{"id":27356,"date":"2021-11-13T19:36:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T03:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=27356"},"modified":"2021-11-13T21:06:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T05:06:21","slug":"review-vanilla-sky-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2021\/11\/review-vanilla-sky-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanilla Sky: Paramount Presents Blu-ray Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> is probably my favorite movie from Cameron Crowe, or at least one that hit more of an emotional core, although I also loved Almost Famous<\/em>. The performance by Tom Cruise might not be his best but he\u2019s in his element as is Penelope Cruz.<\/p>\n

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Vanilla Sky<\/span>
\n(2001)
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Genre(s): <\/strong>Drama, Romance, Suspense<\/span>
\nParamount| R \u2013 136 min. \u2013 $24.99 | November 16, 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

Date Published:<\/strong> 11\/13\/2021 | Author:<\/strong> The Movieman<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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MOVIE INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Director: <\/strong>Cameron Crowe
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil (film \u201cAbre Los Ojos\u201d); Cameron Crowe (written for the screen)
\nCast: <\/strong>Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell, Jason Lee, Noah Taylor, Timothy Spall, Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon<\/span><\/p>\n
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DISC INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Features: <\/strong>Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, Trailers
\nSlip Cover: <\/strong>Yes
\nDigital Copy: <\/strong>Yes
\nFormats Included: <\/strong>Blu-ray
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>1<\/span><\/p>\n
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Audio: <\/strong>English (DTS-HD MA 5.1), German (Dolby Digital 5.1)
\nVideo: <\/strong>1080p\/Widescreen 1.78
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH, English, German
\nDisc Size: <\/strong>49.41 GB
\nTotal Bitrate: <\/strong>36.38 Mbps
\nCodecs: <\/strong>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A, B, C<\/span><\/p>\n
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Paramount provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
\nThe opinions I share are my own.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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THE MOVIE \u2014 4\u00bd\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Plot Synopsis: Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> is the story of a young New York City publishing magnate (TOM CRUISE) who finds himself on an unexpected roller-coaster ride of romance, comedy, suspicion, love, sex and dreams in a mind-bending search for his soul.<\/p>\n

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Quick Hit Review: <\/strong>When it was released in 2001, Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> was quite the divisive movie with a love it or hate it, not so many called it average. I came down on the former and upon multiple viewings over these 20 years (probably at least five), this is one that has held up and still think it\u2019s great today (as a note, I rated this as my favorite of 2001). While it didn\u2019t have a profound emotional feeling compared with Lost in Translation<\/em> (top 10 favorite), this is still one that had me captured from the first amazing scene, a unique one shot in an empty Times Square, to the finale and a nice twist.<\/p>\n

The film works for many reasons. For one, the direction from Cameron Crowe, alongside cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line<\/em>, The Last Samurai<\/em>, Almost Famous<\/em>), gives the film an almost haunting look, particularly for the second half (won\u2019t spoil why here). The aforementioned Times Square sequence looks great but there are some striking scenes that were wonderfully done, and the tenderer, quieter scenes, were done quite nicely as well (that includes an important one with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, providing the primary crutch for the entire picture).<\/p>\n

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Beyond Crowe\u2019s great direction, the performances all around was wonderful including Tom Cruise (who has worked so well with Crowe as seen in Jerry Maguire<\/em>), Penelope Cruz (star of the Spanish original, Abre Los Ojos<\/em>), Cameron Diaz playing too well as a psycho and Kurt Russell as a psychiatrist. Not to be forgotten, Jason Lee also re-teams with Crowe following Almost Famous<\/em> and Timothy Spall playing a loyal friend and company lawyer.<\/p>\n

Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> is an all around well done psychological-thriller that has held up since its release 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 4\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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This is the second time Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> has been released on Blu-ray (at least in North America), following one in 2015 by Warner Bros. Apparently the rights came back to Paramount (probably part of a deal with Warner) and gets a new release through the Paramount Presents line (#27), which comes with a front fold-out slip cover<\/strong> and inside a redemption code for the Digital HD<\/strong> copy.<\/p>\n

All of the features except for the \u201cAlternate Ending Version\u201d cut of the film, although that is available to view separately. And personally, having watched that version, I\u2019d stick with the Theatrical Cut anyway.<\/p>\n

Filmmaker Focus (8:54)<\/u><\/strong> is a new interview with Cameron Crowe, likely recorded at the same time for the one he did for Almost Famous<\/em>, where he discusses how the film came to be and short anecdotes such as shooting the Times Square scene.<\/p>\n

Audio Commentary<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 Writer\/Director Cameron Crowe and Producer Nancy Wilson<\/p>\n

Alternate Ending (29:45)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 The end result is the same but just adds some extra moments. Worth checking out, but nothing substantial. There is an optional commentary with Crowe.<\/p>\n

Prelude to a Dream (6:13)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 This has some behind-the-scenes and rehearsal footage.<\/p>\n

Hitting it Hard (10:04)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 Footage of the Vanilla Sky<\/em> press tour.<\/p>\n

Interview with Paul McCartney (1:34)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 Short interview of McCartney who wrote the title song.<\/p>\n

Gag Reel (5:27)<\/u><\/strong> filled with line-flubs and general tom-foolery.<\/p>\n

Music Video (3:57)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 \u201cAfrika Shox\u201d by Leftfield\/Afrika Bambaataa<\/p>\n

Photo Gallery<\/u><\/strong> with optional audio intro by photographer Neal Preston<\/p>\n

Mask Test (3:23)<\/u><\/strong> shows some test footage of the white mask in different lighting. Includes optional commentary by Crowe.<\/p>\n

Kurt Russell Single Take (6:08)<\/u><\/strong> is some footage of the actor giving a one take during the finale. Includes optional commentary by Crowe.<\/p>\n

Trailers<\/u><\/strong> include the Unreleased Teaser Trailer (1:41)<\/strong> and the International Trailer (2:49)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Deleted Scenes (34:16)<\/u><\/strong> \u2014 10 scenes that didn\u2019t make the final cut. Includes optional commentary by Crowe.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4\u00bd\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> comes to Blu-ray through Paramount and is presented with a 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and a 1080p high-definition transfer which was taken from a new 4K scan, supervised by Cameron Crowe. Without doing a direct comparison with the 2015 release, I thought this one looked great with sharp detail throughout and colors well balanced, although, and this might\u2019ve been on purpose, looked a tad washed out in the final scene. Even so, I did not notice any obvious signs of aliasing or artifacting and the film itself appeared clean, free of dust marks or scratches.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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AUDIO \u2013 4\u00bc\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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The disc comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Presumably this is the same one from the \u2018old\u2019 release but even so, it\u2019s a perfectly adequate lossless track. Dialogue comes across with good clarity and there is some fine depth with the score, eclectic soundtrack and some of the weirder side-chatter during some key scenes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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OVERALL \u2013 4\u00bd\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Overall, Vanilla Sky<\/em><\/strong> is probably my favorite movie from Cameron Crowe, or at least one that hit more of an emotional core, although I also loved Almost Famous<\/em>. The performance by Tom Cruise might not be his best (that would go to Magnolia<\/em>) but he\u2019s in his element as is Penelope Cruz. This Blu-ray release under the Paramount Presents line offers a fair amount of features (majority ported over from previous releases) and solid video and audio transfers.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Check out some more 1080p 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
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Vanilla Sky is probably my favorite movie from Cameron Crowe, or at least one that hit more of an emotional core, although I also loved Almost Famous. The performance by Tom Cruise might not be his best but he\u2019s in his element as is Penelope Cruz.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,970],"tags":[33,111,243,239,1720,3623,272,1328,1281,110],"class_list":["post-27356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","category-quick-hit-reviews","tag-cameron-crowe","tag-cameron-diaz","tag-jason-lee","tag-kurt-russell","tag-michael-shannon","tag-noah-taylor","tag-penelope-cruz","tag-tilda-swinton","tag-timothy-spall","tag-tom-cruise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27356","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=27356"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27359,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27356\/revisions\/27359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}