Disc News Digest: 2014-03-21

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April 1

Fargo is reissued on Blu-ray with a newly-remastered transfer and needlepoint cover art.

May 6

Sony is releasing four post-1990 Godzilla double feature Blu-rays just in time for Garth Edwards's revival of the franchise. Each movie is on its own Blu-ray disc. All movies include their original trailers, with the only other extras being a featurette on Tokyo S.O.S. and a behind-the-scenes featurette on Final Wars. The movies as they're paired:

• Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) + Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) + Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) + Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
• Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) + Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

May 13

Special ID, starring the incomparable Donnie Yen as a deep-cover cop on the inside of a gang. Wait until you see what he does with the chain wallet you see on the poster.

Spike Jonze's Her. Blu-ray featurettes include all of the following (DVD only has the boldface one):

• The Untitled Rick Howard Project
• How Do You Share Your Life with Somebody
• Her: Love in the Modern Age

Orange is the New Black: Season 1 comes to 3-disc Blu-ray and 4-disc DVD with the following features:

• “New Kid on the Cell Block” featurette
• “Mother Hen: Red Runs the Coup” featurette
• “It’s Tribal” featurette
• “Prison Rules” featurette
• Gag Reel
• Episode Commentary “I Wasn't Ready” with Producers Jenji Kohan, Tara Herrmann and Mark Burley
• Episode Commentary “Can't Fix Crazy” with Producers Jenji Kohan, Tara Herrmann and Mark Burley

June 10

The Spike Lee Joint Collection (Volumes 1 & 2) drop on Blu-ray. Volume 1 includes The 25th Hour and He Got Game. Volume 2 includes Summer of Sam and Miracle at St. Anna. According to the studio, each movie is on its own separate disc.

All four movies retain all previous DVD extras and add newly-recorded commentary tracks with Spike Lee and a cohort as follows:

• The 25th Hour: Spike Lee and actor Edward Norton
• He Got Game: Spike Lee and actor Ray Allen
• Summer of Sam: Spike Lee and actor John Leguizamo
• Miracle at St. Anna's: Spike Lee and screenwriter James McBride

March-April

Fox Cinema Archives is releasing another wave after wave of MOD DVD oldies starting this week. They star everyone from Cesar Romero to Linda Darnell (playing a version of herself in Star Dust) to Spencer Tracy to Adam West to Natalie Wood:

March 18

• Sodom and Gomorrah (1962)
• Esther and the King (1960)
• Dante’s Inferno (1935)

March 25

• Cardinal Richelieu (1935)
• I’d Climb The Highest Mountain (1951)

April 1

• The Gay Deception (1935)
• Bachelor Flat (1961)
• The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)

April 8

• The Pleasure Seekers (1964)
• Footlight Serenade (1942)

April 15

• Marry The Boss’s Daughter (1941)
• Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948)
• That Other Woman (1942)

April 22

• Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955)
• Star Dust (1940)
• Decline and Fall of A Bird Watcher (1968)

April 25

• Kentucky (1938)
• Forever Amber (1947)

Disc News Digest compiles chunks of disc announcements, including relevant feature and version comparison information for the discerning collector.

After Downton (Frame 177)

Elizabeth McGovern in a Depression-era picture these days reads as Lady Cora from Downton Abbey having died and been reincarnated as a lady who is more…liberated. The King of the Hill Blu-ray from Criterion (which brings the movie back into print) checks all the boxes.

A review and big re-edit/re-posting of a Soderberghopolis article are forthcoming.

Screen Time #55: Recommended Reading & Viewing

Screen Time #55 begins a long-in-the-planning series of interviews with the people behind The Criterion Collection. Susan Arosteguy and her colleagues do amazing preservation, restoration, and appreciation work, and it shows in their beautiful special edition releases. In particular, Susan's eye as a designer results in a widely-varied array of striking aesthetics in her releases.

Her latest Wes Anderson special edition, for Fantastic Mr. Fox, arrives in a Criterion Blu-ray/DVD Dual Format Edition tomorrow (18 February 2014).

Subscribe to the Electric Shadow Channel (iTunes/RSS)
Subscribe to the ESN Master Feed (iTunes/RSS).

This Year: Complete Batman '66 TV Series on…Blu-ray?

In addition to this tweet from Conan O'Brien, I've reached out for confirmation regarding Blu-ray or DVD format ("no comment"), uncut/unedited ("no comment"), and new supplemental features ("no comment").

What I was told, that "everyone is going to be very happy", makes me comfortable placing a heavy bet that it will have been remastered from film source for Blu-ray, as the episodes originally aired (edited down previously for syndication), and with a boatload of extras. This is how WB can kick off their Batman 75th Anniversary Year in style.

Next on my wish list is giving Bill Finger long-overdue co-creator credit on the character and universe.

The reason this has taken so long is a longtime dispute between FOX (who own the show), and Warner Bros (who own the characters and overall license). I heard rumbling last summer that the two sides had finally settled on a split where one side would get toy licensing and the other home video and streaming rights, but San Diego Comic Con (which had Batman '66-branded bags yet again) came and went with no official announcement.

My baseless speculation upon prior rumor is that FOX somehow will benefit from SVOD/streaming rights, having relinquished physical media release and licensed product rights to WB. If FOX has good lawyers, they may still have some sort of interest or stake in the backend of both, but only lawyers and file clerks will ever know for sure.

Screen Time 53: I <3 LaserDisc

On the latest Screen Time, I'm joined by superstar Blu-ray/DVD producers Charles de Lauzirika, Robert Meyer Burnett, and Brian Ward to discuss the world of special editions and supplements, the inevitable decline of physical media, and the future of home video presentation. We take a moment to touch on 4K/UHD and what it means for the next few years.

We also get a couple of exclusive tidbits: The X-Files is being remastered for both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, and Shout! Factory's Pee-Wee's Playhouse set will not only be done before the holidays in 2014, but in all likelihood, much sooner.

In a bit of a new development, much of this WatchList is comprised of supplemental documentaries available on various Blu-rays, DVDs, and iTunes Extras packages.

Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien 3

As recounted by Charlie on the show, this doc has had more than one life, and took years to see the light of day in its original cut, resulting in Charlie initially having himself credited as Frederick Garvin, as in Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute. The complete and final version of this is included on the Alien Anthology Blu-ray box set.

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner

Another great piece by Charlie, this truly completes the Final Cut version of the movie, and is thankfully included as part of the iTunes Extras download for those who've moved away from discs already.

Gladiator (3-disc Extended Edition DVD)

Charlie related how they hid an easter egg in this specific release teasing a Gladiator sequel that has still yet to come to fruition.

Brazil (Criterion Collection) - Docs and "Love Conquers All" version
The Last Temptation of Christ (Criterion Collection) - Martin Scorsese's Video Journal

Charlie cited these two as among his favorite Criterion releases, due to the incredible insight into the struggle to make both of these masterpieces.

Time Bandits (Criterion Collection)
The Seven Samurai (Criterion Collection)
The Rock (Criterion Collection)

Brian is particularly fond of these: the first for its infinite re-watchability, the second for the outstanding docs included, and the last in particular for the memorable Ed Harris outtakes that give a look behind the curtain.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Criterion Collection)

Rob really loved being blindsided by the feature-length doc on the director, whom he was completely unaware of until watching this set.

"Missing Discs" longed for by the panel include Tuff Turf, Quick Change, Liquid Sky, Batman (1966 series), and did I mention Tuff Turf?

Archival #1: MADAM SATAN (1930)

Welcome to a new regular feature dedicated to under-recognized movies that deserve more attention. Whether brought back into print by Manufacture-On-Demand (MOD) services like the Warner Archive Collection or bootstrapped and/or Kickstartered by obsessed entrepreneurial cinephiles, attention must be paid. These are the more obscure, the less-replayed, and those long absent from repertory cinema. Subsequent installments will cover everything from individual movies to TV shows, and multi-movie collections to blessed occasional Blu-rays.

l. to r. Bob (Reginald Denny), wife Angela (Kay Johnson), Bob's pal Jimmy (Roland Young)

This (unfortunately) obscure Cecil B. DeMille picture is one of my favorite discoveries from my college days. My "Dance in the Movies" professor showed it to us not just for the electricity-themed, spark-plugs-and-current song and dance number. The real fireworks are the gender politics and (dare I say it?) what we would today call cosplay. Quite notably, the three credited screenwriters are all women, and as much as feminism existed in the early 1930's, this Pre-Code, dark-musical-comedy-disaster movie was as feminist as motion pictures got. Even though the next still frame features a gun, "dark" is relative to the musical comedies of the 1930's.

the best friend, the wife, and the mistress…and a gun

Scorned wife Angela (Of Human Bondage's Kay Johnson) turns marital deception around on her philandering husband Bob (Rebecca's Reginald Denny). Demure, sweet, and unassuming otherwise, she eventually takes on a costumed persona who goes by only Madam Satan: an exotic "French" woman full of spice and sin, burning to take a naughty man back to "hell" with her.

miniature work par excelence

By design, her husband finds "Madam Satan" completely irresistible and loses interest in his brassy mistress (Animal Crackers' Lillian Roth). The husband's best friend (Philadelphia Story's Roland Young) gets tangled up in the whole affair doubly, since the climax of the movie occurs at a party he throws on a fancy-schmancy zeppelin. The poster shows parachutes and an exploding zeppelin, so I'll leave it at saying the actors all do their own stunts.

DeMille is best-known and best-remembered for large-scale epics, and the climactic party on a zeppelin here does not disappoint. Elaborate costumes, a bizarre and decadent tribute to technology in the form of dance, and the bacchanalia of the party itself is an interesting antecedent to the golden calf rave in The Ten Commandments.

I don't care how they accomplish the majority of CG shots in the modern day, but boy am I fascinated by how they pull something like this off.

Titular star Kay Johnson had a much shorter career than one would hope (she's magnificent here), but in case you weren't aware, she also happened to be the mother of the great James Cromwell. Lillian Roth underwent the early 1900's version of today's booze-fueled tabloid starlet meltdown, complete with eight marriages. She would eventually become the first celebrity to publicly associate herself with Alcoholics Anonymous, something she deserves as much credit for doing as she does getting herself clean.

Pre-Code movies in general haven't had the best of luck seeing disc or streaming release anywhere other than WB, and especially Warner Archive (who have recently restarted the magnificent Forbidden Hollywood series). There was a VHS, but I don't think Madam Satan ever hit laserdisc, let alone DVD before WAC released it at the end of this past July.

Early talkies have a charm all their own, but this one has more than the average share of surprises and delights. You can buy Madam Satan on DVD for $16.95 by clicking/tapping here or the image below, or try a 2-week free trial of the Warner Archive Instant service and watch it in SD on their site or in HD on a Roku set-top box. Their HD-supporting, AirPlay-enabled iPad app launches soon, too.

Archival is a recurring feature that shines a spotlight on more obscure catalog content, much of which has rarely (if ever) been available to own on home video. 

Frame 148: Go and Do Likewise

Alec Baldwin's part in Glengarry Glen Ross  does not appear in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, even though his "come to Jesus"-style speech has become one of the most (if not the most ) looming presences in the film.

A-B-C. A-I-D-A.

Frame 147: Phone Work

One of the best parts of Mamet plays and movies is the phone work.

Glengarry Glen Ross has grown in popularity most during the last decade, during which our Always Be Closing culture has come to grips with the fact that Attention, Interest, Decision, and Action alone cannot save us.

The lack of a Blu-ray edition has cost them bargain bin money. Many other movies of the time with less-recognizeable actors have been very popular $8 bin sellers. I suggest whoever has these rights now (Lionsgate?) go and do likewise.

On occasion, I tell the story of how I once directed an all-female cast in the Alec Baldwin/"Blake"-free play if we go to lunch. Go to lunch. Will you go to lunch? Will you go to lunch?

This whole post will confuse people who don't know the movie or David Mamet. C'est la vie. 

These posts are now categorized as "The Frame", with the frequency of posts appearing not daily, but as often as need be.

The "daily" thing was mostly to force myself to consistently post something new as close to daily as possible. Some days, you may get as many as seven of these, interspersed throughout other posts or in sequence for a reason.

Daily Grab 146: Upward

July sees the release of the entire UP series of documentaries by Michael Apted. I'm trying to re-watch them all with my wife before then.

Disc News Digest: MEANING OF LIFE 30th, More Deep Catalog, and Even More Disney

• Just announced: Universal is releasing a 30th Anniversary Edition of Monty Python's Meaning of Life on 8 October. It retains all previous extras and adds a new hour-long reunion special with all surviving Pythons, plus a new Sing-Along mode.

• Criterion's July slate includes:

• 9 July Kenji Mizoguchi's big international success The Life of Oharu, which stars legendary actress (who also worked with Ozu) Kinuyo Tanaka. The disc features a 2009 documentary about the star (The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka), along with an audio essay and commentary over the opening of the movie. 
• 16 July a new edition of previous release The Lord of the Flies, complete with new extras and cover art.
• 23 July brings both a Blu-grade of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and long-antiicpated title Babette's Feast, which includes new interviews wirth the director and lead actress, a 1995 documentary about the source novel's author, and more.
• 30 July another long-awaited and long-rumored title The Devil's Backbone takes spine #666. All previous DVD extras are retained, adding a 2010 intro to the movie and new interview material from by del Toro, along with a new interview with composer Sebastiaan Faber and new subtitles translated by del Toro himself.

• Well Go USA has sequel Tai Chi Hero on 2 July and powerful Korean gangster drama New World on 23 July.

• 20th Century Fox has another wave of vintage classics hitting Blu-ray throughout July, including Tyrone Power matador movie Blood and Sand (9th), The 300 Spartans (23rd), and a pair of Marilyn Monroe movies (Niagara and Bus Stop) and Elvis in Love Me Tender on 30 July.

• 2 July also brings a trio of great titles from Shout! Factory: The Producers Collectors Edition, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Tower Block, which had the unfortunate timing of being released with very close proximity to both The Raid and Dredd. 

• 2 July TV titles worth noting are Portlandia Season 3, the DVD-only North & South (the BBC one, with Patrick Stewart) and the astounding box set of The UP Series, collecting the over half century of work done across eight films

• 9 July brings a couple of more obscure releases: Taika Waititi's Boy from Kino, and Shout! Factory has 1989's Roy Scheider/Adam Baldwin-starring Cohen & Tate (an adaptation of O. Henry's Ranson of Red Chief, previously on MoD DVD from MGM).

• 16 July is extremely varied, with everything from Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic and another entry in the Jackie Chan Collection (Battle Creek Brawl/City Hunter double feature) from Shout! Factory, just-announced discs for Sony's new Evil Dead movie (director/writer/cast commentary & featurettes) and WB's Bullet to the Head (with just a single, lonely featurette), a pair of Mario Bava Collection discs (Black Sabbath and Kidnapped) from Kino, and finally, at long last, a US edition of Michael Bassett's genuinely pulpy Solomon Kane, starring James Purefoy.

• The week of 23 July is one of the most interesting of the month, including another batch of Olive Films titles: Harlow (1965), Tennessee Williams adaptation Summer and Smoke, Once is Not Enough starring Kirk Douglas, and WUSA starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Music Box Films has The Silence , Magnet has Xan Cassavetes' Kiss of the Damned, and Drafthouse releases both Grace Land and Piéta. One of my favorite docs of last year, The Bitter Buddha, arrives on DVD only. Shout! also has a 4-DVD, 27th edition of their long-running Mystery Science Theater 3000 sets. Rounding things out is a two-DVD SE of a Korean baseball movie I'd never heard of called Glove. I really want to track that one down.

• 30 July is packed with more Shout!: George Romero's Knightriders and a Scream Factory release of John Carpenter's The Fog, and more Olive: Angel and the Bad Man, That Touch of Mink, and Bullfighter & The Lady. New releases include DC Animated's Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Filly Brown, and Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt. Kino looks to be kicking off a new auteir "collection" series for Erich von Stroheim with Foolish Wives.

• 30 July TV titles hit heavy with HBO's Banshee Season 1, and yet another sure-to-be-amazing pair from CBS: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 4 and Star Trek: The Next Generation - Redemption, a "telefilm" cut of the Season 4 finale plus the concluding first episode of the following season. This worked well for The Best of Both Worlds, and I bet this will be interesting as well.

• Joining Oliver & Company on 6 August are Blu-rays of Disney's Robin Hood and The Sword in the Stone, as 40th and 50th Anniversary Editions. Both retain all previous extras and add new features in the form of an alternate opening (for S&tS) and a deleted sequence (for RH).

• 13 August brings both HBO's Girls Season 2 and Shout! Factory's the Luc Besson-produced The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec.

Disc News Digest collects recent, relevant, and upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release dates in one place rather than fill your feed with a ton of individual stories for individual discs.

Disc News Digest: More Disney, FUGITIVE 20th, Another TNG "Movie", Godard, Fuller, UK Imports

•Disney is further shrinking the number of its Animated Classics not on Blu-ray by releasing Oliver and Company on 6 August and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on 27 August. No notable new extras were announced for either title. Here's hoping we finally get Black Cauldron in HD at some point.

•Warner Bros. has announced a Blu-ray double dip of 1993's The Fugitive, with no mention of whether this is a new transfer. It does include new extras (marked in bold) alongside the held-over original Blu-ray supplements:

• The Fugitive: Thrill of the Chase featuring Andrew Davis, Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones and more
• Introduction by Andrew Davis and Harrison Ford
• Commentary by Andrew Davis and Tommy Lee Jones
• On the Run with the Fugitive Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
• Derailed: Anatomy of a Train Wreck Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
• “The Fugitive" [2000 WB Pilot]
• Theatrical Trailer

•CBS is putting out its second "movie cut" of a Star Trek: TNG season-ending cliffhanger with 30 July's Blu-ray of Star Trek: TNG "Redemption", the end of season 4 and beginning of season 5. I guess The Best of Both Worlds did well for them.

•Scream Factory has announced an August timeframe for a Blu-ray release of Q: The Winged Serpent. Expect quality and extras to match the already-impressive slate from Shout!Factory's newest sub-label.

•Twilight Time is releasing a limited run of 3000 Blu-ray copies of Brian DePalma's Body Double on 13 August.

•Olive Films has announced four more June Blu-ray releases, including two from Jean-Luc Godard (How is it Going? and Keep Your Right Up), and Sam Fuller's Shark!, starring Burt Reynolds.

Import Watch

•Sony UK has announced a Blu-ray of From Here to Eternity for 7 October. It is a Region-All coded disc. The US disc has not been announced, but its release may coincide with the UK release. Then again, we could be left waiting for months like we have for Fox's Cleopatra, which they got last year, or Sony's own Lawrence of Arabia, which was Region-All, just like Eternity will be. Import without worry, as whatever extras it has (none announced as of now) are likely to mirror this one, just as with Lawrence.

•The BFI has announced additions to their July-August-September slate, with the most exciting titles to me being the 19 August release of The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Rosselini's Voyage to Italy (which they translate as "Journey"). Equally exciting is the 15 July Blu-ray debut of John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, complete with two cuts of the movie on one disc. All titles listed in the Blu-ray.com news piece are expected to be Region B-locked, but keep an eye on them as more information hits Amazon.co.uk.

Disc News Digest collects recent, relevant, and upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release dates in one place rather than fill your feed with a ton of individual stories for individual discs.

The Missing Disc: BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS with Ebert Commentary

This movie is readily available on DVD, but the now-OOP Special Edition carries an indispensible Roger Ebert commentary that is missing from the in-print version. I don't know why this commentary disappeared when the movie was re-issued, but I presume it may have had something to do with licensing terms with the Ebert company. It could have just been Fox Legal not wanting to do some additional paperwork, I don't know.

Knowing it isn't there makes the movie un-purchaseable for me. I bought the "old" version from a local secondhand DVD shop with money that could have gone toward a reasonably-priced new copy.

The Missing Disc looks at movies that are either not available on disc at all, or which exist only in A/V quality and packaging that film fans and scholars find lacking. Every movie should be on Blu-ray, but life isn't fair, and there isn't necessarily enough restoration and remastering money around. This column fights the most reasonable fights possible.

Warner Archive DVD of Liberace's SINCERELY YOURS on 26 May

Technically, this should bear an enormous "EXCLUSIVE!" tag in the headline, since Warner Archive's George Feltenstein just announced this publicly for the first time on the latest episode of Screen Time (which will post by Wednesday).

Just in time for the premiere of Steven Soderbergh's Michael Douglas-starring Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra on HBO, Warner Archive is putting 1955's Sincerely Yours on DVD for the first time. It was Liberace's one big starring turn, and it flopped big-time. 

Here's a clip from the opening, from TCM's website:

Watch for it to pop on their store three weeks from today if you want the full Liberace Experience.

Daily Grab 129: Hoofs

Jane Withers in 1941's Golden Hoofs, now available from 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives. I had a delightful chat with her on Thursday. It should post early next week.

Daily Grab 128: Grew Up Around Horses

Henry Fonda looking impossibly young in The Farmer Takes a Wife.

Daily Grab 113: Sit Down, John

Yesterday (when I should have posted this) was the 86th birthday of the great William Daniels. To me, he will always be the definitive John Adams, as portrayed in the muscial 1776. If only it were available on Blu-ray...

Criterion OOP Announcement: Titles Gone March 31

From Criterion's blog "Criterion Current":

We wanted to let you know that the following titles are going out of print effective March 31:

Army of Shadows [$25.11 Blu-ray on Amazon]

Le cercle rouge [$24.59 Blu-ray on Amazon]

Le doulos [$33.30 DVD on Amazon]

Last Year at Marienbad [$23.70 Blu-ray on Amazon]

Léon Morin, Priest [$30.38 Blu-ray on Amazon]

Mafioso [$22.19 DVD on Amazon]

These announcements are always sad for collectors, but this one is especially so, since it kills off almost all of Criterion's outstanding Jean-Pierre Melville titles (minus Le Samourai, Les Enfants Terribles, and Le deuxieme souffle). On top of that, we're losing Last Year at Marienbad one of their best-ever Blu-ray releases.

I highly recommend grabbing all the above discs while you can. The Amazon prices listed and linked above look like the lowest around.

Daily Grab 53: On the Verge of Tantrum

From one of Ozu's masterpieces, 1932's I Was Born, But... (featured in today's new installment of Discovering Ozu).

This is from right before two little boys bring down the thunder.

Out of Print Watch: Criterion's "Chungking Express"

It's my sad duty to report that one of my favorite films by Wong Kar-Wai is now OOP in its Criterion Collection edition (per big black capitol letters on their website).

The commentary track from Tony Rayns, a major Wong authority, is quite good, as are the few other extras, which I would not bet on finding in any new edition from Miramax/Lionsgate that may be forthcoming.

Grab it while you can, and try not to spend more than $30 for the Blu-ray. Paying any more than that is highway robbery, like the "in-stock" listing from "Overstock Deals" priced at over $40. Most Best Buy and Fry's stores that stock these titles should have it for the time being.