Displaying items by tag: The Criterion Spines Project

All right, we’ve got a couple things for you today...

First a couple of new Blu-ray reviews... Tim has looked at Cyril Frankel’s The Witches, aka The Devil’s Own (1966) on disc from Hammer Films by way of Scream Factory. Tim’s also reviewed Eddie Adlum’s Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972) from Severin Films.

More reviews are on the way here too; I’m working on Hannibal 4K from Kino, Shout! and GKids’ new Princess Mononoke: Collector’s Edition, and more. So watch for those in the next few days.

The big announcement news today is that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining on 4K Ultra HD on 10/1. [Read on here...]

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...]

We our close out of the week with three more new disc reviews…

We’ve got Tim’s take on the Zombiology/Vidar the Vampire double feature Blu-ray from Dread Central and Dennis’ thoughts on The Witch Files on DVD from Dark Sky and Bruce’s Deadly Fingers on Blu-ray from VCI Entertainment. Enjoy!

In terms of news today, our friends at The Criterion Collection have just unveiled their February 2019 slate and it includes some very nice titles indeed. It starts with Ingmar Bergman’s Shame (Spine #961 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 2/5. Next up is Henri-Georges Clouzot’s La vérité (Spine #960 – Blu-ray and DVD) and an upgrade of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (Spine #411 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 2/12. Then you can look forward to Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice (Spine #962 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 2/19 and Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger (Spine #963 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 2/26. [Read on here...]

We’re kicking things off today with a trio of new Blu-ray reviews, including...

Tim’s look at Peter Medak’s The Changeling (1980), available in a new limited edition from Severin Films.

David’s thoughts on William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1963) from Scream Factory.

And Dennis’ take on the 2004 remake of Walking Tall, starring Dwayne Johnson, from MVD Visual.

We’ve also posted the weekly update of the Release Dates & Artwork section, featuring all the latest Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, whenever you order literally anything from Amazon after clicking to them through one of our links (like this one), you’re helping to support our work here at The Bits and we really appreciate it. [Read on here...]

All right, today’s post was meant to go live yesterday, but we had some server glitches and crashed that took us offline for a while. As such, we’re playing catch up a little bit today. But we’ve expanded the post with today’s news and reviews so. So here we go…

First up, Tim Salmons has turned in his thoughts on Vincent Ward’s Vigil, now available in a new Special Edition Blu-ray from Arrow Video, as well as Scream Factory’s In the Mouth of Madness: Collector’s Edition. Also, David Steigman has taken a look at on Arrow’s The Case of the Scorpion’s Tale: Special Edition on Blu-ray, along with Cleopatra Entertainment’s China Salesman. And Dennis Seuling has reviewed Fredric Hobbs’s Godmonster of Indian Flats on Blu-ray from AGFA and Something Weird Video, as well as 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s Love, Simon on Blu-ray.

Now then... Prime Day was a little bit of a disaster yesterday, what with Amazon.com having all kind of outages. But the good news is that they’re having a special sale today for Prime members on many great 4K titles. They have over 175 great titles for just $15 each today! Act quick if you want to take advantage via this link. (Doing so will help support our work here at The Bits and we appreciate it!) [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got a few interesting things for you today...

First up, be sure you check out the reviews we’ve posted over the last couple days. To recap, my take on Sony’s Fury and Universal’s Pacific Rim: Uprising in 4K, plus Tim’s look at A Pistol for Ringo/The Return of Ringo from Arrow and Zombie 4: After Death from Severin. Enjoy!

Also here today, we’ve updated the Release Dates & Artwork section with all kinds of new Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD cover artwork and Amazon.com links. Shopping through our links helps us keep going here at The Bits, so please do (and we appreciate it)!

And we have a couple of 4K Ultra HD title updates for you. First, it looks like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the original Predator in 4K on 8/7. Zavvi currently has it available for pre-order in the UK on 8/6, and Amazon US has a new Predator Trilogy Blu-ray box set listed for 8/7, so it’s likely that the 4K disc will be available then as well. Zavvi is also listing a Predator 3-Movie Collection 4K set that would include Predator, Predator 2, and Predators for release that same day. We’ll have to wait and see if Fox announces this officially. [Read on here...]

All right, the big news today is that, as we first revealed here at The Bits several weeks ago, Disney and Pixar are indeed releasing Brad Bird’s The Incredibles on 4K Ultra HD on 6/12, in support of the theatrical release of The Incredibles 2 that same week. It looks like the 4K release will include Dolby Atmos audio and will also include the Blu-ray edition with all its special features. Note that Best Buy is going to have an exclusive Steelbook version of the title. [Update: It appears that Best Buy is listing the Steelbook 4K version as streeting on 6/5. It’s possible that the wide release will be 6/5 as well, and not 6/12 as currently listed. We expect official details soon from the studio and we’ll update this information then.]

This would mark the very first time that Disney has gone back to release a deeper catalog title on the 4K format (not just a new theatrical release). Here’s hoping we see many more Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars catalog titles released in 4K soon.

Meanwhile this afternoon, our friends at The Criterion Collection have now officially announced their August slate of Blu-ray and DVD titles as follows… [Read on here...]

Let’s start today with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which has just officially set The Dark Tower for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 10/31, with the Digital HD release due on 10/17. Extras on the Blu-ray versions will include deleted scenes, a blooper reel, A Look Through the Keyhole, and 5 behind-the-scenes featurettes (including Last Time Around, The World Has Moved On…, The Man in Black, The Gunslinger in Action, and Stephen King Inspirations). We’ve updated our new 4K Ultra HD Release List here at The Bits accordingly.

Note that Sony will also release Preacher: Season Two on Blu-ray and DVD on 11/14. [Read on here…]

We’ve got some great new title announcements for you today!

First or all, The Criterion Collection has just revealed their August Blu-ray and DVD slate, which breaks down as follows. Look for Michael Curtiz’s The Breaking Point (Cat #889 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 8/8, Mike Leigh’s Meantime (Cat #890 – Blu-ray and DVD) and an updating of Ronald Neame’s Hopscotch (Cat #105 – Blu-ray, DVD, and iTunes) on 8/15, and Sacha Guitry’s La Poison (Cat #891 – Blu-ray and DVD) and an updating of Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy (Cat #20 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 8/22. Also, it now appears that Orson Welles’ Othello (Cat #870 – Blu-ray and DVD) has finally been rescheduled for release on 9/26. We’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project page accordingly. [Read on here…]