And our own Russell Hammond has updated the Release Dates & Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray and DVD cover artwork, as well as Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, a portion of anything you order from Amazon after clicking to them through our links goes to help support our work here at The Bits and we truly do appreciate it.
Now then… the big release news today is that Criterion has finally announced their September Blu-ray and DVD slate, and it includes David Lynch’s Eraserhead (Spine #725 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 9/16, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (Spine #726 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (Spine #727 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 9/23, and Serge Bourguignon’s Sundays and Cybèle (Spine #728 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (a catalog upgrade at Spine #198 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 9/30. Eraserhead in particular is a long-awaited title. It will include the film in a new 4K digital restoration with uncompressed stereo audio, the 2001 Eraserhead Stories documentary, 6 additional short films by Lynch in HD made from 1967 to 1995 (Six Figures Getting Sick, The Alphabet, The Grandmother, The Amputee, Part 1 and Part 2, and Premonitions Following an Evil Deed) each with video introduction, new and archival interviews with the cast and crew, and the film’s trailer. You can find more details on all these titles here on Criterion website and be sure to check out some of the cover artwork below.
One other Criterion note: The company has decided to abandon its original plan to release all of its titles in Dual Disc format, as their customer feedback indicates that many people still collect the titles in DVD format only. So now you’ll be able to purchase the formats separately as before.
Meanwhile today, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has set The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for Blu-ray 3D combo, Blu-ray combo and DVD release on 8/19, with a digital release on 8/5. All of the disc-based versions will include audio commentary with director Marc Webb, plus 4 deleted scenes with commentary, and Alicia Keys’ It’s On Again music video. To this, the Blu-rays will exclusively add 9 additional deleted scenes with commentary and Charles de Lauzirika’s 6-part The Wages of Heroism: Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2 documentary (includes Lessons Learned: Development and Direction, Heart of the City: Shooting in New York, Triple Threat: Attack of the Villains, A More Dangerous World: Transforming Electro and the Green Goblin, A Bolt From the Blue: Visual Effects, and Spidey Gets His Groove Back: Music and Editing). You can see the cover art for both BD versions below.
Not done yet: Sony has also set NBC’s The Blacklist: The Complete First Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 8/12. Both versions will include all 22 episodes, along with commentary on 3 episodes by Jon Bokenkamp, John Eisendrath, and Joe Carnahan, all 22 episodes of Beyond the Blacklist, and The Insider: Making Season One documentary. To this, the Blu-ray version will exclusively add 2 additional featurettes (Inception: Making the Pilot and Rouge’s Gallery: Villains), as well as 7 Character Dossiers clips (Raymond Reddington, Elizabeth Keen, Tom Keen, Donald Ressler, Harold Cooper, Meera Malik, and Aram Mojtabai). Once again, you’ll find the cover art below.
And here at last is all the cover artwork we’ve just mentioned (note that we’ll add the Criterion Amazon pre-order links as soon as they come online)…
Stay tuned...
- Bill Hunt