Posted February 27, 2023 01:34 AM by Sean Greenwood
For the week of February 27th, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has a Blu-ray and 4K UHD release for Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado's Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, featuring the voices of Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Harvey Guillen, Florence Pugh and John Mulaney.
Studio description: Everyone's favorite leche-loving, swashbuckling, fear-defying feline, Puss in Boots, returns in a new adventure from the Shrek universe as the daring outlaw discovers that his passion for peril and disregard for safety have taken their toll. Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives, though he lost count along the way. Getting those lives back will send Puss in Boots into the Black Forest to find the mythical Wishing Star on his grandest quest yet. With only one life left, Puss will have to humble himself and ask for help from his former partner and nemesis: Kitty Softpaws. They are joined in their journey by a chatty and cheerful mutt named Perro. Together, our trio of heroes will need to stay one step ahead of the fairytale realm's craftiest crooks including Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Also new from Universal this week is a Blu-ray for Resident Alien: Season Two (2022). The four-disc set contains all 16 episodes from the second season, as well as deleted scenes.
New this week on Blu-ray and 4K UHD is J.D. Dillard's Devotion (2022), starring Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Serinda Swan, Thomas Sadoski and Joseph Cross.
Studio description: Jonathan Majors (Creed III) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) star in the epic and inspirational true story of two elite US Navy fighter pilots who helped turn the tide in the most brutal battle in the Korean War: Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in Navy history and his fellow fighter pilot and friend, Tom Hudner. Their heroic sacrifices and enduring friendship would ultimately make them the Navy's most celebrated wingmen.
Paramount's Blu-ray releases of Devotion contain DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, with Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD edition. Extras include the featurettes The Aviation of a Forgotten War and The Legacy of Jesse Brown.
New on Blu-ray from Magnolia Pictures comes Lee Jung-Jae's Hunt (헌트), starring Lee Jung-Jae, Jung Woo-Sung, Hye-jin Jeon, Heo Sung-tae and Man-sik Jeong.
Description: After President Park's murder in 1980, North Korea sense an opportunity for future invasion and sends one of its spies. Park Pyong-Ho and Kim Jung-Do, two senior security officers, are tasked with the hunting down the infiltrator.
Magnolia's Blu-ray of Hunt contains both original Korean and dubbed English DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, with optional English or English SDH subtitles. Extras include a greeting from Lee Jung-Jae and Jung Woo-Sung, a making of featurette, Double Cross!: An interview with Lee Jung-Jae and Jung Woo-Sung, behind-the-scenes footage, and the featurette Cannes: 24 Hours.
New on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is Kasi Lemmons' Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, starring Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Tamara Tunie and Nafessa Williams.
Description: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a powerful and triumphant celebration of the incomparable Whitney Houston. Directed by Kasi Lemmons, written by Academy Award nominee Anthony McCarten, produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis and starring BAFTA Award winner Naomi Ackie, the film is a no-holds-barred portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
From New Jersey choir girl to one of the best-selling and most awarded recording artists of all time, audiences are taken on an inspirational, poignant—and so emotional—journey through Houston's trailblazing life and career, with show-stopping performances and a soundtrack of the icon's most beloved hits as you've never heard them before. Don't you wanna dance?
Sony's Blu-ray of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody contains Whitney's Jukebox, deleted scenes and three featurettes.
New this week from IFC Films is a Blu-ray for Julian Higgins' God's Country (2022), starring Thandiwe Newton, Tanaya Beatty, Kai Lennox, George De Vries and Joris Jarsky.
Description: When a college professor confronts two hunters she catches trespassing on her property, she's drawn into an escalating battle of wills with catastrophic consequences.
New this week from Lionsgate Home Entertainment is a Blu-ray for Edward Drake's Detective Knight: Independence, starring Bruce Willis, Dina Meyer, Lochlyn Munro, Willow Shields and Jack Kilmer.
Description: Detective James Knight 's last-minute assignment to the Independence Day shift turns into a race to stop an unbalanced ambulance EMT from imperiling the city's festivities. The misguided vigilante, playing cop with a stolen gun and uniform, has a bank vault full of reasons to put on his own fireworks show... one that will strike dangerously close to Knight's home.
Lionsgate's Blu-ray of Detective Knight: Independence contains the featurettes Detective Knight: Inspiration Final Knight and Drawing Inspiration: Independence.
Also from Lionsgate this week is a Blu-ray for Francis Ford Coppola's B'Twixt Now and Sunrise: The Authentic Cut (2011), starring Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning, Ben Chaplin, Joanne Whalley and David Paymer.
Official description: When struggling supernatural fiction writer Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) arrives in an isolated small town as part of his book tour, he hears about the local lore of vampires and an infamous mass murder. Eager for inspiration, Baltimore is swept into a surreal fever dream of eccentric characters — from the oddball sheriff (Bruce Dern) to the ghost of a young girl (Elle Fanning) to visions of Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin) — that forces him to confront his own troubled past.
Lionsgate's Blu-ray of B'Twixt Now and Sunrise: The Authentic Cut contains Twixt: A Documentary as an extra. For a full disc breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's Blu-ray review.
Staying with catalog titles, MPI Home Video, in association with Dark Sky Films, will release a 4K UHD upgrade for Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), starring Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail and Teri McMinn. Sourced from a 4K master and presented with Dolby Vision HDR, MPI's 4K UHD disc of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre features a new Dolby Atmos audio remix, in addition to DTS-HD MA 7.1, DTS-HD MA 2.0 and DTS-HD MA Mono tracks. Extras on the 4K UHD disc include four legacy audio commentary tracks, while a Blu-ray of extras includes the new feature-length documentary The Legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, amongst many other video extras. In addition to standard packaging, a Limited Edition SteelBook will also be available. For a full disc breakdown, read Randy Miller's 4K Blu-ray review.
Coming to 4K UHD this week from Kino Lorber is John Schlesinger's Marathon Man (1976), starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane and Marthe Keller. Sourced from a 2022 4K scan of the of the original camera negative, Kino's 4K UHD release presents Marathon Man with DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks, and Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. New extras include an audio commentary with critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson, while the included remastered Blu-ray also includes the featurettes, making of documentary and theatrical trailer from the previous Blu-ray, as well as 10 TV spots.
And coming to 4K UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, in association with MGM, is the 4K UHD box set Rocky: The Knockout Collection (1976-1985), a five-disc box set that contains the 4K UHD debuts of Rocky (1976), Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985), along with a new director's cut of Rocky IV entitled Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago. The fifth disc is a Blu-ray containing previously released extras for Rocky and the extended behind-the-scenes documentary The Making of Rocky vs. Drago: Keep Punching. In addition to the box set, individual Best Buy Exclusive SteelBooks for Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III and Rocky IV will also be available.
Also coming to 4K UHD from Warner Bros. is Antoine Fuqua's Training Day (2001), starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger and Harris Yulin. Sourced from a 4K master and presented with HDR, Warner's 4K UHD release of Training Day contains a new Dolby Atmos audio track and a remastered Blu-ray. Extras on the 4K UHD include audio commentary, while the Blu-ray contains the other legacy extras, such as a making of, deleted scenes, alternate ending, music videos and theatrical trailer. In addition to standard packaging, a Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook will also be available. Reviewer Randy Miller has high praise for the 4K UHD, saying that "it's a near-total improvement in every major department" over the 2006 (!) Blu-ray release and calling the new Dolby Atmos audio "as an impressive a track as they come". For a full release breakdown, and to see screenshots from the remastered Blu-ray, read Randy's 4K Blu-ray review.
Finally this week, Shout Factory has another three catalog titles coming to 4K UHD. First up is Rob Cohen's DragonHeart (1996), starring Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery, Dina Meyer, David Thewlis, and Pete Postlethwaite. Sourced from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, Shout presents DragonHeart with DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio and Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras include director audio commentary, while the included Blu-ray features a making of featurette, outtakes and theatrical trailers.
Then from Shout and Laika comes 4K UHD upgrades for The Boxtrolls (2014) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). Both films are newly remastered in 4K, with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Both releases also include their Inside LAIKA featurettes, full-length storyboards and art galleries from the 2021 Shout Blu-ray editions, as well as the legacy extras from their original Blu-ray releases. As with previous Shout and Laika 4K UHD editions, both The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings will also be available in SteelBook packaging.