Blu-ray from down under!

Today’s Blu-ray will probably be a movie that you’ve never heard of before, but it was my favorite film from 2009. If you don’t remember 2009, it was the year that Slumdog Millionare won best picture; Heath Ledger won the award for best actor for The Dark Knight, and Wall-E won best animated film. So when I say that this movie is my favorite film from that year, it means a lot. The movie is called Mary and Max and it is the first foreign Blu-ray of my collection! Err well it was made in Australia and written and directed by Adam Elliot so it’s not that exotic, but it's foreign to me lol! It’s a clay-animated movie about the relationship between two pen pals and how they become friends. There is an eight year old girl named Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Toni Collette) from Melbourne,Australia who is teased by kids at school, has an alcoholic mother, and is too poor to afford toys so she has to make her own. She decides to make a friend by picking someone randomly out of the phone book and writing a letter to them. She ends up picking the other main character of the film Max Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman), who lives in a crappy apartment in New York City and suffers from Asperger syndrome. 

The film follows their lives and their friendship and it is one of the most endearing movies I have ever seen. I laughed, cried and got angry all because you become so involved with the characters. If there is one favor that you do for me ever, it is that you watch this movie.

Now on to the important stuff, the Blu-ray part. Simply put this movie looks perfect in high definition. You can see every ounce of detail in the hand crafted sets and the monochrome colors look amazing with perfect highlight and dark levels. 

 The special features are pretty standard. There is an audio commentary with writer/director Adam Elliot, there is a behind-the-scenes documentary, alternate scenes, and a short film made by Harvie Krumpet. The most interesting feature is a “making of” video which is a mockumentary that has the characters talking in a The Office style interview about the production process. It’s pretty funny actually.

This is the most expensive Blu-ray I have bought so far at $17.99 on Amazon and it still is the same price now.  I recommend that you rent it, torrent it, or stream it as long as you see it! This movie is on my top 10 list of favorite movies and it was a must have for my collection. If you made it this far, then thanks for reading!