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Tuesday, 04 October 2016 18:11

Secret Life of Pets arrives on 12/6, plus our thoughts on Shin Godzilla & reviews of the first two Vestron BDs

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All right, just a quick one today, as we’re doing a little work on The Bits server this afternoon, and I’m also trying to finish up a hardware review for tomorrow.

We have a couple of new reviews for you today: Our own Tim Salmons has just checked out Lionsgate’s first two Vestron Video Collector’s Series Blu-ray releases, Chopping Mall (1986) and Blood Diner (1987), and he’s found them both well worth your time if you’re a horror fan. You can read his thoughts via the title links provided.  [Read on here…]

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In a bit of new release news today: Universal Studios Home Entertainment has just set The Secret Life of Pets for Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release on 12/6, with the Digital HD release due on 11/22. The discs will include 3 Mini-Movies (Norman Television, Weenie, and Mower Minions), 7 featurettes (All About the Pets, Animals Can Talk: Meet the Actors, Hairstylist to the Dogs, The Best of Snowball, The Humans that Brought You Pets, GoPro: The Secret Life of Pets, and The Making of the Mini-Movies), a Hot Dog Sing-Along, the Sing trailer, and the lyric video for Lovely Day. The Blu-rays will add 2 more exclusive featurettes (How to Make an Animated Film and Anatomy of a Scene).

The Secret Life of Pets (Blu-ray Disc)   The Secret Life of Pets (Blu-ray 3D)   The Secret Life of Pets (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)

Also today, our friend John Berge (over at Videomagasinet.no) has alerted us that Hugo Fregonese’s 1966 Italian Spaghetti western Savage Pampas is getting an exclusive 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release in Germany on 11/18. You can read more here.

Finally, having just attended FUNimation’s West Coast premiere of the film last night, here’s my quick review of Shin Godzilla: I liked the heck out of it. It’s different than I expected, but very much a throwback to the original film. Essentially, it’s a fast-cut, ensemble, disaster-military-political procedural with a giant monster crashing through it. It’s very Japanese, both in its cultural context and in terms of its storytelling sensibility. There’s fascinating commentary regarding Japan’s place in the world, for example, and also their government’s handling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The visual effects are fantastic, as is the presentation of Godzilla. Big G is wonderfully weird and packs an insane punch in this film. Shin Godzilla has just the right touch of camp and, of course, lots of heavy ordnance laid on target. I’d give it a strong B+. It’s well worth seeing if you’re a fan of the series. Just pay attention to the dialogue subtitles on the bottom of the screen and ignore the location/character ID text on top (you’ll figure out who’s who quickly enough). And read fast! The films run in limited release around North America from 10/11 to 10/18 (you can find out where here at the official website), and then FUNimation will be releasing it on Blu-ray and DVD in a few months. Don’t miss it!

Shin Godzilla!

That’s all for now. Stay tuned...

- Bill Hunt (@BillHuntBits)