Two big animated releases arrive on home video todayone an Academy Award-nominated true story of life during Iran’s Islamic revolution and the other a silly comedy about an intergalactic delivery crew that encounters an amorous space monster. Toon fans can now rush to their local retailers to pick up Persepolis from filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, and Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs from creators/exec producers Matt Groening and David X. Cohen.
Persepolis is based on Satrapi’s internationally bestselling and award-winning graphic novel autobiography, which chronicles her coming of age in Iran during the Islamic revolution of the 1970s and ’80s. The film won the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. In addition to winning the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review, the pic was named Best Animated Feature by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Online Film Critics.
The DVD includes the original French-language version with English subtitles, as well as a dubbed English version featuring the voices of Sean Penn, Catherine Deneuve, Gena Rowlands and Iggy Pop. Bonus materials include a making-of featurette titled The Hidden Side of Persepolis; a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of the English-language version; audio commentary by Satrapi, Paronnaud and actress Chiara Mastoianni on select scenes; animated scene comparisons with commentary by Satrapi; and video of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival press conference Q&A with the cast and crew. The Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release carries a suggested retail price of $38.96 for Blu- ray and $29.95 for DVD.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment’s Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs is the second of four new feature-length adventures based on the cancelled FOX series. This latest adventure finds Bender, Fry, Leela and the rest of the crew caught up in a disturbing, yet sensuous, interplanetary love story when they run afoul of a repulsive, planet-sized creature with billions of probing tentacles. Guest stars lending their voices to the film include David Cross (Alvin & The Chipmunks, Arrested Development), Brittany Murphy (King of the Hill, Sin City), Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons) and world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking.
Extra features include commentary from Groening and Cohen, cast members Billy West, John DiMaggio and Maurice LaMarche, director Peter Avanzino and producers Claudia Katz, Lee Supercinski, and Michael Rowe. There’s also an entire 30-minute “lost’ Futurama adventure produced for the Futurama video game, featurettes titled Meet Yivo! (behind the scenes with David Cross) and A Brief History of Deathball, a sneak peek at the next Futurama epic dubbed Bender’s Game, storyboard animatics, deleted scenes, bloopers and more. The disc lists for $29.98.
Environmentally conscious fans who purchase Beast with a Billion Backs will be happy to know that the title is the studio’s second carbon-neutral DVD release, the first being Futurama: Bender’s Big Score. Futurama, Twentieth Century Fox Television and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment have all made a commitment to reducing their impact on climate change. For more information on how the carbon emissions were reduced during production, go to www.newscorp.com/energy.
