Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Player

By
Laurence
– March 8, 2016Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 24, 2016
Price: DVD $29.99, Blu-ray $39.99
Studio: Criterion

A Hollywood studio executive with a shaky moral compass (Tim Robbins, Code 46) finds himself caught up in a criminal situation that would fit right into one of his movie projects in the biting 1992 satire The Player, a late-career smash for the great Robert Altman (Nashville).

The Player (2)_optMixing elements of film noir with sly insider comedy, The Player, based on a novel by Michael Tolkin, functions as both a nifty stylish murder story and a commentary on its own making, and it is stocked with a heroic supporting cast (Peter Gallagher, Whoopi Goldberg, Greta Scacchi, Dean Stockwell, Fred Ward) and a lineup of star cameos that make for an astonishing Hollywood Who’s Who.

This complexly woven grand entertainment (which kicks off with a rightfully acclaimed opening shot) was the film that marked Altman’s triumphant commercial comeback in the early 1990s.

Criterion’s new Blu-ray and DVD editions of the movie include the following:

  • New 4K digital restoration, with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 surround soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary from 1992 featuring director Robert Altman, writer Michael Tolkin, and cinematographer Jean Lépine
  • Interview with Altman from 1992
  • New interviews with Tolkin and production designer Stephen Altman
  • Cannes Film Festival press conference from 1992 with cast and crew
  • “The Player” at LACMA, a short documentary about the shooting of the film’s fund-raiser scene
  • Map to the Stars,a gallery dedicated to the cameo appearances in the film
  • Deleted scenes and outtakes
  • The film’s opening shot, with alternate commentaries by Altman, Lépine, and Tolkin
  • Trailers
  • An essay by author Sam Wasson
Buy or Rent The Player
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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.