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Never Thought I’d See This On Blu-ray…The Biggest Disc Surprises For Me (1 Viewer)

Dick

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Rick
Like everyone, I have a want list of films I’d pay a fair penny to see released on Blu-ray, but the current list is a mere fraction of what it was, say, five years ago. Niche companies have licensed out some films I truly thought I’d seen the last of on video. We all expect the “big” and recent titles, but these are the “OMG!” personal favorite titles I come across nearly every month and which take me by surprise, and, yes, I actually say “Oh My God!” out loud when I find them. Here is an incomplete list of such announcements that have really made my day so many, many times…and they keep on coming (Blu-ray and classic releases are not dead)! So, this is a big hug and thank you to those responsible for their release. I include non-domestic Blu-rays here:
7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE (from a 4K restoration…so far available only in the UK)
ATOMIC CAFE, THE
AWFUL TRUTH, THE
BATTLEGROUND
BEAR, THE (1989)
BEAU GESTE (announced)
BETWEEN THE LINES (announced)
BIG FIX, THE (announced)
BILLY...

Continue reading...
 
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Josh Steinberg

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My biggest Blu-ray surprise remains Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that they’d rebuild seven seasons worth of episodes from unconformed negative - basically putting the entire show through postproduction for a second time. They didn’t cut corners and the results are miraculous. It’s the best remastering of its type ever done.

To see the show as it was scripted and shot, divorced from the grungy look of 1980s-era video postproduction, was a revelation. My best childhood memories revived in spectacular fashion.

I’m still in awe of the effort.
 

Bryan^H

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Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
9,515
Like everyone, I have a want list of films I'd pay a fair penny to see released on Blu-ray, but the current list is a mere fraction of what it was, say, five years ago. Niche companies have licensed out some films I truly thought I'd seen the last of on video. We all expect the "big" and recent titles, but these are the "OMG!" personal favorite titles I come across nearly every month and which take me by surprise, and, yes, I actually say "Oh My God!" out loud when I find them. Here is an incomplete list of such announcements that have really made my day so many, many times...and they keep on coming (Blu-ray and classic releases are not dead)! So, this is a big hug and thank you to those responsible for their release. I include non-domestic Blu-rays here:

7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE (from a 4K restoration...so far available only in the UK)
ATOMIC CAFE, THE
AWFUL TRUTH, THE
BATTLEGROUND
BEAR, THE (1989)
BEAU GESTE (announced)
BETWEEN THE LINES (announced)
BIG FIX, THE (announced)
BILLY BUDD
BODY SNATCHER, THE
CHANGELING, THE (1980)
CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (announced + import now available)
CINERAMA Titles in Smilebox Format (All)
COLD TURKEY
CONRACK
COTTON CLUB, THE - DIRECTOR'S CUT (expected, not yet announced)
DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (TV)
DAVID AND LISA
DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) (announced + import now available)
DICK TRACY
DRIFTWOOD
DUELLISTS, THE
EMIGRANTS, THE / THE NEW LAND
FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (announced)
GANGS OF NEW YORK - REDUX (Disney actually fixed the horrible original and re-issued it)
GLASS HOUSE, THE (TV)
GOG (3D)
HAUNTING, THE (1963)
HELLSTROM CHRONICLE, THE
HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA, A (import)
HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1929)
IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, THE (import)
INCIDENT, THE
INTRUDER, THE (announced)
JACK THE GIANT KILLER
JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN, THE
KISS ME KATE (3D)
LEOPARD MAN, THE (announced)
LOST WORLD (1925) (2017, 93-minute Restoration)
LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (announced)
MAD ADVENTURES OF RABBI JACOB (with English subs, announced)
MAGIC SWORD, THE
MAN IN THE WILDERNESS
MAN WHO LAUGHS, THE (1928) (announced)
MAZE, THE (3D)
MEPHISTO WALTZ, THE
MICROCOSMOS
MIKADO, THE (1939)
MILL OF THE STONE WOMAN (import)
MISSILE TO THE MOON
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE
NAPOLEON (1927) (so far only an import)
NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS
NIGHT WALKER, THE
NORTH WEST FRONTIER (aka FLAME OVER INDIA)
OFFICIAL STORY, THE
OLD DARK HOUSE, THE
ONE MILLION B.C. (1940)
OUT OF THE PAST
PAPA'S DELICATE CONDITION
PAPER MOON (import)
PATHFINDER (1987) (import)
PAWNBROKER, THE
PHAR LAP (import)
PHASE IV
PLAGUE DOGS, THE
PRANCER
QUATERMASS II (announced)
QUEEN OF SPADES (announced)
QUIZ SHOW (import)
RAGTIME (import announced)
RIDE THE PINK HORSE
SALAAM BOMBAY!
SANDS OF THE KALAHARI
SATAN BUG, THE
SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA, THE
SEA HAWK, THE (1940)
SEA WOLF, THE
SEVEN BEAUTIES
SILENT PARTNER, THE (announced)
SILENT WORLD, THE (J. Cousteau) (import)
SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH, THE (import)
SOLDIER BLUE (uncut, R-rated, import)
SON OF PALEFACE
STREET SMART
SWASHBUCKLER (import)
SWIMMER, THE
THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE
THIS ISLAND EARTH (announced + import now available)
ULEE'S GOLD
UNDER FIRE
WORLD WITHOUT END
WORLD WITHOUT SUN (J. Cousteau) (import)

and a bunch I left off....

Nice list.

Conrack, and My Dinner with Andre are two of the best movies I have ever seen. The classic 3D titles are also great.

For myself I would have to say classic TV shows I love being released on Blu-Ray is something I never thought would happen. My favorite Star Trek series, Little House on the Prairie (miracle this was completed), Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Incredible Hulk, Airwolf, Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, classic Doctor Who, Space 1999 The Twilight Zone Etc.

Also 90's movies that I never expected to see: The Whole Wide World, Gas Food, Lodging, Maborosi, and After Life.


Truly amazing to own these on Blu.
 

cinemiracle

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May 1, 2015
Messages
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Peter
Like everyone, I have a want list of films I'd pay a fair penny to see released on Blu-ray, but the current list is a mere fraction of what it was, say, five years ago. Niche companies have licensed out some films I truly thought I'd seen the last of on video. We all expect the "big" and recent titles, but these are the "OMG!" personal favorite titles I come across nearly every month and which take me by surprise, and, yes, I actually say "Oh My God!" out loud when I find them. Here is an incomplete list of such announcements that have really made my day so many, many times...and they keep on coming (Blu-ray and classic releases are not dead)! So, this is a big hug and thank you to those responsible for their release. I include non-domestic Blu-rays here:

7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE (from a 4K restoration...so far available only in the UK)
ATOMIC CAFE, THE
AWFUL TRUTH, THE
BATTLEGROUND
BEAR, THE (1989)
BEAU GESTE (announced)
BETWEEN THE LINES (announced)
BIG FIX, THE (announced)
BILLY BUDD
BODY SNATCHER, THE
CHANGELING, THE (1980)
CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (announced + import now available)
CINERAMA Titles in Smilebox Format (All)
COLD TURKEY
CONRACK
COTTON CLUB, THE - DIRECTOR'S CUT (expected, not yet announced)
DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (TV)
DAVID AND LISA
DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) (announced + import now available)
DICK TRACY
DRIFTWOOD
DUELLISTS, THE
EMIGRANTS, THE / THE NEW LAND
FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (announced)
GANGS OF NEW YORK - REDUX (Disney actually fixed the horrible original and re-issued it)
GLASS HOUSE, THE (TV)
GOG (3D)
HAUNTING, THE (1963)
HELLSTROM CHRONICLE, THE
HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA, A (import)
HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1929)
IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, THE (import)
INCIDENT, THE
INTRUDER, THE (announced)
JACK THE GIANT KILLER
JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN, THE
KISS ME KATE (3D)
LEOPARD MAN, THE (announced)
LOST WORLD (1925) (2017, 93-minute Restoration)
LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (announced)
MAD ADVENTURES OF RABBI JACOB (with English subs, announced)
MAGIC SWORD, THE
MAN IN THE WILDERNESS
MAN WHO LAUGHS, THE (1928) (announced)
MAZE, THE (3D)
MEPHISTO WALTZ, THE
MICROCOSMOS
MIKADO, THE (1939)
MILL OF THE STONE WOMAN (import)
MISSILE TO THE MOON
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE
NAPOLEON (1927) (so far only an import)
NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS
NIGHT WALKER, THE
NORTH WEST FRONTIER (aka FLAME OVER INDIA)
OFFICIAL STORY, THE
OLD DARK HOUSE, THE
ONE MILLION B.C. (1940)
OUT OF THE PAST
PAPA'S DELICATE CONDITION
PAPER MOON (import)
PATHFINDER (1987) (import)
PAWNBROKER, THE
PHAR LAP (import)
PHASE IV
PLAGUE DOGS, THE
PRANCER
QUATERMASS II (announced)
QUEEN OF SPADES (announced)
QUIZ SHOW (import)
RAGTIME (import announced)
RIDE THE PINK HORSE
SALAAM BOMBAY!
SANDS OF THE KALAHARI
SATAN BUG, THE
SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA, THE
SEA HAWK, THE (1940)
SEA WOLF, THE
SEVEN BEAUTIES
SILENT PARTNER, THE (announced)
SILENT WORLD, THE (J. Cousteau) (import)
SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH, THE (import)
SOLDIER BLUE (uncut, R-rated, import)
SON OF PALEFACE
STREET SMART
SWASHBUCKLER (import)
SWIMMER, THE
THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE
THIS ISLAND EARTH (announced + import now available)
ULEE'S GOLD
UNDER FIRE
WORLD WITHOUT END
WORLD WITHOUT SUN (J. Cousteau) (import)

and a bunch I left off....

Some good titles in your list. SOLDIER BLUE is rather tame when seen today.It no longer gets an 'R rating -at least not in my country.No age restrictions at all and it is shown uncut on TV.. How times have changed.THE EMIGRANTS/NEW LAND are my favourites from your list of blurays available. Still waiting for PONETTE -the tear jerker to end all tear jerkers from France. 90 minutes of tears from start to finish. Good things come to those who wait. (if we live that long!)
 

Ross Gowland

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Ross Gowland
Here in Britain, Network have pleasantly surprised me by releasing some marvellous (to me) films that were used as mere afternoon or late night filler material on TV in the Eighties. Examples...

80,000 Suspects
Take Me High
Every Home Should Have One
Love Thy Neighbour
Man About the House
The Likely Lads
6-5 Special

And they’ve also released some all-film TV series that I thought I’d never see above DVD quality, including..

The Sweeney (but just season one of four, alas)
Man in a Suitcase
The Persuaders
UFO
Space: 1999
Department S
The Professionals

And after having seen the Ozploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood I thought it’d be hard to track down a lot of the films featured (bar the always popular Mad Max) but along came Umbrella Entertainment and a few other boutique labels so I was able to get the likes of...

Patrick
BMX Bandits
Road Games
Dead-End Drive-In
Turkey Shoot
Dark Age
Long Weekend
Body Melt
Harlequin
The Survivor
Stone

And back to Eighties nostalgia, it’s great that Arrow and the like are releasing the weird and wonderful films I rented on VHS and adored as a kid, including...

Jake Speed
Buckaroo Banzai
Rawhead Rex
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Phenomenon (known here as Creepers back in the day)
The Burning

And lastly, as a boy of about 14, a friend and I rented a gory New Zealand horror film. It stuck in my head, images of a schoolboy being injected, punks in cars, heads being drilled, a mad surgeon in a remote hospital. But years later I’d forgotten the title. Thanks to the Internet, however, I learnt that it was called Death Warmed Up. And this month I’ll be receiving an uncensored HD copy from Severin with a slipcover that uses the original UK poster art.

Blu-Ray is fab. :)
 
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Alan Tully

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Alan
I love those announcements when I punch the air & say "oh yes!" when a long time favourite or a film I'd never thought would get released is announced for a Blu-ray release (I remember being downright excited when news of the Universal Monster legacy Collections started to come out: the sequels at long last!). I remember my delight when Warner Archive released The Naked & The Dead last year, who'd have thunk it. And then The Sea Hawk. Alas, no exclamations yet for this year (region B), & the only 2019 release I've bought so far this year is the German release of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, but this stuff is totally subjective & it could be the best year ever for some people. As usual, I wait in hope for the next Archive/Arrow/Eureka/Twilight Time/Criterion UK/Indicator ect. announcements.
 

Jeffrey D

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Jeffrey D Hanawalt
The first thing I thought of when I saw this list was Criterion’s release of Eating Raoul. I was browsing through the video section of Barnes &
Noble a few years ago, and there it was. I didn’t know at the time that it was available. I couldn’t pay for it fast enough. One of my favorite films, and a nice BluRay package.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Probably one of the biggest OMG titles for me is Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Barely seen, prejudged by most people as a bad film due to a few knives out reviews from people that did not like Hopper, it was fairly incredible that this managed to get a blu-ray release. To top it off the release is gorgeous. Now, is the film for everyone? No, absolutely not but if you enjoyed all the quirks of Easy Rider you will probably like The Last Movie. It really ends up being exactly the kind of film you would expect from the guy that made Easy Rider.

Hopper himself was an obnoxious turd during the time he was making this but he was also a very interesting filmmaker that had a fantastic eye for photography and it shows in this film. I think his idea of running away to Peru to make a film was the big self-indulgent aspect of making this picture but the end result is a beautifully shot film in real locations. Being a real asshole cost him but this film is nowhere near the disaster a few people claimed it was. It's basically a really great follow-up to Easy Rider...and now a treasure for 1970s film lovers to discover on a top notch blu-ray.
 

Angelo Colombus

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Here is my list of Blu-rays I am happy to have on my shelf:

The Passenger (Antonioni)
The Trial (Welles) Import
Miracle in Milan (De Sica) Import
The Clowns (Fellini)
Ludwig ( Visconti)
Mysteries of Lisbon (Ruiz)
Moonlighting (Skolimowski)
Napoleon (Gance) Import
My Father's Glory (Robert) Import
My Mother's Castle ( Robert) Import
The Titfield Thunderbolt (Crichton) Import
 

Angelo Colombus

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Probably one of the biggest OMG titles for me is Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Barely seen, prejudged by most people as a bad film due to a few knives out reviews from people that did not like Hopper, it was fairly incredible that this managed to get a blu-ray release. To top it off the release is gorgeous. Now, is the film for everyone? No, absolutely not but if you enjoyed all the quirks of Easy Rider you will probably like The Last Movie. It really ends up being exactly the kind of film you would expect from the guy that made Easy Rider.

Hopper himself was an obnoxious turd during the time he was making this but he was also a very interesting filmmaker that had a fantastic eye for photography and it shows in this film. I think his idea of running away to Peru to make a film was the big self-indulgent aspect of making this picture but the end result is a beautifully shot film in real locations. Being a real asshole cost him but this film is nowhere near the disaster a few people claimed it was. It's basically a really great follow-up to Easy Rider...and now a treasure for 1970s film lovers to discover on a top notch blu-ray.
I checked it out from the library a month ago and liked it enough to buy the Blu-ray. Like the extras on the disc too.
 

Thomas T

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Messages
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I'm not surprised when "classics" and well known films like The Sea Hawk, The Thing From Another World, The Haunting, cult films like The Swimmer and The Body Snatcher or high profile foreign films like The Emigrants make it to blu ray. It's kind of expected really. My OMG moments usually come from films that no one ever talks about and/or didn't get a release on DVD. As someone said, it's all subjective. My own personal "OMG, I never thought I'd ever see this on blu ray" titles include:

Adventures Of Hajii Baba (1954) from Twilight Time
Becky Sharp (1935) restored to its original Technicolor glory from Kino
Boy On A Dolphin (1957) from Kino
Cookie's Fortune (1999) from Germany
55 Days At Peking (1963) from Great Britan
Histoire Simple
(aka A Simple Story) (1978) from France
Lisbon
(1956) from Kino
Mrs. Dalloway
(1997) from Great Britain
No Down Payment (1957) from Twilight Time
Sorcieres De Salem (1957) (aka The Crucible) from France
Tender Is The Night (1962) from France
 
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Todd Erwin

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My biggest Blu-ray surprise remains Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that they’d rebuild seven seasons worth of episodes from unconformed negative - basically putting the entire show through postproduction for a second time. They didn’t cut corners and the results are miraculous. It’s the best remastering of its type ever done.

To see the show as it was scripted and shot, divorced from the grungy look of 1980s-era video postproduction, was a revelation. My best childhood memories revived in spectacular fashion.

I’m still in awe of the effort.
And I don't think we'll ever see something on that grand of a scale ever again.... :(
 

Robin9

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I was very surprised recently when Criterion announced their forthcoming disc of War And Peace. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers also took me by surprise as did Tender Is The Night.
 

Ed Lachmann

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Edmund Lachmann
I share many of those same titles, Dick, great list. Some of my recent "hooray" titles: Hannibal (Japan), Ulysses (Germany), Sign of the Cross, Unconquered, Reap the Wild Wind (France), War and Peace, Death Takes a Holiday, Beggars of Life, The Covered Wagon, Old Ironsides and The Covered Wagon. But the biggest treat seems up in the air after Arrow announced a restored BD release of G. W. Pabst's L'Atlantide (with Brigitte Helm as "She") for December but pulled it from the UK site and now it appears on the USA Amazon site. What's up with it, Arrow?
 
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Radioman970

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Oh my silly comedy favorites that just started showing up... Yellowbeard!!! could not believe that one. Zapped!, Erik the Viking, Neighbors, Ice Pirates... others like 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, the Gate and gate 2! My Bodyguard with Makepeace (Happy Birthday Chris, he's 50-damn-5!!) Baldwin and Dillon ...and Gordon...Mull, so many more!
 

Bernard McNair

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Wonderful series of lists to which I would add in Blu:
Ragtime
Paint Your Wagon
Half A Sixpence
Lord Jim
The Victors (Uncut)
Hondo (3D)
to name but a few.
 

David Weicker

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David
As with Thomas T, I’m not surprised when classics or cult films are released.

The one that caught me off guard was It’s In The Bag starring Fred Allen
 

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