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Monday, 08 December 2014 17:27

Star Trek: TMP’s 35th, Razor’s Edge, Working Girl, Mr. Bean, Boys from Brazil, Batman pricing, UFO in Germany & more

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Our own Tim Salmons kicks things off here at The Bits today by sharing his thoughts on a new classic Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber – Richard Brooks’ Elmer Gantry (1960).

Also today, Michael Coate celebrates the 35th anniversary of Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture in his History, Legacy & Showmanship column with an interview with film historian Preston Neal Jones, author of the new book Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – An Oral History of the Legendary Production Documented as It Happened. You’ll enjoy both the interview and the book, so be sure to give the column a look.  [Read on here…]

In announcement news today, Fox Home Entertainment has announced the release of Atlas Shrugged: Part III (Blu-ray and DVD), The Longest Week (Blu-ray and DVD), and Working Girl (Blu-ray) on 1/6, followed by The Razor’s Edge (the 1946 film – Blu-ray and DVD) on 1/13, and Before I Go to Sleep (Blu-ray and DVD) on 1/27. You can see some of the cover artwork below.

Shout! Factory has set a Mr. Bean: The Whole Bean – Special 25th Anniversary Collection for DVD release on 3/24, featuring all 14 episodes, deleted/missing scenes from 3 episodes, 2 documentaries (The Best Bits of Mr. Bean – 72 min, and The Story of Mr. Bean – 45 min), a pair of never-before-seen TV sketches (Bus Stop and Library), and a trailer for the animated series.

Shout! has also set Franklin J. Schaffner’s The Boys from Brazil for Blu-ray release on 1/6, starring Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, and James Mason.

Meanwhile, The BBC has set Doctor Who: Last Christmas for Blu-ray release on 2/17.

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Magnolia will release V/H/S: Viral on Blu-ray and DVD on 2/17 as well.

Parade Deck films has the horror title Motivational Growth coming on Blu-ray and DVD on 2/17 too, starring Jeffery Combs.

And Cult epics will release Nekromantik 2 on Blu-ray and DVD on 2/10.

Also today, are there any Gerry Anderson fans out there? We’ve confirmed that the Space: 1999 – Bringers of Wonder BD will be a UK/Region B exclusive Blu-ray on Network’s online store only (we’ll have a review soon). But if you have an all-region Blu-ray capable of playing Region B discs, Indigo has just released Anderson’s complete UFO series on Blu-ray in Germany (that comes out to about $84 US dollars). The discs are probably the same transfers that were recently released on Blu-ray in Japan (which are Region A discs, but which will set you back $270 to import to the States). No word yet on whether they’re coming in the US, but we’re working to find out about that, as well as a US release of the full Space: 1999 – Season Two later in 2015. More as it comes in.

Here’s something interesting – while Amazon currently has an eye-opening $215.99 price tag on Warner’s Batman: The Complete Series Blu-ray sans swag (our guess would be to encourage people to purchase the more swaggy Limited Edition for $174.99), Best Buy is currently selling it for $134.99 and Target has it for just $129.99. Do keep in mind that you’ll still have to use the WHV Customer Service site to get the fixed discs. Thanks to our friend and Bits reader Bill M. for the heads-up on all this. Stock is currently low, but they’ll be back in store quickly we expect.

[Editor’s Note: Quick update for you… it turns out that the Target and Best Buy listings are for the DVD set, not Blu-ray. And shortly after we posted this, Amazon adjusted the pricing for their non-swag Blu-ray edition to $174.99 – the same as the Limited Edition. Just FYI. Thanks to all the Bits readers who caught the DVD thing!] 

By the way, per Bits reader Michael M. (Thanks Michael!), Warner expects to ship fixed Batman replacement discs sometime in mid-January if all goes well. Be patient if you don’t get a reply from them right away, by the way. They’re getting thousands of e-mails, as you might imagine.

And finally, you may recall that last week we mentioned that HBO was going to be bringing The Wire to Blu-ray in 2015, but that it would be in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Well, here’s a lengthy blog post from series creator David Simon to explain that decision. It’s interesting and well worth a read.

All right, here’s some more new Blu-ray and DVD cover artwork featuring a number of the titles listed above...

Mr. Bean: The Whole Bean (DVD)    Working Girl (Blu-ray Disc)    UFO (German Region B Blu-ray)

The Razor's Edge (Blu-ray Disc)    Before I Go to Sleep (Blu-ray Disc)    Atlas Shrugged: Part III (Blu-ray Disc)

Back with more tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Bill Hunt