My Two Cents
Tuesday, 07 February 2023 13:39

Lionsgate sets The Whale for Blu-ray on 3/14, plus details on Curzon’s new Three Colors & Double Life of Veronique 4K Ultra HDs & more

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We start today with a new disc review: Stephen’s look at Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night (2022) on Blu-ray from Universal Pictures.

We’re all working on more new disc reviews here at The Bits, including myself and including 4K titles. But of course, there’s been quite a lot of release news to cover recently, which tends to derail my own review efforts a bit.

Still, the good news is: I’m excited to say that we’re adding a terrific new staff reviewer here at The Digital Bits, and I’ll have a lot more to say about that in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, we have a bit of new release news to report on today, starting with this: Lionsgate has officially set Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on 3/14. [Read on here...]

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Extras will include 2 featurettes (People Are Amazing: Making The Whale and The Sounds of the Sea: Scoring The Whale). You can see the cover artwork above left and also below. Brendan Frazer is up for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in this film, so we’re certainly looking forward to seeing it on disc.

In other news today, Warner Bros. has officially set the Rocky I-IV Film Collection for 4K Ultra HD release on 2/28. We will absolutely be reviewing this set here on The Bits, and I’ve asked the studio a number of follow-up questions about the disc specs and extras, so hopefully we’ll have more information on the set to share with you here very soon.

Here’s something exciting that we first mentioned back on 1/10: Curzon Film in the UK has officially announced that they’re releasing Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors Trilogy (1993-94) and The Double Life of Veronique (1991) on 4K Ultra HD in the UK on April 3. The Blu-rays in the package will be Region B, but the 4K discs will be all region (as the format typically is, though there have been one or two exceptions).

Three Colors Trilogy will be a 7-disc set, featuring each film in a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision HDR on UHD and also remastered Blu-ray. Audio will be 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio on each. You’ll also get a Blu-ray bonus disc that includes 10 short films by Kieślowski—The Office (1966), The Tram (1966), Concert of Requests (1967), I Was a Soldier (1971), Factory (1971), Hospital (1977), Seven Women of Different Ages (1979), From a Night Porter’s Point of View (1979), Railway Station (1980), and Talking Heads (1980)—2 additional short films—The Musicians (1958), by Kieślowski’s teacher and mentor, and The Face (1966), starring Kieślowski—the Still Alive: A Film About Krzysztof Kieślowski (2005) documentary, Slavoj Žižek on Krzysztof Kieślowski (an extract from The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, 2005), and In Search of Kieślowski: A Restoration Project (2021). The other Blu-rays in the set will include 3 Cinema Lessons with Krzysztof Kieślowski, interviews with Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Irène Jacob, editor Jacques Witta, and producer Marin Karmitz, “Making of” and Cannes featurettes, and the theatrical trailers. The box will also include 5 art cards, a 32-page booklet featuring a new interview with Julie Delphy, and a hardcover canvas slipcase. Here’s what it looks like (and the image links to the Amazon.co.uk pre-order page)...

Three Colors Trilogy (Curzon UK Import 4K Ultra HD)

The Double Life of Veronique is a 2-disc set that includes the film in a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision HDR on UHD and also remastered Blu-ray. Audio will again be 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio on each. Extras will include a Conversation with Kieślowski, an Interview with Irène Jacob, the Kieślowski Polish Filmmaker (2005) documentary, 3 short films by Kieślowski—Factory (1971), Hospital (1977), and Railway Station (1980)—and an additional short film: The Musicians (1958), by Kieślowski’s teacher and mentor. Here’s what that looks like (and again, the image links to the Amazon UK pre-order page)...

The Double Life of Veronique (Curzon UK Import 4K Ultra HD)

[Editor’s Note: Criterion’s 4K Ultra HD release of the Three Colors Trilogy arrives in stores today here in the States, but review product has not been offered to us. Criterion also has a Blu-ray only version of The Double Life of Veronique available for those who may be interested.]

Also today, the Cohen Media Group has set Let It Be Morning for Blu-ray and DVD release on 3/7, followed by Secret Defense on both formats on 3/14.

And before we go, here’s a look at the cover art for a few additional Blu-ray titles that some of you might be interested in (with Amazon US pre-order links)...

The Whale (Blu-ray Disc) Rick and Morty: Season 8 (Blu-ray Disc) A Man Called Otto (Blu-ray Disc)

Stay tuned....

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

 

 

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