My selection for biggest bummer of the year, Lars von Trier's
Melancholia, is set to hit US Blu-ray and DVD this March, and I couldn't be more excited! The film has been quite divisive, with many people, including our fearless leader Todd Brown, coming down on the nay side, but I loved this flick. Now you can choose for yourself. I haven't seen the disc, but the film was a technical and audio/visual work of beauty, and with Magnolia's track record, I can only imagine it will look and sound terrific. Read below for the press release, disc details, and pre-order link.
WINNER OF BEST ACTRESS AT THE 64th CANNES
FILM FESTIVAL AND BEST PICTURE AT THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS
MELANCHOLIA
Academy Award® Nominee Lars Von Tier Mesmerizes Viewers With "A Moving Masterpiece" (Entertainment Weekly) Available On Blu-ray Disc And DVD
March 13 From Magnolia Home Entertainment
"Fantastic. Dunst gives what's surely her finest performance."
- Vogue
"Stunning. A movie that leaves the viewer in a state of ecstasy...marked by an astonishing profundity of vision."
- Entertainment Weekly
"Von Trier presents his vision of the last moments of human life in a poetic nutshell in his prologue. This includes some of the most beautiful slow-motion sequences I've ever seen."
- Chicago Sun-Times
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - One of the year's best reviewed films, and headlined by a stellar ensemble of actors including Golden Globe® nominee Kirsten Dunst (All Good Things), Alexander Skarsgård ("True Blood") Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Golden Globe winner Kiefer Sutherland ("24"), Stellan Skarsgård (Thor), and Academy Award nominee John Hurt (The Oxford Murders), visionary writer/director Lars Von Trier's (Dancer In the Dark) newest film, MELANCHOLIA, is heralded as "a spectacle impossible to turn away from" (The Village Voice). Deemed "one of the year's best" (New York Times) films and "a giant achievement" (Entertainment Weekly), MELANCHOLIA will arrive on Blu-ray Disc and DVD March 13 from Magnolia Home Entertainment.
In the "truly special" (Salon), story MELANCHOLIA centers on the wedding celebration of newly married couple Justine (Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), taking place at the house of the bride's sister Claire (Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Sutherland). Despite Claire's best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships reaching their breaking points. Yet at the same time, a deadly planet called "Melancholia," is quickly hurtling towards Earth, ushering its ultimate destruction. The "masterwork of grandeur" (The Washington Post) explores what happens as the family comes to grips with their fears and faces the forthcoming end of their lives. With MELANCHOLIA, "Von Trier has created a stunning treatise on family, relationships, expectations, tradition and depression that is as rich and layered as the towering wedding cake" (Los Angeles Times).
Including special bonus features such as cast interviews, behind the scenes looks and a making of featurette, witness the film movie "that is more than worth your time" (CinemaBlend) when MELANCHOLIA becomes available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD for the suggested retail price of $26.98 and $29.98, respectively.
Synopsis
In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). A planet called "Melancholia" is heading directly towards Earth and threatening to collide. Meanwhile, tensions are mounting and relationships are fraying as the family deals with their fears.
I'm really not a fan of the cover art, all of that text really clutter it up, but I'm willing to make do to own this gem.