The Reel World

The Simpsons announcement has dropped: December 18th is the day! Coming out on Blu-ray and DVD, both single disc releases:

• DVD: $29.98 U.S. / $43.48 Canada
• Blu-ray: $39.98 U.S. / $49.98 Canada

The DVD Release

“The Simpsons Movie DVD is presented in North America in widescreen format, featuring English Dolby Surround 5.1 sound, Spanish and French Dolby Surround and English and Spanish subtitles.”

Extras Galore:

• Commentary by, James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, David Silverman, Dan Castellaneta, and joined by Yeardley Smith
• Directors Commentary by David Silverman, Mike B. Anderson, Steven Dean Moore and Rich Moore
• Deleted scenes: Russ Cargill – “Levels,” Springfield News, DMV, Sausage Truck, Emperor Moe, Alternate Ending
• Special Stuff: Homer’s Monologue On The Tonight Show, The Simpsons Judge American Idol, Homer Introduces American Idol, Let’s All Go To The Lobby, Alternate Character Designs by the Directors and Matt Groening

The Blu-ray Release

“The Simpsons Movie BD release will be authored in BD-Java with AVC (MPEG 4 compression) on a dual-layer 50 GB disc with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio plus English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. The disc will feature all of the above special features in high-def.”

I’m not seeing any cover art on the press site yet, but stay tuned. In the meantime, looks like a strong (though expensive!) release.

An interesting bit of news I stumbled across: a new Braveheart release on DVD. Uninspiring audio, but a new features list – I don’t think, from a cursory scan of Amazon, that all of these have been seen previously…

• Audio: 2.0 Surround, 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital
• Commentary: Commentary by Director Mel Gibson TBD
• Other: Tales of William Wallace
• Other: A Writer’s Journey
• Other: Archival Interviews with the Cast of Braveheart
• Photo Gallery: Photo Montage
• Other: History Channel Pieces TBD
• Trailers: 2 Original Theatrical Trailers

Urggh. 42 disc (dvd) set, includes all 20 original films, plus Casino Royale. In their own words:

“Presented on two-disc special edition DVDs spanning 42 discs, each mission grants all-access to the chronicles of the agent’s storied career from the Bond archives, including deleted scenes, rare interviews, documentaries, featurettes, interactive film guides, music videos, audio commentaries and more.”

Each film has been…

“…recently restored and re-mastered for optimal sound and picture quality.”

The complete set retails for $270 CDN, pre-orderable October 10.

Or, you could get the Ultimate Edition box set for $180 at Amazon now, and grab a previously viewed copy of Casino Royale (2006) from BlockBuster for $8. Your call.

Disclaimer: I have no idea if these discs are any different from the UE’s – though both this new release and the UE’s are 2-disc sets – and I find it hard to imagine that MGM’s dredged up another set of extras for each film; I’ve emailed MGM and will post a response.