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Friday, 31 July 2020 10:56

Arrow’s October includes Warning from Space & The Last Starfighter, plus Imprint Films makes their October slate official & Alan Parker RIP

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It’s Friday again and we have another quick but fun post with some great catalog release news for you...

First up... the BIG news: Arrow Video has just announced its October slate of Blu-ray releases, and they’re set to include John Adams and Toby Poser’s The Deeper You Dig (2019), Fhiona-Louise’s Cold Light of Day (1989), Koji Shima’s Warning from Space (1956), and yes... Nick Castle’s The Last Starfighter (1984)!

The Last Starfighter will include a new audio commentary with Mike White of The Last Projection Booth podcast, archival audio commentary with director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb, the Heroes of the Screen archival featurette, the Crossing the Frontier: The Making of The Last Starfighter archival 4-part documentary, image galleries, the theatrical and teaser trailers, reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Ferguson, and more extras yet to be announced. It’s also mastered from a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. You can see the cover artwork at left and also below. [Read on here...]

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Meanwhile, Warning from Space will include original uncompressed Japanese mono audio, newly translated English subtitles, a new commentary by Stuart Galbraith IV (author of Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo!), the first-ever HD transfer of the American release version of the film (including a newly restored English dub track), theatrical trailers, and image galleries.

The street date for all the Arrow titles should be 10/13. All are available in the US and Canada. All but The Last Starfighter are available in the UK as well. Here’s a look at the lot of them…

Arrow Video October 2020 slate

Also today, Mill Creek Entertainment has announced the release of a Battlefield Earth: 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray on 9/15 (SRP $19.99), which is set to include over 70 minutes of new bonus features produced by our friend Daniel Griffith (of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures). Among them will be Leverage: Writing the First Draft (with screenwriter J.D. Shapiro), Saga in the Year 2000: Directing Battlefield Earth (with director Roger Christian), Endangered Species: Scoring Battlefield Earth (with composer Elia Cmiral), Domes and Drones: Creating the Miniatures (with model maker E. James Small), and Psychlo Circus: Designing Battlefield Earth (with production designer Patrick Tatopoulos). Again, you can see the cover artwork below.

And just as we mentioned yesterday, Via Vision Entertainment in Australia has revealed their October slate of Imprint Films catalog Blu-ray titles, which are set to include The Bob Hope Collection (1939-1940 – includes The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers), The Essential Film Noir Collection: Volume 1 (1947-1957 – includes Framed, Alias Nick Beal, Detective Story, and The Garment Jungle), Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee (1965), Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik (1968), Hall Bartlett’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973), John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975), P.T. Anderson’s Hard Eight (1996), and David Mamet’s The Winslow Boy (1999). Most (if not all) are licensed from Paramount. As with the previous waves, all of these titles should be ALL REGION. Street date is expected to be 10/28.

Imprint Films October 2020 slate

Here’s a look at the cover artwork for a couple of the titles mentioned above (we’ll add the Amazon.com pre-order links as they become available)...

The Last Starfighter (Blu-ray Disc) Warning from Space (Blu-ray Disc) Battlefield Earth (Blu-ray Disc)

In other news today, a reminder: Criterion’s 50% off sale with Barnes and Noble ends THIS SUNDAY (August 2). So if you’re looking for great deals on their Blu-ray and DVD titles, act fast.

Sadly, we must to take a moment today to acknowledge the passing this morning of the great UK filmmaker Alan Parker, whose prolific work included Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, Evita, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, Birdy, Angel Heart, Fame, The Road to Wellville, and of course Pink Floyd: The Wall. He was 76. You can read more here at Deadline and here at The New York Times.

Now then... a bit of site business. We tend to get a lot of reader email and do our best to answer them all, but we also get a TON of SPAM email as well. So it can be difficult to sort through them all. However, if you’re trying to get a hold of me, your best bet is to follow me on Twitter @BillHuntBits and you can contact me there. I do try to answer as many questions as possible and I’m often easier to reach there.

Finally, once again I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone that’s made donations to The Digital Bits via PayPal in the last few weeks (and especially since my posts this week). The reader support has been heartwarming. Every little bit helps, and it means the world to us. Thank you.

That’s all for this week. See you back here on Monday. Stay tuned...!

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(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)