Top 10 Anticipated Fall DVDs

With fall upon us, besides Oscar season, the other thing I love about the fall in Hollywood is all the titles coming to DVD and Blu Ray. It seems like they really push their best efforts on these, mostly because of Christmas, but it shows. Some of these films might be obvious answers of some anticipation but I hope to show why at least I’m excited for some of these. Hopefully, some of these will appear on your radar too. Without anymore blab from me, here’s my Top 10 Anticipated Fall DVDs:

10- Faces of Death (October 7th): I have pretty much stayed clear of this film. It’s one of those notorious video nasties but I feel ready after tackling the Italian Cannibal genre and loving those. This has gotten a lot of new extras worth perhaps the price and maybe over the film itself says Fangoria in their DVD review. They loved the documentary. Could be an interesting release.

9- Tokyo Gore Police (unknown release date):If you remember I loved “Machine Girl” and this is director Iguchi’s follow-up. Outside of some film festivals, this is the only way American audiences can see the film and I can’t wait. It’s so over-the-top that they need a new term for excessive. This is more of my fun, guilty pleasure pick.

8- Criterion Collection Blu Rays (November 25th): I’ll say it 1000 times and I’ll say it again: I love Criterion. I love them even more now that they are on Blu, but they are offering a cool exchange program for titles you have that are now upgraded to Blu Ray. Send them the disc and something like $20 and bam! You got the Blu Ray version. Their first wave of titles are the “Man Who Fell to Earth”, “The Last Emperor”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Bottle Rocket”, and my personal favorite film ever “The Third Man”. The success of these titles will help out stuff in their catalogue getting 1080p treatment, so buy one or more so I can finally get “Seven Samurai”…in 1080p! Also this will help the argument (if Criterion does them right) that older films and films in 1:33.1 (full frame) can be equally as awesome on Blu Ray has a widescreen and modern films can. We’ll see.

7- The Beyond (October 28th): Perhaps one of Lucio Fulci’s best films, if not his goriest and most surreal, has long been out of print. EBay has the original DVD release going for a pretty penny-not anymore. Grind house Releasing has reissued this with hopefully some good extras and a new transfer. They did a marvelous job on “Cannibal Holocaust” so I expect the same. This comes out just in time for Halloween too!

6- Wall*E Blu Ray (November 18th): I think I’m more excited just to see it in high definition. I know that sounds clichéd but damn, this title is going to own all on Blu and Disney is one of the best studio’s in terms of having the best Blu Rays around. Also, I’m excited for the extras, including a new short called “Burn*E”. This is going to be a huge seller on either format, but those looking to wow their friends will do no better this fall that this awesome film and awesome Blu Ray.

5- The Day the Earth Stood Still: 2-disc Special Edition (December 2nd): The first release was a pretty good disc. It featured a good audio commentary and a well-made documentary. Of course they’re releasing this to build up interest in the remake, but this is perhaps definitive science fiction filmmaking at its best. Also on Blu Ray, I wonder what the extras will be?

4- Touch of Evil 50th Anniversary Edition (October 7th): Finally we can see Orson Welles’ film like he would’ve originally liked us to with a new 2-disc set featuring three version of the film and an audio commentary plus some other goodies. I really like this film and until we can see a release for his second film, “The Magnificent Ambersons”, this will surely do just fine. Thanks Universal.

3- Chaplin (October 14th):This is the Robert Downey Jr. film, a biopic on one of our funniest actors. I’m eager to see this, as I have very little recollection of the film, but it’s been near impossible to find on DVD. Hopefully, the extras will be good, but this should be one of the more underrated titles released this fall.

2- White Dog Criterion Collection (due in December): About six months ago I had a Top 10 list of movies not out on DVD and Sam Fuller’s “White Dog” was on it-very high up here. I love Criterion and they answered my call. Here we have a cool edition of this rarely seen Fuller film about a racist dog. Sounds cheesy if you don’t know Fuller’s work but this is an absolute must buy for me.

1- The Dark Knight Blu Ray (December 9th): Yeah this might be the most anticipated for just about everyone, but besides my absolute love for everything about this film, I’m mostly uber-curious to see what extras this will have. Could we see and hear from Heath Ledger? Deleted Scenes? I’m almost positive they had a camera filming everything behind-the-scenes so you know Heath was captured. Will WB censor anything? Either way, he IMAX footage on Blu Ray should be reference quality. I cannot wait!

There you have it! These ten will be immediately purchased by me but seriously this fall is really stacked. Here’s some more interesting titles being released in the next three months that I had to sadly leave off: new Special editions of “Psycho” and “Vertigo”, “Incredible Hulk”, “The Visitor”, some James Bond films on Blu Ray, “Narnia: Prince Caspian”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, new Criterions, “Casablanca” and “A Christmas Story” on Blu Ray, “Kung Fu Panda”, “Sukiyaki Western Django” Takashi Miike’s latest, “Sleeping Beauty” on Blu Ray, and countless others.

Keep it here at Killer Film for reviews of these titles and further release date info as these things can change.