A Titanic 4K update, plus The Fabelmans, Station Eleven, Aim for the Ace!, The Young Ones, Castle of the Living Dead, King Kong (1976), Face/Off & more!

Tuesday, 27 December 2022 15:55

A Titanic 4K update, plus The Fabelmans, Station Eleven, Aim for the Ace!, The Young Ones, Castle of the Living Dead, King Kong (1976), Face/Off & more!

by Bill Hunt

Titanic is coming to 4K Ultra HD in 2023!

Welcome back from the holiday, Bits readers! We hope and trust that each of you were able to enjoy a great celebration with your family and friends.

Sarah and I have my mother staying here over the holidays, so we’ve been cooking up a storm, enjoying some great food, and watching lots of movies. I also just finished watching the season finale of HBO’s His Dark Materials—more on that in a moment—and I’ve started in on the new season of Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. I still need to check out Avatar: The Way of Water at my local IMAX theater, but I’ll get to that soon enough.

We’ve got a new contribution from each member of the Bits reviewing team for you today, including...

Dennis’ look at Robert Mandel’s School Ties (1992) on Blu-ray from Imprint Films and Via Vision.

Stephen’s take on James Whale’s By Candlelight (1933) on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

My thoughts on the new single-film 4K Ultra HD SKU of Wilson Yip’s Ip Man (2008) from Well Go USA.

And last, but certainly not least, Tim’s in-depth take on Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners: Ultimate Edition (1996) on 4K Ultra HD from our friends at Turbine Media in Germany! This is a pretty spectacular box set release, and Tim will tell you all about it in his review, so you definitely don’t want to miss it. [Read on here...]

Now then, we have a bit of release news to report here today at The Bits...

First up, retail sources are suggesting that Universal will release Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 2/7.

Paramount is continuing to surprise us with TV titles in 4K, this time by revealing that Station Eleven is coming to Blu-ray and Ultra HD on 2/21. You can see the 4K cover artwork below.

Paramount is also expected to release J.D. Dillard’s Devotion (2022) on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K sometime in February, with Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022) expected to follow on all three formats (plus 4K Steelbook) in March.

It appears that MVD is releasing Barry Levinson’s remastered Rain Man (1988) on Blu-ray as well as 4K Ultra HD on 3/28.

For anime fans, Discotek Media will release Osamu Dezaki’s Aim for the Ace!: The Complete Original TV Series (1973-74) on 2/28, including all 26 episodes.

And Crunchyroll has set Attack on Titan: The Final Season – Part 2 for Blu-ray+DVD release in both regular and Limited Editions on 3/28.

Meanwhile, Severin Films has set Warren Kiefer’s Castle of the Living Dead (1964) for release on Blu-ray on 1/31. The film stars Christopher Lee.

In the event you missed it (we certainly did), BBC Home Video has released The Young Ones: The Complete Collection in a new 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray set. It came out in the UK on 11/28 (see that here on Amazon.co.uk).

Speaking of titles we missed, in addition to their 4K Ultra HD release of Wings of Desire (1987), Curzon Film has dropped a mammoth new Wim Wenders Blu-ray box set which includes 22 of the director’s films, not the least of which is (I believe) the first-ever English-subtitled Blu-ray release of the Wings sequel, Faraway, So Close! (1993). That arrived on 12/12, and you can order it here from Amazon UK (or by clicking on the image below). But a word of warning: It’s not cheap...

I certainly would love for some of those films to arrive on Blu-ray here in the US as well.

And StudioCanal has just released John Guillermin’s King Kong (1976), starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, and Charles Grodin, on 4K Ultra HD! It dropped in France and the UK at the end of November, and it’s available in both Amaray packaging and 4K Steelbook (click here and here, or on the cover artwork below, to order it from Amazon UK).

Back on the TV title front, with the wonderful series finale of His Dark Materials now having dropped on the BBC and HBO Max, Season Three and a Complete Series Collection are expected to arrive on Blu-ray in February (street date is 2/13 in the UK, while the US date is still TBA). Here’s hoping they release the series on physical 4K Ultra HD as well!

Also, our friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics have delivered a bunch of great catalog release news over the holiday weekend, starting with word that John Woo’s Face/Off (1997) is “coming soon” to 4K Ultra HD. The company has announced some new Blu-ray street dates as well, including Cecil B. DeMille’s The Crusades (1935), Susan Seidelman’s Making Mr. Right (1987), David Greenwalt’s Secret Admirer (1985), and Alexander Hall’s Little Miss Marker (1934) on 3/7, Charles Barton’s Double Crossbones (1951) on 3/14, and William Wyler’s Counsellor at Law (1933) on 3/28. They’ve also revealed that Richard A. Colla’s The Questor Tapes (a 1974 TV movie, written and produced by Gene Roddenberry), Henri Verneuil’s I… For Icarus (1979), and Dave Thomas’ The Experts (1989) are all “coming soon” to Blu-ray.

Finally today, you may recall that I mentioned last week (Monday) here on The Bits that there was a very good chance that James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) would be released on Ultra HD in 2023. Well, I’ve now checked in with multiple industry, distribution, and retail sources and confirmed it: Many details are still TBD, but the film is coming to 4K disc next year from Paramount. We’ll obviously post additional information and updates as they come in.

We’ll leave you with a look at the UK cover artwork for King Kong in 4K (the regular Amaray and Steelbook packaging), as well as Paramount’s Station Eleven in 4K (just click on the covers to view their respective Amazon order pages)...

Stay tuned!

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

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A Titanic 4K update, plus The Fabelmans, Station Eleven, Aim for the Ace!, The Young Ones, Castle of the Living Dead, King Kong (1976), Face/Off & more!

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