Wow, this week turned into a monster of Blu-ray announcements. I suppose I should expect this as we approach the holiday buying season. Maybe I’ll have to start making some tough choices. This week, I found metaphorical shelf space for 11 upcoming Blu-ray releases, which might prompt you to clear some shelf space so you can own them yourselves. Sorry Kevin Hart and Girl Most Likely, you’re on your own.
Help me! Help me! The original Vincent Price version of The Fly is coming to Blu-ray in time for Halloween horror movie marathons. I’m not sure why the cover is a black and white pictures since the movie was in color, but I remember when I got the first DVD release I was so impressed by the 2.35:1 widescreen presentation. I had only seen a cropped version on TV before. So seeing the full wide screen in HD will be the next level.
Fox put some solid bonus features on this Blu-ray too. They’ve got actor David Hedison (the original Jeff Goldblum) doing a commentary with film historian David Del Valle, a Vincent Price biography, a cleverly titled feature called “Fly Trap: Catching a Classic” and “Fox Movietone News” which I really hope is old school newsreel promos that would play at theaters back when they showed all sorts of interstitial programming between movies!
I don’t really have that much to say about the Blu-ray release of the summer comedy from the Seth Rogen gang, but it’s got so many bonus features it’s just daring me to. So I won’t go through them all, but to highlight a few I think will illustrate what we’re getting on this Blu-ray. In a series of blooper reels, in which they will show us alternate line deliveries in certain improv scenes, one of the scenes is “Cum Battle.” If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene. Many highlighted it in their reviews. There were more versions of the Cum Battle and the world will finally see them.
A featurette on “The Cannibal King” includes a spoiler, so I can’t do this without spoiling it. But there’s a certain celebrity cameo whom Danny McBride humiliates. This featurette promises to show us “how it really was filming their scenes together.” What, to prove the cameo was in on the joke? To show us what great friends they really are? It’s just a very light and breezy description considering the content of that scene. “The Making of Pineapple Express 2” should be fun, a behind the scenes of a movie within a movie about the actors playing themselves. I’ll look forward to seeing the original Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse short that inspired the feature film.
Two more Fox classics arrive together, because both have the same word in the title and are presumably about similarly extraordinary voyages. Fantastic Voyage features miniaturized scientists exploring a human body, and Bottom of the Sea is just a plain old submarine going underwater with octopi and stuff. Blu-rays of both should elevate the ‘60s color palettes to, uh, fantastic levels.
Both have several extras too. Fantastic has commentary by film and music historian Jeff Bond, an isolated score track with more commentary, a visual effects feature, a storyboard to scene comparison of the whirlpool sequence and the trailer. Sea has commentary by author TIm Colliver who’s written about the film, a documentary on the fantasy vs. scientific reality of the film, interview with Barbara Eden, isolated score and the trailer.
Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga – November 5
You knew this was coming. All five Twilight movies will be available in one set, and just in case you own them all already, there’s 2 hours of new bonus features, plus all 10 hours of previous extras. New extras include a cast retrospective, new behind-the-scenes footage (they were saving the good stuff!), a feature on the fans, and individual highlights of “Edward’s Saga” and “Jacob’s Saga.”
I’m sorry, even though I know how it all ends, I’m still Team Jacob. Even in the new Blu-ray packaging, it’s so sad. Edward and Bella have a picture together but Jacob is all by himself. Ladies, I’m available.
The Charlie Chaplin movies we all think of are Modern Times and The Gold Rush for their memorable visual set pieces. If you don’t know how significant City Lights was, watch the Richard Attenborough biopic Chaplin starring Robert Downey, Jr. Watch it just because it’s awesome, but also to learn that City Lights was a passion project and a rebellion against the incoming talkies.
This is another restored 4K digital film transfer. Extras include audio commentary by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance, a 2003 documentary on City Lights by Aardman Animations cofounder Peter Lord, an interview with visual effects expert Craig Barron, archival footage from pre-production accompanied by audio commentary by Chaplin himself!, excerpts from the Chaplin short (why not just include the whole short?) The Champion, trailers and a booklet with a critical essay by Gary Giddins and a 1966 interview with Chaplin. So a lot of historian analysis and some by Chaplin himself!
I was not a fan of Frances Ha and it’s a little pretentious to make your first home video release a Criterion Collection, but a few filmmakers like Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson and Michael Bay seem to be on the short list. (Bay until Pearl Harbor, at least. The Rock and Armageddon both had Criterion Collections. Where’s my Criterion Collection Bad Boys???)
So the black and white indie film is sure to look stellar on Criterion Blu-ray, although how can this be a “new high-definition digital master?” It’s the only digital master, right? They just released the movie in theaters a few months ago! Bonus features include Peter Bogdanovich talking with Baumbach, filmmaker Sarah Polley talking with star Greta Gerwig, a conversation between Baumbach and the cinematographer and creative designer, the trailer and a collectible booklet.
Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman – November 26
Franchise Fred is going to have his work cut out for him. They made 25 Zatoichi films from 1962 to 1973, that’s 2-3 a year! It won’t be cheap, but The Criterion Collection is putting out a complete box set of all 25 films on Blu-ray, with combo DVD. I presume this will not include Takeshi Kitano’s remake which was released in the states by Miramax, but new digital restorations of all 25 films should mean each sequel looks as good as the original. Sequels always get short shrift in these box sets, so I trust Criterion holds franchises to a higher standard.
If all you know about Mary Poppins is “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (wow, spell check knows that one?) and the scene where they jump into a cartoon, let me tell you there’s a pretty sophisticated musical going on in here. Julie Andrews plays the magical nanny who helps reconnect some children with their workaholic father. And fight for women’s suffrage. Dick Van Dyke does some awesome dancing in this too, so if you’re a fan of Step Up Revolution, I highly recommend Mary Poppins.
A Blu-ray transfer should be fabulous with all the different looks the film captures. Getting to see those dance numbers in perfect clarity, making the cartoon sequence as bright as possible, and seeing all the other practical effects in detail will be awesome. I’m expecting a lot. Bonus features seem limited as of now. A Mary-OKE sing-along to three of the signature songs, and a promotion for Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks movie, in which Jason Schwartzman talks about playing songwriter Richard Sherman in the holiday movie coincidentally also released by Walt Disney.
Blu-ray.com reports that Scream Factory is putting out a Darkman collector’s edition in December. I wanted to mention this before the official announcement because Darkman is one of my favorite Sam Raimi movies, I just love that new cover art, and I hope, hope, hope that this will include an extended cut.
Raimi doesn’t even talk about the trims he had to make under Universal, and I’m surprised since his star rose in the last 10 years no one has ever tried to put out an extended cut just to say “From the director of Spider-Man.” So maybe this will just be another release of an excellent movie, to get some more eyeballs on Raimi, and Liam Neeson’s, early work, maybe with some new extras. But maybe, just maybe, we can see even more Darkman than ever before.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
