New DVD Releases For The Rest Of 2009

I understand you will not see anything from Fox for the rest of the year.  You never know about Universal, they could surprise us.  There still may be something else up Sony's sleeve.  (I hope so)

I hold out hope for a few more surprises from Warners.

I hope you are correct as I have loved their classic movie offerings.  I just watched a film from one of the gangster sets this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed the treatment it received with a commentary, retrospective, trailer and the Warner's Night at the Movie feature.  As much as I appreciate the idea behind and understand the potential for profitability in the Warner Archive, I hope that these kinds of quality classic movie releases will continue to come from the studio.

I am hoping for Tobruk which is a Universal studios property.

There was supposed to be a 5th Noir set from Warner this year.  But seeing as how they're laughing all the way to the bank with their Archive burn-on-demand program, those plans very well may have changed.

Other than that I'm not expecting anything else from any of the studios that hasn't already been announced.

My running joke is that the 5th Noir set will be released on December 31st. They said in the chat it was coming "soon" which I interpreted as a few months. Well, in 2 weeks time it would've been 4 months.

Would be nice to have a third batch of Universal's Backlot Series this year.

I keep my fingers crossed, that the 5th Noir Set will be released later this year from Warner but with two sets coming from Sony, the market is probably overcrowded and they're saving the release for 2010?

On the other hand it'll be very very nice to have some catalog titles on real DVD in November, December from Warner, probably one or two boxed sets? Hey Warner, how about a third Bogey-Set or a fourth Davis-Set? ;)

I do hope, 2010 will be a better year for us with Sony keeping their brilliant pace, Warner catching-up and Fox's resumption of catalog titles plus Universal's Backlot Series and Paramount digging into their catalog... gosh, the good weather makes me too optimistic. :D

I didn't realize Paramount was digging into their catalog. Or did I just totally misread your post and it's simply optimism on your part?

Pure optimism.

Paramount is most definitely digging into their catalog. Five years ago they wouldn't touch something like Tales From the Darkside or the Friday the 13th series but here we have them both. As for the rest of Hollywood, aside from a few occasional reissues (mostly coming from tie-ins to remakes) I don't really expect anything significant to be released. I really wish whomever currently owns the rights to Runaway Train would do that film justice. I wouldn't mind a decent upgrade of Death Becomes Her, either.

Paramount should be releasing a New Audrey Hepburn box set which will now invluce MY FAIR LADY (I know they Paramount Love Audreys, but so do I, So I don't mind)

amazon is showing a new release of Cotton Comes to Harlem scheduled for Sept 1 - showing 2 discs, and Widescreen....any of you blaxploitation experts know more about this? I believe the original MGM DVD was only fullscreen...

www.amazon.com/Cotton-Comes-Harlem-Godfrey-Cambridge/dp/B002CWKU2M/ref=sr_1_2

According to DVD Aficionado it's only a Double Feature: Cotton Comes to Harlem (Full Screen) (1970) / Hell Up in Harlem (1973) - Soul Cinema Double Feature.

http://www.dvdaf.com/releases.html?week=2009-09-01&rgn=us&med=d&init_form=rgn_us*med_d&pm=one&pg=16

Wow! Thanks Marcel for the quick response...it's hard to believe there are still titles which were never released in their correct aspect ratio...

All of the past few months of re-releases of MGM  product through Fox has been just repackaging discs of the original transfers. 

There was some news on the Internet this week that MGM is in compliance with their debt covenants and the main reason is that the library is valued at 5.5 billion.  I as read it, I wondered if the library is worth more sitting on the shelf with speculation of what it would bring in with DVD dollars than actually being treated with respect and mining it for Midnite Moves and new transfers of such films as Cotton Comes to Harlem, How To Succeed in Business, Exodus, and Hair in their proper aspect ratio.  Just a thought.

 More Paramount/Legend discs, even if through Best Buy again, would be appreciated.