My Two Cents
Monday, 10 August 2015 18:22

Blu-ray News – Fifth Element & Léon Supreme Cinema BDs, Twilight Nov/Dec slate, new Force Awakens footage & Day the Clown Cried

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First things first today... we’ve got another great new catalog Blu-ray review from our own Jim Hemphill. He’s taken a look at King Vidor’s Solomon and Sheba (1959), now available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Do give it a read.

For you Star Wars fans this afternoon, there’s a new Korean trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens circulating around the Net today, though it appears to have only one or two new shots. Still, you can watch it below.  [Read on here…]

In announcement news today, this is kind of awesome: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing more new Supreme Cinema Series Blu-rays. Look for Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and Léon: The Professional on 10/27. Each is remastered from a new 4K transfer and features Dolby Atmos audio. Each will also include 24-page collector’s books. It looks as if all of the previous Blu-ray extras will carry over (the DVD extras in the case of Fifth Element). Here’s what they’ll look like (we’ll post Amazon links as soon as they’re available)...

The Fifth Element & Leon: The Professional Supreme Cinema BDs

Sony has also announced the 9/22 Blu-ray and DVD release of Saint Laurent.

Here’s more great news: Twilight Time has just revealed a spectacular slate of Blu-ray titles for release in November and December, including Scorpio (1973), Shadows and Fog (1991), Broken Lance (1954), Sense and Sensibility (1995), and Fatherland (1986) on 11/10, and Born Free (1966), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Kings Go Forth (1958), The Detective (1968), Mysterious Island (1961), and Captain Harlock Space Pirate (2014) on 12/8. That last title will include both Blu-ray 3D and 2D!

Are there any Game of Thrones fans out there? You can now pre-order Seasons One and Two of the show on Blu-ray in new Steelbook packaging AND with Dolby Atmos sound. They’re due on 11/3. SRP is $71.99 each, though the previous Blu-ray sets are just around $32 each. Here’s the new versions (with links to the Amazon pre-order pages and you can find the old versions on sale there too)...

Game of Thrones: Season One (Steelbook Blu-ray)    Game of Thrones: Season Two (Steelbook Blu-ray)    Space Dandy: Season Two (Blu-ray Disc)

As you can see, FUNimation has just announced the Blu-ray and DVD release of Space Dandy: Season Two on 9/22.

To celebrate silly season, Asylum/Gaiam is releasing Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! on Blu-ray and DVD on 10/6.

For music fans, Vesuvio Entertainment has set The Motels: Live at the Whisky a Go Go – 50th Anniversary for Blu-ray and DVD release on 9/25.

On the catalog front, Kino Lorber has revealed that they’re working on a number of great classic titles for Blu-ray and/or DVD release, including A Child Is Waiting (1963), A Bullet for Joey (1955), The House on Carroll Street (1988), The Spikes Gang (1974), The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971), Pitfall (1948), The Hurricane (1937), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), The Crooked Way (1949), and Richard Lester’s The Knack... and How to Get It (1965), The Bed Sitting Room (1967), and How I Won the War (1969). All are coming soon, street dates TBA.

In other news, are any of you familiar with the story behind Jerry Lewis’ controversial unreleased film The Day the Clown Cried (1972)? Well, Indiewire is reporting that Lewis has just donated his copy of the film to the Library of Congress on the condition that it not be screened for ten more years. That means it’ll be at least another decade before anyone see it, but it virtually guarantees that the film will be screened and released at that point. You can read more here at The Onion A.V. Club and here at Indiewire.

Finally today, the IndieGoGo fundraising campaign for Star Trek: Axanar has just EIGHT hours left!  If you’d like to contribute to the project (and receive great perks in the process), please do so now. We’ve mentioned it before, but I’m actually co-writing the film and our old friend Robert Meyer Burnett (of Free Enterprise fame) is directing. Click here to check it out – note that you can view the first scene from the film on the campaign page.

We’ll leave you with a look at more new Blu-ray cover artwork (with Amazon pre-order links if available)...

The Land Before Time (Blu-ray Disc)    Christmas Vacation (Blu-ray Disc)    Some Kind of Hero (Blu-ray Disc)

Stay tuned!

Bill Hunt

 

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