a0revolves around\u00a0Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford<\/a>\u00a0(Rhys Ifans) and the conceit that he not only wrote the plays of Shakespeare, but did so as part of an elaborate political conspiracy involving\u00a0Elizabeth I<\/a>\u00a0(Vanessa Redgrave<\/a>), playwright\u00a0Ben Jonson<\/a>\u00a0(Sebastian Armesto<\/a>) and\u00a0Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex<\/a>\u00a0(Sebastian Reid). The\u00a0blizzard of stories<\/a>\u00a0that accompanied its cinema release\u00a0centred\u00a0around the\u00a0authorship question<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sony Pictures staged a deeply misguided marketing campaign, baiting those upset with the premise. Not that it worked\u00a0as early audiences seemed to have more problems with the ambitious jigsaw puzzle script, which cleverly mirrors the themes of Shakespeare’s plays. [Read our full review here<\/a>]\u00a0[Buy on Blu-ray<\/a> or DVD<\/a> from Amazon UK]<\/p>\n

ALSO OUT<\/strong><\/p>\n

American Evil<\/strong> (Metrodome Distribution) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nColumbus Circle<\/strong> (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nDeviation<\/strong> (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nDinosaur Jr: Live at 9:30 Club – In the Hands of the Fans<\/strong> (Wienerworld) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nDracula Prince of Darkness<\/strong> (StudioCanal) [Blu-ray \/ with DVD – Double Play]
\nGame of Thrones: Series 1<\/strong> (Warner Home Video\/HBO) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nImmortals<\/strong> (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nLEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace<\/strong> (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nNurse Jackie: Season 3<\/strong> (Lionsgate UK) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nSket<\/strong> (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nThe Rum Diary<\/strong> (EV) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nTomboy<\/strong> (Peccadillo Pictures) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]
\nUrban Explorers<\/strong> (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray \/ Normal]<\/p>\n

>\u00a0Recent DVD & Blu-ray picks<\/a>
\n>\u00a0The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Including The Ides of March, Contagion and Anonymous<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1975,2276,2290],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}