Displaying items by tag: Media Play News

There’s some new release news to report today, and then we’re going to return to the topic of physical media in the wake of the news about Samsung on Friday.

But first, late on Friday afternoon, Criterion announced their May Blu-ray release slate, which is set to include William Wyler’s The Heiress (Cat #974 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/7, an updating of David Mamet’s House of Games (Cat #399 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (Cat #975 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/14, Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In (Cat #976 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/21, and Agnès Varda’s One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Cat #978 – Blu-ray and DVD) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (Cat #977 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/28. We’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project page here at The Bits to include these titles and you can read more about them here.

Speaking of Criterion, we also learned on Friday that the Russian film studio Mosfilm has completed a new 2K restoration of Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic 1966-67 film adaptation of War and Peace. The 7-hour/4-part series is legendary in cinema history as the biggest production ever mounted, besting even David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia by having an essentially unlimited budget, a bottomless supply of props and costumes from the country’s state museums, and a cast of thousands. The film was shot on Russian Sovscope 70mm film stock, but unfortunately it’s suffered from preservation issues over the years. That’s meant the only good options available for viewing in recent years have been DVD versions of modest quality. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got a bit of release news to start the week for you, and we’ll be back with new disc reviews tomorrow.

First up, Walt Disney Home Entertainment has set Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 6/5, with the Digital release expected on 5/29. The Blu-ray version will feature English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, while the 4K UHD will include English Dolby Atmos. We believe that the 4K disc will have Dolby Vision HDR as well, but we’re awaiting confirmation of that.

Extras on both Blu-ray versions will include the A Journey Through Time featurette, audio commentary (with director Ava DuVernay, producer Jim Whitaker, co-screenwriter Jennifer Lee, production designer Naomi Shohan, 1st AD Michael Moore, editor Spencer Averick, and VFX supervisor Rich McBride), 4 deleted scenes, bloopers, 2 music videos (I Believe and Warrior). You can see the Blu-ray cover art above left and below. We should have the 4K Ultra HD cover art in the next couple days. [Read on here...]