You Can Count On Manchester By the Sea

Here at DVDExotica, we appreciate all kinds of movies, even those you don't have to hide from your parents and children.  Sure, usually I'm a wild-haired film snob waving his finger at the television screen shouting, "you're giving 'Best Picture' to that pandering piece of dumbed-down Hollywood pap?"  But sometimes I do stumble onto a film simply because it's been nominated and come out saying to myself, wow, that really was an excellent movie.  And here are two such examples, 2000's You Can Count On Me and this year's Manchester By the Sea, both by writer/ director Kenneth Lonergan.  In fact, I think I may've spotted a subtle similarity in their stories.

Update 5/13/17 - 8/6/25: Finally, we have You Can Count On Me in 4k, thanks to Criterion's new BD/ UHD combo-pack (also available as a single BD release).

You Can Count On Me stars Mark Ruffalo as a thirty-something, orphaned drifter, getting into bar fights and doing odd jobs to barely scrape by with no anchor or goal in life.  Following a death in the family, he returns home to the small town he grew up in, where he's widely known as an infamous trouble-maker.  At first he maintains a civil distance, but as they're staying together, he's pressured into reconnecting with his nephew who grew up with only one parent.  He winds up taking his nephew to see the father he'd never known, and it goes disastrously.  Still, it turns out to be a necessary growing experience for the boy, they ultimately wind up bonding and we see the strength of the drifter's character hidden by all the flaws he wears on his sleeve.  Though he ultimately [SPOILER technically, but not really, because it's clear this is the direction the story was always headed in.  Like, don't worry; this won't ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it] leaves the town and his nephew behind to return to the seemingly empty life he left behind despite being pleaded with to stay and live in their hometown, we know they'll see each other again, because they've grown together into a genuine, loving family.  The supporting cast includes Matthew Broderick in a terrific, stuffy but scene-stealing comic role and Lonergan himself in an amusing and well-played bit part.

Manchester By the Sea stars Casey Affleck as a thirty-something, orphaned drifter, getting into bar fights and doing odd jobs to barely scrape by with no anchor or goal in life.  Following a death in the family, he returns home to the small town he grew up in, where he's widely known as an infamous trouble-maker.  At first he maintains a civil distance, but as they're staying together, he's pressured into reconnecting with his nephew who grew up with only one parent.  He winds up taking his nephew to see the mother he'd never known, and it goes disastrously.  Still, it turns out to be a necessary growing experience for the boy, they ultimately wind up bonding and we see the strength of the drifter's character hidden by all the flaws he wears on his sleeve.  Though he ultimately [SPOILER technically, but not really, because it's clear this is the direction the story was always headed in.  Like, don't worry; this won't ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it] leaves the town and his nephew behind to return to the seemingly empty life he left behind despite being pleaded with to stay and live in their hometown, we know they'll see each other again, because they've grown together into a genuine, loving family.  The supporting cast includes Matthew Broderick in a terrific, stuffy but scene-stealing comic role and Lonergan himself in an amusing and well-played bit part.

Look, I'm not criticizing either film by playing up their similarities.  And obviously they're not strictly identical.  You Can Count On Me also co-stars Laura Linney as the nephew's mother, whose subplot is almost as important as Ruffalo's.  And the nephew character is now an older teen with more adult concerns, excellently played by Lucas Hedges, in Manchester By the Sea.  Manchester also delves deep into the drifter's backstory, which is only touched on in exposition in You Can Count On Me, unveiling a deeper tragedy.  They have unique scenes of humor and drama.  I actually think it's a compelling return to the first film's themes by Lonergan, and the two films actually play even stronger together than as separate, unconnected works.  Both deserved their Academy Award nods more than most of their peers, and I highly recommend the pair, especially if you've seen and enjoyed one, but not yet caught the other.

It seemed crazy that You Can Count On Me had not been released on blu-ray, not even to coincide with the recent release of Manchester By the Sea.  All we had was the 2001 DVD from Paramount, which was at least widescreen and has some decent special features.  The exact same thing could be said for Lions Gate's 2017 Manchester By the Sea release, except they did also release a blu-ray version.  In fact, it's a combo-pack, so we can compare the DVD and blu.  And now, finally in 2025, we have You Can Count On Me on blu, and UHD even, thank to Criterion wisely picking up and restoring the film in 4k from the original 35mm interpositive.  So let's look at that first.

2001 Paramount DVD top; 2025 Criterion BD mid; 2025 Criterion UHD bottom.

Paramount's You Can Count On Me DVD isn't bad for being so old, at least it's anamorphic and uninterlaced.  It's framed at 1.77:1, with a slight pillarbox bar on the right-hand side, that was probably hidden in its day by the TV overscan area.  It looks soft and murky by today's standards and sure was ready for Criterion's boost to HD.  The reflection on that lake looks pretty jittery in motion.  So Criterion fixes the AR to 1.85:1, revealing more picture along the sides, an d even a smidgen vertically.  It also color corrects that feint red hue that seemed to gently plague so many DVDs of that era.  Film grain is barely visible even on the UHD.  Honestly, it looks DNR'd; I had to double-check that this wasn't shot digitally.  But there's no question the image is crisper and clearer on the new Criterion discs compared to the old DVD, and we can now make out plenty of detail (like Rory Culkin's eyes in the shot above) we couldn't before.  So despite my reservations, it's a major upgrade.

The DVD includes the option of a 5.1 mix or a 2.0 stereo track, both in Dolby.  Criterion does away with the stereo option (which is just fine; your player will naturally handle that mix-down anyway) and bumps up the 5.1 to DTS-HD.  Both discs include optional English subtitles.

2017 Lions Gate DVD top; 2017 Lions Gate BD bottom.

blu-ray left; DVD right.

In comparison, Manchester By the Sea looks so much clearer and more vibrant.  Seeing the shots on the same page like this really illustrates how much You Can Count On Me could use a new release.  But, anyway, taken on its own terms, Manchester's blu is a pretty sharp; even its DVD counterpart looks almost as good.  But of course, when you get in close, you see all the texture that's lost in SD (was fake film grain added to this movie?).  Lions Gate letterboxes it to 1.85:1, and gives us a 5.1 mix (in DTS-HD on the blu), with an additional Spanish dub and optional English and Spanish subtitles.

You Can Count On Me's DVD isn't exactly a packed special edition, but it has a small, somewhat satisfying selection of extras.  The main asset is an audio commentary by Lonergan, who's a good guide through his work.  There's also a brief featurette, which talks to Lonergan and the cast.  It's short, but not overloaded with clips from the film, making it a bit more filling than many of its ilk.  There's also the film's trailer, some bonus trailers and an insert.

Criterion keeps the commentary and conducts some really good, brand new interviews with Lonergan and stars Ruffalo, Linney and Broderick.  It's pretty impressive they were able to get Ruffalo now that he's a Marvel Avenger.  They also have the trailer, and a 32-page, full color booklet with an essay by Rebecca Gilman and a reproduction and Lonergan's original one-act play.  One disappointing, small step backwards, though: Criterion dropped the featurette.

For Manchester, Lonergan's back with another audio commentary, which is about as good as the first, though frustratingly he never once mentions You Can Count On Me; suggesting this story was completely invented on its own by Matt Damon and himself, with no connection to any previous work.  Okay.  There's a similar featurette, as well, which gets some nice quotes from the cast and takes a look at the filming location, again without getting bogged down in promotional clips.  This time we also get three deleted scenes, and again some bonus trailers. There's no insert (except for one of those digital download code sheets), but it does come in a slipcover.  In fact, if you're a collector, you should know there are actually two alternate slipcovers out there.  The one I have pictured above, and a newer repressing that swaps out the Golden Globes banner with one touting its Academy Awards instead.

So yeah, I heartily recommend both films; the Academy got it right in these cases.  And hey, here's how I ended this in 2017: "[m]aybe if we hold a candle light vigil or something, we can get a nice 4k scan of You Can Count On Me from Criterion or somebody?"  Never doubt the power of candlelight!

Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, Worth Yet Another Revisit?

So, I've now covered all three of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films, but I'd sort of feel like I was leaving things incomplete if I didn't follow those up with Drag Me To Hell (what'd you think I was gonna say Diablo Cody's Evil Dead remake?). Especially since there's a compelling reason to post about Drag here anyway. Besides it being almost, if not just, as good as the films in the Evil Dead trilogy but without the reverential status, so I feel like it's a bit neglected and deserving of another look... Did you know there's a UK import blu-ray with more, better extras?

Update 6/2/18: Shout Factory's new Collector's Edition is out, but how much of an upgrade is it?  And is there another replacement disc issue going on with it (spoilers: yes).  Let's dig in and find out!

Update 11/10/24: And now it's back in 4k on UHD, again from Scream Factory.  Drag's a real favorite of mine, so they didn't have any trouble talking me into quintuple-dipping for this one.  Let's see how it looks.

Drag Me To Hell is Sam Raimi's return to horror, as well as a return to smaller films he has more creative control of, after having worked on a bunch of more traditional Hollywood films, particularly the Spider-Man trilogy. Fans had been calling for him to return to his roots for ages, and by all accounts Raimi was having the same feelings. And while he didn't quite come up with the Evil Dead 4 fans kept asking for, he gave us something very much in the same spirit. In fact, some will argue that it could be considered a direct sequel, operating in the same world and mythos (and one demonically possessed character, about midway through the film, is straight-up doing the entire Evil Dead schtick), just not in name and not focusing on Bruce Campbell's character this time around. There's something a little more traditional in Drag's concept though, centering things around a literal old gypsy's curse; but once it gets going it gets as crazy and enthusiastically insane as the ED films, and that's the heart of what we were all asking for anyway, isn't it?

Now, Drag Me To Hell's another one that came out in that period when blu-rays were a thing, but I was still buying DVDs. So I've got the original, wide release Universal DVD, which came in a nice slipcover, and provided both the theatrical PG-13 cut of the film, and the unrated director's cut. Because it was such a major, broadly released title, and then perhaps undervalued by fans afterwards, it's one of those discs that can be picked up very cheap pretty much anyplace. So I figured it was a nice opportunity for an inexpensive upgrade to blu. And when I was looking into it, I discovered that the Lions Gate version released concurrently in the UK back in 2009 had more extras. And the US Drag was a good little release, but it had always been light on special features. And best of all, the UK discs had plummeted in price just like the US ones, so - score!

But then in 2018, a new contender entered the scene, looking to usurp both previous editions.  Scream Factory has put out a 2-disc Collector's Edition, with new HD masters of the theatrical and unrated cuts taken from the 2k digital intermediates, plus all new extras.  Unfortunately, when it first hit streets, there was a little problem with one of the discs.  The "unrated" cut still had shots from the R-rated theatrical cut in them rather than the alternate unrated shots.  Thankfully, though, Shout has implemented a replacement program.  And copies available in stores like Best Buy already include the corrected disc.  So just look for the little "V2" at the end of the code on disc 2, like in the shot above.  If you have that, you're good to go.  And yes, it's only disc 2 that ever had a problem and should have a "V2" on it.

Or you can just forget all that and cop the new 2024 edition, also from Scream Factory!  This one's a 3-discer, with both cuts restored in 4k from the original digital intermediary film negative... which is to say the film was shot, digitized from the original negative and finished (CGI effects, color timing, etc), then transferred back to a new negative for prints and discs to be struck from.  The new scans of both cuts are on UHD and new 1080p BDs.  Oh, and there's a whole new feature length documentary.

1) 2009 Universal DVD; 2) 2009 Universal US BD; 3) 2009 Universal UK BD;
4) 2018 Scream Factory BD; 5) 2024 Scream Factory BD;
6) 2024 Scream Factory UHD.

In the interests of being ultra-thorough, I started out including comparison shots of both cuts, but with more and more editions being added to this page, I've streamlined to one cut each.  Trust me, they really are identical every time.  They're different encodes (as opposed to using branching or something), but they're very close to the same file size, always using the same transfer and practically speaking, there's no visible distinction. Of course, between differing editions, like the DVD and original blu, it's another matter. Sure, it's the same root master, framed at 2.40:1 (the DVD is technically 2.41:1 and slightly pinched, though it reveals slivers more on each side as a consequence), with the same color timing, etc. But standard def compression really didn't do this movie any favors, and the HD version is really beautiful.

UK blu-ray left; US DVD right.

Just look at it up close. What's in the shop window? A bunch of smeary, indiscernible objects? Everything is so much more clear and defined on the blu, you can tell what everything is, even items further in the background. And just looking at the flat side of the truck, grain is very evident, but on the DVD it's soft with smudged edges. It's an impressive difference. And speaking of impressive differences, how awesome are Scream Factory's new 2k scans?  Well actually, I think most viewers would be hard-pressed to spot the difference even in a direct comparison like this.  They are technically different, of course.  The 2018 versions seem to boast some slightly stronger colors and a slightly smoother image.  But it's not a difference you'll ever notice just watching it on your television.  They look the frikken' same.  Yes, zooming in on close-ups, I can tell the new discs differ slightly from the old ones, but it's a very minimal step forward.

And their 2024 4k scans?  Well, they're still precisely 2.40:1 for a start, but ever so slightly more zoomed out, including those extra slivers from the DVD without the pinching.  That alone puts the latest version in the lead as the best available edition.  But look, they had to use the DI as opposed to going back to the original negative, so these new scans were never going to be super revelatory.  Film grain isn't really improved, nor is fine detail.  Comparing the BDs, there's no gains at all, though jumping to the actual UHD disc, it at least gives us smoother, less pixelated images when you zoom way in.  The newer colors are a bit darker (yes, even on the 2024 BD) and less saturated - note the red flowers to the left of Alison Lohman in the first set of shots), but it's tough to declare one better than the other in that regard.  It's just a bit different.

All versions featured 5.1 audio, but you can hear the extra punch in the blu-rays' DTS-HD track. All versions also have optional subtitles in English, but only the US Universal releases include Spanish and French dubs and subs, if those are a concern to you.  Curiously, Scream Factory has also added a DTS-HD Stereo mix into the equation for both their 2018 and 2024 editions.  Bonus?

Now what's the deal with the two cuts, anyway? I mean, why would anyone care to watch the edited PG-13 version when they've got the uncensored director's cut on the same disc? Well, it is a little bit of overkill, but there's a reason they've bothered to preserve the theatrical cut as well. The cut version isn't just missing shots (although there are a few moments that really lose their impact precisely due to removed shots), it's also got some alternative bits that are unique to that version. Some of it's pretty inconsequential, like a demon's CGI blood being colored black instead of red, which I guess bothers the MPAA more. But one scene in particular, where our lead character decides to sacrifice her cat to appease the angry spirits haunting her, are 100% reshot, and not even in a similar way.

Top: a shot only in the theatrical cut; bottom: a shot only in the uncut version.

In the PG-13 cut, we see her looking around for her cat, finding it, and then cutting away to the exterior of the house as we hear sounds letting us know the gruesome deed was done. So, in the unrated version, it's the same but instead of cutting away, we see a shot of her killing it... right? No. Actually, it's totally different, and there is no bit of her looking around for and finding her cat in the laundry basket. Instead, it's a very dramatically shot moment where she comes towards the camera from shadowed silhouette to scream and repeatedly stab it. Two totally different scenes conveying the same plot point.

Still, like I said, it's pretty much overkill. It's definitely better that they include both cuts rather than letting those alternate moments fade away into anecdotal film history. But the cat scene is the only hugely different scene. The rest is all short insert shots or slightly altered CGI. I think fans would have gotten a lot more out of just including the alternate cat scene in a little 5-minute featurette that also went over and showed the extra changes. Because it's really not worth sitting through the entire film a second time just to go, "oh, I see, that close up where the staple actually goes into her forehead has been removed, but everything else is exactly the same." But if it was a quick deleted scene, we could just quickly watch it and have the same take-away. Plus, a little deleted scenes feature would make the special features less barren and make this feel a little more like the special edition we all want.

The Universal DVD only had one extra, but at least it was a good one. It was a roughly 30-minute featurette called Production Diaries, which is a series of short segments looking at different behind-the-scenes moments during the filmmaking. It's all hosted by Justin Long (who played the boyfriend in the film), and because it zeroes in on moments and details, it's a lot more interesting than your standard, promotional featurette where each actor describes their character and says how wonderful everybody else was to work with. It's fun and engaging. The only problem is how lonely it looks sitting all by itself on the special features page of the DVD menu. Great, but that's it? There's not even a trailer, although it autoplays a bunch of unrelated trailers at the start of the disc. Blah.

Universal's blu-ray is a mirror of the DVD, except it has BD-Live... so it loads up "fresh" ads (when I tried it in 2015, it brought up the Seth Rogen feature Neighbors and an ad for Universal's horror classics from the 40s).  That's hardly an advantage. A genuine plus, I suppose, if you're one of the very select few people with a use for it, is that it's enhanced for D-Box. That's that thing where if you own a special chair wired to your entertainment system, it will vibrate at select times during the film. Not even the UK blu has that.

Now, Lions Gate didn't exactly turn this into the fully loaded special edition we'd expect for a big Sam Raimi horror bonanza; but they at least managed to double what Universal had. The UK blu does also have the Production Diaries, so it's 100% profit, no trade-off. But it's also added another 30+ minutes worth of interviews. They talk to Raimi, Long and star Alison Lohman in three separate sit-downs. These are clearly promotional, but the woman doing the interviews is obviously a genuine fan, so she asks questions we really want to hear the answers to, like "where's our Bruce Campbell cameo?" (which gets an honest answer) rather than just prompting them to fawn all over each other. They're also delightfully uncut, showing us moments like when they take a break and Sam Raimi steps out of frame so a crewman can walk by, leaving us with a steady shot of an empty chair. So again, it's still no great collection of feature length documentaries and audio commentaries with the entire cast and crew; but they're good, fun pieces worth watching.  Zavvi also reissued the UK blu as a steelbook, if you're a fan of those.

And then we come to the reason why anybody might've really wanted to double-dip for the 2018 Scream edition: brand new special features.  Well, first of all, I'm happy to report, they've carried over everything from the previous editions, including those extra interviews from the UK disc.  Sweet.  But they've also added three new on-camera interviews, one with Alison Lohman, one with Lorna Raver (she played the gypsy and really enjoyed herself) and one with composer Christopher Young.  Plus they added a new stills gallery.  Honestly, that's a little underwhelming.  Is it worth upgrading for just three 15 minute-ish interviews?  Well, I will say that all three new interviews are really good and fun.  And I'm glad they went back to get the second Lohman interview, because she doesn't just repeat the one we already have. And I should mention that the Scream edition features reversible artwork and a slipcover. But at the end of the day, it's an expensive release for three little interviews.

The 2024 is version is more satisfying in that regard.  First, yes, it has all the previous extras, including the UK and 2018 interviews.  But they've made one new, very significant addition: a full, two hour 'making of' documentary by the fine folks at Ballyhoo.  They interview a bunch more of the cast and crew, and edit together a very professional, fully satisfying experience.  Honestly, while the legacy extra still hold some exclusive value (i.e. this doc didn't go back and re-interview Lohman, so her 2018 talk is still great to have).  My one gripe, and it's a minor one, is that they do a long section on the score, and their interview with Young repeats a bunch of stuff, practically verbatim, from Shout's 2018 one.  It would've been nice if they trimmed that out and just left the new material.  We've already got him explaining the devil fiddling with his tail thing, the early affinity he felt for Raimi, etc; we don't need to hear it all twice in the same sitting.  But otherwise, this doc is terrific and fairly comprehensive and could really stand-alone as the only companion piece the film needs.  I wrapped up my earlier coverage asking for "more interviews with the likes of Dileep Rao, Bob Murowski and a segment with KNB," and guys, we got it.  If all you watched was Drag and this, you'd be a satisfied fan.  Oh, and this latest set also includes a nice slipcover - I'm very pleased to see them return to the original, superior poster art.

So, hey.  The first and easiest conclusion to draw is that, with the fullest collection of extras and all transfers being essentially equal, the latest Scream Factory set is the best release on the market.  Still, if you already own the film on blu, any blu, it's one of the slimmer upgrades, at least in terms of the film itself.  But the film's such a blast, every horror fan should own it in some fashion; and really, the only worthwhile extra I could imagine any future release adding is a commentary track with the Raimis, which I'm sure is a practically impossible dream as long as he's busy playing with Marvel/ Disney.  Oh, and maybe a sit down with Reggie Lee.  But yeah, I'm quite happy to have re-bought this film for a fifth time, which is something you won't hear me say often.  I wouldn't have recommended the previous double-dips, but this one I do.  This 2024 set finally totals up enough special features to give us Drag Me To Hell as the special edition it's always deserved to be.

Importing Larry Clark's Magnum Opus, Bully

There are other films called Bully, but this one from 2001 is the good one.  And there are plenty of other Larry Clark films, but this is the great one.  This has been high on my list of titles I've been dying to upgrade to HD since the blu-ray format debuted.  And given that this is an explicit, controversial indie film with some possibly tricky music rights issues, I was beginning to worry the day would never come.  But I guess Santa read my letters, because it finally came out this winter.

Kids is his most (in)famous work, but Bully is his masterpiece.  Larry Clark enters the world of true crime here, and it's a genre to which he's particularly suited.  His determination to document the grit and dark side of American youth adds authenticity and life to a true story that keeps him focused and driven, where his other films tend to meander.  The genre helps him and he helps the genre; it's a shame he doesn't make a ton more of these.  His casting, as always, is first rate.  Whether they're great actors or just naturally embodying their roles, everybody is exceptional in this, even the small roles.

That said, Clark's proclivities maybe steer him a little wrong.  I don't think it would be unfair to say Clark has a preoccupation with underage sex and drugs.  It can be charming (see his remake of Teenage Caveman), but it's always distracting.  Even before his films, his photography books were famous for that.  And this film does come off as over-sexed, especially in the first half.  And yes, these kids are supposed to be over-sexed.  The real girls had been involved in underage prostitution, one was a teenage mother married at seventeen, and the the fact that these kids are all wasting their lives in self indulgent behavior.  That's the point, and it's a good one.  But the constant leering camerawork just plays as exploitive, and when they're getting into stuff like dripping candle wax on each other's naked bodies, it starts to feel like late night Cinemax rather than reality.  It starts to hurt the film, but luckily as the plot kicks into gear it pulls Clark away from his nonsense and things get more and spell-bindingly dramatic: the advantage his other films lack.

Lions Gate released as a new release DVD in 2002.  In 2023, Studio Canal released it France as a BD/ DVD combo-pack.  I've seen some confusion online, because of how the DVD packaging labels their disc as the "Theatrical Version."  It's become pretty common for a film to have a theatrical version and  an uncut/ unrated version, leading some to worry that the DVD is cut.  In this case the theatrical version is the uncut version, and that's what's on both the Lions Gate and Studio Canal discs.  There was a cut down R-rated cut that cuts out a little of the sex, but both of these releases are completely uncut.

1) 2002 Lions Gate DVD; 2) 2023 SC DVD; 3) 2023 SC BD.

The jump in quality from DVD to BD isn't so dramatic because Lions Gate DVD, despite being old, is actually pretty good.  It's anamorphic widescreen, not interlaced, and seems to be using the same master as the new Studio Canal discs.  Just looking at the two DVDs, there's barely any difference at all.  The AR has been adjusted from 1.847:1 to exactly 1.85:1, but that's a virtually imperceptible difference of a couple pixels.  The colors are slightly improved, too... notice the sky in the first set of shots is truly blue on the SC disc, but has a reddish hue on the LG.  Then, of course, the actual jump to HD does give slightly sharper edges and you can make out tiny detail (compare the posters on the wall in the second set of shots) a little more clearly on the blu.  So it's a solid upgrade, but not an exciting/ impressive one, because again, the DVD was already pretty damn good.  On the other hand, this was shot on 35, and a 4k remaster could probably look even better, but this is not that.

And audio-wise, it's a bit of a trade off.  The DVD had a lossy 5.1 with optional English subtitles.  The BD has a lossless DTS-HD 2.0 with no English subtitles.  It also has a French dub and yes, fully removable French subtitles.

It's technically a trade-off in the extras department, too; but I would say Studio Canal thoroughly wins this round.  Lions Gate starts us off with some decent stuff, though, including about half an hour of on-set interview clips with Clark and the cast.  They're fine but pretty short and superficial.  There's also an isolated music track, a gallery (of the real people) and the trailer.  Oh, and an ad for the soundtrack.

Studio Canal, sadly, has none of that, not even the trailer.  It also has two features which might be nice for French audiences, but leaves us foreigners out in the cold: two interviews with French critics.  One is a nine minute intro, and then there's a longer, 40-minute interview with somebody else.  There are no subtitles or English-language options, though, so I have no idea what they're saying.

What puts SC's release back into the lead, though, is the hour long 'making of' documentary, which is actually pretty terrific.  There's lots of shaky, handheld footage on set, capturing the filming and questioning all the producers, which is already better than Lions Gate's interviews.  But then it goes further, interviewing cops and lawyers involved in the original case, getting their first-hand opinions of the real crime and its participants.  And then, more impressively still, things get really candid.  We see a fight on location between the actors that any normal 'making of' doc would cut out to protect everybody involved.  Cast members talk about their real histories of abuse and damaged childhoods.  And then Brad Renfro gets arrested, and the movie takes a fascinating detour into that, showing us local news reports, asking Brad what really happened and even filming the entire process of the producers meeting with the bail bondsman.  This is a fascinating viewing experience in and of itself.

So is this worth upgrading to?  Yes, I'd certainly say so.  But there's another edition coming soon from Umbrella in Australia purports to be even better.  It's probably using the same master, but has the 5.1, isolated score, optional English subtitles and replaces the French experts with English speaking ones, in addition to having the documentary, plus some fancy packaging swag if you get it direct from Umbrella's site.  Either way you go, though, the exciting news is that the wait for Bully to come to blu is finally over.