New Release: Blow Out Blu-ray and DVD

Blow Out, Brian De Palma’s stylish 1981 assassination-and-cover-up thriller movie, was issued as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray and DVD on April 26, 2011.

Blow Out stars John Travolta (From Paris With Love) as a B-movie sound-effects man who accidentally records a Chappaquiddick-like car accident only to suspect that it might actually have been a political assassination. Enlisting the help of Sally (Nancy Allen, Robocop), a possible eyewitness to the crime, Jack uses his celluloid sound skills to uncover the truth.

This is the second De Palma film that has received a Criterion release; 1973’s Sisters got the treatment back in 2000.

Blow Out has been restored and gets a new digital transfer for the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray, and the high-defintion version has DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack.

The discs have a nice bunch of special features but no commentary track from De Palma, who has yet to record one for any of his films. But he did sit for an hour-long interview conducted by filmmaker Noah Baumbach (Greenberg).

Here’s a list of all the bonuses:

  • new hour-long interview with De Palma, conducted by filmmaker Noah Baumbach
  • new interview with star Nancy Allen
  • cameraman Garrett Brown on the Steadicam shots featured in the film within the film
  • select on-set photos from photographer Louis Goldman
  • original theatrical trailer
  • booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Sragow and Pauline Kael’s
    original New Yorker review

The Blu-ray and DVD editions carry the list prices of $39.95 and $29.95, respectively.

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.