Displaying items by tag: Blue Velvet

There’s some new release news to report today, and then we’re going to return to the topic of physical media in the wake of the news about Samsung on Friday.

But first, late on Friday afternoon, Criterion announced their May Blu-ray release slate, which is set to include William Wyler’s The Heiress (Cat #974 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/7, an updating of David Mamet’s House of Games (Cat #399 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (Cat #975 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/14, Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In (Cat #976 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/21, and Agnès Varda’s One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Cat #978 – Blu-ray and DVD) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (Cat #977 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/28. We’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project page here at The Bits to include these titles and you can read more about them here.

Speaking of Criterion, we also learned on Friday that the Russian film studio Mosfilm has completed a new 2K restoration of Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic 1966-67 film adaptation of War and Peace. The 7-hour/4-part series is legendary in cinema history as the biggest production ever mounted, besting even David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia by having an essentially unlimited budget, a bottomless supply of props and costumes from the country’s state museums, and a cast of thousands. The film was shot on Russian Sovscope 70mm film stock, but unfortunately it’s suffered from preservation issues over the years. That’s meant the only good options available for viewing in recent years have been DVD versions of modest quality. [Read on here...]

All right, we’re wrapping up a week of reviews with still more reviews!

Our own Tim Salmons has turned in a look at Disney’s new The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on Blu-ray, which is not only a terrific classic animated film but it looks like the disc is pretty good too.  Don’t miss it!

Also today, we’ve upgraded nine more older Blu-ray reviews from The Original Bits into the new database, including Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet: 25th Anniversary Edition and Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man from Dr. Adam Jahnke, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo and The Holy Mountain from Doogan, Danny Boyle’s Sunshine from the late great Barrie Maxwell and my own reviews of a pair of great space documentaries, The Wonders of the Solar System and The Wonder of It All, as well as Zhang Yimou’s visually stunning and poetic Hero.  Enjoy!

Also here at The Bits today, we’ve now got a complete and official listing of all the extras that will be included on Warner’s newly-announced Blu-ray Disc versions of Pacific Rim (due on 10/15).  Here’s what to look for...  [Read on here...]