Blu-ray Release Date: July 24, 2012
Price: Blu-ray $39.95 each
Studio: Criterion
Chris Eigman is flanked in Metropolitan.
A pair of New York independent filmmaker Whit Stillman’s (Damsels in Distress) sophisticated comedy films from the 1990s, Metropolitan (1990) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), arrive on Blu-ray from Criterion following the label’s previous release of the titles on DVD in 2006 and 2009, respectively.
Acclaimed as one of the great American indies of the 1990s, writer/director Stillman’s Metropolitan is a comedic chronicle of a middle-class young man’s (Edward Clements) romantic misadventures in New York City’s debutante society, where a chatty group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, the movie co-stars Chris Eigman, Carolyn Farina and Taylor Nichols.
The Blu-ray of Metropolitan contains the following features, all of which were first issued on the DVD (except for the new digital transfer):
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Whit Stillman and cinematographer John Thomas, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary by Stillman, editor Christopher Tellefsen, and actors Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols
• Rare outtakes and alternate casting, with commentary by Stillman
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Luc Sante
Kate Beckinsale (l.) and Chloe Sevigny ready themselves for the evening in The Last Days of Disco.
The Last Days of Disco finds Stillman taking a look at the early 1980s Manhattan party scene in. Among the film’s ensemble of young people looking for a good time (and a future!) are two very different young women: The icy Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale, Contraband) and the demure Alice (Chloë Sevigny, Mr. Nice), who spend their days toiling as publishing house assistants and their nights looking for romance and entertainment at a Studio 54–like club. It’s an affectionate yet unsentimental look at the end of an era, brimming with the filmmaker’s trademark dry humor.
Like the Blu-ray edition of Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco contains a bunch of features that were originally seen and heard on the earlier DVD release (save the new transfer). Here they are:
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Whit Stillman, with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Stillman and actors Chloë Sevigny and Chris Eigeman
• Four deleted scenes with commentary by Stillman, Eigeman, and Sevigny
• Audio recording of Stillman reading a chapter from his book The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards
• Behind-the-scenes featurette
• Stills gallery with captions by Stillman
• Original theatrical trailer
• An essay by novelist David Schickler
|
Buy or Rent Metropolitan
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
  DVD  | Blu-ray |
 DVD | Blu-ray |
 DVD | Blu-ray |
 |
|
Buy or Rent The Last Days of Disco
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
DVD  | Blu-ray |
DVD | Blu-ray |
DVD | Blu-ray |
|
Leave a Reply