My Two Cents
All right, we’ve got a few new reviews for you today...
I’ve taken a look at Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013) coming to 4K Ultra on 2/9 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It’s a nice upgrade of the existing Blu-ray release. You’ll find that here.
Also, Tim has reviewed Park Chan-wook’s JSA: Joint Security Area (2000) on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
More reviews are on the way this week, including 2012 and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro both in 4K, plus more new and catalog Blu-rays, so be sure to watch for them.
Let’s start with some 4K Ultra HD news... [Read on here...]
All right, as expected today, the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) held its January virtual expo and released a summary of its preliminary Year-End 2020 Home Entertainment Report. This expo is typically an in-person industry reception held at CES in Las Vegas, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic both CES and the DEG Expo have of course gone virtual this year. And as expected, this year’s report offers both good news and bad news, but also some rather dramatic big-picture observations.
Let’s knock out the bad news first: Sell-Through (read: physical media) consumer spending for 2020 was $2.45 billion, a drop of 25.6% from 2019.
A few days ago, we previewed the likely number for 2020 using the weekly Media Play News disc sales data here at The Bits, which indicated an overall drop in physical media sales of 20.46%. Well... it turns out that, based upon the official DEG data, the drop was about 5% more severe than we anticipated. As I mentioned a week ago (back January 20), that’s still in line with my general prediction from July, which was that 2020 would see a decline of anything between 9-30% in physical media sales. Obviously, there were just too many wildcards in the midst of the pandemic to be more specific. [Read on here...]
All right, we have a few interesting news items for you today. But first, another review...
Dennis has turned in his thoughts on Robert Siodmak’s 1944 film noir The Suspect, now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.
Now for the most surprising piece of news... Engadget has confirmed that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has now completed a six-year effort to upgrade the classic 1990s J. Michael Straczynski science fiction TV series Babylon 5 for the digital age. Babylon 5 Remastered is now available for viewing on HBO Max, and it’s also available for download on iTunes and Amazon. The new HD presentation includes all five seasons of the show with live action film elements scanned in 4K from the original camera negative, digitally cleaned and properly color graded, with VFX upsampled from the original SD. The entire series is available in its original 4x3 broadcast format. The 1998 version of the series’ original pilot film, The Gathering, has also been included, though it’s unremastered and so in 16x9 (as the original film elements were lost during the Northridge earthquake in 1994). [Read on here...]
All right, we’re starting things off this week with more new disc reviews. Four of them, in fact...
Tim has posted his thoughts on Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, as well as Michel Lemoine’s Seven Women for Satan (1975) on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro, and John Guillermin’s 1976 remake of King Kong, a Paramount title on Region B-locked Blu-ray from our friends down at Umbrella Entertainment.
And Dennis has turned in his thoughts on The Buster Keaton Collection: Volume 4 on Blu-ray from the Cohen Film Collection, an excellent release that includes Go West (1925) and College (1923).
All of the above are worth a look if you’re interested. And we’ve got more reviews on the way all week, so be sure to watch for them. [Read on here...]
We’re starting things off today with two more new Blu-ray reviews...
Tim has checked out Luigi Cozzi’s The Black Cat (1989) on BD from Severin Films.
And Dennis has shared his thoughts on Frank Darabont’s Buried Alive (1990) on BD from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. Enjoy!
The big announcement news today is that Paramount Home Entertainment has officially revealed the 4K Ultra HD release of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), staring Charlton Heston, on 3/30 just as we expected. Per the studio’s press release, the original VistaVision negative was scanned in 6K as part of the 2010 restoration effort and those files were the basis for this new Dolby Vision presentation. “In addition, Paramount spent well over 150 hours doing new color work and clean-up on the scan. The move to Dolby Vision created the opportunity to further improve the look of the film: blacks are enhanced and improvements were made to smooth out special effects mattes to create the most vibrant and pristine image possible. The 4K film presentation contains an introduction by DeMille, an intermission, an overture/exit music card, and an entr’acte card, along with a DTS-HD 5.1 lossless soundtrack.” [Read on here...]