My favourite Asian DVD retailer DDDHouse currently having a Blu-Ray sale.  At the moment you can pick the Blu-Ray releases of the three Bruce Lee classics The Big Boss (Wei Lo, 1971), Fist of Fury (Wei Lo, 1972) and The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1972).  Considering their age and the reputation that the Hong Kong film industry has for preserving films they all look very strong, particularly The Big Boss which has a high level of detail.  With shipping, you can order each title for under £9 delivered; it is cheaper to order all three at the same time.  Be aware that all of these Blu-Ray discs are Region A encoded.  Reviews, containing screenshots, for each of the Blu-Ray discs can found over at DVD Beaver.  Don't be tempted by the cheap prices for the Blu-Ray releases of Jackie Chan's excellent Police Story series.  The discs are nothing more than upconverts of the Fortune Star DVD releases.

Oliver Stone's Platoon has finally been released on DVD but is currently only available in Hong Kong.  My copy arrived from DDDHouse, the best online Asian DVD retailer, yesterday and despite the video being MPEG-2 encoded the picture quality is very nice indeed.

I am pleased to find that another one of my past fan DVD projects will be rendered obsolete as the German label Camera Obscura have announced that they will be releasing the giallo Tropic of Cancer on DVD later this year.  It would be good if the artwork for the DVD is as good as the one Sutekh produced for my fan DVD (pictured below). 

It looks as if Image Entertainment have avoided for bankruptcy, for now anyway, and will be releasing the Boris Karloff hosted show Thriller on DVD and also the first season of The Twilight Zone on Blu-Ray.  Thriller will have numerous special features and will be released on August 31. Whilst I am pleased that Image have chosen to release the complete series rather than release individual season sets I was rather surprised by the $149.99 RRP.  A number of online shops will most likely be selling it slightly cheaper but £100 for a 67 episode show is a little steep.  Perhaps this is to be expected considering the slim profit margins cult television shows such as this make for independent DVD labels?  Still, it will be a must buy for me, the episodes Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper and Pigeons from Hell being the stand-out episodes for me.

Some time later in the fall, Image will also release the first season of Rod Serling's classic The Twilight Zone on Blu-Ray.  No release date has been announced yet but Amazon are already offering it for pre-order at $89.99, another high price tag.  I wonder how some of the video taped episodes will look in HD? 

Robert Rodriguez has released an 'unofficial' trailer for Machete and yes, it looks like it will be everything I was hoping it would be.  I cannot wait to see this.

UPDATE:

Here is trailer in HD:

The Hong Kong label Panorama Distributors have released Pulp Fiction on Blu-Ray.  DVDBeaver reports that the release appears to be a port of the French Blu-Ray release but does not have the forced French subtitle track.  The picture quality appears to be quite impressive too.  Considering that a Blu-Ray release has not surfaced in the UK or US this looks to be a cheap alternative to the French and Polish releases of the film.  The reviewer over at DVDBeaver believes that this release might be removed from sale because it is a direct port of the French Blu-Ray.  Fans of the film might want to take advantage of this.  The film can be ordered from DDDHouse, easily the best Chinese DVD and Blu-Ray retailer for around £16 delivered.  

I was surprised to find that the Red Riding Trilogy (2009) have been released on Blu-Ray in Sweden.  The episodes did not get a Blu-Ray release in the UK and it appears doubtful that they will be released on the format in the US.  Though I have not read the books I really enjoyed the series, particularly the second and third episodes.  The performances of Sean Bean, Paddy Considine and the incredible Sean Harris were stellar.  The set is available from the Swedish site discshop.se but, like most Swedish DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, is rather expenses.  I think that my order came to around 799SEK, just under £75, gulp!  The films are presented in full HD (1080p/24p) with English DTS-HD Master 5.1 audio.  The discs are labelled as region B but apparently most other Noble releases are region free.  I will confirm once the set arrives.

It looks to be official, the cult horror film The Dark Night of the Scarecrow (Frank De Felitta, 1981) will be released on US DVD by VCI in time for Halloween.  Announced early last year as both a Blu-Ray and DVD release by Image who were then on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, it was then assumed that Lion's Gate would be releasing it with newly shot sequences.  The website Horroryearbook reports that VCI will now be responsible for bringing this to DVD, though a Blu-Ray release now seems doubtful.  Hopefully this will be the original version without the newly shot sequences that were rumoured earlier this year that are intended to resolve questions audiences had about the ending.  Personally, I find the ending of the film to be superb and perfectly straight forward. 

I am surprised that I had not heard of this earlier.  A documentary film about the late, great comedian Bill Hicks has been made and will be released this summer.  Without a doubt the greatest comedian to ever live, this film documents the life of Bill Hicks using animation and interviews with those closest to him.  I really cannot wait to see this.  More information can be found over at the official site.

Optimum have recently announced that they will be giving Lucio Fulci's masterful giallo A Lizard in a Woman's Skin a UK DVD premiere on June 7.  The blurb states that this release has been directly mastered from the original negatives and therefore 'should' be the definitive DVD release of the film.  Fingers crossed that this one gets through the BBFC unscathed, I expect that the infamous vivisected dogs sequence won't cause any trouble.  The cover art looks great.