Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Beast]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Jeff,

For the record I would say that the Academy Awards has absolutely disgraced itself by not nominating the Dark Knight for best picture.

Seriously, WHAT THE HELL?

I feel vindicated for my dislike for the film though.

[Jeff Kleist]

can you ask Fox when are they going to ring Die Hard 3 to the UK? Its getting a bit silly now!

Pretty sure Disney owns it there, not Fox

For the record I would say that the Academy Awards has absolutely disgraced itself by not nominating the Dark Knight for best picture.

I'm suprised anyone seriously expected it to happen

It's the same reason why Clint Eastwood gets nominated every year. A lot of old people who can't take a Batman movie seriously and in all honesty there were plenty
of amazing movies this year more deserving of best picture. I still can't believe Titanic won, but I chalk it up to a lot of wives making their husbands vote for it
Getting the Academy to vote for something as BP that isn't an original work is virtually impossible these days. Heck, Josh Brolin should win best actor for his frightening
virtual clone of Bush, but because Frank Langella "made Nixon his own", he got the nod.

]Just curious is BraveHeart still on the slate for this year? I know a few months ago it was in the rumor mill, so just wondering.

Yes and no. because nothing is locked in

Nothing on Sting, but they probably want to remaster it anyway

[AKORIS]

I remember reading on the Bits over a year ago a Q&A with Warners
discussing upcoming blu-rays---
I was really excited to hear about possible releases of classic Hammer
horror titles (specifically HORROR OF DRACULA and CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
were mentioned if I remember correctly..)

any further news??

and also-- any news of any classic UNIVERSAL horror films from the 30's
and 40's?

[J.Cornelius]

Thanks Jeff, appreciate it.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Beast

I feel vindicated for my dislike for the film though.

I'm with you. I didn't care much for it either, but I at least
watched it. Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire I have no
desire to even considering watching regardless of the
accolades .

The Academy is becoming increasing irrelevant. Sixty years
ago we had three television stations and a local theater and
twenty-four hours in a day. And the Academy to give
homage to a Golden Era annually.

Today we still have twenty-four hours in a day. Two
hundred plus television channels and Megaplex theaters.
Best Picture, Actor and etc. stood out. Now that Golden
Era has been reduced to second rate entertainers with
bedroom hair, dressed out in thousands of dollars worth of
borrowed clothes and jewels with a tramp stamp showing
and declaring "suck it." And the Golden Globes, SAG, Peoples'
Choice and etc. all vying for relevancy.

[Penton-Man]

I think you’re confusing the nominations and eventual award winners (which are different processes in themselves, see – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwYOUMwbC34)

with the broadcast television show and how appealing you personally find the ceremonial aspect of the evenings entertainment, this year being on ABC.

When you boil it down to the basics, the nominations (with or without any televised formal ceremony) are a recognition of peoples’ work voted on by their peers (exception being Best Picture). In that regard, no matter what one’s profession may be, I can’t think of a more flattering accomplishment than to be recognized by colleagues that do what you do for a living. In other words, I would far rather receive an honor for Surgeon of the Year from a qualified professional organization rather than a group of pre-meds blogging over the internet.

The televised aspect of the awards presentation is a ceremony really to entice people to watch the show and hopefully encourage them to view a film that is mentioned during the presentation (i.e. spend money at the Multiplex or purchase a Blu-ray or DVD) --that’s the ‘business’ part of show business.

Regarding The Dark Knight, I, like Jeff was also not surprised the film didn’t get a Best Picture nomination as that genre has always had a tough time of it in the Best Picture category…..FWIW the actors making up the largest voting block with their own inherent biases as to how they view the best storytelling.
I was a bit surprised that Chris Nolan didn’t get a nomination for Best Director, as the Directors Guild of America gave him a nomination nod earlier this Jan.
I just conclude that he didn’t make the cut for the Oscars because the competition was intense this year and lost out by the skin of his teeth to “The Reader.”

Your above post comes off as a geek that just hates celebrities. Perhaps you would be more interested in these Academy recognitions………
http://www.oscars.org/awards/scitech/winners.html

Or, if you’re a young lad, PM me next time you think you have a shot at one of these….
http://www.oscars.org/awards/saa/index.html

[Jeff Kleist]

2 of my favorites of the year didn't get nominated at all I might add

Son of Rambow and Be Kind Rewind. They both do a wonderful job of celebrating cinema as a community experience, and have that wonderful glow of playing making your own movies as a kid

Both movies have flown horribly under the radar for a lot of people. Rewind has spawned a wonderful rash of "Sweded" movies that people are doing themselves on Youtube. Great stuff!

[Vincent Pereira]

I was happy Michael Shannon got nominated. He's one of my favorite actors and he was brilliant in William Friedkin's BUG last year.

Vincent

[ThatArtGuy]

I just loved how quick the Academy was about adding a "Best Animated Feature" catagory after "Beauty and the Beast" was nominated for "Best Picture of the Year" in 1991. It was BLASPHEMY to consider an animated film (read as "cartoon") to be in the same league as "Prince of Tides", "The Silence of the Lambs", "Bugsy", and "JFK".

The Academy made sure that scenario never happens again.

To me, the Academy is as relevant as Baroque is to pop music.

[Grubert]

I liked what Bill Hunt had to say about the nominations:

I guess it's cool that Slumdog's up for Best Picture. I really have a ton of respect for Danny Boyle as a director. And no doubt Heath Ledger is a strong favorite for Best Supporting Actor in The Dark Knight, which deserved at least a Best Picture nomination but (not surprisingly) failed to get one. As far as I'm concerned, though, the real injustice is that Speed Racer got passed over for Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects. Seriously, are you kidding me? See... this is why I don't care about the Oscars anymore. I'll bet you the ratings are in the toilet this year. Again. Ahhhh... whatever.

Or Nikki Finke:

As usual, the Academy Motion Picture Arts & Sciences voters got it wrong. That they could ignore a Best Picture nod for The Dark Knight and a Best Director nomination for Chris Nolan, nor show any love for Iron Man which was a very satisfying film as well, shows just how out of touch the mostly geriatric members who decide the Oscars really are. The result is that this year's broadcast, lacking any movies that smack of blockbuster in the major category, should be low-rated yet again. Wall-E was robbed for Best Picture, too. It's long overdue for an animated film to win that category. And overlooking Darren Aronofsky for Best Director was absurd, though he's honored indirectly for both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei's nods. And what's the deal for ignoring Bruce Springsteen's swell song for that film?

But the madness of today's nominations for the February 22nd Academy Awards goes on and on...

The voters blanked Clint Eastwood for Best Actor, despite the fact he's never won in that category, and for Best Director, which he's won twice. I'd suspected since December that the Gran Torino story, dialogue and message wouldn't appeal to the Oscar elite because it's too blue collar. But, as I've said before, if you want to properly handicap the Oscars, just figure out who is envied or hated most by the Academy voters. This year, Clint certainly deserved a major category nomination, and the geriatrics love the guy cuz he’s still got a prostate and balls. But Hollywood is also jealous of him because he’s won too many times. The community figures if he wins any more Oscars, then the awards might as well be renamed the Clints. So the Academy pries the viewfinder from his liver-spotted hands and picks from younger directors to make that walk to the podium. Although the well-deserved nod for Angelina Jolie in Changeling is an indirect tribute to Eastwood.

So many major category nods for The Reader also bewilder me. Yes, I thought Kate Winslet would get the nomination for that movie because 1) people who vote for the Academy Awards seemed to hate her in Revolutionary Road as well as disliked that pic overall, and 2) the thinking was she'd be nominated for Best Supporting Actress and win, and 3) she's now in first position to win Best Actress. I think The Reader's popularity with the Oscar balloters was all about Harvey, but not as a reward for The Weinstein Co *******. This is a sympathy vote for Scott Rudin and Stephen Daldry and Kate Winslet for having to put up with that nasty oaf during the tortured post-production and release of the movie, and for Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella for passing away before their time.

It was heartening to see that, unlike the Academy voters' diss of Brokeback Mountain to win Best Picture after barely screening the pic because of its guy-on-guy action (albeit tame), the balloters were not scared off Milk. Terrific that both Anne Hathaway and Mickey Rourke won nods: the Academy could have blamed her for appearing in that crappy pic Bride Wars, and him for opening his mouth too much and opining about everything. (Less is more, Mickey...) And fortunately, Heath Ledger, the 7th posthumous nominee, is undisputed frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor and fittingly nominated exactly one year to the day since his death from an accidental drug overdose.

Back on December 26th, I raised the question whether this year's Oscars as shaping up as rather suspense-less. See my Oscar Ballots Mailed: Are Best Picture And Other Major Categories Already Decided? Despite the huge money (too much) which Paramount is spending to sell Benjamin Button because Brad Pitt was Brad Grey's former client, I'm still certain that Slumdog Millionaire is a shoo-in for Best Pic. And the only major categories in any real doubt at this point are Best Actor which is slightly less competititive now without Eastwood, and Best Supporting Actress which is wide open now that Winslet isn't in it.

Edit - in the asterisked part she's calling Weinstein a jerk, only she doesn't use the word 'jerk.'

[aygie]

Originally Posted by micks_address

Isnt it a Beuna Vista release in the Uk? so i dont think there's much fox can do about it... import it from Austrailia - ezydvd or dvdcrave... probably cost you less that buying it when it is released in uk..

Hey thanks, i've looked ino to it but it was fairly pricey, might check again and see if the price has come down....

[MerrickG]

I have to admit that Im surprised that the remastered version of Star Trek Season 1 would ever come to bluray. I would have thought Toshiba would have made it impossible to get a bluray release.

[Jeff Kleist]

I have to admit that Im surprised that the remastered version of Star Trek Season 1 would ever come to bluray. I would have thought Toshiba would have made it impossible to get a bluray release.

The exclusivity window was limited on the title anyway (a deal that was in place before the payoff). There was never anything that would realistically have kept Paramount from releasing it after that contract expired anyway.

[PeterTHX]

From today's Bits:

Star Trek I, II and IV will each be the original theatrical versions. (If I'm not mistaken, this would mark the first time that The Voyage Home has EVER been available on home video in its theatrical version - even on VHS - and the first time that The Motion Picture has been available in its theatrical version since its initial VHS release.

There's a small error in the post:
On video it's always been the theatrical version of IV on video. To my knowledge there's never been an alternate version, save for the European prologue recapping the events of II + III. The theatrical version of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the one that's never had an unaltered home video release. The original has been shown on cable though, even on HD cable.

TMP was also released on letterboxed LaserDisc in 1991 (for the 25th Anniversary) in the original cut, as well as on P&S VideoCD.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The exclusivity window was limited on the title anyway (a deal that was in place before the payoff). There was never anything that would realistically have kept Paramount from releasing it after that contract expired anyway.

I thought Toshiba paid the bill on the restoration.

[Michael.Schinke]

Originally Posted by merrick97

I thought Toshiba paid the bill on the restoration.

I think they kicked in some dough to secure the exclusive HD release rights, but they didn't outright bankroll the project. That would give them too much say over it, and Paramount is too greedy when it comes to Trek to let anyone else get their fingers in the pie.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Michael.Schinke

I think they kicked in some dough to secure the exclusive HD release rights, but they didn't outright bankroll the project. That would give them too much say over it, and Paramount is too greedy when it comes to Trek to let anyone else get their fingers in the pie.

Funny how that worked out.

I remember how fanboys were talking about how that would be the week that HD-DVD won, since it was exclusively on the combo format.

Of course it sold very poorly and HD-DVD got ***** slapped that week in sales.

[JonBidinger]

Jeff, there has been a bunch of recent Sony and Fox announcements in Europe including Bad Boys, Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Double Team, Last Action Hero, Look Who's Talking, Money Train, On The Waterfront, Panic Room, Philadelphia, Sleepless in Seattle, The Missing, Wolf, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Big Trouble In Little China, Fargo, Rain Man, and There's Something about Mary.
Are they in the works for stateside as well?

[AKORIS]

re--post 3285

Jeff, have you or Bill heard anything at all about the Hammer films
or classic Universal horror flicks being released this year?

[AKORIS]

and while we're at it-- any chance of the original PSYCHO coming to
blu in the near future? It was just re-released on dvd last year and I
was really hoping that blu-ray would be included...