My Two Cents
We’ve got a bunch of news for you today, including both Blu-ray and 4K. But we’re going to start with some new reviews.
First of all, yesterday I posted my thoughts on Sony’s 4K Ultra HD release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The title streets on 3/19, and I’ll tell you... it may be my all-time favorite superhero film, period. That’s saying a lot, but it’s just really fresh, honest, and ingenious in the way it presents the comic book genre on the big screen with groundbreaking animation. It’s a pretty nice 4K release too, so do give it a look.
Also today, Tim has delivered a review of Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet on regular Blu-ray and Dennis has taken a look at Universal’s Mary Queen of Scots as well. Enjoy!
Now then... a couple items before we get to the release news... [Read on here...]
All right, let’s get right down to it. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the prospects of James Cameron’s The Abyss and True Lies arriving on Blu-ray (and dare we hope 4K) in 2019 because we’ve had SO many solid reports that these films were finally coming only to see them evaporate. And when I’ve tried to find out why, Fox always pointed at Cameron and Cameron always pointed back at Fox. What I finally figured out is that Cameron has just been too distracted with other projects to approve new transfers of these films, first with diving to the bottom of the ocean and more recently with his Avatar prequels.
As longtime Bits readers will be well aware, both films were expected for their last major anniversaries in 2014. We know for a fact that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment had even prepared new Blu-ray releases (most recently rumored for release in 2017), but Cameron never got around to approving the new transfers, so the Blu-ray releases never happened. The transfers were quietly released to the pay cable movie channels only.
Well, now it’s five years later. 2019 officially marks the 30th anniversary of The Abyss and the 25th of True Lies. Naturally, that means Bits readers have been asking me for weeks about the prospects of finally seeing these films released on Blu-ray (and, again, dare we hope 4K). I’ve even spoken to studio sources about this recently. And again, what I learned was that the ball was still in James Cameron’s court. [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...]
Last night I had the chance to attend a screening of the new Apollo 11 documentary in IMAX format... and let me tell you, it’s the experience of a lifetime.
If you’re like me, and are either a spaceflight historian or enthusiast or both, you probably think you’ve seen or heard every piece of footage there is of the legendary Apollo 11 Moon landing mission.
I certainly thought I had. I’d seen all the previously released film, heard hundreds of hours of audio recordings and interviews, read all the books.
But you’ve seen nothing yet. And that is a kind of miracle that I never imagined possible.
Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, produced by CNN Films and distributed by Neon, is a genuine revelation. [Read on here...]
All right, we’re starting off with this...
You can get Fox’s outstanding Alien Anthology Blu-ray box set today on Amazon.com (here at this link) for just $20. That’s a whopping 67% off the SRP, so act fast. This is one of the best box sets ever produced, with all four Alien films remastered in stunning HD quality (including the Alien 3: Restored Workprint Version) on 6 discs, with a massive bounty of extras (including two full discs of bonus content) all created by our old friend Charles de Lauzirika. Those documentaries alone are worth dropping $20 for this package, so if you haven’t picked up a copy yet... now’s the time!
I should add here that if you’re waiting for Fox to release a 4K upgraded Alien Anthology box set, you’re going to be waiting a while. Only the original Alien is being released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2019. There may be a new Alien box set that includes the Anthology contents on Blu-ray along with Alien, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant in 4K. We’ve seen artwork packaging artwork circulating (from Amazon.jp). But if you already have Prometheus and Alien: Covenant in 4K, your smartest best at this point is to buy the new Alien 4K release when it arrives and pick up the Anthology for $20 ASAP. [Read on here...]