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Blu-ray + DVD
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 2014 | 107 min | Rated PG-13 | Nov 18, 2014
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Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (30.22 Mbps) Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1 Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps) Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps) French: DTS 5.1 Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps) Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps) French: DTS 5.1 Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1 (less)
Subtitles
English SDH, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek… (more)
English SDH, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish (less)
Discs
Blu-ray Disc Two-disc set (1 BD-50, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Digital
Digital copy expired iTunes
Packaging
Slipcover in original pressing
Playback
Region A, B (C untested)
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Price
List price: $9.67 
Amazon: $9.69
New from: $2.97 (Save 69%)
In stock now
Movie rating
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6.3
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104 ratings.
Blu-ray review
| Movie |
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3.0 |
| Video |
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4.5 |
| Audio |
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4.5 |
| Extras |
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3.5 |
| Overall |
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5
0.5
4.0
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72% popularity
912 collections
21 fans
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If I Stay (2014)
If I Stay Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Teenage musician Mia and her family are involved in a catastrophic car accident. She then has an out-of-body experience, watching as she is treated at the hospital. Reflecting on her life, friendships, and loves, she faces a profound choice: fight for life at any price or simply slip away and move on. For more about If I Stay and the If I Stay Blu-ray release, see If I Stay Blu-ray Review published by Michael Reuben on November 16, 2014 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.0 out of 5. Director: R.J. Cutler
Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Liana Liberato, Lauren Lee Smith, Stacy Keach
Producer: Denise Di Novi
» See full cast & crew
If I Stay Blu-ray Review
. . . I'll Be Special
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, November 16, 2014
Gayle Forman's successful 2009 novel If I Stay is part of the distinctive subgenre of young adult
fiction in which the main character is dying. The continued popularity of such tales speaks to a
common experience, probably rooted in early intimations of adult life's uncertainties, coupled
with the operatic emotions that make adolescents and even some twenty-somethings experience
everything as a matter of life or death. Certainly that was the sensibility guiding the film
adaptation of If I Stay, which was produced by MGM and released by Warner Brothers in August
2014. Adapted by Shauna Cross ( Whip It) and directed by R.J.
Cutler, a documentary filmmaker
making his feature debut, the film flew under the radar due to its modest budget but became a
minor hit thanks to smart casting choices and the novel's loyal following. MGM has now
released the film on Blu-ray, distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.
The story is narrated by Mia Hall (Chloë Grace Moretz), the shy elder daughter of Denny (Joshua
Leonard), a former punk rock drummer turned English teacher, and Kat, a former groupie turned
housewife, mother and travel agent in their home town of Portland, Oregon. Mia loves her
younger brother, Teddy (Jacob Davies) and is devoted to her best friend Kim (Liana Liberato),
but Mia's true passion in life is the cello, which she practices for hours. She recently auditioned
for entry to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York and is nervously awaiting the school's
response.
There is much more to Mia's story, but we learn it in flashbacks and from her anguished "spirit"
wandering the halls of a Portland hospital after she and her family are involved in a horrific auto
accident less than a quarter hour into the film. As she watches her own body in a coma and
observes her devastated grandparents (Stacy Keach and Gabrielle Rose) and aunt (Lauren Lee
Smith) waiting for news, Mia recalls all of the important moments that led up to now. Many of
them involve her family and friends, of course, but another person figures prominently. His name
is Adam.
For many viewers, especially the female audience, Mia's romance with Adam (Jamie Blakely) is
the core of the film. The guitarist and lead singer of a local band named Williamette Stone that is
just beginning to taste success, Adam notices Mia locked away in a practice room and becomes
intrigued by her musical devotion, even though it's an entirely different kind of music. (Her
favorite composer is Beethoven.) The relationship that develops is halting, gentle and sweetly
played by Moretz and Blakely, as Mia and Adam navigate their many differences, including his
trust issues, which result from his having grown up without a supportive family, and hers, which
result from events like a female fan thrusting her breasts forward asking Adam to autograph
them. After much progress, though, the couple reaches an impasse over Juilliard. When Adam
learns that Mia has applied to a school on the other side of the country, he feels betrayed, and the
couple splits. That is the state of affairs when Adam learns of the car wreck and comes racing to
the hospital, desperate for a sign of life from the comatose Mia. Her spirit, who cannot be heard,
can only watch in sorrow. Like so many love stories, theirs must be told in the past tense.
When Mia first arrives at the hospital, a nurse from the ER (Aisha Hinds)—who probably
performs this ritual with all her patients—whispers into her ear that the decision to live is hers, if
she is willing to fight. Later, Mia's grandfather sits by her bedside, tearfully explaining to an
unconscious Mia (whose spirit is standing beside him) how hard it will be for her to move
forward, should she awaken, because everything in her life has changed so radically. "True love
is a bitch", Mia's mother told her. Wandering the hospital's corridors, Mia has reached the same
conclusion about life. And now she has a decision to make.
If I Stay Blu-ray, Video Quality
According to IMDb, If I Stay was shot digitally on an Arri Alexa XT at 2.8K resolution and
finished on a 2K digital intermediate. The cinematographer was the distinguished British DP
John de Borman ( The Full Monty and An Education). In his commentary, director Cutler notes
that he wanted to maintain as much of a sense of documentary realism as possible. To that end,
he avoided "other worldly" visual effects, allowing Mia's spiritual essence to
look, sound and behave just like other people in the hospital.
The image on Fox/MGM's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is a solidly workmanlike presentation
of how If I Stay would look when projected from a 2K DCP ("digital cinema package"), which
would have been the most common form of distribution. The image is sharp and detailed, the
blacks are solid and the color palette has been precisely calibrated to achieve specific moods:
chill and clinical in the hospital environs, warm and nostalgic in happy remembrances (even
when it's snowy and cold outside), gradually desaturating as death approaches. The image often
has an almost film-like texture, which is one of the Alexa's hallmarks.
Fox has encoded the disc at a high average bitrate of 30.22 Mbps, ensuring that some of the
trickier scenes involving clubs with big audiences, school hallways and, of course, the terrible
accident aftermath are reproduced in all their detail with no artifacts.
If I Stay Blu-ray, Audio Quality
The chief beneficiary of If I Stay's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is the carefully selected
musical accompaniment that is the subject of an entire separate commentary by the director.
When the characters' lives revolve so intensely around music, the music that expresses their
emotions should play with great presence and clarity, and the sound mix provides both. (The
selections are listed below under "Music Commentary".) Dialogue is clear, with the voiceover
narration and character exchanges properly prioritized. Key sound effects get their due, but are
relegated subtly to the background, especially in the hospital, with its ever-present beeping of
monitors. The nicely calibrated score by Heitor Pereira ( Despicable
Me) fills in the gaps
unobtrusively.
If I Stay Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
As well-crafted and sincere a film as If I Stay may be, from a perspective much older than that of
the target audience, one can't help but notice how much the deck has been stacked in Mia's
favor. Yes, she suffers terrible loss, but one must also consider what she has to begin with. She is
a musical prodigy, graced with a talent beyond anything that most people, even other musicians,
will ever experience. Simply by being herself, she has managed to attract perhaps the most
desirable young man in Portland, and although their paths may diverge in the future, the man is
here now, hovering at her bedside. She was raised by parents who supported her, believed in her
and sacrificed for her; whatever happens in the future, she will always have that bedrock of inner
confidence. Few people in a coma after a catastrophic event would have so much calling them
back to the land of the living.
But Mia isn't a typical person. She's a star, a celebrity-in-the-making, a winner of the brass ring.
It's not enough, at least in America, that popular culture invites young people to consider
momentous questions of life and death. It must also ask them to imagine themselves in the role of
someone "special", "extraodinary" or "chosen"—a Luke Skywalker, a Buffy or a Neo. Choose
life as an ordinary person? What a dull idea for a movie! (It wouldn't have to be, but never
mind.) Recommended as a Blu-ray. Decide for yourself whether it's your kind of story.
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If I Stay Blu-ray, News and Updates
• If I Stay Blu-ray (Updated) - October 7, 2014
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is bringing director R.J. Cutler's If I Stay to Blu-ray. The romantic drama stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Liana Liberato, Lauren Lee Smith and Stacy Keach, and arrives on Blu-ray on November 1 ...
If I Stay Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
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