The Blu-Ray Upcoming, News & Info Thread

[IronFingaz]

The Criterion Collection has announced five titles for Blu-ray release in February. On February 5, the studio will release The Ballad of Narayama (Keisuke Kino****a, 1958). A week later, it will release The Kid With A Bike (Dardenne Brothers, 2011). On February 19, it will release On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954). On February 26, it will release Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961) and Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954).

Technical specs and special features include:

The Ballad of Narayama -

This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village, where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable new wife. Filmed almost entirely on cunningly designed studio sets, in brilliant color and widescreen, The Ballad of Narayama is a stylish and vividly formal work from Japan's cinematic golden age, directed by the dynamic Keisuke Kino****a.

Special Features:
New 4K digital master from the 2011 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Trailer and teaser
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp

The Kid With a Bike -

Twelve-year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret), all coiled anger and furious motion, is living in a group home but refuses to believe he has been rejected by his single father (Jérémie Renier). He spends his days frantically trying to reach the man, over the phone or on his beloved bicycle. It is only the patience and compassion of Samantha (Cécile de France), the stranger who agrees to care for him, that offers the boy the chance to move on. Spare and unsentimental but deeply imbued with a heart-rending tenderness, The Kid with a Bike is an arresting work from the great Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, masters of the empathetic action film.

Special Features:
New digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Alain Marcoen, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Conversation between film critic Kent Jones and directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Interviews with actors Cécile de France and Thomas Doret
Return to Seraing, a half-hour documentary in which the Dardennes revisit five locations from the film
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoff Andrew

On the Waterfront -

Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry, a raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and institutional corruption. On the Waterfront charts Terry's deepening moral crisis as he must choose whether to remain loyal to the mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and Johnny's right-hand man, Terry's brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), as the authorities close in on them. Driven by the vivid, naturalistic direction of Elia Kazan and savory, streetwise dialogue by Budd Schulberg, On the Waterfront was an instant sensation, winning eight Oscars, including for best picture, director, actor, supporting actress (Eva Marie Saint), and screenplay.

Special Features:
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Alternate presentations of the restoration in two additional aspect ratios: 1.85:1 (widescreen) and 1.33:1 (full-screen)
Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
Commentary featuring authors Richard Schickel and Jeff Young
Conversation between filmmaker Martin Scorsese and critic Kent Jones
Elia Kazan: Outsider (1982), an hour-long documentary
New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with scholar Leo Braudy, critic David Thomson, and others
New interview with actress Eva Marie Saint
Interview with director Elia Kazan from 2001
Contender, a 2001 documentary on the film's most famous scene
New interview with longshoreman Thomas Hanley, an actor in the film
New interview with author James T. Fisher (On the Irish Waterfront) about the real-life people and places behind the film
Visual essay on Leonard Bernstein's score
Visual essay on the aspect ratio
Trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Almereyda and reprints of Kazan's 1952 ad in the New York Times defending his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, one of the 1948 New York Sun articles by Malcolm Johnson on which the film was based, and a 1953 Commonweal piece by screenwriter Budd Schulberg

Chronicle of a Summer -

Few films can claim to be as influential to the course of cinema history as Chronicle of a Summer. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin would term cinéma verité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. By simply interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question "Are you happy?" and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian War—Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer's penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.

Special Features:
New high-definition digital transfer of the Cineteca di Bologna restoration of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Un été + 50 (2011), a seventy-three-minute documentary featuring outtakes and new interviews with codirector Edgar Morin and some of the film's subjects
Archival interviews with codirector Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film's subjects
New interview with anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, organizer of several Rouch retrospectives
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio

Sansho the Bailiff -

When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. Under the dazzling direction of Kenji Mizoguchi, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.

Special Features:
Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Japanese-literature professor Jeffrey Angles
Video interviews with critic Tadao Sato, assistant director Tokuzo Tanaka, and legendary actress Kyoko Kagawa, on the making of the film and its lasting importance
PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film writer Mark Le Fanu and two versions of the story on which the film was based: Ogai Mori's 1915 "Sansho Dayu" and a written form of an earlier oral variation

 

[batfan08]

Ooh, On the Waterfront.

 

[joebiwan]

Dollar Tree in Southern California (Palm Desert store) had a selection of Blu Ray films!
All One Dollar each!!!
Sample of what they had is Last Dance (Sharon Stone), Money for Nothing (John Cusack) Ernest Scared Stupid, The Tie that Binds (Daryl Hannah) Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (Wiliam Katt) just to name a few - there were a bunch of other titles too. A real bargain a $1.00 each!!!

 

[Darth Waller]

Posted on Scream Factory's Facebook page:

The wait is over! We can now officially reveal some really cool and beloved horror classics from the 80s that will be coming from the "Factory" in 2013:

- THE FOG (1980): John Carpenter's seaside ghostly revenge flick with Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis. New extras are in the works! First time on Blu-ray

- THE BURNING (1981): Summer Camp. Garden shears. Tom Savini effects. Need we say more? First time on Blu-ray

- THE HOWLING (1981): Joe Dante's ultimate werewolf pic with superb Rob Bottin effects. First time on Blu-ray.

- LIFEFORCE (1985): Tobe Hooper's space vampires and light-show extravaganza finally gets its first ever anamorphic widescreen presentation! First time on Blu-ray.

- NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984): Shopping and zombies highlight this post-Doomsday cult classic. First time on Blu-ray.

- DAY OF THE DEAD (1985): George Romero's splattery undead classic gets a new collector's edition with new extras.

 

[furystorm]

DAY OF THE DEAD (1985): George Romero's splattery undead classic gets a new collector's edition with new extras.

Yes mother ****er, yes!!! This will be mine!

 

[The Ween]

I want all of those, especially LifeForce!

 

[Darth Waller]

Yes mother ****er, yes!!! This will be mine!

Don't cuss at me!

 

[furystorm]

Sorry...

 

[Darth Waller]

Sorry...

 

[drakEP3]

this is one of the best crime / gangster movies of all time

Has anyone got any info if and when Blood in Blood out will be released on blu-ray??? Love this movie and would realy like to upgrade from the dvd..
Thanks in advance guys..
For anyone who hasn't seen it, here's the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0rvdv3rMXI

 

[Alex Logan]

Tarantino XX interior Mondo artwork!

Wow! All the images are here:

https://www.miramax.com/subscript/tarantino-xx-interior-artwork-mondo

 

[jimjimmyjones85]

- THE FOG (1980): John Carpenter's seaside ghostly revenge flick with Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis. New extras are in the works! First time on Blu-ray

- THE BURNING (1981): Summer Camp. Garden shears. Tom Savini effects. Need we say more? First time on Blu-ray

- THE HOWLING (1981): Joe Dante's ultimate werewolf pic with superb Rob Bottin effects. First time on Blu-ray.

- LIFEFORCE (1985): Tobe Hooper's space vampires and light-show extravaganza finally gets its first ever anamorphic widescreen presentation! First time on Blu-ray.

- NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984): Shopping and zombies highlight this post-Doomsday cult classic. First time on Blu-ray.

- DAY OF THE DEAD (1985): George Romero's splattery undead classic gets a new collector's edition with new extras.

These will be hard to resist classics.

 

[lcummins]

These will be hard to resist classics.

I'm just hoping not all will be released with a poster on SF store site... I'm a sucker for their bonus items, but can get them cheaper at Amazon when there is nothing offered with them.

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

Posted on Scream Factory's Facebook page:

The wait is over! We can now officially reveal some really cool and beloved horror classics from the 80s that will be coming from the "Factory" in 2013:

- THE FOG (1980): John Carpenter's seaside ghostly revenge flick with Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis. New extras are in the works! First time on Blu-ray

- THE BURNING (1981): Summer Camp. Garden shears. Tom Savini effects. Need we say more? First time on Blu-ray

- THE HOWLING (1981): Joe Dante's ultimate werewolf pic with superb Rob Bottin effects. First time on Blu-ray.

- LIFEFORCE (1985): Tobe Hooper's space vampires and light-show extravaganza finally gets its first ever anamorphic widescreen presentation! First time on Blu-ray.

- NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984): Shopping and zombies highlight this post-Doomsday cult classic. First time on Blu-ray.

- DAY OF THE DEAD (1985): George Romero's splattery undead classic gets a new collector's edition with new extras.

****!

 

[jimjimmyjones85]

I'm just hoping not all will be released with a poster on SF store site... I'm a sucker for their bonus items, but can get them cheaper at Amazon when there is nothing offered with them.

I'm sticking to amazon...

 

[soundwave]

Posted on Scream Factory's Facebook page:

The wait is over! We can now officially reveal some really cool and beloved horror classics from the 80s that will be coming from the "Factory" in 2013:

- THE FOG (1980): John Carpenter's seaside ghostly revenge flick with Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis. New extras are in the works! First time on Blu-ray

- THE BURNING (1981): Summer Camp. Garden shears. Tom Savini effects. Need we say more? First time on Blu-ray

- THE HOWLING (1981): Joe Dante's ultimate werewolf pic with superb Rob Bottin effects. First time on Blu-ray.

- LIFEFORCE (1985): Tobe Hooper's space vampires and light-show extravaganza finally gets its first ever anamorphic widescreen presentation! First time on Blu-ray.

- NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984): Shopping and zombies highlight this post-Doomsday cult classic. First time on Blu-ray.

- DAY OF THE DEAD (1985): George Romero's splattery undead classic gets a new collector's edition with new extras.

Pre-ordering all of those as soon as I can

Neil

 

[lcummins]

I'm sticking to amazon...

I've gotten all the pre-order bonuses from Shout so far, and ordered the rest from Amazon... I'll likely keep going with this plan unless Shout just gets too expensive compared to Amazon.

 

[BuffyGirl]

Did everyone who ordered the huge Marvel movie bluray set (avengers, cap. A, yada, yada) receive their email about the ship date? It how has a date set, which is good. April 11, 2013.

 

[lcummins]

Did everyone who ordered the huge Marvel movie bluray set (avengers, cap. A, yada, yada) receive their email about the ship date? It how has a date set, which is good. April 11, 2013.

I must be special... my email states April 2nd!!!

 

[7166charlie]

Mine states april 4th, just hoping it plays on uk blu ray players