Matt wrote: Sun Nov 01, 2026 5:26 am
Hey, everybody! From now on, your hard-working mods will be consolidating Arrow announcements into single threads based on year of release. In the future, titles that spark robust discussion will be split off into their own threads. Threads for long-term release projects like the Shawscope volumes will continue to have individual threads.
This is the thread for releases announced for 2027.
2-DISC 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Brand new 4K restorations of both films from the original film elements
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Pye Parr
Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Priscilla Page, plus select archival material
DISC 1 – THE CANNONBALL RUN
4K (2160p) Ultra High Definition Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original restored lossless mono, stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio options
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Brand new audio commentary by filmmaker & historian Jon Spira (director of Hollywood Bulldogs: The Rise & Fall of the Great British Stuntman) with actor/comedian Nick Helm
Archive audio commentary by director Hal Needham and producer Albert. S. Ruddy
From Sea to Shining Sea, a look at the cross country car race in film by film historian Andrew Nette
Archive audio interviews with director Hal Needham and stars Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr recorded during production of the film
Trailers
Original pressbook
Image gallery
DISC 2 – THE CANNONBALL RUN II
4K (2160p) Ultra High Definition Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original restored lossless mono and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio options
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Brand new audio commentary by filmmaker Jon Spira and actor/comedian Nick Helm
Archive audio commentary by film historian Nathaniel Thompson
Theatrical trailer
Original pressbook
Image gallery
4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films, approved by co-director Albert Hughes and director of photography Don Burgess
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Dystopian Precision, a brand new interview with Albert Hughes
Post Apocalyptic Design, a brand new interview with production designer Gae S. Buckley
The Journey of Eli, an archival behind-the-scenes featurette, featuring interviews with the cast and crew
Eight archival “Focus Points” featurettes exploring the film’s visual style, fight choreography, set design and more
Starting Over and Eli’s Journey, two archival “Behind the Story” featurettes exploring life in a post-apocalyptic world and the film’s journey from script to screen
The Book of Eli Soundtrack, an archival featurette on the film’s score, featuring co-director Allen Hughes and composer Atticus Ross
A Lost Tale: Billy and A Lost Tale: The End, two archival graphic novel-style shorts set in the film’s world
Deleted and alternate scenes
Teaser and theatrical trailers
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by David Michael Brown
4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless Cantonese mono and lossless English mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the Cantonese soundtrack
Brand new audio commentary with Asian cinema expert David West
Big Shot!, a brand new interview with actor Waise Lee
Style, Action & Cool: Shooting The Big Heat, a brand new interview with assistant director Chow Jan-Wing
Hot in Hong Kong, a brand new interview with Asian cinema expert James Mudge
The Heat Is On, a brand new interview with academic Gilbert Po
Don't Play with Fire, a newly edited interview with screenwriter Gordon Chan, filmed in 2023
Original Cantonese and English theatrical trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tom Fournier
Collectors' booklet featuring new writing on the film by critics Camille Zaurin and Sean Gilman
2-DISC 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentations of both films in HDR10
- Original lossless stereo 2.0 and DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio options
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Sister Hyde
- Collectors' booklet featuring new writing by film scholars Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Cerise Howard, Martyn Pedler and Michelle J. Smith
DISC 1 - FREEWAY
- Includes both the 104-minute Uncut version and the 102-minute Theatrical version of the film
- Brand new audio commentary by film critics BJ & Harmony Colangelo
- Two archival audio commentaries by writer/director Matthew Bright (2022 and 1997)
- Illegally Blonde: The Transgressive Teenage Shocks of Freeway and Freeway 2, a new appreciation by film critic Willow Catelyn Maclay
- Vulgarity is Timeless, an archival interview with writer/ director Matthew Bright
- Producing Freeway, an archival interview with producer Brad Wyman
- Changing Lanes, an archival interview with editor Maysie Hoy
- To Catch a Predator, an archival interview with actor Wolfgang Bodison
- You're Under Arrest, an archival interview with actor Robert Peters
- Murder Twins, an archival interview with actresses Leanna Creel and Monica Lacy
- Archival interviews with director Matthew Bright, actress Amanda Plummer, composer Danny Elfman, executive producer Oliver Stone and co-producer Samuel Hadida
- EPK featurette, behind the scenes footage and interviews
- Trailer
DISC 2 - FREEWAY II: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICKBABY
- Brand new audio commentary by Louise Weard (director of Castration Movie) and film historian Elizabeth Purchell
- Once Upon a White Girl: Remembering Confessions of a Trickbaby, a feature-length documentary with cast and crew interviews
- Archival interviews with director Matthew Bright and producers Chris Hanley and Samuel Hadida
- Behind the scenes footage
- Trailer
- Image gallery
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio commentary with director Oliver Stone
Interview with director Oliver Stone
Interview with actor Bruce McGill
Interview with actor Andrea Marcovicci
Interview with producer Edward R. Pressman and actor Annie McEnroe Pressman
Original theatrical trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
Collector's booklet featuring new writing by Johnny Mains
Lotta people reading the thread title are going to be disappointed when they actually click on the thread.
This is a Tsui Hark hodge-podge production, with multiple different directors, an incoherent script clearly being rewritten during production, and no tonal throughline. Tsui seemingly wanted to outdo former filmmaking partner John Woo, so he packs the movie with as much mean-spirited violence as it can handle, some of it wildly creative. I wouldn’t say this is a good movie, but the ending, where Ching Siu-Tung has clearly taken over as director, is bonkers and exhilarating. For Tsui-as-producer, this is well below the Chinese Ghost Story and Swordsman series, and even the similarly troubled Dragon Inn remake.
Fun that Louise Weard is doing boutique-label releases that aren’t her own movies, she should be a good talker for a commentary. What I’ve heard about Freeway II certainly fits with her vibe.
Freudian? It’s a straightforward story about an impotent man who constantly fantasizes about pushing long, hard pieces of metal through his hands until the movie ends in an orgy of bloodshed. What’s so symbolic about that?
The first Freeway at least is a modern interpretation of Red Riding Hood (with Keifer Sutherland as the 'wolf') mixed with the 'criminal road movie' trend of the first half of the 1990s (Natural Born Killers, Kalifornia, Thelma & Louise). The idea of modernising and adulting up Red Riding Hood was a bit of a thing at the time, as there is a great 1999 Belgium-Dutch short that does much the same thing starring Rising Damp's Don Warrington(!) which is put into a Christmas-time dystopian sci-fi context and Aphex Twinned to the max - Black XXX-mas (NSFW - though despite the title its not (that) explicit in a sexual manner, just gory).
The Michael Caine murderous severed hand film! And one of two horror films that Oliver Stone directed at the start of his career (hopefully we might get an edition of the even more obscure 1974 film Seizure which was Stone's feature directing debut). After this there would be a considerable break before Stone began his run of more characteristic for him political films with 1986's Salvador
I always loved The Hand and I'm glad this is getting a release - and I will second your call for Seizure! That would make a great Arrow edition - did Oliver Stone end up disowning the movie? I remember there was a great interview with Stone in Video Watchdog that focused on the production, which sounded insane....
domino harvey wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2016 1:29 pm the Hand (Oliver Stone 1981) Another in the long list of movies my mom shouldn’t have let me watch as a child, this one left an indelible mark on me as a kid in that even today I still worry about ending up like Michael Caine every single time I stick my hand out the window of a moving car! The gory, blood-spurting bit of casual road-side violence that cripples Caine’s cartoonist in the film is relayed well, but Stone’s movie is a little too in love with the obvious psychological symbolism of having Caine’s phantom limb attack those who threaten him sexually (the message here is so obvious that it’s directly acknowledged and mocked by Caine’s character early in the film as a bit of preemptive lampshading). And of course the ending of this film follows that of many others this decade in having its cake and eating it too, with both hands.
Hey, everybody! From now on, your hard-working mods will be consolidating Arrow announcements into single threads based on year of release. In the future, titles that spark robust discussion will be split off into their own threads. Threads for long-term release projects like the Shawscope volumes will continue to have individual threads.
This is the thread for releases announced for 2027.
