2026 Arrow Releases

[willoneill]

Looking forward to this for nostalgic reasons if nothing else; this came out on video when I was 7 years old, and when my dad took me to the video store to rent out, the clerk tried to insist that I was too young for it and she tried to convince my dad to rent Big Business for me instead (the Lily Tomlin / Better Midler film). My dad just laughed at her. I've still never seen Big Business.

[beamish14]

I forgot that Harley Jessup worked on this film. He’s really helped define Pixar’s aesthetic

[therewillbeblus]

I revisited this a year or two ago while going through Dante's filmography, and liked it a lot more than I did when I was a kid. It's humor bursts early with Short at the supermarket and it's overall just a very pleasant experience, if nothing revolutionary

[rapta]

Would love to see them tackle Explorers next, if they're able to get UK exclusive titles from Paramount (so far they've all just been ports of their US titles).

[beamish14]

Would love to see them tackle Explorers next, if they're able to get UK exclusive titles from Paramount (so far they've all just been ports of their US titles).

I’d kill to hear a Dante commentary on Looney Tunes: Back in Action

[colinr0380]

It will be interesting to revisit this, as I remember being a little underwhelmed by its slightly more conservatively tinged message towards fate, heavy handed morality and the lack of an individual's ability to influence pre-destined events at the time (although I also remember finding the major setpiece finale quite effective too!), and I think it may be because of the different sensibilities of a Hong Kong-Thai made film as compared to the "J-horror" films that I was more familiar with. This was the problem with Tartan Video at the time doing their "Tartan Asia Extreme" strand, because it ended up lumping in all sorts of films from different areas of Asia together when there could be quite striking cultural differences in the way that each territory explored the horror genre in particular (and that aspect was only made more opaque when the US remake wave of the big films - The Ring, The Eye, Pulse, etc - put that specific context of each of their sources at one remove even further as well. The Grudge remake being a quite notable exception to the rule there! Let alone when we factor in that fascinating case of Gothika, which was a French director trying to do something in the vein of "J-horror"!). But I do agree on the lead performance being extremely strong, and this feels like a very early example of seemingly a Sixth Sense-influenced approach to a ghost film, with a character trying to help spirits in order to come to terms with her newly received 'gift', but having issues with knowing if she is doing the right thing at all, whether it would have been better to have done nothing...

Spoiler

... or in an ironic Ring-style twist that there was literally no tangible impact that she could have made at all in any fashion and that the 'gift' was never about being given the opportunity to change things, but just an inescapable curse of now always being aware of upcoming tragedies well ahead of time.

Hopefully this may bode well for future releases of the other films in the trilogy - The Eye 2 and The Eye... Infinity. Although regarding the Pang Brothers, I do think the emphasis on moral comeuppance aspect works much better in their crime films Bangkok Dangerous and particuarly One Take Only (aka Som and Bank: Bangkok for Sale). Back in the 2000s Tartan Video also released the specifically Thai-made horror anthology Bangkok Haunted on DVD, which Arrow may want to revisit some time too, especially having tackled the contemporaneous anthology films from other countries, Three and Three.. Extremes, last year.

And the real coup for Arrow would be if they could release Oxide Pang's 2003 adaptation of the Alex Garland novel The Tesseract some time, which has never been released in the UK before, and only on DVD through a long OOP disc put out by Sundance/Showtime in the US. I loved the Alex Garland novel and think the film of The Tesseract unfortunately suffers in comparison, mostly because Garland's novel is doing a cross-cutting ensemble drama story in the style of something like Traffic or Amores Perros (or Babel), but unfortunately the film is rather too streamlined into more surface level characterisations. But that is still a really interesting piece to watch because it clarifies that Garland's novel is primarily from an 'outside-in' perspective about outside forces of mercenary foreigners interacting with (and deforming) the Phillippines by their presence (à laThe Beach!). Which is why being an ensemble-told story is so important once we get to the low level Filipino gang member figure for giving that otherwise ignored entirely alternative 'inside-out' perspective. Although the most important aspect of the Garland novel is that none of the characters feel like the 'main character' of the story, so the reader has multiple entry and exit points to contemplate the narrative action from. That is a really delicate and complicated tone to have to achieve and unfortunately the film never really feels as if it properly captured that sense, which may be why it does not feel as if it is working with a centrally coherent thesis underpinning its action in the same way as the novel was. But it certainly would be a film worth revisiting agin some time!

[The Curious Sofa]

I've never been a big fan of this either. Unlike Japanese and South Korean horror films of the time, it lacked cultural specificity, the unfamiliar conventions of those films made them more unpredictable and therefore scary. The Eye felt comparatively conventional. It has a good hook and that effective elevator sequence, but otherwise, despite watching it again, it's mostly faded from memory.

[P-Rock]

Hmm, I like this Blade Runner sidequel but this release is another nothingburger from Arrow. A couple of new interviews with some crew members and that's it. I would've loved some new perspectives from Anderson, Peoples, Russell and Pertwee, since the movie was a huge flop back in the day.

[MichaelB]

"Nothingburger" is hardly fair when it has seven new interviews that collectively seem to cover a fair bit of both production and contextual ground. And in my experience it's often the interviews that seem unpromising in bald synopsis that turn out to be the most interesting, if only because they tell stories that haven't been told before, so knocking them before you've watched them seems... well, a tad premature.

By way of example, three of the best interviews I can recall were with the assistant production designer of The Long Good Friday, the second assistant director on The Wrong Box, and the guy who rigged up the special effects on Zardoz, none of which were exactly enticing going in.

[Maltic]

Maybe send a letter to Kurt Russell and ask him, P-Rock.

[colinson]

Really curious to revisit this with the new 4K restoration of The Eye. I remember the atmosphere and concept being strong, even if parts felt a bit conventional compared to other Asian horror at the time.

[Finch]

4K coming in May. The new artwork is rough, especially against the classy cover Criterion had.

[swo17]

The thing on the right isn't new artwork. I think it's poster art(?) and was featured on a prior Arrow BD release. I don't know if the other art might have been a reversible cover on the same BD release

[Finch]

Yes, my comment about the new artwork only related to the image on the left.

[Finch]

4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

- Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Arrow Films and approved by director Neil Jordan
- 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- Newly restored original lossless English mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by Bob Hoskins and Neil Jordan
- Interviews with director Neil Jordan, writer David Leland and producer Stephen Wooley
- Original trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Hannah Gillingham
- Collectors' booklet featuring writing on the film by critic Mike Sutton

[Finch]

US/CA ONLY

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• 4K restoration from the original negative
• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Original restored lossless 2.0 stereo audio
• Optional DTS-HD MA 5.1 remix
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Archival audio commentary by director John Badham, editor Frank Morriss, and motion control supervisor Hoyt Yeatman
• Flight Risk, a brand new interview with director John Badham
• A Rollercoaster Ride, a brand new interview with actor Candy Clark
• Catching Up, a brand new interview with actor Malcolm McDowell
• Ride with the Angels: Making Blue Thunder, an archival three-part documentary from 2006
• The Special: Building Blue Thunder, an archival featurette from 2006 on the design and construction of the iconic helicopter
• Archival 1983 promotion featurette
• Extended scene
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Skinner
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Dennis Capicik and original production notes

[Finch]

US/CA ONLY

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original lossless Japanese mono and 4.0 stereo surround audio, and remixed 5.1 surround audio
• Optional newly translated English subtitles
• Two optional viewing modes via seamless branching: the original Japanese version or the uncut English-language version titled Time Slip, with lossless English mono audio
• Brand new audio commentary by Samm Deighan and Tom Mes
• The Good Fight, an introduction by Japanese film specialist Mark Schilling
• Acting in Self Defence, an appreciation by Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World
• Back in Time, a discussion of the film by authors and film critics Masaaki Nomura and Tatsuya Masuto
• Cast and crew interviews from 2005 with Sonny Chiba, Isao Natsuyagi, Hiromitsu Suzuki, Kamayatsu Monsieur, Jun Eto and Isao Kuraishi
• Original theatrical trailers
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ilan Sheady
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Josh Slater-Williams”

[rwiggum]

No Chris Nolan commentary??

[Finch]

4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Original lossless mono audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary by director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley
• Audio commentary by Peter Galvin, author of The Making of Wake in Fright
• Return to the ‘Yabba, a featurette tracking down the film’s Broken Hill locations
• Take in Fright, an interview with director of photography Brian West
• Sounds of the Outback, a previously unreleased interview with sound editors Keith Palmer and Eddy Joseph
• The Cinema’s Great Squeaky Bald Git, an appreciation of actor Donald Pleasence by film historian Kim Newman
• The Filmmaker and the Film Buff, a discussion between Philippe Mora and Paul Harris
• Yer Mad, Ya Bastard!, an archive interview with director Ted Kotcheff
• Not Quite Hollywood, an archive interview with actor Jack Thompson
• Q&A with Ted Kotcheff from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
• Audio interview with Ted Kotcheff, conducted by Paul Harris
• Audio interview with composer John Scott, conducted by music historian Daniel Schweiger
• Alternate scenes from Outback
• 2009 TV report on the rediscovery and restoration of Wake in Fright
• Who Needs Art?, a 1971 TV segment with behind-the-scenes footage
• Chips Rafferty obituary by Ken G. Hall
• US theatrical trailer and TV spot
• Foreign Visions of Local Stories, a trailer reel of Australian films helmed by overseas filmmakers
• Image gallery
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jay Slater, Paul Lê and David Michael Brown plus archive materials
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jeff Marshall

[Finch]

PHILIP MARLOWE IS A PRIVATE EYE. FOR FIFTY BUCKS YOU CAN BUY HIS BRAIN, HIS FISTS AND HIS .44 MAGNUM SPECIAL. IF YOU WANT BLOOD, HE'LL GIVE YOU THAT, TOO! Following in the footsteps of Dick Powell (Murder, My Sweet) and Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep), James Garner (The Great Escape) brought iconic private investigator Philip Marlowe into the Age of Aquarius in this 1969 neo-noir based on Raymond Chandler's classic novel The Little Sister. When Orfamay Quest hires Philip Marlowe to find her brother, it seems like just another missing persons case. But soon enough Marlowe's investigation leads him on a trail of blackmail and murder, all of it seemingly linked to a mobster and his TV star mistress. Luscious starlets, pugnacious gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks... welcome to Marlowe country! Garner's easy-going style is a perfect match for Chandler's "shop-soiled Galahad", paving the way for his performance in classic TV show The Rockford Files. Meanwhile, the many suspects are brought vividly to life by the likes of Carroll O'Connor (All in the Family), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Jackie Coogan (The Addams Family), Gayle Hunnicut (The Legend of Hell House) and none other than Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon) making his American feature debut.


LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Brand new restoration from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless mono audio
$100 A Day (Plus Expenses), a brand new appreciation by film historian Howard S. Berger
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by John Pearson
Collectors’ booklet containing new writing by critics Jeff Chang and Priscilla Page

[Drucker]

Nothing about it being a brand-new-to-Arrow restoration?

[JamesF]

David M re-did the disc he already authored for Umbrella for us, so aside from the menus and swapping an extra or two (the "Sounds of the Outback" featurette and the US trailer instead of the SD bonus film Sunstruck), it's essentially the same disc as the Umbrella, feature encode and all. We couldn't do any better, so why not?

[Finch]

I don't have the exact year but I think the Umbrella restoration is fairly new and looked superb on their domestic UHD which I already imported last year in the standard edition. I don't know if the LE is still available but it came with the novel.

[swo17]

Umbrella's LE is still available. $80 USD

[Drucker]

My apologies! I was only familiar with the master MOC used which obviously was frowned upon at time of release. Didn't realize this one had an new and good restoration.

Will there be a blu-ray only release? Or is this 4k only?