I have not put one of these out in a while because after a few months of great announcements, nothing worthwhile has been announced recently. I’ll take this as a chance to let you know what is coming out between now and Christmas, however, so you can prepare to make your want lists for the holidays. It is better to receive than to give, you know.
THE REST OF NOVEMBER
Next week, you get lots of current movies getting their DVD debuts. Live Free or Die Hard will get both a basic release as well as a 2-Disc Special Edition. These will apparently be Unrated Editions, which brings up lots of questions. The biggest complaint on our message boards was that the fact it was NOT a Rated R movie that hurt it. Most people I know in “real life” seemed to enjoy it, anyway. I don’t know what the differences are, but I will try to find out before next week’s Special Edition column. The Die Hard Collection, with all four movies will also get released on Blu-Ray. As an important note, the Blu-Ray release will not include the unrated edition of the new movie, only the theatrical cut.
The big release next week however, is Hearts of Darkness – A Filmmakers Apocalypse. It is the behind the scenes documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now! and includes the complete meltdown of director Francis Ford Coppola. It is one of the greatest documentaries ever made and if you have not ever seen it, you need to. Forget Live Free or Die Hard and Hairspray. If you only buy one DVD next week, this is it. It will include a commentary track with Francis Ford Coppola, an introduction by his wife and a follow up documentary “CODA: Thirty Years Later.”
Are you a Trekie with an HD DVD player? If so, next week is also the release date for the entire first season of the classic Star Trek television show on the combo HD DVD / DVD format. It is loaded with bonus features including “Starfleet Access – On-screen graphical interface allowing viewers to access Picture in Picture video commentaries, comparisons of re-mastered vs. original effects, encyclopedic information (science, life forms, technology), episode trivia and more on select episodes, Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century documentary, Billy Blackburn’s Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories, Interactive Enterprise Tour and Perpetual Entertainment’s "Star Trek Online" MMO Game Preview. There is also a number of featurettes on the standard DVD side as well. It is retailing for $194.99, but if you buy it early, Amazon has it listed at $132.95.
The Tuesday after Thanksgiving will give us the first straight to DVD movie for the newly resurrected Futurama. The title, Futurama – Bender’s Big Score marks the return of all the characters that we loved from the original television show in a feature length animated movie. This is the first of four scheduled films, with the next three coming throughout 2008. As Xmas 3007 approaches, the Futurama crew must fight to save Earth in an epic battle against nudist alien Internet scammers. Extra features will include Commentary By Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Phil LaMarr, Claudia Katz, Dwayne Carey-Hill and Ken Keeler, Futurama Returns! A Live Comic Book Reading By The Futurama Cast Featurette, Everybody Loves Hypnotoad – A Spellbinding Episode Of The Future’s Most Popular TV Program, A Terrifying Message From Al Gore Animated Promo For An Inconvenient Truth, Video Commentary by Al Gore, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen (!!!), Bite My Shiny Metal X – A Mind-Shattering Futurama Math Lecture Featurette, Bender’s Big Score :The Original First Draft Of The Script Featurette, New Character/Design Sketches, Original Five-Minute Comic-Con Promo and Deleted Scenes.
The same day, we finally get a big Hot Fuzz release, as we get a 3-Disc Special Edition. Those who read me know about my huge rant about how shitty the US version was compared to the UK version. Well, they must have listened to the grumbling and have released a HUGE special edition. Here are the extras: Feature Commentary with Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright, Feature Commentary with The Sandford Police Service – Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall, Kevin Eldon & Olivia Colman, Feature Commentary with The Sandford Village People – Kenneth Cranham, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman & Edward Woodward, Feature Commentary with The Real Fuzz – Any Leafe & Nick Eckland, Feature Commentary with Edgar Wright & Guest, Outtakes, Storyboards, Fuzz-O-Meter (Trivia Track), Inadmissible: Deleted Scenes, Fuzz-O-Meter, Danny’s Notebook, Hot Funk, Theatrical Trailer, UK TV Spot 1, UK TV Spot 2, Director’s Cut Trailer, We Made Hot Fuzz, Art Department, Friends & Family, Cranks, Cranes & Controlled Chaos, Here Come the Fuzz, Return to Sandford, Edgar & Simon’s Flip Chart, Simon Muggs, Sergeant Fisher’s Perfect Sunday, Plot Holes, Special Effects: Before & After, Video Blogs, Poster Gallery, Photo Gallery, AM Blam: Making ‘Dead Right’, Dead Right (1993), Edgar Wright Director’s Commentary on Dead Right, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost Commentary on Dead Righ, The Extended Fuzzball Rally and Video Blogs. I could ask for nothing more.
DECEMBER’S OFFERINGS
A number of notable things comes out the first Tuesday in December including the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the sixth season of 24, the fourth season of The Wire, the complete second season of Saturday Night Live and the Battlestar Galactica movie Razor (based on the television series). The big thing that many Chud readers are looking at though is a 2-Disc Special Edition of Superbad. It’s unrated and will include Deleted and Extended Scenes, Gag Reel, Line-O-Rama, Cop Car Confessions – A Ride Along with Clark County’s Finest, The Making of Superbad, Original Table Read 2002 – Seth Rogen reads for the part of “Seth”, Commentary with Filmmakers and Cast, Pineapple Express: Exclusive First Look, Cast Audition Footage, Press Junket Meltdown, The Music of Superbad, “Everybody Hates Michael Cera” – The Unfortunate True Story, On-Set Diaries, Dancing Title Sequence, Vag-tastic Voyage, "Snakes on Jonah" Featurette, Michael’s Voicemails from Jonah, TV Safe – Watch Jonah Hill try to record alternate "safe" lines appropriate for television and Table Reads.
The next week features season 3 of Lost, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Bourne Ultimatum. Bourne is also being released in a trilogy box set as the Jason Bourne Collection. A Limited Edition release, the films are packaged in a “Safe Deposit Gift Box with Collectible Jason Bourne Passport”. The Bourne Identity is the “Explosive Extended Edition” (which adds some bookend scenes but loses the DTS and audio commentary from the original release), while The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum are the regular widescreen editions. There is also a bonus fourth disc which has a few additional featurettes (and is the same as that included on The Bourne Files release earlier this year). There is also a limited edition gift set including all the Harry Potter movies, but that is just stupid since there are still a couple to be made. Wait until they are all finished and then get them all in the set.
December 18 is the biggest day of them all. Not because we get The Simpsons: The Movie or Stardust (although that is pretty cool), but because we get The Blade Runner Ultimate Collector’s Edition in the briefcase pictured to the left. What do you get in that nifty case? 5 discs, which includes RIDLEY SCOTT’S ALL-NEW "FINAL CUT" VERSION OF THE FILM, Commentary by Ridley Scott, Commentary by Executive Producer/ Co-Screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Co-Screenwriter David Peoples; Producer Michael Deely and production executive Katherine Haber, Commentaries by visual futurist Syd Mead; production designer Lawrence G. Paull, art director David L. Snyder and special photographic effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer, the documentary DANGEROUS DAYS: MAKING BLADE RUNNER, 1982 THEATRICAL VERSION, 1982 INTERNATIONAL VERSION, 1992 DIRECTOR’S CUT, Featurette The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick, Featurette Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. The Film, Philip K. Dick: The Blade Runner Interviews (Audio), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Cover Gallery (Images), The Art of Blade Runner (Image Galleries), Featurette Signs of the Times: Graphic Design, Featurette Fashion Forward: Wardrobe & Styling, Screen Tests: Rachel & Pris, Featurette The Light That Burns: Remembering Jordan Cronenweth, Unit Photography Gallery, Deleted & Alternate Scenes, 1982 Promotional Featurettes, Trailers & TV Spots, Featurette Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art, Marketing & Merchandise Gallery (Images), Featurette Deck-A-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard, Featurette Nexus Generation: Fans & Filmmakers and finally the original WORKPRINT VERSION with Commentary by Paul M. Sammon, author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner and the Featurette All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut.
CRITERION’S OFFERINGS
The Lady Vanishes (11/20)
Sawdust and Tinsel (11/20)
Drunken Angel (November)
Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks (December)
Two-Lane Blacktop (December)
Next week’s Coming Soon will be the special BLACK FRIDAY edition and will pretty much be a huge Bargain Bin for those of you willing to face the storm of the worst shopping morning of the year.