Posted December 1, 2024 08:31 PM by Sean Greenwood
For the week of December 2nd, Walt Disney Home Entertainment and 20th Century Studios will release Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus, starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu.
Description: This truly terrifying sci-fi horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its iconic roots. While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young colonizers come face-to-face with the most relentless and deadly life form in the universe.
Disney's 4K UHD release of Alien: Romulus contains Dolby Vision HDR and the film's Dolby Atmos audio. Extras include alternate / extended scenes, Return to Horror: Crafting Alien: Romulus and the featurettes Inside the Xenomorph Showdown and Alien: A Conversation. In addition to standard packaging, a Limited Edition SteelBook will also be available. For full release breakdowns, read Jeffrey Kauffman's Blu-ray review and 4K UHD review.
Also coming from Disney are 4K UHD SteelBook releases for the following TV series:
First is Star Wars' Ahsoka: The Complete First Season (2023), starring Rosario Dawson, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ray Stevenson, Ivanna Sakhno and Diana Lee Inosanto.
Description: Set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka follows the former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.
Disney's 4K UHD release of Ahsoka: The Complete First Season contains Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Extras include audio commentaries on episodes five and eight, as well as the featurettes Ahsoka: Legacy, Path of the Apprentice, Ghosts of the Past and Darkness Rising. For a full release breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's 4K UHD review.
Also new on 4K UHD is Star Wars' The Mandalorian: The Complete Third Season (2023). The two-disc set contains all eight episodes with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Extras include Honoring the Magistrate: A Tribute to Carl Weathers, Galactic Legacy: The Creatures and Droids of The Mandalorian and Forging the Covert: Part Three.
Then, from Marvel Studios is Hawkeye: The Complete First Season (2021), starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Vera Farmiga, Tony Dalton, Florence Pugh and Vincent D'Onofrio.
Description: Marvel Studios' Hawkeye is an original series set in post-blip New York City where former Avenger Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. But when a threat from his past shows up, Hawkeye reluctantly teams up with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) – a 22-year-old skilled archer and his biggest fan – to unravel a criminal conspiracy.
Disney's 4K UHD release of Hawkeye: The Complete First Season contains Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Extras include Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye, as well as the featurette A Tale of Two Hawkeyes, a gag reel and 30 minutes of deleted scenes. For a full release breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's 4K UHD review.
Also coming to 4K UHD is Marvel Studios' Loki: The Complete Second Season (2022). The two-disc set contains all eight episodes with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Extras include Assembled: The Making of Loki Season 2, as well as the featurette Loki Through Time, a gag reel and deleted / extended scenes. For a full release breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's 4K UHD review.
New on Blu-ray and 4K UHD from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is Chris Sanders' The Wild Robot, starring Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara and Bill Nighy.
Description: An adaptation of Peter Brown's award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, THE WILD ROBOT is an epic adventure staring Academy Award® winner Lupita Nyong'o (Us, the Black Panther franchise) as Roz, a robot that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must adapt to the harsh surroundings. Gradually Roz starts building relationships with the animals on the island, including a clever fox voiced by Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian), and becomes the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling named Brightbill voiced by Kit Connor (Ready Player One, Heartstopper). THE WILD ROBOT is a powerful story about self-discovery, a thrilling examination of the bridge between technology and nature, and a moving exploration of what it means to be alive and connected to all living things.
Universal's Blu-ray releases of The Wild Robot contain the film's Dolby Atmos audio, with Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras include filmmaker commentary, an alternate opening with introduction by Chris Sanders, as well as the featurettes How to Draw, Fly Your Own Brightbill, Feeling Alive, Assembly Required: Animating The Wild Robot, Meet the Cast, Wild Sounds and Moments from the Mic.
Also coming from Universal is a newly remastered 4K UHD edition of Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004), starring Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton. Universal presents Shaun of the Dead with a new Dolby Atmos audio mix and Dolby Vision HDR. New extras include Shaun of the Dead: 20 Bloody Years!, while additional extras include four audio commentaries, outtakes, deleted scenes, casting tapes and more. In addition to standard packaging, a SteelBook edition will also be available.
New on Blu-ray and 4K UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is Brandon Vietti's Watchmen: Chapter II, starring the voices of Matthew Rhys, Katee Sackhoff, Titus Welliver, Troy Baker, Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Cerveris.
Description: Chapter II: Outlawed superheroes grapple with their personal lives and each other while racing the clock to solve a deepening mystery connected to an impending nuclear war between the United States and Russia.
Warner's Blu-ray releases of Watchmen: Chapter II contain DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, with HDR on the 4K UHD edition. Extras include the featurettes Dave Gibbons and Watchmen: Endgame, The Art of Adaptation: Building to the Final Act and Designing Watchmen. For full release breakdowns, read Randy Miller's Blu-ray review and 4K UHD review.
New on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Media Distribution is the animated special South Park: The End of Obesity (2024), starring the voices of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Description: In SOUTH PARK: THE END OF OBESITY, the advent of new weight loss drugs has a huge impact on everyone in South Park. When Cartman is denied access to the life-changing medicine, the kids jump into action.
Paramount's Blu-ray of South Park: The End of Obesity contains a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track.
Coming to 4K UHD from Paramount is Dean Parisot's Galaxy Quest (1999), starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell and Daryl Mitchell. Sourced from a new 4K master, Paramount present Galaxy Quest with Dolby Vision HDR and a new Dolby Atmos audio mix. New extras include a Filmmaker Focus featurette with Dean Parisot, while additional extras include six featurettes, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer. In addition to standard packaging, a Limited Edition SteelBook edition will also be available.
New on Blu-ray from Severin Films is Jane Giles and Ali Catterall's documentary Scala!!! (2023).
Description: Between the politically volatile years of 1978 to 1993, London's most infamous repertory movie theater/pleasure dome screened over 4000 mind-warping films that influenced a generation of remarkable writers, musicians, filmmakers, actors, artists and activists.
Co-directors Jane Giles and Ali Catterall now reveal the incredible true story of the Scala Cinema featuring rare archival footage, dozens of film clips from Scala favorites and interviews with former Scala audience members, guests and staff that include John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Jah Wobble, Cathi Unsworth, Mary Harron, Kim Newman, Nick Kent, Isaac Julien, Matt Johnson and more, with 13 hours of Bonus Materials such as the new documentary SPLATTERFEST EXHUMED directed by Jasper Sharp (THE CREEPING GARDEN) about the infamous 1990 all-night horror festival featuring interviews with attendees John McNaughton, Brian Yuzna, Scott Spiegel and more, plus 12 specially curated Scala-screened short films and hours of additional material.
Severin's Blu-ray of Scala!!! is a three-disc set. Extensive extras include filmmaker commentary on Scala!!!, extended interviews, outtakes, short films, feature-length documentaries and more. For a full release breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's Blu-ray review.
New on Blu-ray from Shout Factory is Viggo Mortensen's The Dead Don't Hurt, starring Vicky Krieps, Viggo Mortensen, Solly McLeod, Garret Dillahunt, Colin Morgan and Danny Huston.
Description: In 1860s San Francisco, fiercely independent Vivienne Le Coudy (Krieps) finds herself drawn to Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen) and accompanies him to his quiet Nevada homestead. But as the imminent Civil War beckons Holger to fight, Vivienne is left to fend for herself ... and when Holger returns, he discovers they have new enemies in a corrupt, cutthroat businessman (Dillahunt), his unhinged, violent son (McLeod), and a deceptively friendly Mayor (Huston) who could unravel their lives completely.
Shout Factory's Blu-ray of The Dead Don't Hurt contains a conversation between Jane Campion and Viggo Mortensen, a making of featurette, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Coming to 4K UHD from Shout is Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) (1972), starring Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Del Negro, Ruy Guerra, Peter Berling and Cecilia Rivera. Sourced from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, Shout presents Aguirre, the Wrath of God with a choice of original German or dubbed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 tracks, optional English subtitles and Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras include audio commentary with Werner Herzog (in English, or in German with English subtitles) a stills gallery and a theatrical trailer.
Also coming to 4K UHD from Shout is Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000), starring Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear and Hilary Swank. Sourced from a 2024 4K master, Shout presents Aguirre, the Wrath of God with a choice of DTS-HD MA 5.1 or 2.0 audio tracks and Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras include two new audio commentaries: One with film critic Meagan Navarro and another with film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, an isolated music and effects track and on a remastered Blu-ray, new interviews with editors Arthur Coburn and Bob Murawski, composer Christopher Young and actor Chelcie Ross. Additional extras include featurettes, cast and crew interviews, TV spots, radio spots, a music video and a theatrical trailer.
New on Blu-ray from Lionsgate Home Entertainment is Alexandre Aja's Never Let Go (2024), starring Halle Berry, Matthew Kevin Anderson, Christin Park, Stephanie Lavigne and Percy Daggs IV.
Description: From visionary director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, Crawl) and the creative minds behind Stranger Things and Arrival comes NEVER LET GO. In this new psychological thriller/horror, as an evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother, played by Academy Award® winner Halle Berry (Actress in a Leading Role, 2001 – Monster's Ball), and her twin sons is their house and their family's protective bond. Needing to stay connected at all times – even tethering themselves with ropes – they cling to one another, urging each other to never let go. But when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, the ties that bind them together are severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival.
Lionsgate's Blu-ray of Never Let Go contains the featurettes Making Never Let Go and Creating Momma's House, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Also on Blu-ray from Lionsgate is Marc Forster's White Bird, starring Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren, Olivia Ross, Bryce Gheisar, Stuart McQuarrie and Jim High.
Description: From the best-selling author of Wonder, the book that sparked a movement to "choose kind," comes the inspirational next chapter. In White Bird, we follow Julian (Bryce Gheisar), who has struggled to belong ever since he was expelled from his former school for his treatment of Auggie Pullman. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother (Helen Mirren) finally reveals to Julian her own story of courage — during her youth in Nazi-occupied France, a boy shelters her from mortal danger. They find first love in a stunning, magical world of their own creation, while the boy's mother (Gillian Anderson) risks everything to keep her safe.
New on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is Alex Kendrick's The Forge, starring Karen Abercrombie, Priscilla C. Shirer, Cameron Arnett, Ben VanderMey, Tommy Woodard and Stephen C. Lewis.
Description : Isaiah Wright has some growing up to do. A year out of high school with no plans for his future, Isaiah is challenged by his single mom and a successful businessman to start charting a better course for his life. Through the biblical discipleship from his new mentor, prayers of his mother and a prayer warrior named Miss Clara, Isaiah begins to discover God's purpose for his life is so much more than he could hope for or imagine. From the Kendrick Brothers, the creators of the No. 1 hit WAR ROOM, comes THE FORGE, a faith-filled new movie with familiar friends and inspiring new twists.
Sony's Blu-ray of The Forge contains filmmaker commentary, a making of featurette, Discipleship in The Forge deleted scenes, bloopers and follow-up resources.
New on Blu-ray and 4K UHD from Capelight Pictures International and MPI Media Group is Ryan Coonan's Rippy, starring Michael Biehn, Tess Haubrich, Angie Milliken and Aaron Pedersen.
Description: A series of gruesome murders is terrifying the inhabitants of the Australian outback settlement of Axehead. Maddy, the town's only law enforcement officer and sheriff, searches for clues. However, her investigations lead nowhere – until her uncle Schmitty mentions a massive, seven-foot zombie kangaroo that he is convinced is responsible for the bloodshed. At first, Maddy doesn't believe his seemingly absurd suspicions, but when the murders continue, she is forced to face reality. Determined to end the nightmare and save her town, Maddy, side by side with her uncle and Aunt Donna, confronts the killer kangaroo in a fight to the death.
Coming to Blu-ray from Arrow Video is the box set Shawscope Volume Three (1967-1983), a ten-disc set with 14 further films from Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers studio:
Before Hong Kong's mightiest film studio mastered the art of the kung fu film, Shaw Brothers hit box office gold with a very different kind of martial arts cinema, one that channelled the blood-soaked widescreen violence of Japanese samurai epics and Italian spaghetti westerns into a uniquely Chinese form: the wuxia pian. With their enthralling tales drawn from historical myth and legend of sword-wielding (and often gravity-defying) noble heroes, the wuxia films housed in this next instalment of Arrow Video's best-selling Shawscope series demonstrate the sweeping stylistic evolution of the genre, from the righteous stoicism of the late-60s Mandarin period, right through to the wild-and-weird anarchism of the early-80s Cantonese explosion.
The iconic One-Armed Swordsman trilogy, directed between 1967 and 1971 by wuxia cinema godfather Chang Cheh, made household names of stars Wang Yu and David Chiang and set the gory template for many of the films to come. Contrary to Chang's tales of loyal brotherhood, many wuxia films focused on female protagonists, three very different examples of which we see next: Ho Meng-hua's The Lady Hermit, with the great Cheng Pei-pei (Come Drink with Me) as a virtuous swordswoman called upon to stop a vicious warlord; Chor Yuen's scandalous Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan in which the titular lady of the night masters every deadly skill she can to get revenge on those who enslaved her; and Cheng Kang's all-star epic The 14 Amazons, in which Shaws' finest starlets play the real-life women of the Yang dynasty, avenging their fallen menfolk in battle.
Next, Chor Yuen adapted several beloved novels by consummate wuxia storyteller Gu Long to the big screen, four of which are collected here: The Magic Blade, Clans of Intrigue, Jade Tiger and The Sentimental Swordsman, all starring the redoubtable Ti Lung. As kung fu overtook wuxia at the box office, the genre evolved into unexpected new directions, with its chivalrous knights-errant replaced by conflicted antiheroes, as seen in Sun Chung's breathlessly exciting The Avenging Eagle and Boxer's Omen goremeister Kuei Chih-hung's fatalistic masterpiece Killer Constable. Finally, just when it seemed the wuxia film had nowhere left to turn, Eighties excess reigned supreme in the special-effects-soaked, fourth-wall-breaking fantastical delights of Taylor Wong's Buddha's Palm and Lu Chun-ku's Bastard Swordsman.
Back with all-new exclusive restorations and hours of insightful bonus material, if you thought the previous two Shawscope sets showed the Shaw Brothers at its strongest, you ain't seen nothing yet!
Coming to 4K UHD from the Criterion Collection is Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984), starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski, John Lurie, Bernhard Wicki and Aurore Clement. Sourced from a new 4K master (supervised and approved by Wim Wenders), Criterion presents Paris, Texas with Dolby Vision HDR and DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio. Extras include audio commentary with Wenders, The Road to Paris, Texas, a 2001 interview with Wenders, interviews from 2009 with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis, a segment from the French television program Cinema cinemas, deleted scenes with optional commentary by Wenders and Super 8 home movies, photo galleries and a trailer for the film. Also included is a booklet with "an essay by film critic Nick Roddick; interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell; and excerpts from Wenders' book of photos Written in the West". For a full release breakdown, read Svet Atanasov's 4K UHD review.
Finally this week, Kino Lorber has a 4K UHD upgrade for M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit (2015), starring Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn and Celia Keenan-Bolger. Sourced from a new master, Kino presents The Visit with a choice of lossless 5.1 or 2.0 audio tracks and Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras include a new audio commentary by entertainment journalists / authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry, while the included remastered Blu-ray also features a making of featurette, cast and crew interviews, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, behind-the-scenes footage, trailers and more.