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On their FB page, Kino Lorber Studio Classics has announced that True Confessions (1981) will be released in October.

All of September's covers. And only one of these suffers from font issues (Yikes, Run Silent)! Elmer Gantry is wolf-whistle-worthy gorgeous

Funny Thing... looks a lot, lot, lot, lot like a recent ill-regarded Criterion release.

EDIT: I bet it's based on an original poster, though.

The posters for both "A Funny Thing..." and "It's A Mad..." (both MGM) were done by Mad Magazine's Jack Davis, as was Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" (released by UA). He was a very busy guy during that period.

Ah. I figured as much. I like the style, I was just stricken by the similarity.

Though technically not part of the Studio Classics line, Bloody Mama (1970) is getting a Blu-ray release on September 23rd via Scorpion Releasing; I thought I'd bring this up since it was originally available as part of the Roger Corman Collection box set MGM released a few years ago.

I have a lot of affection for it (really too much), but I guess Meteor can be seen as similar to When Time Ran Out in showing the disaster film trend running on its lowest ebb. I seem to remember it having worse special effects (the same establishing shot of the ominously approaching Meteor repeated again and again) but not being quite as cheesy and long-winded in its relationship dramas as Armageddon would later be!

Spoiler

And it has a nice Crack In The World-style ending in which all of the people ensconced safely in their bunker through the majority of the film come under threat too.

I am curious to finally get to see it in its correct aspect ratio. Maybe that might make the film better, or perhaps worse!

I remember really enjoying The Great Train Robbery (known in the UK as The First Great Train Robbery, presumably to differentiate it from the 1960s Buster Edwards crime story), although over the years the only sequence that has really stayed vivid in my mind is the one involving the precisely timed run to the guardroom during shift changeover in order to make impressions of the keys stored there.

Great Train Robbery is one of my favorite films of all time. Very excited to buy it for the fourth time and upgrade the non anamorphic DVD from the LD transfer. Let's hope they keep Crichton's wonderful commentary.

Lee Tamahori's Mulholland Falls (1996) will be released on Blu-ray October 7th.

Topkapi will be released on October 7.

Looks like a solid transfer for Witness for the Prosecution. Interesting that Kino is using excerpts from Billy Wilder Speaks (which they own the U.S. rights to) as supplements. I wonder if they might have picked up all seven of the Wilders that MGM didn't release on Blu themselves, as a way to get a little extra mileage out of that acquisition.

That would be: Private Life of Sherlock Holmes + Witness for the Prosecution (Both confirmed) and Irma la Douce, One Two Three, Avanti!, Kiss Me, Stupid, and the Fortune Cookie-- I hope you're right, as I'd like over half of those and since there's no guarantee anyone'd agree on which half are the keepers, might as well unleash 'em all!

Sabata BD review at DVDBeaver

Looks quite good compared to the old MGM DVD. Just the trailer for extras.

Why, oh why can't they include subtitles?

Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain October 7th.

manicsounds wrote:Sabata BD review at DVDBeaver

Looks quite good compared to the old MGM DVD. Just the trailer for extras.

I hope the voice syncing issue has been corrected.

rockysds wrote:Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain October 7th.

As a Russell fan and apologist, it's great to see another one of his films hitting Blu-Ray, but man, Billion Dollar Brain is not a good film. I do hope that this means Kino has some level of interest in his other, much better MGM titles (Women in Love, The Music Lovers, and to a much lesser extent, Valentino).

Jeff wrote:Interesting that Kino is using excerpts from Billy Wilder Speaks (which they own the U.S. rights to) as supplements. I wonder if they might have picked up all seven of the Wilders that MGM didn't release on Blu themselves, as a way to get a little extra mileage out of that acquisition.

So much for that theory, as it seems no excerpts were used for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The Beav is underwhelmed with the transfer, but the film has always been soft.

So "Sherlock Holmes" has optional English subtitles? Is this a Kino first?

I checked the posts on their FB page and it looks like a lot of their upcoming titles will have optional English subtitles.

All the MGM titles with subtitles on the original release will have subs on the Blu

Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye in November or December. It will be extremely difficult to better the UK Arrow release.

EDIT: seemingly forgot to say what would be difficult to better!

What? I thought for sure Criterion would be doing that. Ah well, another sale here for the Arrow.

10/14/14

Jennifer (1978)


And really looking forward to The Long Goodbye in Nov/Dec myself. Would have preferred Criterion, but glad it's coming from one of the MGM catalog distributors in the US.