Displaying items by tag: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Afternoon, Bits readers... and welcome to the first week of February!

Tim is taking a much-deserved week off to spend time with his family, but we’ll have plenty of news content here and maybe a review or two as well in the meantime.

Last night, my wife Sarah and I attended The 52nd Annual Saturn Awards here in Los Angeles, produced by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. It was a lovely evening, a chance to catch up with industry friends, brush elbows with genre celebs (think Nicolas Cage, William Shatner, Mark Hamill, Peter Weller, Christopher Lloyd, Laurence Fishburne, tons of Star Trek cast members, etc), and to celebrate great work in genre entertainment. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two took home the Best Science Fiction Film award, as it well should! Denis himself also won for Best Film Director—a nice show of appreciation for the filmmaker, especially given that he wasn’t nominated for Best Director by the Academy this year, despite Dune: Part Two being nominated for the Best Picture. Go figure.

In the Home Media categories, the key winners were:

• Best Classic Film Home Media Release: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)
• Best 4K Home Media Release: Saw X (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
• Best Film Home Media Collection: Batman: 85th Anniversary Collection (Warner Home Video)
• Best Television Home Media Release: Star Wars: Andor – The Complete First Season (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)

We actually had the good fortune to be seated at the same table as Kino Lorber’s VP of Acquisitions and Business Development, Frank Trazi, who—since he lives on the East Coast—I hadn’t had the chance to meet before. But trust me when I say that Frank is good people, and that KLSC’s fantastic slate of upcoming Blu-ray and 4K titles is in great hands with him. You can watch his new podcast, Shelf Space with Kino Lorber, here on YouTube.

In any case, the event was great fun and it was streamed live online here and on Roku. You can read the complete list of winners here at Deadline today. And all of us here at The Bits would like to offer our congratulations to Frank and everyone at KLSC for their win for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (you can see their actual Saturn statue below the break), to our friend Cliff Stephenson and everyone at Lionsgate for their 4K win with Saw X, and to the disc teams at Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for their wins as well!. [Read on here...]

We’re rounding out the week with two more new Blu-ray reviews, and we’ve got more coming on Monday.

But for now, we have Tim’s thoughts on Scream Factory’s new Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Collector’s Edition and Jim’s take on Twilight Time’s Support Your Local Sheriff / Support Your Local Gunfighter double feature. Enjoy!  [Read on here…]

Welcome to a new edition of Pick-Ups!

Well, like many of you, I checked out Suicide Squad this past weekend, and also like many of you, I just didn’t care for it all that much. I won’t go into any major details about it because it’s still pretty fresh and I don’t want to spoil anything for those who still want to see it, but I’m sure many of you already know many of the ins and outs of why certain folks didn’t like it. On the flipside, I also managed to see Star Trek Beyond as well, and I was a bit floored on that one. It’s easily the best of the new Treks, as well as the most solid film in that new franchise. It felt like they were done making the references and trying to copy what had come before and decided to tell a new story with the new cast for a change, which is what the major misstep of Into Darkness was, in my opinion. It’s not a flawless movie, but it was damned entertaining and very well made. Try to see that one in the theaters if you can before it’s gone. It’s worth the cash. [Read on here…]

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All right... yesterday’s editorial column on the new 4K Ultra HD format was a lot of work as you can imagine, but I’ve been very gratified at the positive reaction to it. If you missed it, you can find it here. I’m going to have more 4K coverage and reviews soon, but I’m just trying to balance it all out with the regular Blu-ray news and whatnot.

On that score, we have a pair of new Blu-ray reviews for you to check out today, including Tim Salmons’ thoughts on The Zero Boys from Arrow Video, as well as Jim Hemphill’s take on In the French Style from Twilight Time. Both titles are now available and are well worth a look.

Also today, in case you missed it when we posted it earlier this week, our own Mario Boucher has delivered a great new Inside Cinema column on the subject of “Duelity” in modern cinema. I think you’ll find it well worth a read, so do check it out here.  [Read on here…]

This is our last post for 2013, so we’ve got a couple quick things for you today...

First, our own Michael Coate has posted a new installment of his History, Legacy and Showmanship column, featuring a look at the restoration of Funny Girl with Sony’s Grover Crisp, as well as a look back at its roadshow engagement history.  Don’t miss it!  [Read on here...]