Inside Llewyn Davis [DVD]
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman
Release Date: Now Available on Blu-Ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 9.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
Plot Summary:
A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.
The latest film from Joel and Ethan Cohen is by no surprise, yet another masterpiece and truly fantastic filmmaking. When a film can take a subject I have zero to no interest in and completely pull in my attention as well as leave me enthralled from start to finish, that really says something about the magnificence of a film as a whole. The music really pulls you in, as does the story and you can’t help but feel that you really are being pulled along with Llewyn on his journey, at least to some extent. This is a truly wonderful film and I really can’t speak of it highly enough. I would give it my highest recommendation and I hope many of you get the chance to check it out and end up loving it just as much as I did.
The latest effort from the Cohen’s titled ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ is an absolutely magnificent film in every single way, expertly written and executed by Joel and Ethan Cohen, and additionally brimming with outstanding performances by the cast all around. Oscar Isaac does a magnificent job in the title role, and the more minimal performances by John Goodman, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake and all the rest of the supporting cast is just as expertly portrayed.
VIDEO:
The DVD release of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ is presented in a 16×9 friendly Widescreen presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. While as many who frequent the site will already know, I’m a stickler for quality and therefore usually try to avoid DVD releases of titles of available in both formats. This one I decided to actually accept the DVD for a change and I was quite pleasantly surprised to find the video presentation on this one to be quite impressive as far as DVD quality goes. While some banding and a tad of dulling and blurring are noticeable on the DVD when viewing on an HDTV, it looks far superior to a lot of DVD releases we see and DVD aficionados should be more than pleased with this impressive Standard Definition video transfer.
AUDIO:
The DVD release features a lossy 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack. The lossy soundtrack is fairly capable, and certainly helps accentuate the gorgeous score and music that are so fundamental to this extraordinary film. Those like me who always go for Blu-Ray will likely notice the soundtrack suffers a bit from the compression and some of the music comes off a tad dull and not nearly as discrete as one can expect a lossless soundtrack would present this glorious score. For those who aren’t quite as picky as I regarding this factor, or don’t have the ability to watch films in surround, you should be quite satisfied with this lossy multichannel soundtrack. The true quality hounds such as me will certainly want to pick up a Blu-Ray copy of this one though if you have the option to do so.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Unfortunately for such a well received and popular title, the DVD release of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ only contains a single bonus feature, a featurette titled ‘Inside ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ which provides a look at how the film came to be and includes behind the scenes footage and interviews with the cast and crew regarding and surround the making of the film from start to end.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the DVD and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment & CBS Films.
Film Rating: 9.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ is now available to own on Blu-Ray & DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment & CBS Films.