For the period ending April 24, 2020 ... New DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD selections added to the DVD & Blu-ray Release Report's database

 

 

 

 

DVD New Additions

 

Bayview Entertainment

06/30/20 — Sets Anniversary (Cantonese), Bunkar: The Last of the Varanasi Weavers, Kidnap Ding Ding Don (Cantonese), My Wife is a Superstar (Cantonese), Odd Perspective, Run For Love (Mandarin) and Soldiers of Embers

Cinedigm Entertainment

04/14/20 — Released Get Bossy

Cleopatra Entertainment

07/14/20 — Sets Game of Death

Conscious Films (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Dr. Llaila O. Africa: How to Overcome Arthiritis and Dr. Llaila O. Africa: Science of the Ankh

DreamScape Media, LLC

04/14/20 — Released Chain of Life: The Rick Boyle Story, Memory After Belsen/ Hitler's Courtsm Passport to the World: Hong Kong, Passport to the World: Peru, Passport to the World: Vietnam and Voices Beyond The Wall: Twelve Love Poems From The Murder Capital of the World

Gravitas Ventures (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Long Shadow, Nathan's Kingdom and Track: Search for Australia's Bigfoot

HBO Home Entertainment (MOD)

05/26/20 — Sets Deuce: The Complete Third Season (3 disc set) and Silicon Valley: The Complete Sixth Season (2 disc set)

Lionsgate Home Entertainment

04/14/20 — Released Foxtrot Six

MVD Entertainment Group

08/11/20 — Sets Dahmer

Naxos

04/21/20 — Released LA Phil 100: The Los Angeles Philharmonic Centennial Birthday Gala, Mozart: Idomeneo, Purcell: King Arthur, Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew, Thomas Larcher: Das Jagdgewehr, Verdi: Falstaff and Wagner: Der Fliegende Hollander - Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

PCN Productions (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Pennsylvania Country Roads: 2012 Farm Show & Mazza Farms

Passion River

06/23/20 — Sets Wallflower (ARR of 263 days; box office: $3,801)

Rarefilmsandmore.com (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Afterman, Die Brucke (German) and Die Toten Augen Von London (German)

Smart Mark Video (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Game Changer Wrestling: Just Being Honest, Glory Pro Wrestling: David Lee Memorial - Affton, MO, Glory Pro Wrestling: Steel Cage Challenge - Belleville, IL, Glory Pro Wrestling: Three Year Anniversary - Collinsville, IL, Glory Pro Wrestling: Unsanctioned II - Sauget, IL, Unsanctioned Pro: Unsanctioned 7 - The Next Episode - Grove City, OH and Unsanctioned Pro: Unsanctioned 8 - Ignorant - Hillard, OH

The Teaching Company, LLC

04/21/20 — Released Cooking Across the Ages (4 disc set), Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics (2 disc set), Rise of the Novel: Exploring History's Greatest Early Works (4 disc set) and When Everything Fails: Surviving Any Disaster (2 disc set)

Vision Films (MOD)

03/10/20 — Released Hope Ranch and To the Beat!: Back 2 School

04/14/20 — Released Maserati: A Hundred Years Against All Odds

Warner Bros. Home Ent. (MOD)

05/12/20 — Sets Charlie Chan Collection (4 film set: Shadows Over Chinatown, Docks of New Orleans, Shanghai Chest, The Golden Eye) (2 disc set), Each Dawn I Die, G Men, Mayor of Hell, Mystery of the Wax Museum and Smart Money

05/26/20 — Sets All Through the Night, Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, Bullets or Ballots, Kid Galahad and Petrified Forest

Wild Eye Releasing

04/14/20 — Released Hi-8: Horror Independent Eight and Lycanimator

WOWnow Entertainment

04/21/20 — Released Bad Monkeys

Blu-ray New Additions

 

Aniplex of America

04/21/20 — Released Sword Art Online: Alicization (6 disc set) (with Bonus CD)

Cohen Media Group

04/21/20 — Released Pandora and the Flying Dutchman/The Living Idol (2 disc set)

Film Movement

04/21/20 — Released Alastair Sim's School for Laughter (4 film set: The Belles of St. Trinian's, School for Scoundrels, Laughter in Paradise, Hue and Cry) (4 disc set)

FUNimation

04/21/20 — Released BlazBlue Alter Memory (2 disc set) and C - Control Money of Soul and Possibility: The Complete Series (2 disc set)

Gravitas Ventures (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Long Shadow, Man Camp, Nathan's Kingdom and Track: Search for Australia's Bigfoot

Gunpowder & Sky (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Sea Fever

Indie Rights, Inc. (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Colour From the Dark

KDMG (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Sunny Daze

Kino-Lorber

04/21/20 — Released Connecting Rooms, Love Among the Ruins, Love of Jeanne Ney (silent-1927), Secret Ceremony and Woman Times Seven

MVD Entertainment Group

08/11/20 — Sets Dahmer

Menemsha Films

04/21/20 — Released Budapest Noir (Hungarian)

Naxos

04/21/20 — Released LA Phil 100: The Los Angeles Philharmonic Centennial Birthday Gala, Mozart: Idomeneo, Purcell: King Arthur, Thomas Larcher: Das Jagdgewehr, Verdi: Falstaff and Wagner: Der Fliegende Hollander - Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

NCircle Entertainment

04/21/20 — Released Gigantosaurus: Dino Tales

PBS Direct

04/21/20 — Released World on Fire: Season One (2 disc set)

PCN Productions (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Pennsylvania Country Roads: 2012 Farm Show & Mazza Farms

Paramount Home Media (MOD)

05/26/20 — Sets Angela's Ashes, Atlantic City, Funeral in Berlin and On a Clear Day Your Can See Forever

Sentai FilmWorks

04/21/20 — Released BanG Dream!: 2nd Season (2 disc set)

Severin Films, LLC

04/21/20 — Released Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson, Carnival Magic and When the Wind Blows

Shout! Factory

04/21/20 — Released Curse of the Werewolf

Smart Mark Video (MOD)

04/21/20 — Released Game Changer Wrestling: Just Being Honest, Unsanctioned Pro: Unsanctioned 7 - The Next Episode, Grove City, OH, Unsanctioned Pro: Unsanctioned 8 - Ignorant, Hillard, OH and Zona 23: La Guerra Comienza - Mexico City, MX

Universal Pictures Home Ent.

04/21/20 — Released Fate of the Furious (with Digital Copy)

VIZ Media

04/21/20 — Released Boruto Naruto: Next Generations, Volume 5 (2 disc set)

Warner Bros. Home Ent. (MOD)

05/12/20 — Sets Inside Daisy Clover and Mystery of the Wax Museum

05/19/20 — Sets Reluctant Debutante, Selena and Sunday in New York

Well Go U.S.A.

04/21/20 — Released Ip Man 4: The Final (Cantonese) (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack)

4K Ultra HD New Additions

Vinegar Syndrome

05/26/20 — Sets Rad (4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack)

Paramount Home Media Preps For New-To-Blu-ray Titles For Delivery On May 26

Paramount Home Media is fighting back against the “no new theatrical releases” syndrome that has been brought on by theatres nationwide closing up shop for the foreseeable future.   

The studio has already put a prime selection of new 4K Ultra HD product offerings on its release calendar — Braveheart, Gladiator, Top Gun, Days of Thunder and War of the Worlds — and the first wave of “Paramount Presents” Blu-ray editions arrived this past week — King Creole, Fatal Attraction and To Catch a Thief — with more on the way in the weeks ahead, including Flashdance and Pretty in Pink.      

     

Well, there was more good news this past week as four additional new Blu-ray releases were announced for delivery on May 26 ... all four for the first time on Blu-ray!!   No frills, just Blu-ray films for fans to enjoy.

Topping the list is director Louis Malle’s 1980 Best Picture nominee, Atlantic City, teaming Burt Lancaster (nominated Best Actor for the fourth time … From Here to Eternity, Elmer Gantry and Birdman of Alcatraz, with a win for Elmer Gantry) with Susan Sarandon (her first of five nominations for Best Actress … others include Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, The Client and a win for Dead Man Walking).

The other four in the mix are director Guy Hamilton’s 1966 film adaptation of the Len Deighton novel, Funeral in Berlin (with Michael Caine), filmmaker Alan Parker’s 1999 film adaptation of the Frank McCourt Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela's Ashes and director Vincente Minnelli’s 1970 romantic comedy, On a Clear Day Your Can See Forever, starring Barbra Streisand.

Marquee Collection Status For The DVD And Blu-ray Launch Of MVD Entertainment Group's Dahmer On Aug. 11

The latest addition to MVD Entertainment Group’s popular Marquee Collection surfaced this past week and it is a dilly.   

Writer/director David Jacobson’s 2002 theatrical terror trip, Dahmer, starring Jeremy Renner (a two-time Oscar-nominee … Best Actor for The Hurt Locker and Best Support Actor for The Town) as the notorious serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, will be available as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings on Aug. 11.

A new 4K restoration, from the original camera negative, was supervised by filmmaker David Jacobson (Down in the Valley, Tomorrow You’re Gone) and will be presented for the first time in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

It is 1978, a high school loner, fresh out of school, has grown up in a troubled home headed by a father (played Bruce Davison) with a penchant for religion and impulsively picks up a hitchhiker one night, takes him home … and a string of 17 grisly murders begins.

Through a series of flashbacks, mixed with social encounters, followed by fetish-like murders, we get a very uncomfortable picture of an extremely sick individual.   His 18^th victim, “Rodney” (played by Artel Kayaru; aka: Artel Great  — Save the Last Dance, Heavens Fall) spends a creepy evening with Dahmer and manages to escape … after 13 long years, the murder trail comes to an end when he flags down police.   

Bonus features include commentary from filmmaker David Jacobson and actors Jeremy Renner and Artel Kayaru, a behind the scenes photo gallery, story boards and an extended “Making of Dahmer” featurette.

Cleopatra Entertainment Locks In July 14 For The DVD Debut Of Game Of Death

Cleopatra Entertainment, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced back in February that they had acquired the distribution rights to the director team of Laurence “Baz” Morais-Legace and Sebastien Landry’s game-playing horror thriller, Game of Death.

A theatrical rollout was all set … by now everyone knows what happened with that, all the theatres closed down on Mar. 20 and so much for the theatrical prospects of Game of Death.

A favorite on the festival circuit, including showcase screenings as SXSW and Frightfest back in 2017, the film pulled in its share of awards and some nice buzz … and then, for reasons that are not entirely clear, disappeared.

Cleopatra Entertainment has new plans for Game of Death, instead of coming to a multiplex near you, it will be available on DVD on July 14.  Maybe, just maybe, Game of Death is cursed by the very forces that rise up to create such chaos in the film itself … it is certainly something to think about!

In any case, seven 20-somethings are bored out of their minds one afternoon — hanging around the pool and doing drugs only takes you so far.   As luck would have it, they find a board game — no, not a Ouija Board — that has the curious name of the “Game of Death” in a stash of games.   

So Ashley (Emelia Hellman — as Bethany in the Bellevue television series) and her boyfriend, Matt (Thomas Vallieres — Midway, My Mom's Darkest Secrets) get their friends to give it a try.

Genre fans will recognize Ashley and her friends as being members of the “victim’s pool,” but there is a twist.   The game-players gather around, put a finger on the “play” button, which looks a little like a cross between a plug socket and a skull and — are you ready — the game is turned on everyone gets a big surprise, their fingers are pricked and blood flows.   OUCH!!

A timer kicks in and players have so much time to run up a body count or they die.  One of the little group says, hell no, the timer runs down to zero and his head explodes!!   Reset and the game on is with six players!  Kill, kill, kill … or die, die, die, tough choice.

Bayview Entertainment Tabs June 30 For The DVD Debut Of Documentary Filmmaker Satyaprakash Upadhyay’s Bunkar: The Last Of The Varanasi Weavers

Bayview Entertainment will be guiding documentary filmmaker Satyaprakash Upadhyay’s Bunkar: The Last of the Varanasi Weavers, the award-winning look at the 3,500-year old Bunkari (weaving) traditions of Varanasi, India, to the DVD marketplace on June 30.

Craft, art form, a family/generational tradition … the Bunkari method of the handloom is dying thanks to, or cursed by, modern mechanization.   The craftsmen once numbered in the millions, now could just fill Dodger Stadium, it is an industry, a tradition, a lifestyle in retreat.

Upadhyay’s film traces the history of Bunkari, blends in interviews with a number of the weavers, no, make that craftsmen, artists — yes, indeed, artists, they even have their own followings, fans — and shows modern manufacturing techniques have devastated the once flourishing industry.

It took Upadhyay some 18 months to film his story, to capture on film the rich, but sadly dying, craftsmanship of Bunkari and to showcase the talent, the traditions and the creative art of these unique handloom tradesmen.  

Bunkar: The Last of the Varanasi Weavers is a fascinating, educational and even emotional story that is presented in English and Hindi, with English subtitles where appropriate.

Vinegar Syndrome Announces A 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack Edition Of Lori Loughlin's Rad For Delivery On May 26

Before Lori Loughlin got embroiled in the college admissions scandal (her trial is schedule for October of this year), she starred in director Hal Needhan’s 1986 BMX bike racing flick, Rad.   Which, ironically, has one of its plot elements an upcoming SAT test, which conflicts with a major BMX race … don’t you just love it when life imitates art (or is it the other way around?   No matter.).

Vinegar Syndrome announced this past week that a new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition of Rad will be available on May 26.

Cru (Bill Allen — Born on the Fourth of July, Sioux City) is a hot-shot BMX biker, who sees his big chance at fame when Mongoose Bicycles announces the Hell Track race challenge, which features a cool $100,000 prize.   

The only problem is, the fix is in, as Duke Best (Jack Weston — Dirty Dancing, Gator, The Thomas Crown Affair, etc.), the owner of Mongoose, wants his in-house BMX rider, Bart Taylor (Bart Conner), to win the event.   

Christian is Lori Loughlin’s character, who is also a BMX rider … she has the hots for Cru … the big issues are the race, which, as mentioned, falls on the same date at the SAT college tests (perhaps Loughlin can help out), and then there’s that big high school dance.   And, of course, lots of BMX action.

 

Others included in the cast are veterans Talia Shire (Rocky), Ray Walston and former NFL player, H.B. Haggerty.

Bonus goodies include a newly-minted commentary option with Talia Shire, who is joined by her son, Robert Schwartzman and a new video session with writer and co-producer Sam Bernard.   Archived features include a commentary option with the cast and crew, multiple video sessions with members of the cast and crew and a stills gallery.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Digs In Film Library For Four New-To-Blu-ray Releases During The Month Of May

With the new theatrical window slammed shut, the studios must turn to their film library holdings for the next few months to keep the lights on.   Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, boasting the largest such library among the “Hollywood” studios, will be doing exactly that during the month.

Getting a Blu-ray launch (finally) on May 19 is director Gregory Nava’s 1997 biopic, Selena, starring Jennifer Lopez as ill-fated Tejano recording sensation, Selena Quintanilla.

Bonus goodies include two viewing options — the original theatrical release and “extended” cut of the film (clocking in with an extra seven minutes worth of footage) — the 2007 short documentary, Selena, Queen of Tejano, outtakes and featurette titled “Making of Selena: 10 Years Later.”

Also making a Blu-ray debut during the month of May is director Robert Mulligan’s 1965 film adaptation of the Gavin Lambert novel, Inside Daisy Clover, starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Christopher Plummer and Ruth Gordon (nominated Best Supporting Actress).   It will be available on May 12.

Also arriving on Blu-ray on May 12 is a new film restoration (UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation) of director Michael Curtiz’s 1933 horror classic, Mystery of the Wax Museum, starring Fay Wray — it was released theatrically two months prior to her starring role as Ann Darrow in King Kong … she had filmed Mystery of the Wax Museum during down periods on the eight-month long production of King Kong.  Lionel Atwill co-stars.     

 

Bonus features include two commentary options, the first with film historian Alan K. Rode and the second featuring Scott MacQueen, the head of preservation at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Alan K. Rode’s newly prepared short documentary titled, Remembering Fay Wray, and a restoration featurette. 

Rounding out the new-to-Blu-ray release calendar during the month of May from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment are Sunday in New York and The Reluctant Debutante.