It’s time to roll a red carpet right up to your home theater console. On Tuesday, three top Oscar-nominated films — “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Hobbit” and “Les Misérables” — make their Blu-ray and DVD debuts, loaded with all the extras you’d expect of prestige flicks. These follow last week’s release of “Life of Pi” and the March 26 arrival of “Lincoln.”
Even if you’ve already caught them in the theater, each of these five is packed with features that offer stunning insight into the making of the movie, whether it’s your own personal tour of Osama bin Laden’s hideout, Sally Field’s awe-inspiring hoop skirt or a hungry tiger that was real just 10 percent of the time.
Here are some of the highlights from the multidisc Blu-ray sets. And if these five aren’t enough for you, more Oscar bait looms on the horizon, including: “Hyde Park on Hudson” on April 9, “Django Unchained” on April 16 and “The Impossible” on April 23.
“The Hobbit” (2-D edition, $34.99)
Director Peter Jackson has never been shy about sharing his filming techniques with fans. Like “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy before it, nearly every set is documented in the 10 video journals included here.
These shorts reveal that hill trolls created the biggest headache for digital animators, with calls for “custom mo cap [motion capture] shoots” to make the action more realistic. Also, Jackson’s WETA effects crew is so efficient that when new elements are ordered up — “We need some goblin torture machines,” for example — it can turn around a nearly finished effect in less than 36 hours.
Finally, the “Department of Internal Beard Hairs” shows us how all that dwarf chin fuzz got its own specialized animation so that it would react properly to wind, lightning and water.
The 3-D edition is $44.95, but includes all the same features.
“Zero Dark Thirty” ($40.99)
The Pakistani government demolished the Abbottabad hideout where Osama bin Laden spent his last years, but a complete replica has replaced it in Jordan — the set of “Zero Dark Thirty.”
A short feature called “The Compound” describes how the production bought a plot of land and rebuilt the entire structure out of cinder block, cement and plaster, down to the last detail. Even the floor tiles matched, thanks to ABC news footage.
“It [was in] one the richest neighborhoods [in that area],” says production designer Jeremy Hindle, “in a valley, surrounded by beautiful mountains and nice houses with pools. And there happens to be a compound in the middle of it.”
Best of all, Hindle and crew take you through the building, allowing for a creepy, cluttered, somewhat claustrophobic tour of a terrorist mastermind’s lair. Apparently he hated housekeeping as much as he did America.
“Lincoln” (three-disc edition, $45.99)
While Steven Spielberg may have distorted a few historical facts in “Lincoln,” the sets and costumes were meticulously researched. In an extra feature titled
“Recreating the Past,” costume designer Joanna Johnston explains the intricacies of Mary Todd Lincoln’s dresses, worn by Sally Fields.
The ballooning hoop skirts were crafted by hand, modeled on Mary’s actual dresses. Turns out she had a size 30 waist, which Fields filled out by packing on a few extra pounds.
Most interesting is the reason why Mary was so dolled up all the time, while her husband’s garb was understated. It’s because she knew she was, as they said then, “plain,” and did everything in her power to distract people from her face.
A two-disc version is also available for $39. It has two notable extras, but lacks a bonus Blu-ray disc that includes four more featurettes, including “Re-creating the Past.”
“Les Misérables” ($34.98)
Like “Zero Dark Thirty,” the real-life setting for “Les Misérables” is gone. Modern Paris lacks the grit, narrow streets and cobblestones of the 19th century. And just like “ZDT,” director Tom Hooper set out to reinvent pre-1852 Paris.
In “Creating the Perfect Paris,” we see how production designer Eve Stewart used the biggest soundstage in the UK to build complete plazas, with cafes, tinker shops and windows citizens could lean out of to encourage the fight. She even designed the sets to have loose barrels, boards and tear-away doors so that the rioting Parisians would have something to build their famous barricades with.
“Life of Pi” (2-D edition, $39.99)
“Tiger Tiger Burning Bright” is the standout feature here, documenting the 15 digital artists who put 10 million individual hairs on the big-cat character with the human name: Richard Parker.
Perhaps it was just to annoy the visual effects crew, but director Ang Lee decided that the tiger couldn’t be completely digital. He wanted as many scenes as possible shot with a live tiger, forcing the animators to deliver a beast that perfectly matched the real thing.
The 3-D version of “Pi” retails for $10 more and includes five deleted scenes, as well as in-depth looks at the visual effects behind the wave’s film tank and the sinking of the ocean liner Tsimtsum.