(In my best John Lennon sound-alike voice)I’m so tired…
Forgive the drowsiness, I’ll do what I can with what I have. The big news is that Sony has apparently postponed their Blu-Ray player yet again, from late October (this week I believe) to early December. Perhaps this was done to strike on both flanks with the PS3 furor, perhaps they’re still trying to get the bugs out of the machine. At this point, it’s anybody’s guess. In other hardware related news, Samsung has released a firmware upgrade (their first…, which includes fun things like, well, I don’t know. Hopefully, it deals with the noise reduction issue that had been a problem in some units.
In other news related to disc releases, the Oliver Stone film World Trade Center will street day and date on 12/12 on the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray fronts. Lady in the Water will do the same thing the following week. On the HD exclusive front, Universal will release The Deer Hunter and The Breakfast Club on 12/26, with the John Hughes film to be a combo disc. Extras will presumably port from the SD discs. Warner will release Casablanca, the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty and Forbidden Planet, all on 11/14. While the last two will be day and date releases, the kicker here is that the Forbidden Planet release will be similar to the SD release, where you can get the tin and Robby the Robot toy, which look kinda cool. Lastly, Season Five of Smallville will ship out on 11/28. On the Blu-Ray side of the house, Million Dollar Baby, The Last Samurai and ATL will drop on 11/14, while Invincible will hit day and date on 12/5, along with Pearl Harbor (hey, if they bring over all the Vista Edition extras, that could be interesting). In delay news, Gattaca and The Professionals were schedule to come out Tuesday, they have now been shelved indefinitely.
This week is mild to heavy as far as releases go, with HD-DVD seeing 12 Monkeys, The Interpreter, Out of Sight, Slither, Spartacus (non-Criterion, sorry) and The Thing (the awesome John Carpenter version). Blu-Ray fans will get to choose from The Italian Job, Monster House and Sahara, while both sides will get a chance to pick up Nacho Libre if they feel so inclined.
That’s it from me this week high definers, so set the brightness to low and the resolution to high, or something!
