Displaying items by tag: JJ Abrams

We’re starting things off today with this just in from Paramount Home Entertainment: George Cukor’s My Fair Lady (1964) and J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 (2011) are now official for release on the 4K Ultra HD format on 5/25.

My Fair Lady is presented in 4K, mastered from the 2015 8K film scan and restoration of the original camera negative and surviving 65 mm elements.

Both HDR10 and Dolby Vision will be included (this is now confirmed). Audio will be available in the same English 7.1 Dolby TrueHD mix found on the 2015 Blu-ray edition.

There are no extras on the 4K disc itself, but the package will include that same Blu-ray (along with a Digital code). [Read on here...]

This is another quick update to let you know that Zavvi has just revealed an exclusive 4K Ultra HD Steelbook edition of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s now available for pre-order here.

Zavvi has a number of these 4K Steelbook exclusives (you can see some currently available titles here) and some of them tend to sell out relatively quickly.

So we recommend that you act quickly if you want this one... [Read on here...]

All right, as most of you know by now, tonight marks the opening of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in theaters. My wife, brother, and I are joining our old friend Robert Meyer Burnett and his family for the first showing at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, where it all began back in 1977. And having just seen a press screening of the film on Tuesday, we’re very much looking forward to seeing it again in IMAX Laser projection. The upshot is that today’s post is going to be a brief one.

However… we DO have a little more detail for you about the recently revealed Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 4K/Blu-ray box set that’s now known to be coming on 3/31/2020.

Not only will it include all 9 of the “Skywalker” films on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Disc, each film will include a bonus disc of extras (for a total of 27 discs). It’s reasonable to assume that virtually everything that’s ever been released previously for each of these films in terms of special features is fair game for inclusion on these bonus discs and it’s possible there may be new features too. But of course we won’t know for sure until this set is officially announced. [Read on here...]

All right, there’s a little more ground to cover today...

First, our friends at The Criterion Collection have announced their March 2020 slate of titles, which is set to include David Maysles’ Salesman (Cat #122 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 3/10, Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (Cat #1019 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 3/17, John M. Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven (Cat #1020 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying (Cat #146 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 3/24, and James Whale’s Show Boat (Cat #1021 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Barbra Streisand’s The Prince of Tides (Cat #1022 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 3/31. We’ve updated the Criterion Spines Project pages here at The Bits accordingly. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ll have more to report tomorrow on The Bits, but I wanted to jump in here quickly this evening with word from retail sources that Disney will release Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as a 9-film, 27-disc 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray box set on 3/31/2020.

Here’s the thing: We know for sure that Best Buy will have an exclusive SKU (here’s a link to a Best Buy Canada listing for the title). What we don’t know yet is if the entire box set is Best Buy exclusive, or if Best Buy will just have exclusive packaging.

But that obviously means Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will street on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 3/31/2020 as well. [Read on here...]

So I spent a couple hours up in Hollywood yesterday afternoon to cover something pretty interesting…

At a press event at the Screen Actors Guild, members of the UHD Alliance, three major consumer electronics manufacturers, and leading Hollywood filmmakers officially announced a new partnership effort to implement Filmmaker Mode as an extension of the 4K Ultra HD spec.

The idea is to ensure that when you watch a movie at home in 4K on your new Ultra HD display, whether from a disc, stream, or cable/satellite broadcast, it will look exactly as it should. UHD Alliance research suggests that as many as 80% of people who buy 4K TVs never change the settings out of the box. This means irritating features like motion smoothing and unnecessary processing are being applied to the image by default – processing that actually takes the picture away from the filmmakers’ intent.

What the Filmmaker Mode will do is to allow the user – either with one push of a button on the remote, or with a very easy and obvious menu setting – to set the TV’s display parameters to most accurately display the 4K content. This would be a baseline setting for the image – any added adjustments signaled by HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision metadata would happen on top of that setting. [Read on here...]

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This is just a very quick early post – we’ll be back later this morning with our usual news update.

But we do have a bit of Star Wars related Blu-ray news that we thought was certainly worth mentioning right away. [Read on here…]

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Well... the last 24 hours have been a little crazy for movie fans, haven’t they? I attended Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim yesterday for the big panel of the morning, at which the new Episode VII teaser trailer was revealed by producer Kathleen Kennedy and director J.J. Abrams. Some background on my personal experience: The night before, great friends both old and new gathered for a pre-convention dinner. My wife Sarah and I were there, along with veteran Blu-ray producers Charles de Lauzirika and Cliff Stephenson, and Alec Peters and Diana Kingsbury of Propworx and Star Trek: Axanar fame. (Unable to attend because of work, BD producer Robert Meyer Burnett was there in spirit.) We learned that fans had actually started lining up to attend the panel earlier that morning so, somehow or other, it was decided that we should probably get in line ourselves around 5 AM in order to make sure we made it into the room. And, somehow or other, everybody was game for it. So get in line we did, along with thousands of others: Myself, Alec, Diana, Charlie and Cliff, joined by Chris Gore of Film Threat. We posed for a selfie to commemorate the insanity (at left – taken by Alec).  [Read on here…]

All right, let’s get the new week started off right, shall we?

I believe I promised you a new column from our own Michael Coate, so here it is. Today being the official 25th anniversary of the original theatrical release of Tim Burton’s Batman, Michael has delivered the latest installment of History, Legacy & Showmanship column: Wings of Change: Remembering Tim Burton's Batman on its 25th Anniversary. It’s well worth a read, as Michael’s column always are, delivering not one but two fine interviews and a wealth of detail. So be sure to check it out today.

And now for that surprise title announcement we mentioned on Friday: Paramount is finally making good on the Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray debacle with the 9/9 release of the 4-disc Star Trek: The Compendium Blu-ray box set (SRP $39.99)!  [Read on here…]

We’re closing out our last full week of the Hell Plaza Oktoberfest with Dr. Jahnke’s review of John Carpenter’s Body Bags: Collector’s Edition from Scream Factory.  Just four more reviews to go, but Jahnke’s saving a couple real gems for last.

Also today, we’ve posted our in-depth review of a true classic and a very long awaited Blu-ray release: Warner’s The Right Stuff: 30th Anniversary Edition.  Not only is this a great film, but it’s a bit of smart satire that’s also deeply admiring of those the men – test pilots and astronauts alike – who exemplify the film’s title.  And the Blu-ray looks and sounds pretty terrific, so don’t miss it.  [Read on here...]