If I had the power to name this week, I think I would have to dub it “The Mighty Catalogue Release Week”…or something like that. I mean, there are a couple of major new releases this week but my god, there are a ton of amazing older titles hitting shelves today. It’s tough to be interested in a new title when so many of my favourite oldies are hitting Blu today. But to be truthful here, there isn’t really a clunker in this list. Including the discs that didn’t make my top 5. They’re all worth a look!

But if I had to put them in order of preference, to pick a Top 5, this is what I’d end up with:

1. THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS

If you’ve read this blog in the past, you know that I’m an unabashed Terry Gilliam fan. And while there are a whole host of his films that just plain don’t work for me, I can’t count the The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus among them. It’s not his best flik, by far, but it manages to incorporate so many themes and images from his past work that I couldn’t help but feel warmly toward it. It’s good stuff. I may not have had a chance to check out the Blu-ray disc yet, but it’s so jam packed with goodies I’m willing to bet it’s the best new disc available this week!

Note: The Canadian release of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is still a week away. E1 Entertainment will get the Blu-ray into shops north of the 49th parallel on May 4th.

Amazon: $22.99

2. DUNE

I can’t wait to get my hands on this Blu-ray edition of David Lynch‘s Dune! Not because there’s any new content on the disc, or additional cuts of the film, or anything fun or different here. Nope. It’s just the plain old vanilla original cut of the film with most of the extras from the last DVD incarnation. But you know what? That’s enough for me. I’m so excited to get a chance to see Dune in 1080p!

Amazon: $18.99

3. TOMBSTONE

I love Tombstone! It’s far from a perfect film (there’s a lot of hokey, tired dialogue and melodrama) but this 1993 western about the famous showdown between Wyatt Earp and the Cowboys boasts a damn-near perfect cast – Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Billy Bob Thornton, Charlton Heston and the list goes on and on! The disc is stunning, the best the film has ever looked but far from textbook perfect. Still worth a purchase, if you’re a fan of the film or of westerns in general.

Amazon: $20.99

4. ELIZABETH, ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE

I’m still dying to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It’s making the list this week only as a companion to the first film, which has been a favourite of mine for years now. Incredible costumes and production design, beautiful, rich photography and a riveting performance from Cate Blanchett are the obvious reasons to grab this disc but don’t overlook the fact that Elizabeth features a healthy dose of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence, and war – the stuff that all epic stories are made of!

Amazon: $17.99, $19.49

5. RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

I’ll admit that I wasn’t blown away by Ride with the Devil. I was expecting a lot more from it. I’m a big fan of Ang Lee and will gladly watch any film he makes but something about this one just didn’t click with me. That said, I’m more than excited to give it another shot on this brand new Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition. There aren’t as many special features as you’d expect from a Criterion disc, but a couple of commentary tracks, the one with Lee and writer James Shamus in particular, might shed some light on why I didn’t connect with this odd civil war epic. This one is a renter for me but totally worth a look.

Amazon: $26.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

Related posts

• Universal bringing David Lynch's Dune to Blu-ray (1)
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Blu-ray Disc Review (0)
• Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on Blu-ray (1)
• Elizabeth and sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age coming to Blu-ray (0)
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Holycrapholycrapholycrap…This is big news for me. Universal has revealed that they’re finally going to release David Lynch’s Dune on Blu-ray on April 27th! I’m such a huge fan of this film. I know, I know…it’s not perfect. It’s got a lot of problems. It’s not exactly like the book. It’s ridiculous and weird. I’ve heard it all before. But I grew up with this adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s sci-fi classic and like a lot of failed genre films from the 80s, it has a very special place in my heart. I’m excited to finally get to see it in beautiful 1080p.

Details appear to echo the old, relatively well-received HD-DVD release from a few years back with the exception of the addition of DTS-HD audio and the loss of a photo gallery. We don’t have any package art yet so I’ve included a selection of Blu-ray art from the various European releases instead!

DUNE
(April 27, 2010 – MSRP $26.98)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

* Deleted Scenes with an Introduction by Raffaella De Laurentiis
* Designing Dune
* Dune FX
* Dune Models & Miniatures
* Dune Wardrobe Design

UPDATE: Here’s the actual cover art from Universal.

Sigh…I prefer the Euro covers…

Via: The HD Room

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Holy crap! I think Christmas just came early. This new batch of Criterion titles, just announced for release in January 2010, includes one of the finest films ever made and is the first title from my list of Top 10 Criterion DVDs that deserve a Blu-ray upgrade to graduate to high-def! And that film is Fellini‘s brilliant 8 1/2 (clocking in at #6 on my list!) On any other day, the announcement of Soderbergh‘s epic Che and Wenders‘ Paris, Texas on Blu-ray would, alone be great cause for celebration. But 8 1/2 coming to Blu eclipses just about any other news you’re going to hear this month!

8 1/2
(January 12, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack

Special Features:
• High-definition digital transfer of restored film elements (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on Blu-ray edition)
• Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
• Audio commentary featuring film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and NYU film professor Antonio Monda
• High-definition digital transfer of a new restoration of Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
• The Last Sequence, a new 52-minute documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for 8 1/2 (available on Blu-ray edition)
• Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a compelling 48-minute documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
• Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
• Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
• Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
• U.S. theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by Fellini and essays by critics Tullio Kezich and Alexander Sesonske

CHE
(January 19, 2009 – MSRP $49.95)
Video: Che: Part One appears in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Che: Part Two appears in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• High-definition digital transfers of Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, supervised and approved by director Steven Soderbergh, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentaries on both films, featuring Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
• Making “Che,” a new documentary about the film’s production, featuring interviews with Soderbergh, producer Laura Bickford, actor-producer Benicio del Toro, and writers Peter Buchman and Ben van der Veen
• New interviews with Cuban historians as well as participants in the 1958 Cuban Revolution and Che’s 1967 Bolivian campaign
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical trailers
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin
• More!

PARIS, TEXAS
(January 26, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Wenders
• Interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen
• Excerpts from the 1990 film Motion and Emotion: The Road to “Paris, Texas,” featuring interviews with Wenders, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Hanns Zischler, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Falk, composer Ry Cooder, cinematographer Robby Müller, novelist Patricia Highsmith, and filmmaker Samuel Fuller
• New interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis
• Cinéma cinémas: “Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” with Wenders and Cooder working on the score
• Deleted scenes and Super 8 home movies
• Gallery of Wenders’s location-scouting photos, from his book Written in the West
• Behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick and interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell

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