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Tuesday, 23 June 2020 17:01

Cinema Paradiso in 4K, new Blu-ray announcements, great podcasts & more, plus RIP Ian Holm/Joel Schumacher

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All right, it’s been a few days since my last news update and there are a variety of reasons for that which I’ll get into in tomorrow’s post. In the meantime, let’s get caught up...

First, we’ve got some new reviews for you all to enjoy. Tim has posted no less than four Blu-ray reviews since last week, including his thoughts on Terence Fisher’s 1961 Hammer Films classic The Curse of the Werewolf from Scream Factory, Fritz Bottger’s Horrors of Spider Island (1960) from Severin Films, James Signorelli’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) from Arrow Video, finally Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980) in a new 40th Anniversary Steelbook Edition from Paramount. Enjoy!

Now then, there’s not a lot of major announcement news to report at the moment, but we do have some interesting odds and ends...

Let’s start on the 4K front: Arrow Video has announced the release of Giuseppe Tornatore’s beloved Cinema Paradiso (1988) on both 4K Ultra HD and regular Blu-ray on 9/28. [Read on here...]

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The 4K disc will include the 124-minute theatrical cut in 4K with Dolby Vision and HDR10, as well as the 174-minute Director’s Cut in Blu-ray. You’ll get uncompressed 2.0 and 5.1 audio, audio commentary with director Giuseppe Tornatore and Italian cinema expert critic Millicent Marcus, the 52-minute A Dream of Sicily documentary on Tornatore, the 27-minute A Bear and a Mouse in Paradise documentary on the making of Cinema Paradiso, The Kissing Sequence featurette, the original Director’s Cut trailer, and the 25th Anniversary re-release trailer. You can see the cover artwork above left and also below.

The Warner Archive has announced their July and August catalog Blu-ray slates, which are set to include Pride and Prejudice (1940 – BD) and Legion of Super Heroes: The Complete Series (BD) on 7/14, Girl Crazy (1943 – BD) on 7/21, Million Dollar Mermaid (1952 – BD) on 7/28, Michael (1996 – BD) on 8/11, Clara’s Heart (1988 – BD) on 8/18, and Without Love (1945 – BD) and Pat and Mike (1952 – BD) on 8/25.

Meanwhile, Warner and DC have set Stargirl: The Complete First Season for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 9/29.

Paramount has set a Clueless: 25th Anniversary Edition for release on Blu-ray and Blu-ray Steelbook on 7/21. Also coming that day is the Paramount Presents Blu-ray release of the Ghost: 30th Anniversary Edition. “Newly remastered from a 4K film transfer supervised by director Jerry Zucker, the Ghost Blu-ray also includes a new Filmmaker Focus with the director, as well as previously released commentary by Jerry Zucker and writer Bruce Joel Rubin, a look at the making of the film, and the featurette Alchemy of a Love Scene.” And finally, Paramount has just set Jack Ryan: Season Two for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 8/4.

Mill Creek Entertainment is releasing The Birth of Ultraman Collection on Blu-ray on 7/10. This is a “best of” set containing select episodes of the original Ultraman TV series (along with both the original Japanese audio and English dubbed audio), as well as The Birth of Ultraman Pre-Premiere Special (which aired in Japan in 1966 and gave viewers their first look at the character).

Also today, Lionsgate has set Orange Is the New Black: Season Seven for release on DVD and Digital on 7/28.

Shudder and RLJE Films have set The Room for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on 7/21.

Shout! Studios and Scream Factory have set the sci-fi thriller Proximity for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 7/7.

And there are a number of people who have emailed us to report that Amazon Spain has what looks like a Blu-ray release of James Cameron’s True Lies. The answer to your question is that it’s probably a bootleg (but I’ll look into it).

Here’s a look at the cover artwork for a number of the titles mentioned above—click to pre-order each on Amazon.com...

Cinema Paradiso (4K Ultra HD) Cinema Paradiso (Blu-ray Disc) Vincent Price Collection: Volume 1 (REISSUE Blu-ray Disc)

Spartacus (4K Ultra HD) Jack Ryan: Season 2 (Blu-ray Disc) Ghost (Blu-ray Disc)

The Wind Rises (Blu-ray Disc) Children of the Sea (Blu-ray Disc) The Birth of Ultraman (Blu-ray Disc)

In other news today, there have been lots of great YouTube/Zoom panel discussions and reunions of late that you might be interested in checking out. Josh Gad in particular has done some great Reunited Apart episodes recently featuring the casts of Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and Goonies. You can check out the Ghostbusters one here...

Speaking of YouTube, Apple TV has just released the first teaser trailer for their upcoming TV series adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction novel Foundation (due in 2021). You can see that here too...

There are also several great podcasts worth listening to while you’re stuck in COVID isolation. In particular, I highly recommend the Team Deakins podcast (by cinematographer Roger Deakins and his partner and collaborator James Ellis Deakins), the always entertaining Inglorious Treksperts (a must for Star Trek fans), Robert Meyer Burnett’s Robservations (that’s actually a YouTube offering), and Cinematalk (from my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Cinematheque (they have some great recent episodes featuring interviews with filmmakers Hong Sang-soo, Bill Forsyth, and Alexander Payne).

And finally, we need to take a moment today to acknowledge the passing of the great actor Ian Holm (Brazil, Alien, The Lord of the Rings) and director Joel Schumacher (Lost Boys, Falling Down, Batman Forever). Others have written far more eloquently about each of them (including here and here at The New York Times, and also this piece on Schumacher at Variety). But I particularly want to call your attention to director Peter Jackson’s remembrance of Holm here on Facebook. It might just bring tears to your eyes. Both men will be greatly missed.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned…

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