As many of us already know, when you’re searching for a film that has been elusive as far as DVD and Blu-ray are concerned, looking elsewhere in the world might just yield you a copy of what you seek. To that end, on the other side of the globe (Australia to be exact), Umbrella Entertainment is releasing a number of hard to find titles, as well as upgrades of already existing ones. From the obscure to the mainstream, there’s always something in their library worthy of your attention.

For example, their recent Blu-ray release of Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films and Machete Maidens Unleashed!. It’s an exclusive title piled high with extras, almost none of which you’ll find on the DVD-only state-side releases. Be sure to check out our review of it as well. And while their DVDs are Region 4 encoded, ALL of Umbrella Entertainment’s Blu-ray releases are Region Free, regardless of what the online description or final packaging states. So no matter what your setup is, you can watch their Blu-rays. Speaking of which, here are several recent titles worthy of your attention. [Read on here...]

This is just a quick early post here at The Bits today to let you all know that we’ve posted a couple of new reviews today – my own takes on Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver in 4K Ultra HD from Sony and An Inconvenient Sequel on Blu-ray Disc from Paramount.

We’ve got more reviews coming later this morning, including a look at Transformers: The Last Knight in 4K and some recent Blu-ray titles form Umbrella Entertainment too via a new Dailies column from Tim. [Read on here…]

Morning, folks. We’re going to be working on more reviews here at The Bits today, but we do have some interesting release news to report for you before we get started on those.

First, it appears that whatever was going on to delay the Amazon pre-orders for upcoming 4K titles from Warner seems to have been resolved. You can now pre-order Blade Runner: 2049 on 4K (and also Blu-ray – keep in mind the title hasn’t officially been announced, so there’s no street date yet and we don’t know if there will be the 3D and deluxe SKUs in the US) and also Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – one of the four remaining Potter titles due on 11/7. We expect the others to appear soon and we’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List too. [Read on here…]

Morning, folks! Hope you all had a great weekend. We’ve been very busy here working on new reviews for you.

Along those lines, here’s my thoughts on Warner’s Peanuts Holiday Collection in 4K Ultra HD, Lionsgate’s American Gods: Season One on Blu-ray, PBS’ The Farthest: Voyager in Space and The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick on Blu-ray, GKids’ new Blu-ray editions of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s animated Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, and Tim’s look at Arrow’s new A Fish Called Wanda: Special Edition and Robert Englund’s 976-EVIL from Sony, both on Blu-ray. Whew!

Rest assured, we’ve got more new reviews coming this week, including a bunch more 4K titles, Baby Driver and Spiderman: Homecoming included. So be sure to watch for those. [Read on here…]

We’ve got a couple items for you early today while we work on posting more disc reviews...

First up, Tim has checked in with a new Scream for a Week column here at The Bits, featuring his thoughts on a whole batch of recent Scream Factory Blu-ray titles. Do give that a look.

HBO has announced that their Blu-ray release of Game of Thrones: The Complete Seventh Season is going to come with a bonus BD disc called Game of Thrones: Conquest & Rebellion, which is an animated history of the seven kingdoms of Westeros. That’ll street on 12/12. [Read on here…]

All right, I hope you guys all had a great weekend. I turned 50 and got a new cat, whose name is Max. So all things considered, I think I came out ahead.

First of all today, we trust you all saw the outstanding news we posted late yesterday, which is that our friends at The Warner Archive have revealed that they’re going to be releasing – due to popular demand, we imagine – the outstanding Batman: The Animated Series on Blu-ray in 2018! It was announced at a New York Comic-Con panel celebrating the series’ 25th anniversary. We don’t have any other information at the moment, but we expect that they’re going to be starting work soon, or have just recently started. We’d guess it’ll be a few months yet before we have significant details, but rest assured we’ll keep you posted. We’ve been lobbying for this for some time now; the show is a big favorite here at The Bits. Thanks to everyone at Warner and Warner Archive for making this possible. Very exciting indeed! [Read on here…]

After a bit of an absence from the site, my annual Scream for a Week column makes its return with a batch of new great titles!

It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to do one of these, due mostly to some site work preventing me from doing so. Instead of mixing it up with both old and new content like before, I’ll be covering several recent releases instead.

Scream Factory has been putting out so much great content lately that it’s been a bit difficult to keep up with. Regardless, here’s a grouping of their more recent titles that we haven’t covered here at The Bits previously, with more to come in the future. [Read on here…]

We interrupt your Sunday afternoon with a great piece of breaking news from New York Comic-Con today:

The Warner Archive has just announced that it’s finally going to be bringing Batman: The Animated Series to Blu-ray Disc in 2018!

We don’t have any other details at the moment, but the announcement happened at a panel this afternoon celebrating the 25th anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series featuring Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, Kevin Conroy, and Tara Strong. [Read on here…]

“Leave it to Beaver offers the complete package of what a television show should be for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” — Classic TV historian Herbie J Pilato

The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 60th anniversary of the premiere of Leave it to Beaver, the memorable situation comedy which originally ran from 1957 to 1963 and starred Jerry Mathers as the titular character and Tony Dow as brother Wally. [Read more here...]

All right, there’s not a lot of release news to report here today, but we do have a couple more reviews for you...

Tim has checked in with his take on Shout! Factory’s Death Wish II: Special Edition as well as Umbrella Entertainment’s all-region Double Feature of Death Wish II and Death Wish 3.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a couple more 4K Ultra HD reviews, as well as reviews of GKids’ new first wave of Studio Ghibli BD releases. So watch for those to start appearing in over the next few days. [Read on here…]