Chicago Blackhawks come back to Blu-ray
When the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2013, the documentary “17 Seconds” gave a personal, behind-the-scenes look at the team to a few theaters and, subsequently, on Blu-ray and DVD. But inexplicably, the official Stanley Cup film — the NHL's authorized, game-by-game chronicle of the Hawks' playoff run — was only available as a poorly publicized digital download, leaving fans and collectors without an expected keepsake.
That error has been corrected.
“Chicago Blackhawks: 2015 Stanley Cup Champions” arrives Tuesday, July 28, on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as digital formats. An NHL news release promises fans will see “extensive highlights” from the regular season and the playoffs, and Blu-ray buyers will get a host of special features that include ... the 2013 Stanley Cup film! Cue up “Chelsea Dagger” and celebrate, Hawks fans. (NBA fans can celebrate, too — the Golden State Warriors' championship film hits stores the same day.)
Who's that bad guy?
You may have found yourself asking that question if you contributed to the more than $58 million that Marvel's “Ant-Man” grossed last weekend. The answer is Corey Stoll, a veteran of screen and stage getting his brightest spotlight to date in the role of Darren Cross, aka Yellowjacket, in the latest installment of the Avengers' cinematic behemoth.
Horror fans know the chrome-domed Stoll best as the brown-haired Dr. Eph Goodweather, the lead of FX's “The Strain.” The chiller about a vampire virus in New York is coproduced by “Pan's Labyrinth” director Guillermo Del Toro and “Lost” alum Carlton Cuse, and its second season began July 12. You can catch up on Season 1 via Hulu.
You may have also seen Stoll in Netflix's “House of Cards,” NBC's “Law & Order: LA” and Liam Neeson's surprisingly solid airplane thriller, “Non-Stop,” but nothing tops his work in Woody Allen's 2011 best-picture nominee, “Midnight in Paris.”
That's Stoll with a wig, a mustache and a look of drunken determination as Ernest Hemingway, doling out his wisdom to a modern-day writer (Owen Wilson), who finds himself hobnobbing with literary luminaries in the 1920s. Stoll appears in the film for perhaps five minutes and steals it with a performance that wrings comedy out of the legendary writer's direct, confident language. His summation of Wilson's work: “Yes. It was a good book because it was an honest book, and that's what war does to men. And there's nothing fine and noble about dying in the mud unless you die gracefully. And then it's not only noble but brave.”
“Midnight in Paris” is available on Blu-ray and DVD, and digitally from Amazon, vudu and Google Play.
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald copy editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.