Toy Story 4 (4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray Review)
Woody, Buzz, Jesse and the rest of Bonnie’s toys are back and ready to reacquaint with old friend Bo Peep and find help from newbie daredevil Duke Kaboom! Toy Story made its fourth outing in cinemas a big deal, cracking the billion-dollar mark worldwide. Surprisingly, just usurping Aladdin but still falling well behind The Lion King in the fight to be Disney’s 2nd place movie behind Avengers: Endgame. The film will be arriving on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray on October 8, with all-new bonus features and some digital exclusives. Disney had previously issued new 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray editions of the original three films earlier in the summer, so this fourth one will sit neatly next to those in your collection. Once the pre-order link goes active you can order from it below.
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Following last year’s well-received and highly lauded debut of the first Stanley Kubrick film on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Warner Bros is returning to the well (Or hotel) for more. Coming this year will be probably the next likely choice in his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining. Largely looked upon as one of the crowning achievements of not only Kubrick’s career but the entire horror genre, it is getting a brand new 4K transfer and I’m sure is going to look stunning on the format (Keep on reading to find out). Unfortunately, no new extras have been commissioned for this release. BUT, as I’ve become accustomed to, the important thing is just getting the film itself upgraded. And in all honesty, the DVD and Blu-ray formats have already put out much of what we would want already in these films for bonus features (Though, I don’t think a couple more on The Shining would hurt, wink wink). You can return to the Overlook on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray on October 1st.
The incredible success Steven Spielberg had in the late 70s and 80s was in a word: unprecedented. Only his pal George Lucas could claim similar blockbuster status in the same era. Beyond Spielberg’s great achievements in directing, he also had a knack for spotting budding talent to take on more ideas that would feel “Spielbergian.” After the release of the biggest domestic film of all time, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg produced many 80s hits like Poltergeist, Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Smack dab in the middle of the Reagan era is Joe Dante’s 1984 horror-comedy hybrid Gremlins. Fans of the tiny creatures that ought never to be fed at night can scream, “Bright light!” as they should order this new 4K package set for release on October 1. As someone old enough to have seen this on the big screen, I can attest this is the best Gizmo’s adventure has ever looked. But first, the film itself….
One of Guillermo del Toro’s many masterpieces, Pan’s Labyrinth, is wandering on over to 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray on October 1st. For us collector’s, this is a fun problem to have. It feels like yesterday that we just traded it in for the upgraded Criterion Collection edition of the film. Now it feels we are going to bump up the presentation quality but sacrifice some extras. Though, I’m A-okay with holding onto both as the solution, though for some fellow fans, it might not be that simple. Nonetheless, this is an exciting new release from Warner Bros and we can only hope that more surprises like this one are around the corner as 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray continues to be a curious place where not everything is going to be expectedly hitting the format (Midsommar-damnit Lionsgate!). Speak with your wallet, merely based on the title not whether the edition is nit picky perfect or not, and that’s really all we are able to do. Anyway, pre-order this one through the link available below.
Yesterday was a film I went into viewing with a very vague familiarity for the storyline. I knew it was something of a “what-if” story and involved the marvelous music of The Beatles. Leaving my knowledge at that, it doesn’t sound like much. I am very glad that I hadn’t been given too much of the storyline before viewing, as Yesterday proved to be my kind of movie to a T! Comedy, music, mild romance, and really engaging performances proved to be just the right medicine for me this past weekend. Below, I go in-depth on Yesterday which is hitting shelves September 24th!
Dark Phoenix, the end of Fox’s long running X-Men franchise, can’t come and go quick enough in my opinion.
Daybreakers is a genre film that entices with a fairly interesting concept. What if somehow the world became a place where vampirism somehow became the norm and humans were the mythical beings that we never really saw. The concept is intriguing. The execution might be where the sum of its parts begin to crumble. Celebrating it’s tenth anniversary, Daybreakers made it’s 4K debut on September 10th.
Disney’s remake of its 1992 animated film Aladdin is just another in the long line (and still moving down that line) of reimaginations from its vault of fairy tale classics. This year alone has 3 of them and then a sequel to one of their previous efforts still to go. Aladdin was a smashing success, earning over 1 billion dollars at the box office this summer and over $350 million in the US alone. It continued the trend of the critics and general audiences not seeing eye to eye in terms of quality either. Film writers loathe these things, while audiences are just eating them up and loving every second of it. The new Aladdin will be arriving from Disney on the 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray format alonside its predecessor, the 1992 animated Aladdin, on September 10th.
Disney’s Aladdin took the longest time to arrive on Blu-ray (in the United States). But come the 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray format, it’s making the jump as one of the earliest jumps of all the Disney animated epics from the 1990s. That’s thanks mostly to having its live-action remake debuting this past summer and making a boatload of money at the box office that even the Genie couldn’t have granted a wish for. And it will also be debuting on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray alongside its real people counterpart on September 10th. This new release will contain an Atmos track to go with a nice wave of new bonus features. Some old features are included, but for the rest, you’ll only be able to access and watch them if you redeem your Movies Anywhere digital copy code that comes inside the case. So, if you’re needing a hard copy of those past featurettes, you’ll have to hang onto your Diamond Edition Blu-ray. Pretty lame, I agree, but I guess I’ll take the compromise.
While Warner Bros has some more high profile cinematic shared universes in the obvious DC comics one and the Conjuring movies and their various spin-offs, one that hasn’t quite hit in the ways they’ve wanted it to (Despite delivering quality films) is the Godzilla/King Kong shared universe. Three films in now and the successes, buzz and pop culture relevancy haven’t increased or been at a level I’m sure the studio was hoping it would be growing towards. Its every likely the Godzilla vs King Kong movie will close out this short series at 4 films, but then again maybe it goes on. The 3rd film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters opened this past summer and took in only $110 million on a $170 million budget in the US. Worldwide it did $385 million, but I’m sure they were hoping (And needing) it to do probably another $100 million. And its not like this film wasn’t trying to give people what they wanted either. If you missed it, you’ll be able to check it out on Blu-ray Tuesday, August 27th.
Apocalypse Now is one of those films that you don’t even have to see to know what it’s about. Scenes are quoted and recalled all the time. It’s a feature that has yet to become a classic unmentioned. The behind-the-scenes story is just as known and fascinating as the film itself. Francis Ford Coppola nearly went insane to bring this project to life. The efforts therein are even more admirable. Apocalypse Now is a truly stunning piece of film history. The story of an Army Captain not far from his own breakdown heading up a Vietnamese river to assassinate a cult-like former Colonel is engrained in popular culture. “The horror…” of a hellish war story is on full display. This new 40th Anniversary Final Cut edition of Apocalypse Now will stand as the definitive way to experience the film at home and the presentation of this collection is a huge achievement in how to present physical media.
Reggie Dwight is an international treasure. He has been giving music to the world since the early 70’s, has amassed a gigantic fan base, and is one of popular music’s most eclectic musicians. Oh wait… something about this opening doesn’t seem right… Ah, yes…. ELTON JOHN is the name, and Rocketman is the game… uh… movie… And what a film it is! A whirlwind journey told through the eyes, ears and reminiscences of music royalty? This movie screams “see it!” from it’s first frames! Music, drama, and huge highs and lows are just a few of the things awaiting you in Rocketman. Check out more below on this incredible music fantasy biopic!
Glory was a movie that I’d been hearing of for nearly my entire life. I heard it was a harrowing story of a too often forgotten group of American heroes. I was always curious to see the film and chance after chance something kept me from seeing it until this past weekend. Glory does indeed tell quite a story about a very special group of soldiers and the film is one not to be missed even 30 years after it was initially released.
Here we are with the home video release of the biggest movie in the world of all time, Avengers: Endgame. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? That one that followed up the previous years’ giant film with a giant cliffhanger and brought together all of the major superheroes on screen together? No, not Justice League. Okay, I’ll stop being dumb, but how else to introduce a movie that practically the entire population knows what it is and has seen it AT LEAST one time? Its coming to all the formats, including the 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray format which I am reviewing here. A format that Disney has struggled with overall, with some bright spots leading to hoping a corner had been turned, only to backpedal quickly after. Where will Endgame stand in that pantheon? THERE’S our mystery for the intro paragraph! Well, lets continue!
I kind of ruined the surprise for myself, but when the motion picture release of Batman: Hush was announced I did the unthinkable.
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu was the first potentially “real” challenger to Avengers: Endgame’s box office championship belt, but fell just under 9 million shy of taking it. As Avengers was the fourth film with that moniker, so was Detective Pikachu the fourth Warner Bros produced Pokemon movie (Though not in any continuity as the first 3 were animated from the later 90s/early 00s). There was potential for this movie to be a big hit, vying for a potentially mega popular franchise plus potential nostalgia. Though it wasn’t some juggernaut, the film did do some respectable global box office and came just shy of recouping its budget within the domestic US wide release on its own. Potentially the budget was a bit too much but I’m sure Warner had their eyes more on the global prize that just what it would do at home. The film is not heading its way to home video on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on August 6th where you can pick it up in stores or use the Amazon link below.
Alita: Battle Angel was always going to be an interesting film to me. The trailer alone made me want to see it immediately. The story seemed to go just a little bit deeper than your average sci-fi action thrill ride and the scenes shown were stunners meant to draw you in. As you know, a trailer can be the taste film fans need to make them go see a film, or it can be all the best scenes thrown into a short spot to make people think the film will be good. Either way, people who make trailers are geniuses of marketing… The people who made the Alita trailer should then be totally praised. They not only didn’t give away much of the movie, they gave just enough to make you want more. The film is a sprawling visually stunning near masterpiece of the genre. I can’t wait for you to see my thoughts on Alita: Battle Angel below! It just may be as effective as a trailer! As an added treat, my esteemed colleague 
