Shout Factory Comic Con Announcements

[AndyDursin]

Just trickling out...

[Monterey Jack]

More double-dips of the same old crap. It'll be nice to have Used Cars because I missed out on the OOP Twilight Time release, and I'd re-buy Dances With Wolves if it offered the superior theatrical cut. Other than that, who needs new versions of the Legally Blonde movies?

[AndyDursin]

Really let down too. Much more middle of the road than Shout's usual fare and all recycled...been there done that. Lame.

[AndyDursin]

Well this is better...

[AndyDursin]

[AndyDursin]

[AndyDursin]

CRITTERS FINALLY!!

[Monterey Jack]

So many Twilight Time releases have been re-issued by other labels (often for VASTLY cheaper prices and w/more extras) that you wonder how long TT is going to stick around. Who can justify laying down $35 for a middling Charles Bronson potboiler like 10 To Midnight when you can get it for about $20 from Shout? And TT's occasional "sales" are nothing to write home about.

[Monterey Jack]

Took advantage of the "20% off of $80+ orders" to snag...

[Blu-ray] Candyman [Deluxe Limited Edition]
$27.94

[BD] Quigley Down Under
$15.18

[Blu-ray/DVD] Body Bags [Collector's Edition] *
$19.14

[Blu-ray] The Kentucky Fried Movie *
$12.78

Sub-Total:
$93.80

Promotion:
-$18.76

TOTAL:
$75.04

* blind buy

Plus, I had $8.00 in my Paypal account from DC sales, so my total out-of-pocket expenses came to about $67.04.

[AndyDursin]

KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE is absolutely hilarious, provided you are familiar with 70s TV commercials/movies and know what they're spoofing. Long one of my favorites. BODY BAGS is a stinker IMO (Showtime's feeble attempt at ripping off TALES FROM THE CRYPT) but there are Carpenter/Hooper fans who like it, so you may get a kick out of it.

So many Twilight Time releases have been re-issued by other labels (often for VASTLY cheaper prices and w/more extras) that you wonder how long TT is going to stick around. Who can justify laying down $35 for a middling Charles Bronson potboiler like 10 To Midnight when you can get it for about $20 from Shout? And TT's occasional "sales" are nothing to write home about.

To be fair, the one thing worth remembering with Twilight Time is that they've been releasing 4-5 titles monthly for years and years. In order to maintain that kind of schedule and put out some of the more obscure titles they have (and most of what they're releasing now fits that bill), they charged more up front. They said that right off the bat -- this was never the business model that Shout or other boutique labels used (and Shout essentially tried it once with some limited editions, then never did it again). Sell-outs like 10 TO MIDNIGHT and FRIGHT NIGHT and CHRISTINE -- the latter done at a time when not even Sony thought there was sufficient interest in a Blu-Ray retail release -- funded some of the releases they've been able to do. And really, no label would have put out some of the more minor or obscure studio films that they have.

Whether or not you bought a lot of their discs, the hardcore movie buff should be thankful for what they've accomplished -- especially with Disney soon taking over the Fox catalog, many of these films are never going to be as visible (and easily licensed) as they have been.

[KevinEK]

The one interesting bit there is Starman, which deserves a nicer Blu-ray than we currently have.
I collected the R2 DVD to get the John Carpenter/Jeff Bridges commentary - I'm betting Shout will include that commentary plus a bit more love for the new edition.
It's one of Carpenter's really unsung releases - a rare straight-up movie from him that doesn't collapse in the final third. (Mostly because he did this as a work-for-hire for Michael Douglas' company - this was done only a year or so after the box office failure of The Thing. He had jumped right into Christine and then into this one in short order - this one was the one that helped him recover for a brief period.)
I would be very happy to see a group discussion with the people who made this one - including something about how the various makeup artists all collaborated on the transformation sequence. (It should be noted that they didn't have a lot of money for that or the VFX, and the various artists involved in those areas always felt they could have done a lot more if they'd been given the room.)
And this film holds two great lead performances from Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen.

I'm honestly not sure what more material anyone could come up with for Dances With Wolves. I thought they'd covered all the bases with the prior DVD and Blu-ray releases. I like the movie, but how many more times can they interview everyone about it?

[Monterey Jack]

I'm honestly not sure what more material anyone could come up with for Dances With Wolves. I thought they'd covered all the bases with the prior DVD and Blu-ray releases. I like the movie, but how many more times can they interview everyone about it?

If they just offer the theatrical cut via seamless branching, it'd be enough for me to double-dip.

[Paul MacLean]

Pardon my ignorance -- what is Dances With Wolves CE?

Would that be the theatrical cut by any chance? (I can't sit through the directors cut!)

[AndyDursin]

The theatrical cut is supposed to be on the Shout release along with the "expanded version" edit. That does make this release viable because the only way to see the theatrical edit on Blu-Ray was the Warner overseas release, which I believe is out of print (I got it cheap years back and it seems to be fetching decent dollars now on the secondary market).

[Paul MacLean]

The theatrical cut is supposed to be on the Shout release along with the "expanded version" edit. That does make this release viable because the only way to see the theatrical edit on Blu-Ray was the Warner overseas release, which I believe is out of print (I got it cheap years back and it seems to be fetching decent dollars now on the secondary market).

I have the overseas Warners Blu-ray. It's a good transfer, except random shots here and there have "chromatic anomalies"-- like they were shot with a faulty or cheap lens (which I know isn't the case, since this did not appear in the theatrical release or other video releases). Must have occurred been in the telecine stage, but it is odd that only a few shots suffer from this.