In Contention

Tag: home video

  • ‘First Class’ Friday

    Which will you choose? Via press release:

    LOS ANGELES (July 19, 2011) – Before they were superheroes, the fate of humanity depended on an extraordinary group of youngsters who went on to become X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. Based on the international bestselling Marvel Comics franchise, this box office hit bursts onto Blu-ray and DVD Friday, September 9 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. For the first time ever, “X-Men” fans will have the power to choose a side between Professor X and Magneto with two versions of premium collectible Blu-ray packaging. Also exclusively on Blu-ray, fans receive access to over two hours of special interactive features PLUS ten Marvel “X-Men” Digital Comics including a never-before-seen “X-Men: First Class” backstory— redeemable through each Blu-ray’s unique packaging code…

    The first 1,000 fans to pre-order their Blu-ray or DVD copy of X-MEN: FIRST CLASS during San Diego Comic-Con (July 21 – 24) will receive a free limited edition T-shirt, showing their support for either “Team Charles” or “Team Erik.” Fans can pre-order their copy in person at the Fox booth #4313 or online at www.FoxConnect.com. During this time, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS will be available on Blu-ray and DVD at the exclusive price of $25.00 for Blu-ray and $18.00 for DVD.

    More on specs after the jump.

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  • Blockbuster to file for bankruptcy

    With Blockbuster Video preparing to go into Chapter 11 next month, it seems like it’s the end of an era…even if it was a long, painful, downward spiral of an end.

    The first video store I ever frequented was a company called Doorstep Video in the early 1990s.  But not long after I began going to the Blockbuster across the street, a typical store, on the corner of Brenner and Fairson Avenues in Salisbury, North Carolina.  I remember it well.

    I remember discovering movie after movie walking the aisles as a high school student nursing the flame of cinema passion.  I remember buying VHS copies of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” “Heat,” “The Usual Suspects,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Platoon” and “Midnight Express” there.

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  • Will classic films no longer find audiences on DVD?

    (from left) Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the WindThe opening graph of this Macleans piece on classic films losing their home video champions in studios is so depressing I’ll just let it speak for itself:

    Though DVD sales are down, current movies are still guaranteed a DVD release. But for anything made earlier, collectors may be out of luck. Most of the studios have trimmed their schedule of classic movies on DVD to almost nothing; 20th Century Fox recently eliminated its Fox Classics website after cancelling plans for unreleased classics like A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Even the prestigious Criterion Collection has cut back the number of classic foreign movies it releases, and brought out a much-derided current film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to make extra money. George Feltenstein, a senior vice-president at Warner Home Video (which still has some classics scheduled), says that “most of the studios have pretty much said ‘Screw it, we’re out of here, we’re not going to do this.’”

    Of course, the answer here, as the writer mentions briefly, is establishing an online home for these films.  But I’m not so big on “burn on demand” as I am simply being able to stream the films at an outlet such as, say, The Auteurs.  More of that, please.  Though I’m sure studios will cork that up if they can’t find a way to monetize it.

    Same as it ever was…