Displaying items by tag: Jazz Singer, ParaNorman, Bond, Skyfall

Morning, folks!

First up today, Adam kicks off his second week of The Hell Plaza Oktoberfest 666 with a review of Mario Bava's Black Sunday on Blu-ray Disc from Kino! It's a bit of classic Italian horror and is just the perfect thing for the Halloween season. Many American audiences may not have seen it, so it's also a nice little discovery for some of you. Enjoy!

Today's post is brief but I'll make it up to you guys tomorrow with a full release news update. The reason is that, over the weekend, I drove halfway across the country with my family - from North Dakota to California. We're moving my Mom into an awesome new retirement condo this afternoon that we've remodeled for her here in Orange County. So along with Mom, and my brother and step-sister, we packed up a moving van and Mom's car full of her stuff (plus her two cats, which made things interesting!) and we drove 1,700 miles in two days through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Nevada, stopping here and there to see such sights as the Badlands and the world's largest Holstein cow. No kidding! Quite the family trip. Plus our family finally buried my Dad's ashes last week as well. As you can imagine, it was a weekend full of all kinds of change and emotion, but good things as well.

Anyway, thanks for your patience while I finish this up today. Just so you know, the new site continues to work well. We had a little glitch on Friday that was quickly worked out but all is now running smoothly. I expect to be back full operation mode by Wednesday and hope to get back to all your e-mails sometime later this week. Meanwhile, Dr. Jahnke continues his most excellent Oktoberfest in fine form!

So have a great day, back tomorrow... and stay tuned!

- Bill Hunt

All right, today's final update for the week is going to pale in comparison to yesterday's big Warner news, but still we've got a few good things for you...

First of all, Adam rounds out his first full week of The Hell Plaza Oktoberfest 666 with a bang by delivering his epic, in-depth review of the Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection Blu-ray box set! Sounds like it’s pretty awesome and well worth your hard earned clams, so be sure to get yourselves a copy while they’re on sale.

Next up, we do have one more bit of Warner news to report today: WHV has officially set The Jazz Singer for 3-disc Blu-ray Book release on 1/8/2013 (SRP $35.99). Extras will include audio commentary by film historians Ron Hutchinson (founder of The Vitaphone Project) and Vince Giordano, a collection of vintage cartoons and shorts (Al Jolson in A Plantation Act, An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee, I Love to Singa, Hollywood Handicap and A Day at Santa Anita), the 1947 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast starring Al Jolson, the film's theatrical trailer, the feature-length The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk documentary, 2 rare excerpts from Gold Diggers of Broadway (a 1929 WB film, most of which is considered lost), studio shorts celebrating the early sound era (Finding His Voice, The Voice That Thrilled the World, Okay for Sound, When Talkies Were Young and The Voice from the Screen) and a collection of rare Vitaphone shorts (some 3 and a half hours worth) many considered lost for decades.

Also today, Universal has set the animated ParaNorman for Blu-ray 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo and DVD release on 11/27. In addition to all the usual bells and whistles, all three versions will include audio commentary with director Sam Fell and writer/director Chris Butler, 7 short featurettes on the characters, the Peering Through the Veil production featurette and Preliminary Animatic Sequences with commentary.

In other news, we’ve got a quick follow-up on the status of those retailer exclusive Bond BD singles. Readers are reporting to us that they've now seen the three Walmart exclusive titles in stores, although initial stocks appear to be limited. The three Target-exclusive titles are also now arriving in stores - several East Coast readers have reported seeing them. As for the three Best Buy-exclusive titles, we have no sightings yet, however sources tell us that they may arrive in stores next week and in fact may appear in Sunday newspaper circular ads this weekend so be sure to watch for them.

Finally, one more item for you Bond fans: The new title track for the upcoming Bond film Skyfall is now available for purchase and preview, as sung by Adele. It had its official debut early this morning on her official website. Do check it out.

All right, that’s all for this week. It's been a big one!

Have a great weekend and stay tuned...

- Bill Hunt