Displaying items by tag: Warner Bros
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, plus new 4K reviews, and The Snyder Cut lives!
We’ve got some good stuff for you here at the site today! So let’s get right into it.
First of all, we’ve posted a trio of new 4K Ultra HD reviews...
Late last night, I posted my in-depth thoughts on John Landis’ The Blues Brothers, new in 4K Ultra HD from Universal. I love this film and the good news is that it’s never looked and sounded better. Check it out here.
Also today, Tim has posted reviews of Blue Underground’s new 4K Ultra HD editions of William Lustig’s Maniac (1980) and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979). These too have never looked better, but do be aware that the cover artwork pictured here on The Bits is NOT the final artwork.
We have to censor the cover art on some of these horror titles or Google flags them as offensive, which crushes our advertising. And we need advertising to survive, so there it is. Anyway, enjoy the titles! Blue Underground does great work. [Read on here...]
- Back the Bits via PayPal
- Tim Salmons
- Tom Cruise 4K Giveaway
- My Two Cents
- The Digital Bits
- Bill Hunt
- HBO
- Warner Bros
- The Empire Strikes Back turns 40
- 40th anniversary
- Michael Coate
- History Legacy & Showmanship
- Justice League: The Snyder Cut
- HBO Max
- Zombie 4K review
- Maniac 4K review
- The Blues Brothers 4K review
- Universal Studios Home Entertainment
- Blue Underground
Supergirl: Season 5, new Warner Archive, a True Lies/Abyss recap & more, plus RIP Charles Lippincott
All right, we’re working on FOUR more 4K Ultra HD reviews for the next couple of days, at least of the first of which we hope to have posted later this afternoon.
In the meantime, we’ve just launched our second giveaway on The Digital Bits’ Facebook page, offering readers the chance to win one of Paramount’s three new Tom Cruise 4K Ultra HD titles – Top Gun, Days of Thunder, or War of the Worlds. All you have to do to enter is follow The Bits’ Facebook page and reply to this post (linked here) with your answer to the question you’ll find. Entries will be accepted until 11 AM Pacific tomorrow (Thursday, May 21). The contest is open to US residents only (due to COVID shipping restrictions—sorry!). THREE winners will be selected at random from the list of those who enter and will be announced tomorrow afternoon. Good luck!
Meanwhile today, we have a bit more announcement news... [Read on here...]
- My Two Cents
- The Digital Bits
- Bill Hunt
- HBO
- Warner Bros
- Tom Cruise 4K Giveaway
- Supergirl: The Complete Fifth Season BD
- The Warner Archive Collection
- True Lies
- The Abyss
- James Cameron
- RIP Charles Lippincott
- Alien
- Star Wars
- Strike Up the Band
- Cannery Row
- Romance on the High Seas
- House of Wax 3D
- Project Blue Book: Season 2 DVD
- Trolls World Tour 4K and BD
- Via Vision Entertainment
- Film Stories UK
- Simon Brew
Warner sets Pennyworth & The Flash for Blu-ray, plus watch Apollo 13 online with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly
All right, we’ve got more disc reviews for you today...
First up, Tim has turned in his thoughts on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel now on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. Tim has also looked at the new Top Secret!: Special Edition Blu-ray from Via Vision Entertainment. It’s a REGION FREE import from Australia.
Meanwhile, Dennis has taken a look at a pair of new titles from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, including Stanley Kramer’s The Runner Stumbles (1979) and Leslie Norman’s The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961). Both are worth a look.
And finally, I’ve finished my review of Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder in 4K Ultra HD from Paramount. Whatever you may think of the film, the new 4K presentation is pretty good and a nice upgrade for fans.
More reviews are in the offing, so be sure to check back tomorrow. [Read on here...]
- Warner Bros
- HBO
- Bill Hunt
- The Digital Bits
- My Two Cents
- The Flash: The Complete Sixth Season BD
- Pennyworth: The Complete First Season BD
- Apollo 13 Twitter watch party with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly
- Tom Cruise 4K Giveaway
- Tim Salmons
- Dennis Seuling
- The Grand Budapest Hotel Criterion BD review
- Top Secret! BD review
- The Runner Stumbles BD review
- The Long and the Short and the Tall BD review
- Days of Thunder 4K review
- Head of the Class: The Complete First Season DVD
- Back the Bits via PayPal
His Dark Materials, Criterion’s full August slate, a “new” Mad Max: Fury Road doc, SAE/Twilight Time news & more
Afternoon, folks! And welcome to Friday. Is anyone else out there as ready for the weekend as we are?
This has been a busy week of just “three steps forward two steps backward” behind-the-scenes work here at The Bits. We got a lot done, but very little of it is visible to any of you. But that’s how it goes sometimes.
We’re all working on more reviews here at the site today (and we will be through the weekend—including War of the Worlds 4K and Days of Thunder 4K), but we do have some interesting release news to report today.
First up, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and HBO have just set His Dark Materials: The Complete First Season for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 8/4 (SRP $29.98 each). [Read on here...]
- The Complete Agnès Varda BD set
- The Criterion Collection
- My Two Cents
- The Digital Bits
- Bill Hunt
- His Dark Materials: The Complete First Season BD
- Criterion August 2020 slate
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Screen Archives Entertainment
- Twilight Time
- HBO
- Warner Bros
- The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum BD
- The Comfort of Strangers
- Toni
- Town Bloody Hall
- Wonder Woman: The Complete Collection BD
- Hair BD
- Olive Films
- Flash Gordon: 40th Anniversary Edition 4K
- Studio Canal UK
- Going Mad: The Battle of Fury Road
- George Miller
A sneak peek at upcoming 4K covers for Spartacus, Jaws & more (plus Blue Underground’s 2nd 4K title)
All right, there’s not a whole lot going on today news-wise, so we’re busy working on new disc reviews.
But we did want to check in briefly with a new interesting odds and ends.
To start with, we have a sneak peek at temp cover artwork from our retail sources (in Europe in this case) for Universal’s Spartacus and Jaws on 4K Ultra HD, which are expected to street widely in June or July (street date TBA). You can see Jaws at left and both of them below. This should be close to final, but know that it’s not actually final until the studio officially announces the titles.
Also coming from Universal on 6/2 (only at Best Buy stores in the US) is a new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook version of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. You also can see that below. [Read on here...]
- 4K Ultra HD
- Bill Hunt
- The Digital Bits
- My Two Cents
- Universal Studios Home Entertainment
- Jaws 4K
- Spartacus 4K
- Steven Spielberg
- Stanley Kubrick
- Maniac 4K
- Blue Underground
- Apollo 13 Steelbook 4K
- Ron Howard
- William Lustig
- 1917 4K
- Sam Mendes
- Requiem for a Dream 4K
- Lionsgate
- DC
- Warner Bros
- Justice League Dark: Apokolips War 4K
- Via Vision Entertainment
- Imprint Films launch trailer
- War of the Worlds BD
- Waterloo 4K
- The Duelists BD
- IP Man 4 4K
Celebrating Red October at 30, plus new Kino Lorber Studio Classics, new 4K catalog upcoming & more
All right, we’re starting the new week off with a new History, Legacy & Showmanship column from our own Michael Coate, who’s celebrating the 30th anniversary of John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October with a new film retrospective that features a look back at the original theatrical release, the 70mm engagements, and a new interview with author and film historian Eric Lichtenfeld. Enjoy!
Meanwhile, our friends at Kino Lorber have announced some fun new Studio Classics titles that are coming soon to Blu-ray, including Joe Dante, John Landis, Carl Gottlieb, Robert K. Weiss & Peter Horton’s Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) and Peter Hyams’ Narrow Margin (1990), along with a trio of titles newly announced for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/5—Fred Coe’s A Thousand Clowns (1965) and Me, Natalie (1969—featuring Al Pacino’s first screen role), and Guy Hamilton’s An Inspector Calls (1954). [Read on here...]
- Kino Lorber Studio Classics
- Bill Hunt
- The Digital Bits
- My Two Cents
- The Hunt for Red October
- 30th anniversary
- Michael Coate
- Blue Underground
- Zombie 4K
- Amazon Women on the Moon BD
- Narrow Margin BD
- Apollo 13 Steelbook 4K
- Requiem for a Dream 4K
- The Invisible Man 4K
- The Mask of Zorro 4K
- Call of the Wild
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- The Lord of the Rings 4K
- Warner Bros
- The Hobbit 4K
- The UnXplained
Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? & more new Blu-ray reviews
We certainly hope you’re all enjoying the long Labor Day weekend here in the States. And Happy Monday for the rest of you!
Given the holiday, we’re taking a much needed break today. But we do have a couple of new Blu-ray reviews for you to enjoy...
Tim has just turned in his in-depth thoughts on the long-awaited Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? Complete Series Blu-ray set from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The package streets tomorrow, and it sounds like it’s pretty good. You can read that review here.
Also, Tim has posted his thoughts on Gary Sherman’s Vice Squad (1982) from Scream Factory, as well as the Akio Jissôji: The Buddhist Trilogy box set from Arrow Academy, both on Blu-ray.
And Dennis rounds things out with his thoughts on A Dog’s Journey on Blu-ray from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
So enjoy those and we’ll be back tomorrow with our regular news update and more. Stay tuned!
-Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)
The UHD Alliance unveils the Filmmaker Mode initiative to ensure 4K TVs display movies properly at home
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...]
- My Two Cents
- The Digital Bits
- Bill Hunt
- 4K Ultra HD
- Filmmaker Mode
- UHD Alliance
- Rian Johnson
- Mike Fiedler
- Michael Zink
- Annie Chang
- LG
- Panasonic
- James Cameron
- Vizio
- Ron Martin
- Carlos Angulo
- Paul Thomas Anderson
- Ryan Coogler
- Patty Jenkins
- Martin Scorsese
- Christopher Nolan
- Ang Lee
- Christopher McQuarrie
- Ava DuVernay
- M Night Shyamalan
- The Duffer Brothers
- Damien Chazelle
- JJ Abrams
- Reed Morano
- Warner Bros
- Amazon Prime
- Universal Studios
Connery’s 007 Swan Song: Remembering “Never Say Never Again” on its 35th Anniversary
“This is a 1983 film with the director of the highest-grossing film of 1980, the cinematographer of the highest-grossing film of 1981, and Sean Connery starring as James Bond. What could go wrong?” – John Cork, author of James Bond Encyclopedia
The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 35th anniversary of the release of Never Say Never Again, the remake of 1965’s Thunderball and the final film in the long-running series to feature Sir Sean Connery as Agent 007.
Our previous celebratory 007 articles include Live and Let Die, Octopussy, Casino Royale (1967), Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day, Dr. No, The Living Daylights, The Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Casino Royale, For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball, GoldenEye, A View to a Kill, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Goldfinger, and 007… Fifty Years Strong.
The Bits continues the series with this retrospective featuring a Q&A with an esteemed group of film historians and James Bond authorities who discuss the virtues, shortcomings and legacy of 1983’s Never Say Never Again. [Read on here...]
- Cubby Broccoli
- Lee Pfeiffer, The Essential James Bond
- film retrospective
- Ian Flemming
- MI5
- 007
- James Bond
- The Digital Bits
- Michael Coate
- History Legacy & Showmanship
- John Cork, James Bond Encyclopedia
- Never Say Never Again
- 35th anniversary
- Sean Connery
- Thomas A Christie, The James Bond Movies of the 1980s
- Edward Fox
- Pamela Salem
- Alec McCowen
- Kevin McClory
- Michel Legrand
- Prunella Gee
- Irvin Kershner
- Lorenzo Semple Jr
- Douglas Slocombe
- Warner Bros
Let’s Try This Again… Supergirl, Dragnet, Tucker, Man in the Iron Mask, First Reformed & more
All right, yesterday’s My Two Cents post apparently got corrupted somehow after we posted it. So we’re going to cover much of the same ground today, plus a lot more.
We start things off (again) today with another new Blu-ray review from Tim Salmons. He’s taken a look at the new 3-disc The Last House on the Left: Limited Edition Blu-ray set from director Wes Craven and our friends at Arrow Video. Sounds like it’s pretty damn solid, so do give it a look.
In announcement news, Shout! Factory has unveiled some great new Blu-ray titles, including a Dragnet: Collector’s Edition (street date 10/30) and The Man in the Iron Mask: 20th Anniversary Edition (due 10/9), both as Shout Select releases. The extras are TBA.
Meanwhile, their Scream Factory label chimes in with a House on Haunted Hill: Collector’s Edition (the 1999 film obviously) which is due to street on 10/9. Extras are TBA, but material from the previous DVD release will carry over. Look also for The Wasp Woman (10/30), a Trick ’r Treat: Collector’s Edition (10/9), The Bride (1985) and an Exorcist II: The Heretic – Collector’s Edition (both on 9/25). [Read on here...]
- First Reformed
- Blood and Black Lace
- Hearts Beat Loud
- The Hired Hand
- The Day of the Jackal
- Pope Francis: A Man of His Word
- Won't You Be My Neighbor?
- Adrift
- Longmire: The Complete Sixth and Final Season BD
- The XFiles: The Complete Season 11 BD
- Star Trek: Discovery Season One
- The Terror: The Complete First Season
- Tucker: The Man and His Dream
- The 4K Ultra HD Release List
- Solo: A Star Wars Story 4K
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 4K
- Ocean's 8 4K
- Westworld: Season Two 4K
- The Incredibles 2 4K
- Deadpool 2 4K
- Transporter 3 4K
- The Avengers: Infinity War 4K
- The Avengers: Age of Ultron 4K
- The Avengers 4K
- Bad Boys 1 & 2 4K
- Supergirl BD
- The Warner Archive
- Shout! Factory and Scream Factory ComicCon Panel
- The Bride
- House on Haunted Hill: Collector’s Edition
- The Man in the Iron Mask: 20th Anniversary Edition
- Dragnet: Collector's Edition
- The Last House on the Left: Limited Edition BD review
- Scream Factory
- Shout! Factory
- Warner Bros
- 4K Ultra HD
- Bill Hunt
- The Digital Bits
- My Two Cents
- Tim Salmons
- Kino Lorber Studio Classics
- Lionsgate
- AMC