{"id":14214,"date":"2017-02-15T09:56:56","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T17:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=14214"},"modified":"2017-02-15T09:57:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T17:57:57","slug":"review-americanpastoral-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2017\/02\/review-americanpastoral-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: American Pastoral BD + Screen Caps"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>American Pastoral<\/em><\/strong> receives, let\u2019s say, mediocre reviews but for my money, I found all of the performances genuine and the story rather compelling, if not outright depressing and sad; for his first outing as director, Ewan McGregor did a fine job.<\/p>\n

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American Pastoral<\/span>
\n(2016)<\/span>
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Genre(s): <\/strong>Drama
\nLionsgate | R \u2013 108 min. \u2013 $24.99 | February 7, 2017<\/p>\n

Date Published:<\/strong> 02\/15\/2017 | Author:<\/strong> The Movieman<\/span><\/p>\n

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MOVIE INFO:
\n<\/u>Directed by: <\/strong>Ewan McGregor
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Philip Roth (novel); John Romano (screenplay)
\nCast: <\/strong>Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Peter Riegert, Rupert Evans, Uzo Aduba, Molly Parker, Samantha Mathis, David Strathairn<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DISC INFO:
\n<\/u>Features: <\/strong>Audio Commentary, Featurettes
\nDigital Copy: <\/strong>Yes
\nFormats Included: <\/strong>Blu-ray, DVD
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Audio: <\/strong>English (DTS-HD MA 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
\nVideo: <\/strong>1080p\/Widescreen 2.40
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH, Spanish
\nDisc Size: <\/strong>46.0 GB
\nCodec: <\/strong>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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THE MOVIE \u2014 3.75\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Plot Synopsis: <\/strong>Seymour \u201cSwede\u201d Levov (EWAN MCGREGOR), a once-legendary high school athlete, is a successful businessman married to an ex-beauty queen, Dawn (JENNIFER CONNELLY). When Swede and Dawn\u2019s daughter (DAKOTA JOHNSON) disappears after being accused of planting a bomb \u2013 at the height of 1960s protests \u2013 at a local post office that resulted in a death, Swede\u2019s perfect life is broken forever and he is left to make sense out of the chaos.<\/p>\n

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Quick Hit Review: American Pastoral<\/em><\/strong> is an adaptation of Philip Roth\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and, from what I\u2019ve read, might not have stuck close to the book, but having never read it, I\u2019m looking at this strictly as a movie and while hardly perfect, with some slow pacing in spots, I found it to be an emotionally engaging drama featuring a pair of quality performances by Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connelly, as well as Fanning in her limited role. In addition, David Strathairn makes appearance at the beginning and end adding his weight to a thin character who serves to tell the story; Molly Parker for her part has a couple fine scenes, playing a psychiatrist, including an intense one with McGregor.<\/p>\n

This is less about the protests of the era but instead the undying love of a father toward a daughter who, following the bomb, is intent on spending the rest of her life in penance for her action. Under the direction of Ewan McGregor marking his debut, he\u2019s efficient in the director\u2019s chair telling a basic story that contrasts the idyllic era that was the 50s with the turbulence, both physically and metaphorically, of the 1960s on the outside and within his family as a once cheerful daughter turned hateful toward not only the world, but her parents, with special emphasis on her mother.<\/p>\n

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No, American Pastoral<\/em><\/strong> isn\u2019t perfect and I can\u2019t attest to how closely it follows the best-selling novel, but for my money, the emotions came across as genuine and the performances all around were well done.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 2.5\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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This release comes with a matted slip cover<\/strong>. Inside is a DVD Copy<\/u><\/strong> and a redemption code for the Digital HD<\/u><\/strong> copy. The features are relatively light but there is an Audio Commentary<\/u><\/strong> with Actor\/Director Ewan McGregor, where he shows plenty of charisma while providing anecdotal stories, and two featurettes: American Pastoral<\/u><\/em>: Adapting an American Classic (28:02; HD)<\/u><\/strong> and Making the American Dream (17:38; HD)<\/u><\/strong> both including interviews members of the cast and crew discussing the source material and respective characters.<\/p>\n

Previews<\/strong> \u2013 Deepwater Horizon<\/a><\/em>, Our Kind of Traitor<\/em><\/a>, Hacksaw Ridge<\/em>, Indignation<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4.0\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Lionsgate releases American Pastoral<\/em> <\/strong>onto Blu-ray presented with an AVC-encoded 1080p high-definition transfer and in its original 2.40 widescreen aspect ratio. The tone, both in plot and look, is fairly dark but still there were pops in color while detail was comparatively sharp throughout. There were no apparent bouts of artifacts, aliasing or banding so it is a clean looking transfer.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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AUDIO \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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The disc comes with a standard but effective DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. For a movie that is mostly dialogue driven, with the exception of one explosion and a few minutes of protest scenes, which makes the most usage of the front channel while the rear speakers are relegated for ambient noises and Alexandre Desplat\u2019s emotional score (The Danish Girl<\/em>).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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OVERALL \u2013 3.25\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Overall, American Pastoral<\/em><\/strong> receives, let\u2019s say, mediocre reviews but for my money, I found all of the performances genuine and the story rather compelling, if not outright depressing and sad; for his first outing as director, Ewan McGregor did a fine job. This Blu-ray released by Lionsgate has good video, so-so audio and an okay selection of bonus material.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Check out some more screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers<\/strong>.
\nThese are only here to give an idea of the movie\u2019s video quality and may not be truly representative of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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American Pastoral receives, let\u2019s say, mediocre reviews but for my money, I found all of the performances genuine and the story rather compelling, if not outright depressing and sad; for his first outing as director, Ewan McGregor did a fine job.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5069,77,855,9,3044,5072,4473,1706],"class_list":["post-14214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","tag-american-pastoral","tag-dakota-fanning","tag-david-strathairn","tag-ewan-mcgregor","tag-jennifer-connelly","tag-molly-parker","tag-rupert-evans","tag-samantha-mathis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14216,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14214\/revisions\/14216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}