‘The Man Who Laughs’ [Flicker Alley] on Blu-ray & DVD May 28, 2019!
Flicker Alley, in partnership with Universal Pictures, are proud to present Universal Pictures new 4K restoration of the 1928 silent classic, The Man Who Laughs, accompanied by a newly recorded orchestral score by the Berklee School of Music. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, the story centers on the extraordinary adventures of Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), whose wide and mirthless grin inspired DC Comics legendary Batman villain, the Joker. Veidt’s character has become well known to most cinephiles. Orphaned as a child, Gwynplaine is punished by the king for his father s transgressions, by having face carved into a hideous grin. Disfigured and alone, Gwynplaine rescues a blind girl Dea (Mary Philbin), and both end up starring in a sideshow where they fall in love. Because she cannot see, Dea does not know about her lover’s tormented grin. Part of Universal Pictures ongoing silent restoration initiative, The Man Who Laughs honors the studio’s rich film history that has spanned more than a century. The primary source element for this restoration was a 35mm composite fine grain from the Universal Pictures vault, created in 1954 from the nitrate original camera negative. NBCUniversal’s restoration team was able to stabilize and deflicker the film as well as repair scratches, warps, and dirt. The 4K digital restoration was completed by NBCUniversal StudioPost. Continue reading ‘‘The Man Who Laughs’ [Flicker Alley] on Blu-ray & DVD May 28, 2019!’
S’all good, man! The prequel to the Emmy®-winning phenomenon Breaking Bad, BETTER CALL SAUL: SEASON FOUR lands on Blu-ray™ and DVD May 7 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. In the critically acclaimed show’s fourth season, the death of Jimmy McGill’s brother catalyzes his transformation into the bigger-than-life legal legend Saul Goodman. Now, Jimmy steps into the criminal world, putting his future as a lawyer — and his relationship with Kim Wexler — in deep jeopardy. BETTER CALL SAUL: SEASON FOUR stars Bob Odenkirk (TV’s “Breaking Bad”) as Jimmy McGill, Jonathan Banks (TV’s “Breaking Bad”) as Mike Ehrmantraut, Rhea Seehorn (TV’s “Franklin & Bash”) as Kim Wexler, Patrick Fabian (The Last Exorcism) as Howard Hamlin, Michael Mando (TV’s “Orphan Black”) as Nacho Varga, and Giancarlo Esposito (TV’s “Breaking Bad”) as Gus Fring. The AMC drama series, produced by Sony Pictures Television, hails from creators Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould, who serve as executive producers along with Mark Johnson, Melissa Bernstein, Thomas Schnauz, and Gennifer Hutchison.
Disney has been revisiting many of their hand-drawn animated classics of yesteryear and been giving human (Or computer animated) life to them for a whole new generation with great degrees of success. Mary Poppins Returns takes at taking one of their live-action classics (That also featured a handful of hand-drawn animation) and giving it a lega-sequel of all its own. The film proved a solid hit and one of the biggest movies of the holiday season, but not the monster I think they were expecting over that leggy time period. Its arriving quickly now, on shelves for 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray on March 19th. At some point the link below will be active, so come back around to see if you can log yourself an Amazon pre-order. 
You’re invited to play for your life when the twisted survival thriller, ESCAPE ROOM, unlocks on Digital April 9, and on Blu-ray and DVD April 23 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Capturing the adrenaline-fueled essence of the popular mystery-solving rooms, director Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key) masterfully crafts a suspenseful mind-bender with a diverse cast starring Taylor Russell (Lost in Space), Logan Miller (Love, Simon), Deborah Ann Woll (“True Blood“), Jay Ellis (“Insecure“), Tyler Labine (“New Amsterdam”) and Nik Dodani (Atypical) with Yorick van Wageningen (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). 
Coming later in June, Scream Factory will be releasing a set that highlights the work of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi outside of the respective monster franchise characters. With The Body Snatcher, not included in that set (Different studio production), they are giving a little taste of what’s to come with the 1945 Robert Wise film based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name. Scream Factory looks to have some good assets on this release including some vintage materials to go along with a new featurette for the release. The Body Snatcher is coming out at the end of the month on March 26th, and you can pre-order it (And help the site out a little) to have ready on release day by using the Amazon link located following the review. 
Lionsgate is bringing an underseen gem in the Nicholas Cage/Ethan Hawke/Jared Leto arms drama/thriller to 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray. While their updates of catalog titles seems random sometime at others headscratching, Lord of War feels like a its somewhere in the middle of that. The film landed in the mid of maybe Nic Cage’s last great run of films back in the first half of the 00s (Matchstick Men – National Treasure – Lord of War – The Weather Man). Lionsgate was a studio trying to break out from just being Jigsaw and Madea movies and were trying their best at something prestige with a movie like this. Its one that I think people should definitely revisit or check out for the first time as it surprised me back in 2005. You can grab yourself this glorious new 4K release on March 19th using the Amazon linkage below. 
Modern audiences are oddly very weary on giving an opportune chance to any fantasy or science fiction adventure that clearly looks like something new. They may be put off by it being “weird” or unfamiliar while forgetting at one time, Star Wars was also weird and unfamiliar. I’m not saying everything they pass up on is a complete gem, but the opening weekend excitement is either rarely there (Guardians of the Galaxy, but that’s mostly based on brand awareness), barely there (Alita) or nonexistent (Valerian). Mortal Engines was one of 2018’s biggest bombs at the box office and I found little to no one aside from open minded film geeks like myself, craving new fantasy worlds and lore, excited for it. The main turn off for something like this appears to merely be that it isn’t based off anything or the nostalgic return of something familiar. Yet in the meantime, all I hear is the gripe of “There’s nothing original anymore”. WHAT DO YOU WANT? Haha! While I wanted to see Mortal Engines, life wouldn’t allow the time (And I DO normally see stuff like this, as I paid money to see Jupiter Ascending in theaters even), so this will be more first outing and can be yours when it arrives on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray March 12th. 
Horror enthusiasts and classic movie collectors rejoice! On April 16, SCREAM FACTORY™ is proud to present the 1978 supernatural cult classic THE MANITOU Blu-ray and horror classic SUPERSTITION Blu-ray. Produced and directed by William Girdler (Grizzly, Day of the Animals) and based on the best-selling novel by Graham Masterton, THE MANITOU stars Tony Curtis (Spartacus), Michael Ansara (I Dream of Jeannie), Susan Strasberg (Scream of Fear), Stella Stevens (The Silencers), Burgess Meredith (Rocky), Jon Cedar (Death Hunt), and Ann Sothern (The Whale of August). Directed by James Roberson (The Giant of Thunder Mountain) and produced by Ed Carlin (Battle Beyond the Stars), SUPERSTITION stars James Houghton (The Colbys), Albert Salmi (Caddyshack), Lynn Carlin (Faces), and Larry Pennell (Bubba Ho-Tep). 
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald returned audiences to the Wizard World that was the Wizarding World before that of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. New Scamander and company are back in action but this time we are promised are harder tie in to the previous novels/films we’d seen before. No way around it, the film overall seemed to not take off with audiences as much as Where To Find them to significantly less money and appreciation. We’ll be able to further study (Or for some, check out for the first time) when the second of the Harry Potter prequel series makes its 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray debut on March 12th. Preorder the film using the Amazon link provided below the review. 
Scream Factory is digging into the atomic age Universal monster horror movies, continuing with 1957’s The Deadly Mantis. This comes on the heels of the February release of The Mole People. Like that atomic Blu-ray, they are also including the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode featuring the film. Its a very nice added touch to these release that I hope continue on with the more releases we see. This one doesn’t have quite the bonus features that one did beside that (Mole People had a very fun retrospective documentary), but we are seeing a new 2K scan of the film for the presentation. This one will be releasing to you on March 19th, but you can go ahead and put your pre-orders in now by using the Amazon link below!
Black belt vs black magic. Scream Factory presents The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires on Blu-ray™ for the first time on April 9, 2019. Presented here for the first time in high definition is Hammer’s original uncut version. It was released in the US in an edited version called The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula which is also included here in high definition as a bonus feature. The complete list of bonus features also includes new interviews with actor David Chiang and Hong Kong film expert Rick Baker, and new audio commentary with film historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck.
With Scream Factory’s (And of course Shout! Factory overall’s) continued dive into the Sony catalog of horrors, The Craft is a perfect marriage in terms of a title to enhance via a Collector’s Edition. This feels the first of its super teen horror type since their release of Disturbing Behavior back in 2016. The Craft has been a rock solid generational touchstone for over two decades now, proving to be somewhat between a hit and a cult item over time. Very much a big title in the VHS/home video era, its now coming to Blu-ray for the second time around. Scream Factory has aligned some impressive names for new interviews, but unfortunately none of them happen to be any leads from the film which I’m sure its going to be a deal-breaker for many on the fence that would be considering an upgrade of the title. Scream Factory is bringing it out as a part of its March lineup at the top of the month on the 5th and you can pre-order to have it in your hands via the Amazon link below. 
Ridley Scott primarily has been known for mostly his genre and period work in his career and then there’s the little stop off on Thelma & Louise. However, he’s been known to dabble in just about everything to be quite honest. One of my personal favorite films of his is the Nicolas Cage led con-man comedy Matchstick Men. He’s long shown his chops in many avenues and one of his early proving grounds was 1987’s Someone To Watch Over Me. Admittedly, I’m not familiar with this film. Shout! Factory is making it another title to add to the quickly growing and amassing Shout Select line of films. They are putting it out on March 12th and will be including brand new interviews with the screenwriter from the film as well as Someone To Watch Over Me’s cinematographer Michael Poster. No word on what the transfer was on the film, but I’ll spoil it for you and tell you it looks pretty damn terrific. You can set yourself up with a pre-order to have day of release from using the Amazon link below. 
I love the Warner Archive Collection. With such a large and vast catalog the studio has, a ton of it still has not seen release to DVD, let alone Blu-ray. WAC picks up a lot of the slack with some good audio/video upgrades as they don’t really create new special features for their releases. And with their monthly releases they are announced usually a month before and usually they are from a wide variety of different decades and genres. And most of the time we have no clue what’s coming (Cleopatra Jones FINALLY next month! Cross it off the wishlist, HELL YEAH!). This month brings some excitement with Academy Award winning director Michael Cimino’s follow up to his notorious bomb Heaven’s Gate, the Mickey Rourke starring Year of the Dragon. Its available now, but I hear there’s a been a bit of a backorder on many sites, so it could take a minute to get to you (DiabolikDVD has come through, cuz “duh”). Pre-order using the link below. 
New Line Cinema was “The House That Freddy Built”, but in 1991 the studio bumped off their carpenter and noted breadwinner (Only to return three years later in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare). They were still a notable horror house and delivered many of the more interesting and mid-level pictures throughout the 1990s. Man’s Best Friend, along with the likes of Ghost In The Machine that same year, were of the horror films that came during the absentee Freddy years. It was also during that dreadful time for horror in the 1990s (That has more gems than you think) where the genre felt on a decline. Scream Factory is bringing Man’s Best Friend to Blu-ray finally on March 12th for the first time. Maybe Ghost in the Machine will be around the corner as well, considering the newfound relations with Warner Bros which also leads to New Line. It doesn’t have many bonus features to speak of, but fans will likely be happy just to have it with a new 2K scan. Pre-order is available below. 
