Ray

[MacGuffin]

I know its for the SE, but so damn expensive.  Hell, most Criterion 2-discs are $39.95.  These had better be some damn good extras.

More details:

Universal Home Video has announced the home video release of the Ray Charles biopic Ray on February 1 in both standard and limited edition releases. The standard set will sell for $29.98 while the two-disc limited edition will fetch $44.98.

Both versions of the film will come with a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen video transfer and English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Interestingly, both the standard and limited edition releases will include the theatrical cut of the film and an extended cut that runs an extra 25 minutes.

Extras on the standard set include fourteen deleted scenes, complete music performances from the film, the featurette Walking in His Shoes and a memorial on Ray Charles, Ray Remembered.

The giftset will include 20 minutes of additional uncut music performances from the film, a featurettes called Filmmakers' Journey and a collectible photo book.

[NEON MERCURY]

here, i am a poem:



i saw ray
when i bought the dvd on tuesday
and i am happy to report it wasnt ghey.
but i  do have to say
that foxxx's performance was more than ok.
seeing willow also  made my day
but he should stick to doing broadway.
piano  play
touche.

oh, by the way
does the limited edition dvd also have the commentary track??? its not listed.

[MacGuffin]

oh, by the way
does the limited edition dvd also have the commentary track??? its not listed.

Yes.

[Ravi]

How are the extras?  Worth the extra money?

[MacGuffin]

How are the extras?  Worth the extra money?

The hassle of finding a flawless copy of the film that doesn't keep freezing isn't.

[Stefen]

I went to go rent this but the racist video store was all out of copies.

[Pedro]

So I finally saw this and it was pretty good.  A formula biopic with some great preformances, some bad preformances, and some fantastic musical numbers.

The movie didn't seem to add at all to the biopic structure with anything inventive enough to really impress me.  It was fairly standard and safe...
As far as the acting goes, Jamie Foxx does a tremendous job becoming Ray Charles.  As far as I was concerned he was Ray Charles during the movie.  It wasn't until the final scenes that I realized "oh yeah...this is Jamie Foxx"  

Sometimes within a single scene there could be terrible acting followed by something really great.  Example (SPOILER): When Margie tells Ray "I'm Pregnant", her delivery is really awful, and I almost laughed.  Right after that, though, when they start to write "hit the road jack" she really takes it to another level. (END)

Whoever casted the kid who played the little Ray casted one of the worst child actors I've ever seen.

All the musical sequences were great.  I was more interested in them than the story sometimes.  They're worth watching the movie for.

p.s. Did anyone else get annoyed by all the swipes and iris transitions?  They really annoyed me.

[Pubrick]

Whoever casted the kid who played the little Ray casted one of the worst child actors I've ever seen.

haha move over Dixon..

[life_boy]

I finally saw this and it was what I feared it would be: a great performance backed by a less than great film.  I don't mind biopics...as long as they try and tell the story.  It doesn't necessarily have to be original or extremely innovative, just as long as it cares about telling the story and tells it to the best ability of the filmmakers.  Unfortunately, I don't feel this film did that at all.

[Light Spoilers]

I really wanted to like this film more because Foxx is so good but I just couldn't.  The whole film felt like a greatest hits of songs and moments from the life and musical history of Ray Charles.  It seemed like this movie was so proud of the fact that it was a movie about Ray Charles that it wouldn't actually get inside Ray Charles, show us his world and why he did what he did and what made him great.  The way the film presented Ray's music, it felt so isolated, as if he had affairs, did drugs, was discriminated against at different points and by different people, lied to his wife, neglected his family and had been blind since the age of seven, but these things had no bearing on the songs he wrote or how he wrote them.  Because Ray was a musician, I wanted to see more of a connection.  Instead, the film simply tells us to accept his music as "brilliant" and "groundbreaking" instead of giving us much context as to why it was.  Not to mention the movie seems to go along and then realizes it has run out of time and needs to wrap things up with the "and he continued to produce music for 40 more years."  Oh, did he?  I don't mind a film being anticlimactic, but that's ridiculous!

So, that isn't to take away from Foxx's performance.  I felt he completely embodied Ray, and even if the screenplay didn't understand or tell us what it should have, it semed that Foxx understood and added it all to part of his performance.  Underneath the whole "impersonation" of Ray's body movements and vocal inflections there is an undercurrent of subtlty and nuance in the way Foxx builds this character who happens to also be a famous icon.  Granted, he may not be recieving as much praise for the performance had Ray not been an iconic figure, but he was and Jamie got the role of a lifetime and made it into something great.

Thumbs up for Foxx; thumbs down for Hackford and his film.

[Pubrick]

this is this year's monster.

in other words, i will be glad when the fad is over.

[Sigur Rós]

After watching this film I'm a bit confused as to wether I don't like Ray Charles or the film. I think they portraid him as a peverted selfish prick and the only reason the viewer sympatizes with him is because he is blind. People are just so used to automatically sympatize with a character if he is handicapped (that is in american litteratur and film) - We all know that Ray was a genius and blind but that doesn't make us like him. Maybe this is the film or maybe this is just Ray Charles. The film also reminded me to much of a tv-drama from Hallmark...maybe that's a good thing.

[Weak2ndAct]

I must say, that farce at the end (the mother thing) was one of the most awful, ridiculous things I've ever seen.  I can't begin to describe my horror when that unfolded.  It took the flick from average-tv-movie-of-the-week to complete train-wreck.  Way to ruin a flick, Hackford.    

All I took from the movie was some relief that Curtis Armstrong isn't dead or homeless.

And P: right on.

[life_boy]

Way to ruin a flick, Hackford.

It makes the name almost fitting, doesn't it?

Yeah, that "final meeting" in his mind was a pretty bad way to wrap everything up.

[Thrindle]

I must say, that farce at the end (the mother thing) was one of the most awful, ridiculous things I've ever seen.  I can't begin to describe my horror when that unfolded.  It took the flick from average-tv-movie-of-the-week to complete train-wreck.

You took the words right out of my mouth.  

Thank you for posting that.

[bluejaytwist]

I went to go rent this but the racist video store was all out of copies.

the footage of ray grilling mr foxx, and his sheer enjoyment/delight when foxx gets it right is so good to watch. i could have done without 2091830 minutes of jamie explaining his craft, 20920830 minutes would have gotten the point across. stay away from stefen's store which has 10 copies of powder for some reason.