I meant to report this earlier, but the recent 85th Anniversary of the Warner Brothers Studio made some interesting announcements for this years line of DVD's to be released from their library. Some of this was posted in our forum while digitalbits and HTF seemed to have the exclusives. What is listed below are just highlights that I found interesting and fitting. The remainder of the article are from our neighborhood friends over at MMM. Again, these are just highlights that I have chosen as the "important" titles. Any titles can change inventory status without notice.

It appears that Warner has made the announcement that The Song Remains the Same will be re-released on February 26th in its Limited Edition, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and standard def formats. No word on any changes, so my assumption is they will be the same as the special edition.

  Other announcements made that are of interest is the Ultimate Collector's Edition of Bonnie and Clyde, which looks really nice. You can see photos over at HTF. Other Special Editions include Goodfellas, Heat, Once Upon a Time in America and True Romance (along with the Departed), all under their Gangster Banners.

A new Batman package is coming out towards the end of the year. Batman Begins will have a Limited Edition set, while the Batman Anthology is getting prepared for Blu-ray. 

How the West Was Won is also getting an Ultimate Collector's Edition in addition to a Special Edition (this is on its 5th and 6th printing now), in addition, re-releases will be The Wild Bunch, The Searchers and The Cowboys.

Later in the year we will see more from Val Lewton and a re-promotion of Kubrick's The Shining. Not sure what that will entail.

Finally, a re-release of The Christmas Story, which will be under their Ultimate Collector's Edition banner.

In addition to these, Warner is planning on releasing about 50 titles that are being restored and re-released, such as Splendor in the Grass, Cool Hand Luke, Lady Killer, Flamingo Road and many more.

While some of these announcements are interesting, I personally have found it interesting, but not exciting. Overall it seems Warner is spending the year to revamp titles in preparation for the high definition output and so these older titles are getting reworked for their future Blu-ray releases. While it is nice for those that own Blu-ray at this time, as for the standard DVD goes, its nothing really to look forward to as I dont believe the previous releases were so shoddy that they needed re-working.

That aside, Warner did make the announcement that they will put 4 titles on moratorium until next year some time. These titles include Gone With the Wind (2-disc set), Wizard of Oz (2-disc set), Woodstock and North By Northwest. Again, these are in preparation for high-def releases. Gone with the Wind (Single Disc Snap Case) and Wizard of Oz both have various versions out with special 3 and 4-disc sets. Woodstock has the director's cut, while North By Northwest is a single disc. There will probably be little to improve upon these sets as they are already loaded with features to begin with, so you might see some audio or visual improvement. Ben Hur is also being restored in a similar way, but will not be placed on moratorium. Debate about these titles in our forum were discussed about whether these copies are worth grabbing before and if they dry up. It is certain that there will be plenty to go around for a while with GWTW and WOO both have 3 different versions available to them already. There is also the Gone with the Wind Limited Edition Boxed Set.

 In other news, some interesting titles seems to have been discontinued and are worth checking out.

Wes Craven's Music of the Heart. A strange ode to music by the horror maestro who brought us Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street.

I am not sure if this was posted in the forum, but another Mystery Science Theater title, Angel's Revenge, a single disc from Rhino, is out of stock But it is available in Collection #2.

Peter O'Toole's classic film My Favorite Year is no longer available, Warner release. With their work on restoring these films, its possible we may see it crop up in the new line of their restoration project.

It looks as though Les Miserables: The Dream Cast will find its day back on DVD with a new upcoming release. The specs appear slightly different, but all signs point to it being a re-release. The specs I noticed is that Amazon sports them with different times, the newer one being 10 minutes short in length.

Sony Pictures Divorce American Style is now discontinued.

  Some other re-release announcements: The Car, The Dirty Harry Collection, Vampire Strangler, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, also on Blu-ray, Serial Mom and Tokyo Decadence. Also Universal announced they will be re-releasing to the general public a complete Ultimate Sci-Collection in one package which will include all 10 films previously released only as a Best Buy Store Exclusive.

Disney discontinued their South American features Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros, but will re-release them as a double feature.  Also, most, if not all of the Buena Vista UMD titles have been discontinued. The demand for these are generally weak, but some titles do have stronger pull.

From Fox is My Man Godfrey, the Colorized version. Although this is a Criterion release as well as a public domain title, some people like the colorized version.

The Platoon steelbook from MGM is no longer available, but perhaps easy to find with some searching.

Robocop steelbook is announced as discontinued from MMM, but still available.

 TheTV show Dead Like Me, released from MGM are announced as discontinued. Both Season 1 and Season 2 are going, but still available for purchase. If there is any intention in keeping these, I would expect a complete series set to come soon.

The classic holocaust film Shoah is set to discontinue. It is released from New Yorker Video, so what will become of it will be hard to say. Amazon looks unlikely, but possible. There are some select online venues you could try. Over on eBay there are bootleggers offering their versions. Also be leary of import editions on Amazon as they all use the same cover art.

John Frankenheimer's early paranoid classic Seconds is also announced as being discontinued. As well as the 60's influential experiment from cinematographer Haskel Wexler, Medium Cool, a symposium of McLuhanesque ideas with reality by shooting Chicago's racially inclined environment mixed in with the acting. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton together in the off-beat comedy Play It Again, Sam (which, an FYI - those words were never spoken in Casablanca). The Valentine horror hit, My Bloody Valentine currently has delayed listing, but annaounced as discontinued. These are all from Paramount.

That about wraps it up. Check out our forum for more up to date info.

You can purchase these titles through Amazon, Deep Discount or TLA or where ever else you can find them. 

Comments, thoughts and curiosities are welcome to post in our forum.