Welcome to ComingSoon.net’s look at all the top entertainment hitting this week on Blu-ray and DVD. Check out the gallery viewer below for a look at all the major new releases, television season sets and catalogue titles hitting the shelves today, March 31, 2015.
Christopher Nolan’s sprawling sci-fi epic Interstellar joins recent big screen fare like Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée’s Academy Award-nominated Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, and Morten Tyldum’s Academy Award-winning Alan Turing biopic, the Benedict Cumberbatch-led The Imitation Game.
Released in theaters last April, Warner Bros. Pictures’ Island of the Lemurs: Madagascar 3D comes home just in time for Earth Day 2015 alongside the 12th century action romance Outcast, starring Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen, and Simon West’s Wild Card, featuring Jason Statham as a Las Vegas bodyguard in trouble with the mob.
The season premieres of both series set for April 12, HBO brings home both the complete first season of Mike Judges’ Silicon Valley and the complete third season of Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
The Criterion Collection, meanwhile, upgrades two formerly DVD-only titles: Steve James’ 1994 basketball doc Hoop Dreams and Ingmar Bergman’s haunting 1972 masterpiece Cries and Whispers.
Finally, Flicker Alley has a special treat for cinephiles with, arriving on DVD only, The House of Mystery, a full ten-part, 6 1/2-hour serial from 1921, fully restored by Cinematheque Francaise.
You can check out all the cover art in the gallery viewer below alongside a listing of each release’s special features (where applicable):
This Week on Blu-ray and DVD: March 31, 2015
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Interstellar
- The Science of Interstellar—Extended cut of the broadcast special.
- Plotting an Interstellar Journey—Discusses the film's origins, influences and narrative designs.
- Life on Cooper's Farm—Bringing Americana and the grounded nature of a farm to a sci-fi space movie.
- The Dust—Learn how cast and crew avoided sand blindness, and see how to create, and clean up after, a catastrophic dust storm.
- TARS and CASE—Designing and building these unique characters and how they were brought to life on set and in the film.
- Cosmic Sounds—The concepts, process, and recording of Hans Zimmer's unforgettable score.
- The Space Suits—A look at the design and build of the suits and helmets, and what it was like to wear them.
- The Endurance—Explore this massive set with a guided tour by production designer Nathan Crowley.
- Shooting in Iceland: Miller's Planet/Mann's Planet—Travel with the cast and crew to Iceland and see the challenges they faced in creating two vastly different worlds in one country.
- The Ranger and the Lander—A look at the other two spaceships in the film.
- Miniatures in Space—Marvel at the large-scale models used in the explosive docking sequence.
- The Simulation of Zero-G—Discover the various methods that the filmmakers used to create a zero gravity environment.
- Celestial Landmarks—Explore how the filmmakers used practical special effects informed by real scientific equations to give the illusion of real space travel for both the actors and the audience.
- Across All Dimensions and Time—A look at the concept and design of the Tesseract, which incorporated a practical set rather than a green screen.
- Final Thoughts—The cast and crew reflect back on their Interstellar experience.
- Theatrical Trailers -
The Imitation Game
- Special Commentary
- The Making of The Imitation Game
- Q&A Highlights
- Deleted scenes -
Wild
- The Real Cheryl Strayed
- The Real Location Is The Best Location
- How Much Does A Monster Weigh?
- The Pacific Crest Trail Interactive Map
- Deleted Scenes – with Optional Commentary by Jean-Marc Vallée- Seven Promotional Featurettes:
Bringing the Book Into The Wild
Reese Witherspoon in the Wild
Wild: 94 Days, 1100 miles
Directing Wild
Making Wild
Pacific Crest Trail
Real Locations
- Audio Commentary by Jean-Marc Vallée, Bruna Papandrea and David Greenbaum
- Experiencing the PCT: A Special Message From Cheryl Strayed
- Theatrical Trailer
- Gallery -
Island of the Lemurs: Madagascar 3D
- Making of The Island of Lemurs
- Behind the Scenes
- The Story of Lemurs
- Meet Patricia Wright
- A Baby Indri
- Five Things About Indri
- The Cutest Lemur
- Go-Kart Racers -
Outcast
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Wild Card
- "Original Sin: Las Vegas and the Characters of Wild Card" featurette
- "Script Vignette" featurette
- Audio Commentary with Director Simon West -
Silicon Valley - The Complete First Season
- Making Silicon Valley: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Silicon Valley
- Tech Crunch: Disrupt!: Find out how Silicon Valley created their own Tech Crunch: Disrupt! conference
- The Hacker Hostel: Take a tour through the Pied Piper headquarters
- 8 Audio Commentaries with Mike Judge, Alec Berg, T.J. Miller and many more
- Episode Previews -
Veep: The Complete Third Season
- Audio Commentaries with the Entire Cast
- Deleted Scenes -
Cries and Whispers
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Introduction by director Ingmar Bergman from 2001
- New interview with actor Harriet Andersson, conducted by historian Peter Cowie
- On Solace, a new video essay by filmmaker :: kogonada
- Behind-the-scenes footage with commentary by Cowie
- Ingmar Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson (2000), a fifty-two-minute interview with Bergman and his longtime collaborator
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
- An essay by film scholar Emma Wilson -
Hoop Dreams
- New high-definition digital restoration, created through a collaboration between the Academy Film Archive, the Sundance Film Institute, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with 4.0 surroundDTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Two audio commentaries: one with filmmakers Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert, and one with the film’s subjects, Arthur Agee and William Gates
- Life After “Hoop Dreams,” a new documentary that catches up with Agee, Gates, and their families
- Additional scenes
- Collection of excerpts from Siskel & Ebert tracking the acclaim for Hoop Dreams
- Original 1994 music video for the film’s theme song
- Trailers
- Essays by author John Edgar Wideman and filmmaker and critic Robert Greene -
The House of Mystery
- A bonus slideshow featuring rare production stills and behind-the-scenes photos
- A booklet with an essay and biographical material on some of the actors and artists by film historian Lenny Borger.
