Displaying items by tag: Warner Bros

“Clark Kent’s alley transformation into Superman and Superman’s flight to the White House to return the American Flag are two of the best moments; they are just as chill-inducing and magical today as they were 40 years ago!” — Jim Bowers, CapedWonder.com

The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this multi-page retrospective commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Superman II, the 1980/1981/2006 follow-up to 1978’s Superman: The Movie and featuring Christopher Reeve reprising his legendary dual role of Superman and alter ego Clark Kent.

Taking over from Richard Donner midway through production, Richard Lester (The Three Musketeers, Help!) directed and re-shot much of the Saturn Award-winning sequel, which focused on the three Kyptonian outlaws (Terrence Stamp, Sarah Douglas and Jack O’Halloran) breaking free from their cosmic imprisonment and seeking revenge on the Man of Steel.

The first Superman sequel—also starring Clifton James as Sheriff and E.G. Marshall as The President—featured reprisal performances by Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, Ned Beatty as Otis, Jackie Cooper as Perry White, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, Valerie Perrine as Miss Teschmacher, Susannah York as Superman’s biological mother Lara, and Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen. [Read on here...]

“What’s fun about seeing THX 1138 now, after 50 years, is to see how George Lucas took the rather dark themes and dynamic visual storytelling of his first film and found a way to infuse them into the Saturday matinee style films of the Star Wars series. THX is not his best film, but it’s fascinating to see the seeds of his future work within it.” – Gary Leva, director of Fog City Mavericks

The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the golden anniversary of the release of THX 1138, George Lucas’s feature-length adaptation of his award-winning 1967 USC student film Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB.

Released two years before American Graffiti and six years before Star Wars, Lucas’s first motion picture starred Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now, Tender Mercies) and Donald Pleasence (You Only Live Twice, Halloween) and was about a dystopian future where love and individuality are forbidden.

THX 1138 was executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) as part of a deal in which Warner Bros. would finance and distribute American Zoetrope productions. [Read on here...]

Afternoon, folks. We’ve got another new disc review for you today, and some more interesting release news as well.

First up, that review: Tim has taken a look at Henry Levin and Mario Bava’s The Wonders of Aladdin (1961), now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

In terms of announcement news, Visual Entertainment is releasing Stargate Universe: The Complete Series on Blu-ray Disc on 1/15. This includes all 40 episodes, plus over 2 hours of extras. This, by the way, follows in the wake of the company’s recent release of Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series on Blu-ray. The latter features the early seasons upscaled, while the later seasons were native HD. We believe Stargate Universe was produced in HD, so it should be of fairly good quality. [Read on here...]

We’ve got some good stuff for you here at the site today! So let’s get right into it.

First of all, we’ve posted a trio of new 4K Ultra HD reviews...

Late last night, I posted my in-depth thoughts on John Landis’ The Blues Brothers, new in 4K Ultra HD from Universal. I love this film and the good news is that it’s never looked and sounded better. Check it out here.

Also today, Tim has posted reviews of Blue Underground’s new 4K Ultra HD editions of William Lustig’s Maniac (1980) and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979). These too have never looked better, but do be aware that the cover artwork pictured here on The Bits is NOT the final artwork.

We have to censor the cover art on some of these horror titles or Google flags them as offensive, which crushes our advertising. And we need advertising to survive, so there it is. Anyway, enjoy the titles! Blue Underground does great work. [Read on here...]

All right, we’re working on FOUR more 4K Ultra HD reviews for the next couple of days, at least of the first of which we hope to have posted later this afternoon.

In the meantime, we’ve just launched our second giveaway on The Digital Bits’ Facebook page, offering readers the chance to win one of Paramount’s three new Tom Cruise 4K Ultra HD titles – Top Gun, Days of Thunder, or War of the Worlds. All you have to do to enter is follow The Bits’ Facebook page and reply to this post (linked here) with your answer to the question you’ll find. Entries will be accepted until 11 AM Pacific tomorrow (Thursday, May 21). The contest is open to US residents only (due to COVID shipping restrictions—sorry!). THREE winners will be selected at random from the list of those who enter and will be announced tomorrow afternoon. Good luck!

Meanwhile today, we have a bit more announcement news... [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got more disc reviews for you today...

First up, Tim has turned in his thoughts on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel now on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. Tim has also looked at the new Top Secret!: Special Edition Blu-ray from Via Vision Entertainment. It’s a REGION FREE import from Australia.

Meanwhile, Dennis has taken a look at a pair of new titles from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, including Stanley Kramer’s The Runner Stumbles (1979) and Leslie Norman’s The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961). Both are worth a look.

And finally, I’ve finished my review of Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder in 4K Ultra HD from Paramount. Whatever you may think of the film, the new 4K presentation is pretty good and a nice upgrade for fans.

More reviews are in the offing, so be sure to check back tomorrow. [Read on here...]

Afternoon, folks! And welcome to Friday. Is anyone else out there as ready for the weekend as we are?

This has been a busy week of just “three steps forward two steps backward” behind-the-scenes work here at The Bits. We got a lot done, but very little of it is visible to any of you. But that’s how it goes sometimes.

We’re all working on more reviews here at the site today (and we will be through the weekend—including War of the Worlds 4K and Days of Thunder 4K), but we do have some interesting release news to report today.

First up, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and HBO have just set His Dark Materials: The Complete First Season for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 8/4 (SRP $29.98 each). [Read on here...]

All right, there’s not a whole lot going on today news-wise, so we’re busy working on new disc reviews.

But we did want to check in briefly with a new interesting odds and ends.

To start with, we have a sneak peek at temp cover artwork from our retail sources (in Europe in this case) for Universal’s Spartacus and Jaws on 4K Ultra HD, which are expected to street widely in June or July (street date TBA). You can see Jaws at left and both of them below. This should be close to final, but know that it’s not actually final until the studio officially announces the titles.

Also coming from Universal on 6/2 (only at Best Buy stores in the US) is a new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook version of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. You also can see that below. [Read on here...]

All right, we’re starting the new week off with a new History, Legacy & Showmanship column from our own Michael Coate, who’s celebrating the 30th anniversary of John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October with a new film retrospective that features a look back at the original theatrical release, the 70mm engagements, and a new interview with author and film historian Eric Lichtenfeld. Enjoy!

Meanwhile, our friends at Kino Lorber have announced some fun new Studio Classics titles that are coming soon to Blu-ray, including Joe Dante, John Landis, Carl Gottlieb, Robert K. Weiss & Peter Horton’s Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) and Peter Hyams’ Narrow Margin (1990), along with a trio of titles newly announced for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/5—Fred Coe’s A Thousand Clowns (1965) and Me, Natalie (1969—featuring Al Pacino’s first screen role), and Guy Hamilton’s An Inspector Calls (1954). [Read on here...]

We certainly hope you’re all enjoying the long Labor Day weekend here in the States. And Happy Monday for the rest of you!

Given the holiday, we’re taking a much needed break today. But we do have a couple of new Blu-ray reviews for you to enjoy...

Tim has just turned in his in-depth thoughts on the long-awaited Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? Complete Series Blu-ray set from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The package streets tomorrow, and it sounds like it’s pretty good. You can read that review here.

Also, Tim has posted his thoughts on Gary Sherman’s Vice Squad (1982) from Scream Factory, as well as the Akio Jissôji: The Buddhist Trilogy box set from Arrow Academy, both on Blu-ray.

And Dennis rounds things out with his thoughts on A Dog’s Journey on Blu-ray from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

So enjoy those and we’ll be back tomorrow with our regular news update and more. Stay tuned!

-Bill Hunt

(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)