My Two Cents
Friday, 17 June 2016 15:26

Star Wars: Rebels – Season 2, plus Criterion September pre-orders & rare footage from Day the Clown Cried

by
  • Print
  • Email

[Editor’s Note: Be sure to follow us on Twitter @thedigitalbits @BillHuntBits and on Facebook here and here. And you can help support The Bits by pre-ordering Blu-rays and other items from Amazon through this link.]

All right, ladies and gentlemen... let’s wrap up this week, shall we?

First up, we have a good new title announcement. Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Studios have just set Star Wars: Rebels – Complete Season Two for Blu-ray and DVD release on 8/30. You’ll get all 22 episodes (1.78:1 – 1080p) with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio on Blu-ray, along with 20 Rebel Recons clips, and 2 featurettes (Connecting the Galaxy: Rebels Season Two and the BD-exclusive From Apprentice to Adversary: Vader vs. Ahsoka). You can pre-order it here and you can see the cover artwork at the left.  [Read on here…]

Meanwhile, Universal has set the all-new CG-animated film Ratchet & Clank for Blu-ray and DVD release on 9/26, with Digital HD due on 9/2. Extras will include a pair of featurettes.

Now then... in a follow up from yesterday, all of Criterion’s new September Blu-ray titles are now up for pre-order on Amazon.com. You can order them through these links (click on the covers below) and doing so helps to support The Bits which we greatly appreciate...

Dekalog (Criterion Blu-ray Disc)    Cat People (1942 - Criterion Blu-ray)    Blood Simple (Criterion Blu-ray)

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Criterion Blu-ray Disc)    Valley of the Dolls (Criterion Blu-ray)    Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Criterion Blu-ray)

Night Train to Munich (Criterion Blu-ray Disc)    The Thing: Collector's Edition (Blu-ray Disc)    Metalstorm 3D (Blu-ray Disc)

As you can see we’ve also included a couple other links in there for good new Shout!/Scream titles that are also now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Finally, do you want to see something fascinating today? A record of lost film history? Some of you may be aware of the unreleased Jerry Lewis film The Day the Clown Cried (1972). Harry Shearer had this to say about it in 1992:

“With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. “Oh My God!” — that’s all you can say.”

Anyway, if you don’t know much about the film, I would suggest you read about it a little bit here on Wikipedia. THEN... you might be interested to watch the 28 minutes below. It’s essentially a condensed reconstruction of the film, made using bits of outtakes and workprint footage (taken from a German documentary), as well as re-enactments of the script with stage actors. It’s pretty fascinating...

All right, that’s all for this week. We’ve got something fun planned for Monday morning, so be sure to check back then. Have a great weekend!

- Bill Hunt (@BillHuntBits)

 

Contact Bill Hunt

Please type your full name.
Invalid email address.
Please send us a message.
Invalid Input