I rented disc one and watched the movie in whole the other night, and it still hasn't lost any impact, even when the screen is a thousand times smaller. I hear the official version is three discs...does anyone have any idea what's on it?
Well, I'm assuming it was disc one. There was no extra's whatsoever, but perhaps it was a special rental version they give stores, I don't know. It's a small independent place, so I doubt they could afford to go out and buy four or five 3-disc sets.
The 23-minute Beneath the Surface featurette is the first and most interesting extra, boasting interviews with Sean Penn, novelist Dennis Lehane, Clint Eastwood, Laura Linney, Tim Robbins, Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Bacon, screenwriter Brian Helgeland, and Laurence Fishburne. Eastwood makes a big deal about his old-fashioned storytelling, “with no special effects and no CGI,” a mildly irksome dig at the film that bested his efforts at the Oscars. The components of this piece that I enjoyed most are the contributions from the writers: Lehane maintains the film is a study of three marriages, and Helgeland sees Mystic River as a Greek tragedy. This piece is presented in 1.78 anamorphic widescreen. The 12-minute From Page to Screen featurette is more of an EPK fluff piece, recycling many interview snippets from the first featurette, to lesser effect. However, you get a few more insightful comments from Lehane about halfway through. He calls the story a “street opera”—a fascinating term. This piece is, unlike the first, presented in full-frame only. Both featurettes offer French subtitles. Charlie Rose Show Interviews with Clint Eastwood (41 minutes), Tim Robbins (50 minutes), and Kevin Bacon (19 minutes). These are excellent discussions, thanks to the interviewees, but Rose upholds his reputation as one of the more incapable interviewers in the business. He frequently intrudes on the naturally flowing conversation with inane comments, and sometimes even destroys a conversation tangent that seems to be leading to an interesting thought. But from all the Mystic River participants, we again get a firm notion of the mood of the Eastwood set, and we get many more complimentary comments. Good stuff, if you don’t mind Rose. You also get an anamorphic-widescreen Theatrical Teaser (narrated by Eastwood himself) and an anamorphic-widescreen Theatrical Trailer, both presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.
I don't think I've watched a single "special edition" DVD without a Charlie Rose interview. I should watch PBS more often.
This movie puts your emotions through the wringer, there is no way around that. As they say its a Greek tragedy played out in a working class Boston neighborhood.
This is easily the best movie I've seen in the past few years and I was going crazy that there was no special features on the DVD. I'm glad that now I know their is a special edition. I'll surely buy that.