Dead Poets Society on Blu-ray DVD – Give Away

Tweet var fbShare = {size: ‘small’,}

It seems to me that movies come to DVD sooner and sooner these days. Back in the day I remember when it took a whole lot longer for theater releases to be on VHS.  So when I was in high school (way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s) it was a happy day for me and my friends when Dead Poets Society came out on VHS.  We watched that movie over and over and over again.

More than 20 years later, I introduced Dead Poets Society to my daughter who is almost the same age I was when I first saw it.  Surprisingly enough I also introduced it to my husband who had never seen it before. But this time we watched it in High Definition Blu-ray rather than on a stretched rewound VHS tape.

Dead Poets Society is a coming of age movie set in the late 1950s, about a group of young men at an elite private boarding school.  Robin Williams outstanding performance as John Keating, the boys English teacher, sets the stage for a movie that focuses on marching to the beat of a different drum.

Keating, an alumni of the school, takes a different approach to teaching the boys.  While teaching them poetry, he shares with them the Latin phrase “carpe diem” …Seize the Day, and in their daily lessons tries to stress that.  One of the students discovers Keating was part of the Dead Poets Society when he attended the school.  The boys make their own ‘Dead Poets Society’ where they read and write poetry among other things in a secret cave off campus.

Rounding out the cast is Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles.  I won’t pretend that those three young men weren’t part of why I incessantly watched Dead Poets Society more times than I can count when I was a teen.

While these young men are now, as my daughter would say…old  (Her: I recognize that Knox guy, isn’t he that old lawyer on that show you watch.  Me: You mean Will on the Good Wife?  Her: Yeah, the old guy…Me: Sigh…) – this movie is ageless.  It’s about young people trying to find out who they are in the world in light of their parents, their peers, their teachers and themselves.

Between doing what makes us happy, parental expectations and first romance – the issues were relevant when the film was made and still are today, and because the story takes place in the 1950s nothing has been lost in the 20+ years from when it was first released. This was evident by the tears that were rolling down my face…again.

From a technical side the picture and sound of the Blu-ray disc are excellent.  Seeing as it’s a movie more based on story than on flashy effects or panoramic vistas there isn’t an oohing or aahing about it, the high definition of the picture though does make the characters feel as if they are more than just actors on a screen.

Disc bonus features include interview footage with some of the actors and Director Peter Weir, ‘Raw Takes’, Audio Commentary with Peter Weir, Cinematographer John Seale and Write Tom Schulman, the theatrical trailer and more.

Dead Poets Society on Blu-ray is available at retailers nationwide for a msrp of $20.00.  Whether  like me you’ve seen the movie multiple times, or like the rest of my family you’ll be watching it for the first time, it’s a movie filled with good acting and a good story that transcends the decades and worth watching at least once.