Our friends at the Criterion Collection have just announced their April slate of Blu-ray and DVD titles, and it’s a nice line-up.

They include: A re-issue of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969 – Spine #385 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/7, George Marshall’s Destry Rides Again (1939 – Spine #1024 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/14, Jura Herz’s The Cremator (1969 – Spine #1023 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/21, and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005 – Spine #1026 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014 – Spine #1025 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/28.

Naturally, we’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project pages here at The Bits accordingly. [Read on here...]

All right, I posted my in-depth review of HBO’s new Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season in 4K Ultra HD last night here at The Bits. I’m really surprised at how good it looks. Way better than I expected given the production resolution. It’s a genuine upgrade over the previous Blu-ray release in terms of A/V quality, so I recommend that fans give it a look.

We’ve got more 4K reviews coming soon and we’re also going to be taking a look at some interesting recent Blu-ray 3D titles thanks to our friends at the 3-D Film Archive. So be sure to watch for those.

One note however: We will probably not be reviewing Disney and Pixar’s The Incredibles in 4K Ultra HD. I picked up a copy of the disc this morning, and have found it to offer a modest (but definite) image and sound improvement over the previous Blu-ray release – probably enough for fans to want to make the upgrade. Note that it has Dolby Vision, HDR10, and Dolby Atmos audio. But Disney chose not to send this title for out review and we have a good number of titles to cover here that the studios (Disney included) have sent out for our consideration. With limited time at our disposal, we feel that we should focus our attenion on those. Just FYI. But if you’re a fan of the film, you might want to check the 4K edition out and Best Buy does have mighty nice exclusive Steelbook packaging. So there you go. [Read on here...]

All right, we’re starting the new week this afternoon with a trio of fresh Blu-ray reviews…

First up, Tim has checked out Scalpel (1977) on BD from Arrow Video, as well as Val Guest’s When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) from the Warner Archive Collection.

I’ve also just posted my thoughts on the Warner Archive’s long-awaited Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero on Blu-ray, a great upgrade of the original direct-to-DVD release and a nice aperitif for their upcoming release of the complete Batman: The Animated Series on Blu-ray later in 2018. Enjoy! [Read on here...]

Happy President’s Day, folks! Otherwise known as the day you may or may not be lucky enough to have off. Whatever your case may be, we’ve got a couple of good things for you today...

First up, Doogan’s Queue for this week is now live in Todd’s Gripe Soda section, running down the week’s Blu-ray and DVD releases. Don’t miss it!

Also today, our own Russell Hammond has posted the weekly Release Dates & Artwork update featuring all the latest Blu-ray and DVD cover art and Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, a portion of anything you order from Amazon after clicking through our links (on the right) goes to help support our work here at The Bits and we really do appreciate it.  [Read on here…]

Criterion has just announced their February release slate and it includes great filmmakers and films, both new and old.  Starting on 2/4, you’ll get a BD/DVD Dual Format updating of François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (Cat #281).  On 2/11, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest color arrives in separate Blu-ray and DVD versions (Cat #695).  This film was a bit of a sensation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (winning the Palme d’Or), and this is its debut release on home video in the States, thus the separate SKUs.  However, Criterion says that a true BD/DVD Dual Format special edition is coming at a later date.  Moving on, 2/18 will see Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (Cat #696) as a Dual Format release along with Wes Anderson’s animated Fantastic Mr. Fox (Cat #700).  Finally, Jean-Luc Goddard’s Breathless (Cat #408), Steven Soderbergh’s King of the Hill (Cat #698) and Roman Polanski’s Tess (Cat #697) will all street on 2/25 as Dual Format releases. [Read on here…]