For general John Carpenter news check out The John Carpenter Web Page News
Starman and Big Trouble In Little China Schedules Great news from Richard, looks like we will have to assault those credit cards now! - Starman is up for March 6th release, Region 1, Widescreen Anamorphic, etc. - Amazon has posted Big Trouble in Little China SE, It reads NOT YET PUBLISHED - ON ORDER, Available May22nd
The list price is $26.99 and reduced to $18.99
In The Mouth of MadnessHi Marc,Short news from germany:
,,In the mouth of madness" is out on DVD in Germany (as "Die Mächte des
Wahnsinns") but without any english audio track and, as far I know,
without big extras. If I have more details, I will let you know.Cheers,Tobias
Possible They Live Region 2If you check the BBFC website it seems that They Live has been resubmitted for certification. I have no idea why - probably a forthcoming DVD release -from Scott Frazer.
Jan 22nd 2001
MGM Shamed into decent EFNY Release? - pure conjecture at the moment of course but this news from John Scott does wet the appetite - Hi John Scott here. I'm sorry for not getting in touch earlier AND for
not sending the rest of my d.v.d. reviews to you,but there is a reason
for this.When i was finished writing my reviews and about to send them
to you,I noticed that other fans had written just as good reviews for
the same movies as I did.So not being big-headed I decided NOT to post
them!!! But if you're still interested in them I'll post them to you!!!
But I believe that the d.v.d. info that i have for you will wet ANY
J.C. fans appet First of is that M.G.M. have taken Escape From New York
of the shelf themselves(that means that they deleted the title
themselves),for the following reasons.1: Because of the bad press that they've
been getting last year,by being very sloppy with their d.v.d. releases
(releasing not the best tranfers and no extras,apart from the James Bond
discs),and promising earlier on last year that Escape From New York
would be "one of the best discs of 2000" they've learned their lesson !
pretty quick and deleted the disk.
- Does this mean a special ed release is imminent? Fingers crossed!.
Jan 13 2001
DVD Roundup
Nicholas Boyer gives us a cool update on JC DVDs:
1-the R2 UK release date of "assault on precint 13"(Universal Pictures Video)is 19th of february. I don't know yet if it is going to have the commentary of the R1 disc or any other extras...
2-The R2 of Escape from New-York has been deleted by the manufacturer last month (12/2000), so we can't find it in the shops any more. A few online retailers like blackstar.co.uk still have some copies left, but as soon as they have sold out, it's going to be difficult to find it. It does say on the cover "presented in original 1:33 aspect ratio", but it's a printing mistake. The movie is actually in the correct 2:35 ratio
3-I know of two R2 editions of Halloween III, one english, the other french. The english one is very poor, no extras at all, pan and scan, and a picture quality below average. I don't know the french one but i'm going over there next month so i'll check.4-I have the french R2 edition of Halloween. It as a mono french and 5.1 english soundtrack, the english one with non-removable french subtitles. It's in widescreen, with a few text only extra features(filmographies, the halloween day, the halloween movies). Only 4/5 pages, all in french. Good picture quality though. It is available through amazon.fr, along with the halloween boxset
Bad Fog News ... Great Big Trouble Boxset News!
Anthony Thorne fills us in with the details:
THE FOG DVD, though it sounds like it'll look good, looks like
it won't have any extras on it, new or old. 'DVDForever', a studio insider-type
guy lurking at the www.dvdreview.com chat page, posted that Image had offered
to sell the supplements for ESCAPE and FOG to MGM, but MGM (currently catching
a whole lot of flack online for being really slack with their DVD content)
didn't want to cough up the bucks. Anchor Bay (Jay
Douglas and Bill Lustig) were persistent with their HALLOWEEN DVD
and payed everyone, including JC, to participate in the new doco.
Since MGM don't want to cough up the cash to buy the old supplements from
Image, it's unlikely that they'll cough up any extra to record a new commentary.
That's the bad news - the good news, if you haven't already heard (and I'll put it in caps because it's such cool news) is that the BIG TROUBLE DISC IS NOW A DOUBLE DISC SET!!! Fox head (he heads their video dept. somewhere) Peter Staddon posted on HomeTheatreForum.com that they had uncovered so much supplementary material for the upcoming BIG TROUBLE disc that they'd decided to beef it up to a massive 2-DVD set rather than cut any material. In terms of extras then, this will be the biggest Carpenter DVD ever. He also reported that the new sound mix will contain both a 5.1 Dolby Digital AND a state of the art 5.1 DTS mix - real audiophile stuff here, but essentially they're putting a lot of effort into the picture and sound. The disc is being produced by David Prior, the same guy who produced the 'Disc of the Year' FIGHT CLUB 2-disc Special Edition for Fox.
At the recent 'Dave's Studio Day' DVD fest in Los Angeles, Fox showed off some menu screens for BTILC, and they reportedly looked 'very cool'. As a final note, when the Fox exec Staddon was running through upcoming titles in his speech to the crowd (mentioning new Special Editions of DIE HARD, CLEOPATRA, a special Marilyn Monroe box etc..), his comment "..and I understand some people are interested in our upcoming BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA Special Edition.." apparently got by far the biggest cheer and noisy crowd reaction of the day.
Dec 16th 2000
The Fog DVD is Coming
Cool information from DF
Hi Mark, Just a quick email to say I ran the other day in a secret high-def transfer movie facility into the original interpositive of FOG. The technician said they are in the process of doing a NEW, HIGH DEFINITION MASTER STRAIGHT FROM THE INTERPOSITIVE, for possible reissue on DVD. I took a quick look at the opening. YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN FOG before having seen this print. Stay tuned for more - DF
My mouth is watering now. Still no word on any DVD extra's, but to get a fantastic remastered version of the film will be amazing.
November 22nd 2000
The Pork Chop Express Rides Again - Long awaited news, but the outlook is good
from www.dvdfile.com:
Coming is (yeah!) a special edition of Big Trouble In Little China,
with a new transfer and sound mix, and supplementary material produced
by David
Prior (of Rocky Horror and Fight Club fame.) Fox showed off some
of the menus, and features include a new commentary with John Carpenter
and Kurt
Russell, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, still gallery and
more. Expect this one by spring 2001 as well." JeanDenys Lafrance pointed
out that fantastic info for us. Roll on!
The Fog - Where Are The Extra's?
Alas, in the same dvdfile report was the following info
Other goodies from MGM on the way next year include The Fog (without, alas, the laserdisc extras).
Sounds bad, but, should be noted that this doesn't mean NO extra's, it merely means none of the original laserdisc extra's (probably due to licensing problems). This happened with Halloween and we still ended up with a classic DVD. The main downside of Halloween was JC did not re-record a new commentary as he felt the original one said all there was to say. May he do a new one for The Fog? Who knows? He hasn't discussed The Fog as much as Halloween so may feel he could bring something fresh to it; couple that with the fact that he feels The Fog is a bit undervalued and he just might feel like giving it a bit of a spruce up. Anyone have any info on possible extra's?
Le Fog Francais - I know, very, very bad French. Anyway, Jon Niles has some info on this
Hi there, Great effort on the site. Always enjoyable to read. I just wanted to know if you were aware that there is a French DVD of The FOG available. I bought it while on holidays there. It's in widescreen (2.35.1) and stereo but it has annoying French subtitles in the film that cannot be removed. More annoying is that instead of just putting the subtitles in the black bars as anyone with talent would do, they've put them over the bottom part of the film AND in the black bars in BIG French writing. Still its great to actually see it in widescreen. Regards Jon
So The Fog is now available in region 2, French and German, but no UK or US release.
November 8th 2000
Hello Marc, another short DVD-news: Yesterday I saw a 5-DVD-Box in
France: Halloween 1-5 in a simple Box with a printed signature by Carpenter.
Best wishes - Tobias
hey man! awesome site!! just a quick note to you that i just bought the dvd to body bags and i believe that i read here somewhere that that dvd was only avail in a box set and thetas the only way it would come. i managed to get it for $20.00 and i also read from some reviewer that it was a bridged version from the tape, well i so far dont see any changes and the box reads 95 mins and so does the disc. - Patrick Lena
Here are some comments on Carpenter-DVDs: "Body Bags" is available as Code 2 in Germany - german audio only and cut. Recently on vacation in Holland I saw a region 2-DVD of "Halloween" - widescreen, english audio with subtitles and some extras: trailers for cinema an TV. The german "Vampires" DVD (widescreen, german and english audio - but with german subtitles that you can`t remove) is uncut and features a "making of"-documentary that is much longer than the one on the UK disc: 23 minutes. - Tobias
September 27th 2000 Welcome to the new JC DVD News site. Things always start off slow, but hopefully this thing will be buzzing with activity soon.
Poor EFNY DVD
This news from John Scott "Plus some new info on the Escape from
New York dvd.It looks like a dissapointment,from mgm. After all the hype
it looks like the normal CINEMA VERSION with the missing scenes not in
the running time and not even in the extras('cause there is none,apart
from one trailer). Most dissapointing of all is that there i no COMMENTARY
not even the one from the laserdisc version!!!! BOO!!! Shame on M.G.M.
on wasting a perfectly great chance on making this one of the Highlights
of the year!!!". I am pretty annoyed at that. Stupid thing, and goes
agains the rumours we have been hearing before.
Fog DVD
On the JV WebPage I reported that the Fog is available as a German
DVD, Chris Genzel gives us more info on the disc " Hi, just wanted
to let you know that the German DVD of THE FOG does *not* feature
the original English version of the movie, just the dubbed German
version. Too bad. Also, the packaging looks kinda cheap,
so I'm not sure about the quality of the transfer (audio/sound).
Furthermore, there seem to be no extras. By the way, cool site! Keep up
the good work! Kind regards, - Chris."
If you have any news or queries mail
me.
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