We imagine if you’re a reader of this site you’ve probably already seen Terrence Malick‘s spiritual and experimental family drama, “The Tree Of Life,” starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and on-the-rise newcomer Jessica Chastain — who is practically invading theaters this year with appearances in “The Help,” “The Debt,” and later this year, “The Texas Killing Fields” — but in case you haven’t and or just want to own it, the DVD and Blu-Ray combo pack is now scheduled for release on October 11th.
If you’re looking for extras that include Terrence Malick commentary and or any kind of appearance from the notoriously shy and reclusive director, good luck with that. But “Exploring The Tree Of Life,” an exclusive 30-minute documentary on the making of the film included in the extras, should promise to give some insight to curious Malick-ophiles. Those appreciation-of-his-work interviews shown earlier this year with Christopher Nolan and David Fincher will be available as part of that doc as well. Super-nerd details: the Blu-Ray disc employs a maximum bit rate encoding and 7.1 audio and a 2.0 stereo mix.
So here’s how the package breaks down: a BluRay disc which gives you the movie plus features (that 30 minute doc); the DVD, which includes just the movie (in case you want to watch it again in a lower quality or want to loan it to your friends without a Blu-Ray player) and a coupon to download a digital copy of the film in case you’re just dying to see it again on your laptop or iPhone, cause lord knows you need to see it in every format possible. Of course, some more extras would be more exciting than making available every possible format known to man, but hey, that’s just this luddite talking. Will “The Tree Of Life” be an Oscar contender this year in any category? That’s doubtful, it’s just too oblique for a Best Picture nod and the performances, while solid, are probably not showy enough for Oscar, plus there’s an entire season of films that’s likely going to overshadow it. Anywho, artwork below. If you want a teaser of that 30 minute doc, EW has a clip with Jessica Chastain, a very in-demand actress who seems destined for Oscar nominations in the future even if she may not score any this year.