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Four new Catwoman: Hunted Images Revealed

Four new Catwoman: Hunted Images Revealed

In a cast packed with villains, Barbara Minerva tops the roster as the leader of Leviathan. And nobody gets under Minerva’s skin like Catwoman. Kirby Howell-Baptiste (The Good Place, Barry) provides the voice of Barbara Minerva. 

Everyone’s favorite felonious feline arrives with her own film – Catwoman: Hunted – just two months from now … and attached are new images spotlighting Selina Kyle and some of her foes in the film. 

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the feature-length, anime-style Catwoman: Hunted arrives on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray and Digital on February 8, 2022.

In the all-new original film, Catwoman’s attempt to steal a priceless jewel puts her squarely in the crosshairs of both a powerful consortium of villains and the ever-resourceful Interpol, not to mention Batwoman. It might just be enough to contain her. Or not.

There’s no end to the cat fight, starting with Cheshire taking her best shot at Catwoman atop a roof. Kelly Hu (Arrow, X2: X-Men United) supplies the voice of Cheshire.

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Batwoman isn’t the only bat-like character in Catwoman: Hunted as Nosferta makes an impressive entrance in the film. Zehra Fazal (Young Justice franchise) provides the voice of Nosferata.
Nothing like being awakened by your best friend – especially when she’s a cat. Isis is along for every step of the adventure as Selina Kyle/Catwoman attempts to steal and connive her way past both Interpol and the villainous organization Leviathan in Catwoman: Hunted. Elizabeth Gillies (Dynasty , Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Vacation) leads the star-studded voice cast as Catwoman
Halloween Kills Stalks Homes in January

Halloween Kills Stalks Homes in January

Universal City, California, December 8, 2021 – Evil dies tonight. Jamie Lee Curtis (“Scream Queens”, Knives Out), Judy Greer (The Village, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Andi Matichak (Blue Bloods, Orange is the New Black) and the entire town of Haddonfield band together to take down the infamous killer Michael Myers in the never-before-seen Extended Cut of HALLOWEEN KILLS, arriving on Digital December 14, 2021, as well as on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-rayTM and DVD January 11, 2022. Hailed as “A bloodthirsty sequel” (Bloody Disgusting), HALLOWEEN KILLS features the original theatrical release, the Extended Cut with Alternate Ending and exclusive bonus content which includes extended and deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes look at creating the film, special gag reel and more!

The Halloween night when Michael Myers returned isn’t over yet. Michael manages to free himself from Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) trap to resume his ritual bloodbath. As Laurie fights for her life from injuries from her last encounter with Michael, she inspires her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), and all of Haddonfield to rise up against their unstoppable monster. The vigilante mob then sets out to hunt Michael down, once and for all.

Master of horror John Carpenter (Halloween 1978, Halloween 2018) once again joins forces with director David Gordon Green (Halloween, Pineapple Express) and producers Jason Blum (Blumhouse), Malek Akkad (Trancas International Films) and Bill Block (Miramax) for this continuation of the Halloween franchise. HALLOWEEN KILLS also includes a stellar cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton (The Forever Purge, The Postman), Thomas Mann (Kong: Skull Island, Amityville: The Awakening) and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone, The Dark Knight). “As immortal as Michael Myers himself” (The Wrap), HALLOWEEN KILLS offers a tricky treat for audiences both old and new.

BONUS FEATURES on 4K ULTRA HD, BLU-RAYTM, DVD & DIGITAL:
• GAG REEL
• DELETED/EXTENDED SCENES
• HADDONFIELD’S OPEN WOUNDS – Those who die at the hands of Michael Myers are not his only victims. We look at some of the returning characters, and why their past traumatic encounters with The Shape made them natural candidates to try and defend Haddonfield against him.
• THE KILL TEAM – It takes a big team to create a film the scale of HALLOWEEN KILLS, especially when part of the task is raising the bar for Michael’s gruesome kills. We hear the people behind the mayhem discuss how they continue to push the franchise to new heights.
• STRODE FAMILY VALUES – Filmmakers and cast discuss the three generations of Strode women that have been terrorized by The Shape, and the roles Laurie, Karen and Allyson play in trying to vanquish his evil.
• 1978 TRANSFORMATIONS – Shooting new footage that matches the feel of the iconic 1978 footage is no easy task, and even takes a little bit of luck. We reveal some of the secrets of how filmmakers achieved these stunning sequences.
• THE POWER OF FEAR – The impact of Michael Myers’ pure evil extends far beyond his victims. We examine how fear of The Shape changed the psychology of the people of Haddonfield.
• KILL COUNT
• FEATURE COMMENTARY – Director/co-writer David Gordon Green and stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer

HALLOWEEN KILLS will be available on 4K Ultra HD , Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital.
• 4K Ultra HD delivers the ultimate movie watching experience. Featuring the combination of 4K resolution, the color brilliance of High Dynamic Range (HDR) and HDR10+* which delivers incredible brightness and contrast for each scene and immersive audio for a multidimensional sound experience.
• Blu-ray™ Combo Pack includes Blu-ray™ , DVD and Digital copy.
• Digital lets fans watch movies anywhere on their favorite devices. Users can buy or rent instantly.
• The Movies Anywhere Digital App simplifies and enhances the digital movie collection and viewing experience by allowing consumers to access their favorite digital movies in one place when purchased or redeemed through participating digital retailers. Consumers can also redeem digital copy codes found in eligible Blu-rayTM and DVD disc packages from participating studios and stream or download them through Movies Anywhere. Movies Anywhere is available only in the United States.
*HDR10+ only available on digital

Looper Celebrates 10th Anniversary with 4K Release

Looper Celebrates 10th Anniversary with 4K Release

Sony Home Entertainment has announced that the cult favorite Looper is coming to 4K Ultra HD libraries with a new release February 15.

SYNOPSIS
In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good…until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, and also starring Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels.

DISC DETAILS & BONUS MATERIALS

4K ULTRA HD DISC
• Feature presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision, reviewed and approved by the filmmakers
• All-new Director-approved Dolby Atmos audio + Original 5.1 audio

BLU-RAY DISC™
• Feature presented in High Definition
• Special Features:
o Feature Commentary with Director Rian Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt
o Looper: The Future From the Beginning — Making-of Featurette
o 22 Deleted Scenes with Commentary
o Scoring Looper
o The Science of Time Travel Featurette
o Looper Animated Trailer

CAST AND CREW
Written and Directed By: Rian Johnson
Produced by: Ram Bergman and James D. Stern
Executive Producers: Douglas E. Hansen , Julie Goldstein, Peter Schlessel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dan Mintz
Cast: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Garret Dillahunt and Jeff Daniels

SPECS
Run Time: Approx. 119 minutes
Rating: R for strong violence , language, some sexuality / nudity and drug content
4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 2.35:1
4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | English 5.1 DTS-HD MA

REVIEW: Superman: The Complete Animated Series

REVIEW: Superman: The Complete Animated Series

After the beautiful restoration of Batman: The Animated Series to Blu-ray, now in time for holiday gift-giving is the Blu-ray edition of Superman: The Complete Animated Series. When the DVD edition arrived in 2009, I wrote in part:

“All the love and attention lavished on the Dark Knight was poured into this show, which was brighter and shinier, the villains larger in scope and giving the animators a chance to bust loose. Superman works great in animation and after the lackluster efforts from Filmation, Hanna-Barbera, and Ruby-Spears, this one clearly shows the potential fulfilled.

“As usual, the voice casting is fairly top-notch with Tim Daly alternating nicely between Superman and Clark Kent, sparring playfully with Dana Delany’s Lois Lane. Clancy Brown is wonderfully malevolent as Luthor and his ever-present menace is well handled, matching the reboot version launched a decade earlier.”

The new edition looks very sharp in 1080p in the original broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1 full frame. Seeing some of this again was a joy given how clean and sharp everything looked. The video is well matched by its DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

Most of the 2009 Special Features are included:

Disc 1:

“The Last Son of Krypton – Part 1” Video Commentary by Bruce Timm, Dan Riba, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, and Glen Murakami.

“Stolen Memories” Commentary by Timm, Murakami, Burnett, Dini, and Curt Geda.

Disc 2:

“The Main Man – Part II” Commentary by Timm, Murakami, Burnett, Dini, and Riba. (SD, 21:16)

Disc 3:

“Mxyzpixilated” Commentary by Dini , Jason Hillhouse, Timm, and Riba.

Disc 6:

Menaces of Metropolis: Behind the Villains of Superman (13:02)

Building the Mythology: Superman’s Supporting Cast (9:37)

Superman: Learning to Fly (9:41)

A Little Piece of Trivia (21:29)

The Despot Darkseid: A Villain Worthy of Superman (16:57)

And new to the collection is Superman: Timeless Icon (32:45) as a handful of creative forces— producers Timm and Dini, director Riba, writer Bob Goodman, casting/dialogue director Andrea Romano, and vocal talent Tim Daly and Clancy Brown— discuss the Last Son of Krypton’s importance to comics, mass media, and the world at large.

This set is missing some material commentaries for “Tools of the Trade,” “Brave New Metropolis,” “World’s Finest Part 1,” “Apokolips…Now! Part 2,” “New Kids in Town ,” and “Legacy Part 2,” along with the “Apokolips…Now! Part 1” easter egg commentary and “Superman: Behind the Cape” Special Feature.

That said, the entire Blu-ray set is well-wroth having to enjoy or bring delight to a new generation of fan.

REVIEW: Injustice

REVIEW: Injustice

I don’t play video game so I am only peripherally familiar with Injustice, an Imaginary Story featuring the DC Universe. Similarly, I didn’t read the Injustice: Gods Among Us prequel comic book that apparently sold well enough to inspire Warner Animation to invest precious time and resources in adapting it to film. The resulting product, out now from Warner Home Entertainment, is an acquired taste.

Those familiar with the source material will be irked at how much has been trimmed out to fit hundreds of pages into a 75-minute story. Those unfamiliar with the tale will scratch their heads a lot , asking, “How’d that happen?”

Taking a page from Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come, Superman turns dark with rage and grief after the Joker kills Lois Lane. The twist is that this Lois is pregnant, deepening his pain. He becomes a dictator, instilling his warped view of justice around the world, forcing his allies to either side with him or form the resistance.

And we’re off.

I don’t find this sort of story particularly compelling without the requisite time for characterization and the film, written by the hit or miss Ernie Altbacker, favors action. And the action here, directed by Matt Peters, is not staged as well as previous animated offerings so the entire production leaves me cold. I am also not particularly impressed with the character designs which are clunky, hampered by the limited animation. The overall production just doesn’t work.

The most interesting aspect is the vocal cast, led by former Green Arrow Justice Hartley as the Man of Steel. He’s opposed, of course, by Anson Mount’s grim Batman. Derek Phillips does fine triple duty as Nightwing/Deadwing and Aquaman along with Anika Noni Rose’s Catwoman and Faran Tahir’s Ra’s al Ghul.

Given the veteran production talent behind the scenes , they should all have known better that a story with this much scope can’t successfully be truncated.

The film is available in the usual formats including the 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray/Digital HD code combo. While the animation is stilted, the transfer to 2160p is very strong, with sharp colors and even saturation throughout. And the 1080p is just fine. The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio finely captures the explosions, bickering, and pontificating.

The Special Features include Adventures in Storytelling – Injustice: Crisis and Conflict (30:55) as producer Jim Krieg, director Matt Peters, producer Rick Morales, and screenwriter Ernie Altbacker, explain their unfulfilled ambitions for the story. Beyond that, we get the far more interesting two-part “Injustice” story from the 2002 Justice League.

Marvel Shares Andy Park’s How-To-Draw Shang-Chi video

Marvel Shares Andy Park’s How-To-Draw Shang-Chi video

To celebrate the release of Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, now available on all major digital platforms, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD, check out Marvel’s Director of Visual Development Andy Park’s How-To-Draw Shang-Chi video, as well his concept art for Shang-Chi , and Morris concept art from artist John Staub.

We favorably reviewed the movie and noted , “There’s a lot of pain and emotional heft here, more than in some of the other MCU offerings.”

Black Hammer: Age of Doom, Part II by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and Rich Tommaso

OK, you know how in big superhero comics, everything needs to be back at status quo ante eventually? Worlds will live, worlds will die, Ultrafellow will be replaced by a disabled teen Latina, and the entire Evil-Fighting Gang will disband for good…but only until it all goes back to the way it was before.

Readers tend to assume that your modern passel of writers – the ones we respect, the ones who talk about loving punching-comics since they were five, the ones we sometimes think still wear Underoos to big shows – only do this because they are forced to do so by the evil rapacious companies, and that, given their druthers, they would Change Things Permanently, which Would Be Awesome.

So, under this assumption, all of those careful putting-things-back-in-the-box storylines, all of the big Events that undo the previous Event to reset for the next Event – those aren’t the fault of their writers, those are all imposed on them by the evil, evil Suits in…what is it, Burbank, now? Burbank is funny, so let’s say Burbank.

People assume that. They want to believe it. But is it true? Or do those writers just want to put all of their toys back in the box neatly, because they’re still those five-year-olds playing with Star Wars dolls [1] at heart?

Why do I bring this up? Well, you can probably guess. But I’m spoiler-averse enough not to completely fucking spell it out for you right here.

So, he said, brightly, here’s Black Hammer: Age of Doom, Part II , a creator-owned superhero comic that has been lauded by all of the Usual Suspects for the Usual Reasons. The series won the Eisner for Best New Series in 2017. It’s written by Jeff Lemire, who also writes comics about real grownups who don’t punch each other all the time, and drawn mostly by Dean Ormston, with a few issues in this book from the pen of Rich Tommaso. This particular collection gathers the end of the second main series , and – nudge nudge, wink wink – finishes up the main story begun in the first volume . (Here’s what I’ve written about Black Hammer-verse comics so far : I warn you that I have perhaps enjoyed complaining about them more than I did reading them.)

Now, I like Lemire’s non-superhero writing. I think he’s one of the great talents in comics, with a deep understanding of human behavior and a willingness to tell serious, dark stories when that’s the material he’s working with. And flashes of that Lemire do shine through the cardboard walls of the superhero universe he’s constructed here for his dolls to play in. Ormston is a solid artist in that spooky Dark Horse house style, and Tommaso has a quirkier thin-line style (here something like a ’40s comic translated through a modern sensibility) that I quite like as well.

So these guys do good work. They can tell great stories. They just, from the evidence here, would prefer to move their dolls around a few very cliched sets and ape dialogue they loved as children.

This book opens on the cliffhanger from Age of Doom Part I: our heroes are about to go back to the real universe for the first time in a decade, which will allow Darkseid the Anti-God to make the skies red for twelve issues or so and then, presumably, to destroy everything everywhere. (We don’t see him actually do anything like that: maybe the Anti-God just wants to go down to the shops and get a few things? He’s never actually on stage , or doing anything. All we know is what his enemies say about him.) So, to save the world, Lemire deploys first one, then another Standard Modern Comics Plots.

First up, one of the character has to meet his maker, in best Grant Morrison fashion, with the usual panoply of forgotten/never-existed characters for added pathos. Then we get the Everything Is Changed World, where All of The Heroes Have Forgotten They Ever Were Heroes, because That Is the Saddest Possible Thing. Both of those plots get solved, obviously: that’s how Standard Plots go in superhero comics.

And then…well, see my first few paragraphs. I’m not going to tell you exactly what happens, but if you read superhero comics, you know the drill by now.

This is deeply disappointing, and makes all of the Black Hammer comics up to this point completely pointless.

Now I’ve seen modern creators do “my favorite childhood comics , but with actual human motivations,” and that’s plausible. I’ve seen “how I would have handled my favorite story,” which is hermetic but understandable. I’ve seen a lot of “this is the right way for Character X to behave, unlike what all those dum-dums said,” which can be fun.

But this is something else. It’s a like a long car trip through boring, familiar territory with a promise of something new at the end, only to turn a corner and suddenly be back home, only the house is shabbier by our absence. If this is what Lemire planned to do the whole time, I have a hard time understanding why he, or anyone, though it was a worthwhile thing to do.

[1] “Action figure” is a term made up so that American boys could play with dolls and not feel feminine in a way that their culture embarrassed them about. All action figures are dolls. Period.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 12: To All the Squirrels I’ve Loved Before by North, Charm, & Renzi

So I have no idea if the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series ended at #50 for actual economic reasons (slowing sales), for fake economic reasons (Marvel wanted to concentrate only on comics that can have ten different covers), or for real creative reasons (Ryan North ran out of ways to tell the same “Doreen Green faces Big Marvel Villain, and gets BMV to talk about feelings rather than punching”). It may have even been a reason I’m not considering – perhaps the combined forces of global squirrels realized this comic was too close to reality for their liking , and they’ve used their squirrely wiles to suppress it.

But, for whatever reason, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl – at that point the longest-running Marvel comic (hey! that’s another possibility: it annoyed someone in the Marvel hierarchy that such an off-brand, for-female-and-young-people comic was so prominent!) – ended with issue #50, in January of last year.

The very last storyline was collected in this, the last collection: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 12: To All the Squirrels I’ve Loved Before . As with the previous few books, the creative team was writer Ryan North, artist Derek Charm, and color artist Rico Renzi, with a quick guest appearance from original series artist Erica Henderson.

In that book, Squirrel Girl’s greatest foe gathers up all of her nearly-greatest foes and executes a carefully-orchestrated plan to first unmask Doreen Green (she who is Squirrel Girl) and then kill her.

Spoiler: it doesn’t work. Squirrel Girl is not murdered in the last issue of her comic. This may seem to be a silly thing to mention , but in modern-day superhero comics, the opposite is actually somewhat more likely.

Anyway, there’s a big fight – no, really, really big – involving nearly every character who has appeared in all fifty-eight issues of Squirrel Girl, but, in the end, niceness wins, with only a minor case (lampshaded in the actual book) of deus ex machina. This book is mostly fight scene: in that way, it’s more like the rest of the superhero millieu than most of the previous Squirrel Girl stories

And Doreen nearly comes out of the closet near the end, in a way that gives plausible deniability to North but which only the very youngest and most sheltered of the Squirrel Girl audience will miss. And I can wish that was clearer or louder, but maybe this is as good as it could get.

I’ve written far too much about this series – witness my archives – so I think I’ll leave it there. This was a nice comic that went almost entirely against the grain of modern superhero comics, in ways that were all good and positive. It was sometimes a bit too Girl Power! for me , but I am not a girl, and my opinion is not that important.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

REVIEW: The Colony

REVIEW: The Colony

For some reason, too many science fiction films dwell on disasters and not on the sense of wonder of being in space. The majesty and grandeur of the universe doesn’t hold enough promise and therefore release after release seems to focus on the terrible things that will happen to us out there. The latest such release, The Colony, is now out on disc from Lionsgate, which they hope will amuse you until they inflict Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall.

Here , we have Louise Blake (Nora Arnezeder) aboard the Ulysses 2, exploring what is left of Earth after several centuries. The ship, probably like its predecessor, crashes, and she is the sole survivor. We flip back and forth between not-very-interesting flashbacks about Louise’s childhood (played by Chloé Heinrich) , focusing on the relationship with her father Sebastian Roché, and what she sees of a water-logged Earth. Danger arrives in the form of Gibson (Iain Glen), warlord of a band of survivors/scavengers.

It all feels very familiar from production design to plot points. Writer/director Tim Fehlbaum doesn’t seem to have anything interesting to say about man’s future , mankind itself, or much of anything else.

The film is out on Blu-ray and Digital HD and looks like a perfectly fine AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1, equally matched by the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track.

Given the film’s lackluster reception and box office, there’s no surprise at the paucity of Special Features. There’s the aspirational Audio Commentary from Fehlbaum and Visions of the Future: Making The Colony (19:26), a perfunctory behind-the-scenes piece.

You can easily skip this one unless you really enjoy SF stories on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

The Mitchells Vs. The Machine Arrive on Disc Dec. 14

The Mitchells Vs. The Machine Arrive on Disc Dec. 14

From directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller , their follow-up to the smash Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. the Machine, leaps from Netflix to home video in December.

SYNOPSIS
An old school father and his plugged-in, filmmaker daughter struggle to relate as their family embarks on a road trip to her new college. Their drive is interrupted by a machine apocalypse that threatens to tear these unlikely heroes apart unless they can find a way to join forces and save humanity.

BLU-RAY, DVD AND DIGITAL BONUS MATERIALS
• Katie’s Cabinet of Forgotten Wonders: Take a rare look inside Katie Mitchell’s filmmaking process as she gives you an exclusive look into how the movie was made.
o Katie-Vision!
o Dumb Robots Trailer
o The Original “Mitchells” Story Pitch
o The Furby Scene – How? Why?
o PAL’s World
• The Mitchells Vs. The Machines: Or How a Group of Passionate Weirdos Made a Big Animated Movie: Go inside the story of The Mitchells vs the Machines and meet a group of first-time filmmakers & talented cast who banded together to take a collective risk on making a unique, original, and totally off-the-wall film about an everyday, epic, world-saving family!
• How To Make Sock Puppets: Katie Mitchell opens the door to her film school. Learn how to make sock puppets who could be extras in your next short film!
• How To Make Katie Face Cupcakes: Enjoy making cupcakes only a mother could love.

EXCLUSIVE BLU-RAY BONUS MATERIALS
• Dog Cop 7: The Final Chapter: Katie Mitchell is back and creating the most hilarious film of her young career – check out an all-new mini-movie , Dog Cop 7: The Final Chapter. In a world where the holidays are being haunted by the Candy Cane Kidnapper, there is only one Dog with the skills to solve the case.
• Katie’s Extended Cinematic Bonanza Cut! Prepare to witness Katie’s director’s cut, an extended version of the original film with over 40 minutes of deleted scenes.
• 8 Bonus Scenes: Get more Mitchells with over 20 minutes of Deleted & Extended Scenes.
• Filmmakers’ commentary

CAST AND CREW
Directed By: Mike Rianda
Co-Director: Jeff Rowe
Written By: Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe
Producers: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Kurt Albrecht
Executive Producers: Will Allegra, Louis Koo Tin Lok
Cast: Danny McBride, Abbi Jacobson, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric Andre and Olivia Colman

SPECS
Runtime: 109 minutes
U.S. Rating: PG for action and some language
Blu-ray: Feature: 1080p High Definition 1.85:1 | Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD MA
DVD: Feature: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen | Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital