Displaying items by tag: David Lean

Morning, folks! We’re checking in early here at The Bits today with some new disc reviews.

Over the weekend, I managed to turn out reviews of three new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook releases, including Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) from Paramount, and David Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

It should be noted that the 4K Steelbook edition of Bridge on the River Kwai now includes Dolby Vision HDR and the original theatrical mono mix, both of which were missing from the 2017 4K release.

And this marks the first time Lawrence of Arabia has been available in 4K outside of Sony’s expensive (and long out-of-print) Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection: Volume 1 box set from 2020, so this will likely be the first time many of you get to experience the film in 4K UHD at home (and let me tell you, that experience is terrific). [Read on here...]

All right, as some of you may know, we had a pretty interesting early post here at The Bits today with news of a great bunch of Shout! and Scream Factory Blu-ray and 4K titles coming in May. Turns out, that was just scratching the surface! Not only has Shout! now fully fleshed out their May release slate, they’ve added an additional Ultra HD title and more Blu-ray titles too. What’s more, Sony has revealed a pair of much-wanted 4K titles in June, and Paramount has announced a significant slate of Blu-ray and 4K titles for May as well!

This is going to take a little while to go through, so let’s get right into it. We’ll start with those new Sony titles first, then circle our way back to Shout...

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has just announced a pair of new Steelbook 4K titles for release on 6/7, one a title released previously and the other also released previously but only in one of their Columbia Classics 4K box sets: The Bridge on the River Kwai: 65th Anniversary Limited Edition and a Lawrence of Arabia: 60th Anniversary Limited Edition. These will be essentially the same discs released previously (reviewed here and here on The Bits), except that both now feature Dolby Vision HDR (Kwai had only HDR10 in its initial UHD release). Both also feature Dolby Atmos audio plus legacy mixes. You can see the cover artwork at left and also below. [Read on here...]

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We’re starting things today with a new Pick-Ups column from our own Tim Salmons, featuring a review of Scream Factory’s The Car on Blu-ray Disc. Tim will be posting new “catch-up” Scream and Shout BD reviews (and more) all week, so do check them out.

First up today, people who have pre-ordered Samsung’s first 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player (the UBDK8500) on Amazon and Best Buy are reporting that they’re getting notices that the player will ship on 2/12 or 2/21, as opposed to 3/1. So it’s possible that discs may ship earlier as well. We’ll let you know as we hear updates. [Read on here…]

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They say only bad news is dumped on Friday, but every now and again there’s a bit of good Friday news too. In this case, our friends at the Criterion Collection have just announced their April Blu-ray slate and it includes some great new titles and catalog upgrades too. Look for Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings (Cat #806 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/12, A Whit Stillman Trilogy: Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco (Cat #326, 485 & 807 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/19, and The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates (Cat #808 – Blu-ray and DVD – includes Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis, and Faces of November), David Lean’s Brief Encounter (Cat #76 – Blu-ray, DVD & iTunes), and Christian Petzold’s Phoenix (Cat #809 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 4/26. We’ve updated The Criterion Spines Project listing here at The Bits accordingly.  [Read on here…]