Lady Antebellum Leads Eagle Rock Entertainment's DVD And Blu-ray Hit Parade

If it were just release news about Lady Antebellum’s next DVD and Blu-ray release that would be more than enough.  A headline-grabber for sure, but for Eagle Rock Entertainment the Oct. 29 debut of Lady Antebellum: On This Winter's Night on both DVD and Blu-ray is just the beginning of one of the most aggressive release slates that we’ve seen in recent memory for a major record label.

There is an onslaught of rock legends planned that includes the likes of Deep Purple, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and more — including a tribute to Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia.  All available as Blu-ray and DVD product offerings during the all-important Christmas-selling season — a release calendar full of must-have music-themed home entertainment treasures.  

First up, Lady Antebellum: On This Winter's Night on DVD and Blu-ray (streeting Oct. 29).  This is a collection of Christmas-themed live performances coupled with personal stories about the holiday season from band members Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood.  Included in the mix are such standards as “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”  

As to bonus features, there is a behind the scenes featurette, a promo video for “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and acoustic tracks for five of the featured songs.

Two weeks earlier, on Oct. 15, Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers – Live arrives on DVD as a two-SKU release — a stand alone DVD or a DVD/2 CD Combo Pack.  

Recorded in Melbourne, Australia in 1984, Perfect Strangers is the only reported full-length live concert recorded on film during this reunion period.  This 17-song set includes renditions of “Highway Star,” “Under the Gun,” “Child in Time” and “Perfect Strangers.”

Teaming with Lady Antebellum’s latest on Oct. 29 are DVD and Blu-ray product offerings for Move Me Brightly: Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday and documentary filmmaker Baillie Walsh’s Springsteen & I.

Culled from a five-hour celebration at Bob Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael, California on Aug. 3 of last year, Move Me Brightly features 11 music segments plus a selection of six bonus tracks, including “Dupree's Diamond Blues,” “Bird Song” and “Friend of the Devil.”

Baillie Walsh captures the love affair that fans have for The Boss; Bruce Springsteen, in his non-musical documentary Springsteen & I.   Interviews, vignettes and real fans being both devoted and polite as they talk about the rock icon and what it is about his music that has become so integral to their lives.   In short, this is a fan love letter for fans to enjoy.

Nov. 12 brings us the mammoth four-SKU rollout of The Rolling Stones: Sweet Summer Sun - Hyde Park Live.  Eagle Rock Entertainment has a Blu-ray SKU, a Blu-ray/DVD/2 CD Combo Pack (with an additional bonus DVD), a stand alone DVD edition and a DVD/2 CD Combo Pack planned.

The Deluxe Edition (Blu-ray/DVD/2 CD Combo Pack) includes a 60-page hardback photo book and the full 1969 Hyde Park concert on DVD as bonus features.

The concert in front of over 100,000 fans was a raucous 16-song set that began with “Start Me Up” and concluded over two hours later with “Satisfaction.”   Along the way fans were treated to “Gimme Shelter,” “Jumpin Jack Flash” “It’s Only Rock n Roll” and “You Can't Always Get What You Want.”  

Bonus goodies include three additional tracks — “Tumbling Dice,” “Paint It Black” and “Before They Make Me Run.”

Shifting to Nov. 19 we find Blu-ray and DVD editions of George Thorogood & The Destroyers: Live at Montreux, 2013.

This 12-song set marked the bands first appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival and included a selection of performances from their early beginnings right up to selections from their latest album.   Cuts include “Rock Party,” “Move it on Over,” “Night Time” and “Madison Blues.”

Rounding out this hit parade from Eagle Rock Entertainment is the Dec.3 DVD and Blu-ray debut of The Doors: R-Evolution.  This assemblage of vintage television appearances, early music videos and other rare footage of The Doors’ creative approach to the visualization of their music is a must-own for fans.  

Included in the presentation are newly release videos of The Doors, a 45-minute documentary titled “The Doors – Breaking Through The Lens,” plus such classic presentations as “Light My Fire,” “L.A. Woman” and People are Strange.”   

Additional bonus goodies include selected commentary from band members John Densmore, Robby Krieger and the late Ray Manzarek (and others) and a selection of outtakes from 1967 TV broadcast, “Malibu U.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

We're The Millers From Warner Home Video On Nov. 19

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s smash end-of-summer comedy, We’re the Millers, will be ready for some Thanksgiving viewing as either a double-disc DVD product offering or a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (all SKUs come with UltraViolet) on Nov. 19.

The ARR comes in at 102 days and ticket sales at local multiplexes amounted to an impressive haul of $142.4 million.

When news first arrived (via theatrical trailer) that Jennifer Aniston was starring in yet another comedy (she’s made like 50 of them so far, right?), the knee-jerk reaction was that this was going to be a late summer (Aug. 7 debut) throwaway.   Maybe a chick flick; a date night bit of fluff.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.   The plot elements  — mainly from writers Bob Fisher and Steve Faber (who previously teamed for the Wedding Crashers) — are just goofy enough to make We’re the Millers a fun ride with a nice edge to it.  

And when you add to that a solid cast, toplined by Aniston and her co-star from Horrible Bosses and SNL alum, Jason Sudeikis, who are joined by Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew, Aquamarine, etc.) and Will Poulter (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) — as the rest of the “Miller” family — you have an ensemble cast that generates plenty of comedy chemistry. 

Bonus nuggets are led by an extended cut of the film — an extra nine minutes of trims to get the final theatrical cut to an R-rating!!!    That’s right, an R-rating, which leaves one to wonder if these edits were for comedy timing or for content (Aniston’s character is a stripper and she does has some nice “moves” for an “aging” actress, including a well executed strip tease sequence … at 44 years of age, Hollywood can be so cruel).

There are deleted scenes, a gag reel, outtakes (“Miller’s Unleashed: Outtakes Overload”), the multi-part featurette titled “Stories from the Road” and two additional production features — “Livin’ It Up with Brad” and “When Paranoia Sets In.”

Also getting a DVD and Blu-ray (both with UltraViolet) push on Nov. 26 is producer/director Courtney Solomon’s Getaway, which teamed Ethan Hawke with both Selena Gomez and Rebecca Budig in a high-octane chase and rescue thiller.

The ARR is 88 days and the box office take came in $10.5 million.

Bonus features include five production featurettes — “Crash Cams,” “Destroying a Custom Shelby,” “Metal and Asphalt” “Selena Gomez: On Set” and “The Train Station.”

One last note, on Oct. 1 — flying home under the radar — was the long-awaited DVD debut of director Robert Florey’s 1946 atmospheric horror thriller, The Beast with Five Fingers.

Peter Lorre stars as an increasingly unhinged killer who imagines that a crawling hand is stalking him in an eerie old house.   Robert Alda, Andrea King and J. Carrol Naish co-star.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Voodoo and Vampires On DVD From Image Entertainment To Open 2014

With the anthology horror entry Sanitarium from filmmakers Bryan Ortiz, Bryan Ramirez and Kerry Valderrama in place for its DVD debut from Image Entertainment on New Year’s Eve, you might think that Image might take a few weeks off.

When you consider the company’s very busy horror-themed Q4’13 release schedule — Shiver, Oct. 8; The Colony, Oct. 15; Homecoming, Oct. 22; All Hallow’s Eve, Oct. 29; I Am Zozo, Nov. 19 — it would be quite understandable if you figured that they’d take some time off.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

News arrived this week that director Evan Tramel’s documentary-turned-death struggle, Black Water Vampire, has been tabbed for Jan. 21 DVD debut and filmmaker Walter Boholst’s ultra-scary Voodoo Possession will be heading to DVD one week early on Jan. 14.   Hell of a start to 2014!

We can’t be sure if Haiti has any insane asylums — somehow, it just seems so inappropriate for a country that looks more and more like hell on earth with each passing year (between earthquakes, crime, violence and grinding poverty) — but if they do have one, we could easily imagine cult actor Danny Trejo as the hospital administrator.

That’s the premise of Voodoo Possession as Aiden (Ryan Caltagirone) goes in search of his missing brother.   Can you imagine the horror of coming face-to-face with Danny Trejo as the head of the nut house … the horror of it all!!!

In Black Water Vampire a group of would-be “investigators” decide to track down the infamous killer behind the Black Water murders — a serial killer.   But as the film’s title implies filmmaker Evan Tramel serves up more than just a run-of-the-mill serial killer for this quartet to document.  

Raymond Banks, as played by Bill Oberst, Jr., who starred as Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, is the subject of their investigation.   Perhaps a trip to Disneyland would be a better choice than filming this sinister creep.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

FF6 And Despicable Me 2 From Universal Studios Home Entertainment On Dec. 10

Last week we mused that the good folks over at Universal Studios Home Entertainment were clearing the decks for some blockbuster action with a flurry of important, but nevertheless lesser grossing summer films that needed to get placed on the release calendar — and safely out of the way — before the heavy-hitters stepped to the plate.

2 Guns ($75 million) and World's End ($25.7 million) were set for a Nov. 19 launch, while Jobs ($16.1 million) was given a Nov. 26 rollout date.   That left Despicable Me 2 and Fast & Furious 6 as the proverbial “elephants in the corner.”

Sure enough, Dec. 10 has been tabbed as the street date … drum roll please … for not just one, but both of these summer blockbusters!   

DVD and Blu-ray/Combo Pack (both with UltraViolet) As for Fast & Furious 6.  The ARR is a leisurely 200 days and the box office take this past summer was a monster $238.7 million (any bets on when F&F 7 gets a green light?).

Bonus goodies include commentary from director Justin Lin (Annapolis, Fast and Furious, Fast Five), deleted scenes, the four-part featurette titled, “The Making of Fast & Furious 6” and a one-on-one featurette with Vin Diesel titled, “On the Set with Vin.”

Exclusive to the Blu-ray SKU is an extended cut of the film, plus an interactive feature titled “Take Control.”  There are five additional production featurettes, including the multi-part “Planes, Tanks and Automobiles,” which covers the major stunt set-pieces from the film.

Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) and Gru’s Minions will be ready for action on the same Tuesday in early December as Universal Studios Home Entertainment unleashes a three-SKU product offering for Despicable Me 2.

The ARR is 158 days and the box office take was an amazing $361.8 million!

Planned for consumers to choose from will be a Blu-ray/DVD 3D/2D Combo Pack, a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a stand-alone DVD edition (all with UltraViolet).

Bonus features include commentary from co-directors Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin and two featurettes — “Gru’s Girls” and “Gadgets Galore.”   

Exclusive to the Blu-ray SKUs are three newly-created “mini movies” — “Puppy,” “Panic in the Mailroom” and “Training Wheels” — a making-of featurette devoted to this “mini movies” titled “The Making of the Mini-Movies,” four additional featurettes, including one titled “El Hombre Malo: The Villainy of El Macho” and a deleted scene.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Midnight Releasing Says Dec. 3 For The DVD Release Of Director Rob Walker's Demon

Director Rob Walker’s Demon, a tightly crafted homage to ‘50s creature features, will be heading to DVD as a Brain Damage Films production from Midnight Releasing on Dec. 3.

The oh so sexy Jasmine Waltz (Lost Angeles, Cheerleader Massacre 2) stars as FBI Special Agent Nicole Diaz, who is assigned to the backwater Florida hamlet of Oro Negro — more or less as punishment for some backstory transgressions — to investigate a series of blood-draining murders.   

On the surface it seems like a demented serial killer, but what she finds is that there is some strange secret government science project that has run amok … it, a creature designed for combat, lives and hunts for just one thing — human BLOOD!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Cinema Libre's Wong Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest To DVD On Nov. 26

Performance artist, lecturer and stand up comedian Kristina Wong’s one-woman show, Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, will be heading to DVD courtesy of Cinema Libre on Nov. 26.

In collaboration with filmmaker Mike Closson, Wong’s unique comedy-with-a-message stage play/concert/performance (it’s actually a little of each) has been put to video in front of a live audience and it works likes a charm.  

She can miraculously take on the subject of depression and suicide among Asian-American women in one moment and then have the somber audience bend-over in raucous laugher the next … a rare talent, indeed!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Jump On DVD From Breaking Glass Pictures This Coming Dec. 10

Oh my!  Breaking Glass Pictures announced this past week that they’ve landed domestic DVD distribution rights to writer/director Kieron J. Walsh’s award-winning film, Jump.   The street selected is Dec. 10.

Let’s just say it straight up.  This film deserved a theatrical release and not just competition exhibition on the festival circuit.   While the lack of a theatrical break is somewhat disappointing, savvy film lovers will have the opportunity to savor this gem in the home entertainment arena come December.

We begin with the amazing Nichola Burley (Donkey Punch, Kicks, Edge, etc.) as Greta, an alluring beauty complete with “angel wings” (a New Year’s Eve costume), standing on a bridge spanning the Foyle River in Derry, Northern Ireland.  It’s party time, but she has decided to end her life.

At the moment of truth along comes Pearse Kelly (Martin McCann — as R.V. Burgin in The Pacific mini-series, Clash of the Titans, Killing Bono, etc.), who has had the snot kicked out of him by a couple of thugs for asking too many questions about his MIA brother.

He saves her, talks her down, and their evening together begins.  But as with films like Crash and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the time frames shift around and we jump from the Greta/Pearse storyline to others connected to them, including her gangster father, Frank (Lalor Roddy) and her two friends (sort of comic relief), Marie (Charlene McKenna) and Dara (Valene Kane), who are expecting her for drinks and a New Year’s Eve celebration.

The storylines — the violence, pathos and comedy — all come together in the final stanza, but it is the getting there that makes Jump work so marvelously well.

Bonus features on the DVD release of Jump include cast and crew interviews and footage from the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in Sept. of 2012.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sets Elysium For A Dec. 17 DVD And Blu-ray Debut

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has selected Dec. 17 as the DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with UltraViolet) rollout date for South African-born filmmaker Neill Blomkamp’s latest political allegory dressed up as a sci-fi thriller, Elysium.

The ARR is 130 days and the domestic box office take was $91.9 million.

You can layer anything that comes to mind over the components of Blomkamp’s futuristic tale — South Africa as the space station Elysium would be one of them, with the suffering in Los Angeles (which sure looks a lot like present day Detroit, only with hoards of homeless people) representing the rest of Africa.   

You could also argue that the paradise of Elysium could be a nice stand in for modern day China’s elite Orwellian-based ruling class, with the dregs of Los Angeles representing the rest of the population of the country.   Indeed, Matt Damon’s gig on the assembly line at the Armadyne Corp would fill in nicely for some poor sick Chinese laborer toiling away at some remote Apple factory — call in sick and we have nine other schmucks ready to take your spot.

Elysium is the ultimate gated community, occupied by limousine royalists and run by Jodie Foster as Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt — she does an excellent job of channeling a Nurse Ratchet persona squared.   Matt Damon, who swore off politics after Promised Land tanked last Christmas, is ready to heroically storm the barricades, but doesn’t have a clue as to how to solve the underlying problems of an over-populated and under-productive Earth (Los Angeles; Africa, etc.).   

An eye-rolling ending, punctuated by the premise of free health care for all, is how Blomkamp ends Elysium … if only it were that simple.   You fully expect the closing credits to be accompanied by a full cast rendition of “Kumbaya.”

The film, as with Blomkamp’s District 9, works just fine as an action/thriller, especially if you are able to set aside the beat-you-over-the-head allegory elements.   Despite the film’s political bent, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will do just fine with its home entertainment launch on Dec. 17.

Bonus features include a pair of featurettes — “Collaboration: Crafting the Performances in Elysium” and “Engineering Utopia: Creating a Society in the Sky.”   Exclusive to the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack are an extended scene, the multi-part “The Journey to Elysium” and the featurette “Visions of 2154.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

The Wolverine On DVD And Blu-ray From 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment On Dec. 3

20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment was up bright and early Tuesday morning, Oct.1, with the release news for director James Mangold’s latest edition to the X-Men film franchise, The Wolverine.

We suspect that the first couple of weeks of October are to going to be exceptionally busy as the “Hollywood” studios stake out their calendar turf selections for the remaining big-budget summer theatrical releases that will be headed to the home entertainment market place during the fourth quarter of 2013.

Planned for Dec. 3 is a three-SKU product offering of The Wolverine from Fox — a DVD edition featuring the theatrical cut, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack edition (also the theatrical cut) and a 3 Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack titled The Wolvervine: Unleashed Extended Edition (featuring a 3D version of the theatrical cut and a 2D presentation of an unrated cut of the film — clocking in at extra 13 minutes in running time).

The ARR is 130 days and the domestic box office tally currently stands at $131.3 million.

As to special features for this Hugh Jackman action thriller, the DVD has only one bonus goodie, a featurette titled “Inspiration: A Ronin’s Journey.”

The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack showcases an alternate ending, the “Second Screen” interactive production of “The Path of the Ronin” and the featurette titled “X-Men: Days of Future Past Set Tour.”

The “Unleashed Extended Edition” SKU includes all of the aforementioned bonuses, plus commentary from James Mangold.

Also heading to the Blu-ray arena on Dec. 3 are eight film vault treasures selected by consumers as part of 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment’s “Voice Your Choice” promotion.

The winners include two starring Tyrone Power, Jesse James and Black Swan; a pair of John Wayne films from the 1960s, North to Alaska and Undefeated; plus Call of the Wild, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Carmen Jones and Desk Set. 

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report