Displaying items by tag: Kino Lorber Studio Classics

We’ve got some interesting announcement news for you today...

First up, Paramount has just set Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980) for release on Blu-ray Disc on 12/1, just in time for the film’s 40th anniversary (on 12/6). No kidding! The film stars Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Paul L. Smith, and Paul Dooley.

From the press release: “The new Blu-ray includes access to a Digital copy of the film, along with nearly 30 minutes of all-new bonus content featuring excerpts from one of Robin Williams’ final interviews, an interview with director Robert Altman from 2014, as well as a newly conducted interview with Stephen Altman.”

Those extras will include 4 featurettes (Return to Sweethaven: A Look Back with Robin and the Altmans, The Popeye Company Players, Popeye’s Premiere, and The Sailor Man Medleys) and the film’s theatrical trailer. You can see the cover artwork at left and also below. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got some news to report today. Disc release announcements and more...

First up, the Warner Archive Collection has announced their October slate, which is set to include Hanna-Barbera’s Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series (1966-1967) on Blu-ray on 10/13, HBO’s The Plot Against America (2020) on DVD on 10/20, DC’s Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season (2018-2019) and Black Lightning: The Complete Third Season (2019-2020) on Blu-ray on 10/27, and Head of the Class: The Complete Second Season on DVD on 10/27.

They’re also working on new Blu-ray releases of Barbet Schroeder’s Reversal of Fortune (1990), Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York (1941), and Michael Patrick Jann’s Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). Street date for all those are TBA.

The next entry in the MVD Rewind Collection (from the MVD Entertainment Group) will be Tamra Davis’ Guncrazy (1992) on 12/15. [Read on here...]

Good afternoon, friends. Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

We’ve got a couple things for you today, starting with a new Blu-ray review. Our own Tim Salmons has done yeoman’s work sinking his teeth into/reviewing Arrow Video’s mammoth and outstanding Gamera: The Complete Collection box set on the format.

The good news: If you’re a fan of kaiju films—and this specific giant turtle in particular—it’s an amazing box set. The bad news: It sold fast and now seems to be out virtually everywhere online. There are a few retailers getting limited stock in now and again, but they go quickly. So unfortunately, unless Arrow is able to reprint it (which I’m told is unlikely at least for now), you might be out of luck. But we couldn’t let their good work go unacknowledged.

And though the set came out on 8/18, it’s literally taken Tim this long to go through it all. Here’s his epic review and we hope you enjoy it.

Also, I posted my thoughts on Lionsgate’s new Ghost in the Shell (1995) 4K release on Friday (click here in the event you missed it). And Dennis has reviewed George Marshall’s The Ghost Breakers (1940), starring Bob Hope, on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. [Read on here...]

HBO has just officially announced the 4K Ultra HD release of their Chernobyl miniseries on 12/1. The 5-episode series was finished natively in 4K and will include the Blu-ray and Digital copies as well (SRP $44.98). High Dynamic Range will presumably be HDR10.

Extras will include 5 featurettes (Meet the Key Players, Inside the Episode, Behind the Curtain: Director Johan Renck, Script to Screen: The Divers, and Pivotal Moment: The Trial).

Best Buy will also have an exclusive Steelbook version of the set. You can see the wide-release cover artwork pictured at left and also below.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has finally announced V for Vendetta for release on 4K Ultra HD on 11/3.

This should be no surprise to Bits readers, as we’ve been talking about this disc for weeks now. [Read on here...]

All right, it’s been a busy week here at The Bits so far and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.

First of all, sorry for the lack of daily updates. The reason is three-fold. First, we’ve been working on reviews here at the website—more on that in a moment. Second, we had 110° heat here in SoCal this past weekend, with which our AC could not keep up. That meant my home theater was close to 90°, which made reviewing unpleasant, plus there was the danger of power outages. The good news is that we’ve made up for it since the heat broke—again, more on that in a moment. (The bad news is that our skies this afternoon are an unnatural shade of apocalyptic yellow-orange due to the California wildfires, but that’s neither here nor there.) The third reason is more complicated.

We’ve been hearing from many of our readers based in the Netherlands that you’re unable to see The Bits website. The cause of this is that—apparently—a very large portion of the Internet’s DDoS attacks and cyber shenanigans either come from, or are routed through—Netherlands IP addresses. So our server team is working on a solution to block the riff-raff while allowing the rest of you actual readers to see the site. Please be patient while we sort it all out. Unfortunately, this kind of thing seems perfectly in keeping with the whole 2020 milieu. [Read on here...]

All right, today’s post is going to be a quick one and for a good reason: Today, my wife and I celebrate our 30th anniversary. But know that I have a number new of Blu-ray and 4K reviews cooking that I’ll start posting this week.

We also have a review from Dennis today of Guy Hamilton’s 1980 film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. As some of you may know, Guy Hamilton was also the director of the Bond film Goldfinger. You can find Dennis’ thoughts here.

Now then, we have a couple of good pieces of announcement news today...

Lionsgate has set Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass for release on 4K Ultra HD in Steelbook on 11/3. This is the same disc released on the format earlier, just in the new packaging. Extras include 2 featurettes (A New Kind of Superhero: The Making of Kick-Ass and It’s On! The Comic Book Origin of Kick-Ass), audio commentary by director Matthew Vaughn, a Marketing Archive, and (on the Blu-ray only) The Art of Kick-Ass Gallery. Look for Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio on the UHD. SRP is just $24.99. [Read on here...]

All right, I’m busy working on a review of Studio Canal’s new 4K Ultra HD release of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which is available now (click here). Note however the disc only has 2.0 audio. It’s a release that superfans of the film will certainly want, but for almost everyone else, the terrific Shout! Factory release is still going to be the preferred version (though sadly it’s essentially out of print). I hope to have the review up soon.

Meanwhile, Tim has posted reviews of another pair of 4K titles from our friends at Blue Underground and director Lucio Fulci, the horror/gaillo titles The House by the Cemetery (1981) and The New York Ripper (1982). Looks like both discs are worth your time, if you’re a fan of the filmmaker (though I will confess that graphic horror and gore isn’t really my thing).

In any case, if you’re wondering why we’ve blacked out the cover artwork (save for the title logos), it’s this: Google advertising routinely flags images that are sexually suggestive or violent. Not that either of these is especially bad, but it’s not a person that makes these decision, it’s an AI that tends to flag things randomly. When it does flag something, it turns off advertising and then it’s a whole stupid process of requesting a review. Given our limited resources, we really can’t waste time dealing with it. So there you go.

Yes, it turns out the Internet is just as stupid as everything else in 2020. [Read on here...]

Well... it’s Friday. And thank goodness. I don’t know about you, but this week has been trying. On top of everything else, we’ve had 90 and 100 degree heat here in SoCal with like 80% humidity. Human beings weren’t designed for that kind of sticky.

I am working on my review of Pitch Black in 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video. I hope to have it up soon, but at the very latest it will be up on Monday. There’s a lot of extras and I’m going back to look at the past Blu-ray and DVD versions to compare. I will say that the 4K remaster is beautiful and it really holds up. There’s tons of detail and the HDR grade is subtle but really adds to the film’s striking cinematography and overall look. The disc is also loaded—it appears that virtually everything from past releases as carried over, plus there’s new content too.

Meanwhile, we do have one new disc review here: Dennis has reviewed Sebastian Munoz’ The Price, new on Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films. You’ll find that here.

And I believe Tim is working his way through Arrow’s new Gamera: The Complete Collection Blu-ray set, which is a mighty beast. So he’ll have a look for you at that as well sometime soon. [Read on here...]

Today’s post is a quick one as I’m working hard to finish this review of Studio Canal UK’s version of Flash Gordon (1980) on 4K Ultra HD.

The set is spectacular. More on that soon.

Don’t forget, we posted our review of Arrow Video’s version of Flash Gordon (1980) in 4K Ultra HD on Friday.

Note that we also hope to have a review of Arrow’s new Pitch Black 4K Ultra HD sometime later this week as well, so be sure to watch for that.

In the meantime, we have more great 4K news for you today...

Our friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics have just revealed that they’re going to be releasing Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) on 4K Ultra HD sometime in 2021, licensed from Focus Features—a great sign that more deep catalog Focus titles may be coming to the format as well. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got some more announcement news for you today...

First up, our friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics have revealed that they’re releasing Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter (1973) on Blu-ray on 10/27. It’ll include a new audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox, new interviews with actors Marianna Hill and Mitchell Ryan, a vintage promo for the film restored in HD, Trailers from Hell segments with Josh Olson and Edgar Wright, a poster and image gallery, 2 theatrical trailers (in HD), a TV spot, a radio spot, and a limited edition slipcase.

But that’s not all: Also coming to Blu-ray that day is Don Seigel’s Two Mules for Sister Sara, starring Eastwood and Shirley Maclaine, featuring new 4K restorations of both the 112-minute International Cut and the 104-minute Domestic Cut. Extras will once again include a new audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox, At Home with Clint (a vintage candid interview with Clint Eastwood in HD), a poster and image gallery, the theatrical trailer (in HD), 2 TV spots, 4 radio spots, and a limited edition slipcase.

Also coming soon from KL Studio Classics is Oz Scott’s Bustin’ Loose (1981) starring Richard Pryor. And the company has just kicked off its “Lazy Hazy Crazy Summer” sale on over 500 in-stock titles. It runs until 8/3. [Read on here...]