The New DVD and Blu Thread

[Ben]

Fox's 1953 Titanic is a major slog to sit through, melodramatic to the end!

The first sound film depiction of the tragedy, 1929's Atlantic, is actually a good film even if it is creaky, but I don't think there are elements there anymore to make an HD master. There's also that Nazi German version of the story too, which I'd like to see sometime.

A Night To Remember has already been primed for BD by Criterion and is available from Amazon. I'm hoping to pick it up soon enough.

There's also a 1970s version, SOS Titanic, and the 1980s two-part miniseries with Catherine Zeta Jones, both of which are pretty risible. The new ITV program has already been said will be on disc by December.

Titanic year, indeed!

[Jafar]

Great news for all Ghibli fans! Amazon is taking pre-orders for Ghibli's "Castle in the Sky" and "Whisper of the Heart" BDs alongside "Arrietty". Amazon.ca lists the release date as May 22nd.

[EricJ]

And IF WE CAN BELIEVE certain rumors coming out of Home Media Insider, Disney is finally working on cleaning up its "00's Ghetto" of troubled/ignored '95-'04 animateds for '12, before moving onto the now more established and marketing-redeemed late-90's favorites like Lilo, Pocahontas and Mulan.
(Chicken Little, Dinosaur and Fantasia 2000, of course, were already released.)

Accdg. to rumors, Treasure Planet and Home on the Range may get single releases on July 3, followed by Atlantis and Brother Bear "sometime after Fall".
Oh, and a few other live-actions, if true: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/blu-ra ... ease-26706

[Randall]

Oooohh... I'll look forward to seeing those Ghibli titles, though a couple of my faves remain unannounced. (Actually, I didn't care for Arietty all that much; but the other two are wonderful little films).

And, did my eyes deceive me, or was Dick Tracy mentioned in that article? Very cool, though I fear it will be bare-bones like Rocketeer. All in all, though, that's a nice lineup of catalog titles being rumored. Absent Minded Professor even? Ed Wood? Babes in Toyland? Atlantis? Wow, nice. And, despite its notoreity, Treasure Planet was made for hi-def.

[Randall]

Oh, and... I got Coonskin today! Did anyone else know this was coming out? Ralph Bakshi's audacious cult fave is on DVD, and you can get it for under 10 bucks! Though I don't "like" his films, generally, they are always interesting to me, and I couldn't pass up the notorious Coonskin. I'll have to get that Wizards Blu-ray digibook when I see it on sale, too.

On the other end of the scale, I also got the new Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention disc. Fun, informative show.

[EricJ]

And, did my eyes deceive me, or was Dick Tracy mentioned in that article? Very cool, though I fear it will be bare-bones like Rocketeer. All in all, though, that's a nice lineup of catalog titles being rumored. Absent Minded Professor even? Ed Wood? Babes in Toyland? Atlantis? Wow, nice. And, despite its notoreity, Treasure Planet was made for hi-def.

Your eyes probably did, but there was some legal rights tie-up with Warren Beatty that kept it off the face of the earth all this time, that has now reportedly been resolved.
Absent-Minded, Son of Flubber, and the annoying 90's John Hughes name-only version will probably come out as a trilogy combo, Toyland we can hope for a Christmas title (for lack of any Santa Buddies this year), and I literally never expected to upgrade my lil' bare Gold edition DVD of Treasure Planet...Used to be one of my sacred guarded disks.

[LotsoA113]

I thought the words "Treasure Planet on blu-Ray" would never come to pass..How wonderful!! As one of my favorite Disney movies from the 21st century, I'm please to hear of it's arrival. Also, Dick Tracy and Arachnaphobia and Ed Wood will be grand to own in the hi-def format..but perhaps we could finally get The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules on blu-Ray please?!?!?!

[Randall]

I know, they're really keeping my in suspense with Hunchback, one of Disney's most gorgeous films.

[Ben]

Eric...Treasure Planet never got a "Gold" release, but yes, Rand, it was made for HD. Excellent that Home On The Range (and Pete's Dragon!) is headed for BD too (while not all gold, every Disney animated deserves to be seen in HD).

And Pocahontas has already been announced as a "2-Movie Collection" with its DTV sequel, for later this year (same with The Rescuers, both movies in one set).

Super cool that Dick Tracy is coming (can it be that long before Roger Rabbit too!? - Evita's in there too) though I agree that it'll probably only be a movie-only edition even though Warren Beatty had mentioned in pre-release talk that the "LaserDisc was going to be quite something", something he said in an interview that got me excited back in the day. Apparently there were deleted scenes and songs, virtual set deconstructions, etc, and a look into the technical side of things. Ahh well...that's still a LOT of wish-list catalog in one year!

And, yep, I heard about Coonskin, but didn't realize it was out already!

[EricJ]

Eric...Treasure Planet never got a "Gold" release, but yes, Rand, it was made for HD. Excellent that Home On The Range (and Pete's Dragon!) is headed for BD too (while not all gold, every Disney animated deserves to be seen in HD).

Well, okay, new-release, but at that point in the series, "Gold" was just the codeword for anything demoted to just one disk.
And as for Hunchback and Hercules, think Disney's trying to go chronologically back from the "end" of the 90's/00's-Troubles with Home on the Range, all the way back to Mulan and the aforementioned Pocahontas, as it's all popular titles before that. (Now that they know how to market the 70's titles.)
Which means, going down the timeline, it probably won't be till fall that we hear about Emperor's New Groove and Tarzan for '13, and then that'll bring us back to '96 and '97.

Lilo & Stitch, however, now seems to have been "redeemed" from its 00's guilt-by-association, and is now popular enough to release by itself....Whenever they get around to it.
(The Pocahontas 1&2 was their other new experiment, to see if they could clean up all those vidquels from the movies that didn't go to Diamond Edition, which is how we'll probably get Mulan and Brother Bear, too.)

[James]

Whoa whoa whoa! Evita on BD? Where was that announcement?

[estefan]

Woah, didn't know Coonskin was out on DVD. Though, my feeling towards Bakshi's work is mixed, I've been curious about that one for a while. Hopefully it's more Fritz the Cat and less Cool World and Heavy Traffic (yeah, I hated that one).

[Ben]

Wrong again, Eric...Fantasia/F2K and Fox And The Hound already pulled the 1&2 trick. Pocahontas and Rescuers are only carrying on the "experiment".

[EricJ]

Fox/Hound was the marketing "experiment", F/F2K was simply following the lead of the pre-Platinum DVD, from back when F2K was considered the weak new-release.
Although the SE Tron/Legacy box around the same time may have first given them ideas for boxing "weak" followups with established hits (or vice versa, in Tron:Classic's case).

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In other news - And they just keep coming (albeit not from Disney):
http://www.thebeatles.com/#/news/Yellow ... ature_Film

This last week has to be a new record for old DVD's I've had to sell back to Amazon.

[GeorgeC]

Dah du.... Dah du.... Dah du dooh dah... Dah du.... Dah du.... Dah du dooh dah... Dah du.... Dah du.... Dah du dooh dah...


"Get out of the water!"

Jaws is being released on Blu ray on August 14th this year as part of the 100th anniversary of Universal Studios.
Restored, port of DVD materials, and a full documentary on the making of the film.

Still one of the best summer films ever made and STILL one of Spielberg's best.