In Saturn’s Rings IMAX, Orange Is the New Black, Shark Week, new Twilight/Kino & new German 4K titles

Tuesday, 08 May 2018 16:41

In Saturn’s Rings IMAX, Orange Is the New Black, Shark Week, new Twilight/Kino & new German 4K titles

by Bill Hunt

It’s a little bit of a slow news day today, but we do have a couple items of interest for you...

First though, I had the chance to see an impressive new IMAX film last night. Directed by Stephen van Vuuren and narrated by LeVar Burton of Star Trek fame, In Saturn’s Rings is a large-format look at NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn, made using over 7.5 million real high-resolution images of the planet, its moons, and other astronomical objects, carefully assembled and presented using classical multi-plane animation techniques. The film is aptly named; some of these images are truly breathtaking, putting you right in the middle of the Saturn system. If you’re a space enthusiast or simply love a good IMAX documentary, the film is well worth a look.

It’s now playing at a handful of theaters around the country, with many more screenings to come. And I can tell you, it would make a pretty fine Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD release at some point too. You can visit the official website here for all the details and you can see the trailer below. Be sure to view it in native 4K if you can for the full effect. [Read on here...]

Now then... Lionsgate has officially set Orange Is the New Black: Season Five for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on 6/12. Extras will include a gag reel, the 72 Hours in 6 Months: Stories of the Season featurette, and audio commentaries on the episodes Tattoo You and Storm-y Weather.

Lionsgate has also set a Shark Week: 30th Anniversary Edition 3-disc collection for release on Blu-ray on 7/3, featuring “5 fan-favorite episodes plus 5 episodes of the vintage Shark Week.” SRP is $24.99.

Meanwhile, Shout! Factory and IFC Films have set Freak Show for Blu-ray release on 6/5.

Scream Factory is releasing Night of the Lepus on Blu-ray on 6/19.

Four new Twilight Time Blu-ray catalog titles go up for sale tomorrow at 4 PM Eastern (on Twilight Time Movies and Screen Archives Entertainment), including Walter Hill’s Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Paul Mazursky’s Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Philip Dunne’s Hilda Crane (1956), and D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). The first three include an isolated music track and other assorted extras. The latter title is a loaded two-disc special edition which, one hopes, will put the controversial film in context. It features the 2015 Patrick Stanbury/Kevin Brownlow Photoplay Restoration of the film. You can read more here at Twilight Time Movies.

Kino Lorber has announced that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) will join their Studio Classics line-up on both Blu-ray and DVD on 7/10, featuring both the 91-minute restored cit and the 77-minute 1954 re-release version. And following on Blu-ray on 7/17, mastered from a new 4K scan, is Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce (1963).

On the 4K Ultra HD front, Amazon.de is now showing German pre-order listings for Warner’s 12 Strong (from Concorde Video) on 7/24, followed by Columbia Pictures and Summit’s Only the Brave on 10/11 (from Studio Canal), and Roman J. Israel, Esq. (from Sony) on 10/19. None of these films were given a U.S. 4K Ultra HD release. Click on the titles to visit the Amazon.de pre-order pages. Remember... these can be played here in the States in 4K (though the included Blu-rays will likely be region-locked).

And in other news today, it appears that Bill & Ted’s tertiary adventure, Bill & Ted Face the Music, is finally happening according to this report from the Cannes Film Festival via the Hollywood Reporter.

Stay tuned...

- Bill Hunt

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

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