Displaying items by tag: Life of Pi, Flight

Morning, folks! Hope you all had a fine weekend as we head toward the Christmas holiday. Sarah and I spent much of last week in Philadelphia visiting her step-father, which was nice but obviously a bit sad as well given the events in our lives of the last year. We did manage to take a quick day trip by train to New York City. What a great place that is! I had to drop by the Hayden Planetarium and the American Museum of Natural History – two of my favorite places in NYC. Sadly there was no time to visit The Strand bookstore, but we walked the length of The High Line park, got a slice of pizza at Grand Central Station, took in the Christmas lights at Rockefeller Center and went to a Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. I even managed to drop my Midtown Comics on the way back to the train, where George Takei was about to do a signing. Pretty cool. All in all, not bad for 12 hours!

Anyway, somehow I managed to get updates posted all last week except for Friday, which was our travel day back to California. As I’m sure you’re all aware, the first teaser trailer for Star Trek into Darkness broke late on Thursday. Pretty interesting. A second trailer is supposed to be unveiled this week sometime, and then 9 minute of film will be shown in front of select IMAX screenings of The Hobbit starting later this week. Based on the teaser – and comments from friends who are (or are connected to) Star Trek production insiders – I’m fairly certain I know who the villain is. I have to say I’m cautiously excited. Hard not to be – it’s Star Trek for heaven’s sake! No it’s not the same as classic Trek of old, but then nothing could be. And I enjoyed the first of the reboot films, so fingers crossed this one will be at least as enjoyable.

Speaking of fingers crossed, this is obviously Hobbit week – the first film in the planned trilogy, An Unexpected Journey – opens on Thursday. Matt and I have our plans all lined up to see the film in 48fps 3D. We’re pretty excited about it. In fact, we’d planned to start out the week by attending a digital screening of The Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition marathon on Saturday. But fate was not on our side – about 40 minutes into The Fellowship of the Ring, a power transformer blew outside the theater we were in (the Edwards Spectrum 21 & RPX in Irvine) and the entire theater went dark. Power company estimated the repair time at 6-8 hours so the whole screening was cancelled! It was a total bummer. The films sure looked and sounded great – what little we saw of them anyway. We’re hopeful Regal and Fathom Events will reschedule the screening this week… we’ll see.

All right, so let’s run down the latest announcement news…

Amazon.com is now showing Warner’s Argo for Blu-ray/DVD Combo release on 2/19 (SRP $35.99 but Amazon has it for just $25.19). There’s no cover art or official announcement yet but we’d expect one soon.  Same drill with Warner’s Cloud Atlas Blu-ray - it’s available for pre-order on from Amazon with a 2/5 street date (SRP $35.99 but Amazon again has it for just $25.19). Amazon also has Fox’s Life of Pi Blu-ray 3D and Paramount’s Flight Blu-ray available for pre-order with no street date listed.

Sony has set Aladdin and the Death Lamp for DVD only release on 2/12, followed by Company of Heroes on Blu-ray and DVD on 3/19. Extras on Company will include deleted scenes and 2 featurettes (In the Trenches: Filming Company of Heroes and Fabricating World War II). Sony also has Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning for Blu-ray and DVD release on 1/22. Included will be audio commentary with director John Hyams and Dolph Lundgren and the 3-part Days of Reckoning documentary (including Coming into Focus, There Is No End and Production Wrap).

Lionsgate has set Alex Cross for Blu-ray and DVD release on 2/4, followed by Sinister on both formats on 2/19.

MTV and Paramount have set Jersey Shore: The Final Season for DVD only release on 3/19.

Nickelodeon and Paramount have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rise of the Turtles coming on DVD only on 2/26.

And retail sources tell us that Disney and Pixar are tentatively set to release Monsters, Inc. 3D on Blu-ray 3D Combo on 2/19.

Here’s a look at the Blu-ray cover artwork for Disney’s Monsters, Inc. 3D and Sony’s Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning and the DVD art for Sony’s Robot and Frank (due 2/12)…

Stay tuned…

- Bill Hunt