Displaying items by tag: Dennis Seuling

All right, we’ve got a few things to cover today...

First up, we have a pair of new Blu-ray reviews for you this afternoon from Dennis, including his thoughts on M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass and Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex, both from Universal. Enjoy!

Also today, and this is the big news: Late on Friday we caught wind that HBO might finally be planning to release the Tom Hanks-produced miniseries From the Earth to the Moon on Blu-ray in July. The online retailer ImportCDs was showing a listing for the title as streeting on 7/16. A quick retailer search over the weekend led to more corroborating evidence: Best Buy and Barnes and Noble are both showing listings as well for the title – B&N’s sale price is $31.99, while Best Buy’s is $27.99. There are no details available yet, nor is there cover artwork, and the title has not been officially announced by HBO. But we believe it’s reasonable to assume it’s coming. [Read on here...]

Today’s Bits postings are a double-header, and this first one will be pretty substantial. I’ve unfortunately come down with the flu, so the last few days my functionality has been limited. But, I’m going to do a couple posts today to make up for it.

Before we begin, though, we’ve posted 4 new Blu-ray reviews here at The Bits in the last few days, including... Tim’s look at The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires from Scream Factory, Ecco and The Forbidden from Severin Films, and the Region B release of Dragonwyck (1946) from Powerhouse Films and Indicator. We also have Dennis’ look at Stan & Ollie on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Enjoy!

So... first things first: We’ve confirmed with Warner Bros. that their new Burton/Schumacher Batman 4K releases will feature new Dolby Atmos audio mixes on both the 4K and the Blu-rays in the package. Those Blu-rays will be remastered too. High dynamic range will be HDR10 only on the 4Ks. And the Blu-rays will carry over all of the previous BD extras with one exception: Don’t expect to find the Batman: The Birth of a Modern Blockbuster featurette from the recent Batman: Diamond Luxe Blu-ray. Beyond that, most everything should be there. (Thanks to Bits reader Anthony DiPaola for spotting that). [Read on here...]

All right, quick update today...

First of all, I’m going to be finishing my Aquaman 4K review later today, so watch for that sometime before the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Tim has posted a couple more Blu-ray reviews here today, including his look at Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Color Me Blood Red (1965) from Arrow Video and Dennis’ take on Boy Erased from Universal.

And on Friday, Tim posted his thoughts on HGL’s The Wizard of Gore (1970) from Arrow and Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth (1985) from Umbrella Entertainment.

Also here at the site today, Russell Hammond has updated the Release Dates & Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links. Anytime you order literally anything from Amazon after clicking through to them from one of our links (like this one), you’re helping to keep The Bits alive and we really, really appreciate it. So thank you! [Read on here...]

This here’s just a quick update to let you all know that we’ve posted a bunch of new disc reviews in the last day or two, including…

Hunter Killer in 4K from Lionsgate (by yours truly)

Creed II in 4K from Warner Bros. (by new Bits reviewer Chase Whale)

A Beautiful Planet in 4K from Mill Creek (also by yours truly)

The Deadly Mantis (1957) on Blu-ray from Scream Factory (by Tim)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume X.2 on DVD from Shout! Factory (also by Tim)

Berserk (1967) on Blu-ray from Powerhouse/Indicator (also by Tim) [Read on here...]

Afternoon, folks. We’ve got some news reviews for you today, plus a couple of release announcements, a new special feature column and more!

First, the Blu-ray reviews... Tim has just posted his thoughts on Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018) from Lionsgate. And Dennis Sueling has offered his take on Rob Marshall’s Mary Poppins Returns from Disney. Both are worth a look, so we hope you enjoy them!

Also here at The Bits today, our own Michael Coate has just a new History, Legacy & Showmanship column looking back at Ken Hughes’ Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in honor of the film’s 50th anniversary. The piece features a great interview with film historian John Cork, an expert of all things Ian Flemming-related. Do give it a look. [Read on here...]

We’ve got just a few bits of announcement news for you today, but first we have some new reviews for you...

Tim Salmons has checked out Phantom Lady (1944) from Arrow Academy and Skinner (1993) from Severin Films, both on Blu-ray. And Dennis Seuling has offered his thoughts on Peter Glenville’s The Prisoner (1955) on Blu-ray, also from Arrow Academy.

New 4K UHD reviews are coming later this week, after a bit of system calibration following my Oppo repair, just FYI.

Also here at the site today, we’ve posted the weekly update of the Release Dates & Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD cover art and pre-order links. As always, whenever you order literally anything from Amazon after clicking through any one of our links (it doesn’t matter which one and it doesn’t have to be for the thing you order), you’re helping to support our work here at The Bits and we really do appreciate it. [Read on here...]

And... it’s official! 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Ridley Scott’s original Alien on 4K Ultra HD on 4/23 in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary. A Steelbook version will also be available exclusively at Best Buy (pictured below).

Per the press release: “The film was restored in 4K in 2018 by 20th Century Fox at Company 3/Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, supervised by Ridley Scott and Pam Dery, with the 4K scans were done at EFilm.”

The release will include the 1979 Theatrical Version (with the 1999 audio commentary by Ridley Scott) and the 2003 Director’s Cut (with the 2003 commentary by Scott and members of the cast and crew), both the composer’s original isolated score and the final theatrical isolated score in Dolby Digital 4.1, and deleted scenes. (And we believe that all of that will be on the actual 4K disc, but we’re checking to confirm.) [Read on here...]

All right, Disney has just officially announced the Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD release of Rob Marshall’s Mary Poppins Returns on 3/19, with their Digital 4K and Movies Anywhere release set for a week earlier on 3/12. There will apparently also be a “Digital Bundle” of the film with the original 1964 Mary Poppins (we don’t know what resolution that original film will be). Audio on the Blu-rays will be English 7.1 DTS-HD MA. Assume standard HDR10 at least on the physical 4K (the digital 4K may offer Dolby Vision).

In terms of extras, the Blu-rays will include the deleted song The Anthropomorphic Zoo, the 4-part The Practically Perfect Making of Mary Poppins Returns documentary (includes Introduction, (Underneath the) Lovely London Sky, Can You Imagine That?, and Nowhere to Go But Up), the 4-part Seeing Things From a Different Point of View: The Musical Numbers of Mary Poppins Returns documentary (includes Trip a Little Light Fantastic, The Royal Doulton Music Hall/A Cover Is Not the Book, Turning Turtle, and Can You Imagine That?), Back to Cherry Tree Lane: Dick Van Dyke Returns, Practically Perfect Bloopers, 3 deleted scenes (Leaving Topsy’s and Trip a Little Light Fantastic), and a Sing-Along Mode. The Digital version only will also feature exclusive audio commentary by director Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca.

You can see the cover artwork at left and also below. [Read on here...]

There’s some new release news to report today, and then we’re going to return to the topic of physical media in the wake of the news about Samsung on Friday.

But first, late on Friday afternoon, Criterion announced their May Blu-ray release slate, which is set to include William Wyler’s The Heiress (Cat #974 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/7, an updating of David Mamet’s House of Games (Cat #399 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (Cat #975 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/14, Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In (Cat #976 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/21, and Agnès Varda’s One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Cat #978 – Blu-ray and DVD) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (Cat #977 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/28. We’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project page here at The Bits to include these titles and you can read more about them here.

Speaking of Criterion, we also learned on Friday that the Russian film studio Mosfilm has completed a new 2K restoration of Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic 1966-67 film adaptation of War and Peace. The 7-hour/4-part series is legendary in cinema history as the biggest production ever mounted, besting even David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia by having an essentially unlimited budget, a bottomless supply of props and costumes from the country’s state museums, and a cast of thousands. The film was shot on Russian Sovscope 70mm film stock, but unfortunately it’s suffered from preservation issues over the years. That’s meant the only good options available for viewing in recent years have been DVD versions of modest quality. [Read on here...]

All right, it’s not officially announced yet but we expect it to be at any time. At left you can see the official final cover artwork for Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse on 4K Ultra HD. It’s available for pre-order now on Amazon (see this link) and the street date is listed as 3/19 (SRP $38.99 but Amazon has it listed for just $22.95, which is a whopping 41% off). We don’t know yet what the HDR will be, but you can certainly expect Dolby Atmos audio. You can also bet that this film is going to look amazing in high dynamic range.

We don’t yet know if there will be a Blu-ray 3D release in the States, but stay tuned. We’ll post the official details as soon as they come in.

Before we continue, we’ve got three new Blu-ray reviews for you today, including Tim’s look at the Out of Time: Special Edition from MVD and All the Colors of the Dark (1972) from Severin Films. Dennis has also checked in with his thoughts on So Dark the Night (1946) from Arrow Academy. Enjoy! [Read on here...]