Here’s something interesting: The Disney Movie Club is making available on Blu-ray for a limited time a number of classic Disney live action films, starting with The Apple Dumpling Gang and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes on 9/9. These will be initially exclusive to The Disney Movie Club and then will go into wide release at some point later in the year. They aren’t listed here on their website yet, but we expect them to be soon. You can bet additional titles will follow. Thanks to Bits reader Bill M. for the heads-up. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the cover artwork…

Here’s something else that’s interesting: It looks like Tokyo Shock is finally getting into the Godzilla BD business, as they’ve just announced Godzilla vs. Megalon and Destroy All Monsters for release on 9/2. Frankly, it’s good to see Tokyo Shock releasing ANYTHING on Blu-ray. We wish they’d get around to doing Zatoichi (1989) on BD.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate has set Aubrey Plaza’s new “zom-rom-com” Life After Beth for Blu-ray and DVD release on 10/21.

PBS Distribution is releasing Secrets of Westminster on DVD on 9/9, followed by Secrets of Her Majesty’s Secret Service on DVD on 9/16. Okay, I’m curious on that last one. PBS also has American Experience: The Big Burn and Al Capone: Icon coming to DVD on 9/30.

Any car fans in the house? TM Books & Video has just released Mustang: The First 50 Years on 2-disc DVD and digital. Visit this website for more information.

My old friend Mark Gray at Spacecraft Films is working like mad on a new Blu-ray for you space enthusiasts called Apollo 11: Lunar Surface Operations. Basically, he’s taking all of the 16mm film shot on the surface by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during Apollo 11, along with the recently restored TV transmissions, and all of the still photographs they took as well, and compiling them with the audio transmissions into a 1.78:1 widescreen presentation in REAL TIME. This includes the landing, the EVA and liftoff from the Moon. In other words, this is as close as you can get to experiencing the first Moon landing without actually being there. Here’s a sample of what it will look like...

You can pre-order the title here. Tell ‘em The Bits sent you.

In other news, I didn’t know the BBC had a new version of The Musketeers out, but it’s coming to Blu-ray and DVD on 8/26.

Well Go USA Entertainment will release Child of God on Blu-ray and DVD on 10/28.

IFC Films is releasing Wolf, Lucky Them and Hellion on DVD on 9/30. They also have Cold in July coming on both Blu-ray and DVD that day.

And have any of you heard the news recently about Orson Welles’ lost film from 1938? Called Too Much Johnson it’s apparently a trio of films that were originally meant to be used as part of a Mercury Theatre stage production but the project was never finished. The films were rediscovered last year and have now been restored. You can watch the 66-minute work print here at the National Film Preservation Foundation website, see a more polished version here that attempts to finish the project as Welles might have done, and you can read more on the whole thing here at The Dissolve.

We’ll leave you today with a look at the Blu-ray cover artwork for Warner Archive’s The Great Race (due 9/9), Tokyo Shock’s Godzilla vs. Megalon, the BBC’s The Musketeers, Magnolia’s The Double (8/26), Lionsgate’s Life After Beth, and Spacecraft Film’s Apollo 11: Lunar Surface Operations (street date TBA)…

Stay tuned...

- Bill Hunt