Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Ice Storm

Blu-ray Release Date: July 23, 2013
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion

It's all in the dysfunctional family for Kevin Kline, Joan Allen (ctr.) and Christina Ricci in The Ice Storm.

The 1997 film drama The Ice Storm is director Ang Lee’s (Life of Pi) adaptation of Rick Moody’s acclaimed 1994 novel of upper-middle-class American malaise.

Suburban Connecticut, 1973: While Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech drones from the TV, the Hood and Carver families try to navigate a Thanksgiving break simmering with unspoken resentment, sexual tension, and cultural confusion.

With a remarkable sense of clarity, subtlety and, surprisingly, humor, Lee’s renders the novel as a trenchant, tragic cinematic portrait of lost souls.

The film features a fine cast of established actors, including Kevin Kline (The Extra man), Joan Allen (Pleasantville), Sigourney Weaver (Paul), and rising stars Tobey Maguire (The Cider House Rules), Christina Ricci (Bel Ami), Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Katie Holmes (TV’s The Kennedys).

Criterion issued the R-rated film on DVD in 2008 and the Blu-ray edition features a number of bonus materials that appeared on that version, including the following:

• Restored high-definition digital film transfer, supervised and approved by director Ang Lee and director of photography Frederick Elmes, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Lee and producer-screenwriter James Schamus
• Documentary featuring interviews with actors Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Sigourney Weaver, and Elijah Wood
• Interview with novelist Rick Moody
• Deleted scenes
• Footage from a 2007 event honoring Lee and Schamus at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image
• Visual essays featuring interviews with the film’s cinematographer and production and costume designers
• Theatrical trailer
• An essay by critic Bill Krohn

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