(If it can be difficult to remember who won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it’s downright mindbending trying to remember everything else it was up against. In An Honor To Be Nominated, I’ll be taking a look back at some of the movies the Oscar didn’t go to and trying to determine if they were robbed, if the Academy got it right, or if they should ever have been nominated in the first place.) [Read on here...]

We’ve got some interesting odds and ends to talk about today… nothing major, but a few things worth touching out.

First, remember that story we posted last week about the contract kerfuffle between Amazon and Warner Home Video? Turns out it got picked up by The New York Times yesterday and both the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money today (among others – the story has basically gone everywhere today, but our thanks to NYT, WSJ and CNN Money for mentioning our involvement in breaking it). I should tip the hat to our very own Jeff Kleist who first sniffed out that something might be going on there a couple of weeks ago, thus setting me on the case with our industry sources. It’s funny how these things go viral. I didn’t think it was that big a story, but it turns out that Amazon is also in similar disputes with various book publishing companies too, including Hachette, so the sum of this story became bigger than its parts. [Read on here…]

Okay... just a quick update today. I dropped my cell phone this weekend and cracked the screen. Naturally, I didn’t buy the insurance since Verizon talked me into buying the fancy indestructible case. So anyway, it’s meant a couple days scrambling while I try to get it fixed.

Meanwhile, we do have a new Doogan’s Queue for you today from Todd, covering today’s new releases on Blu-ray and DVD. We’ve also got Dr. Jahnke’s latest Burnt Offerings: MOD DVD column detailing the latest from Warner Archive and such. And be sure to check out our weekly update of the Release Dates & Artwork section from Russell. [Read on here...]

John Garfield gets the spotlight this week and another MGM musical spectacular from the 1950s makes its Blu-ray debut. Let’s take a gander at this week’s MOD deliveries, available with the click of a mouse via the banners yonder.

Thank you, as always, for helping to support The Bits. [Read on here...]

Lots of good stuff this week to watch if you’re finished up with the thirteen and a half hour Orange Is The New Black: Season Two weekend marathon. Suzanne got stone cold this year, didn’t she. Crazy Eyes no more – Deadly Eyes is more like it. [Read on here…]

“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No job is too big. No fee is too big.”

The Digital Bits is pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of Ghostbusters, the supernatural comedy and smash hit of the summer of ’84 that introduced the world to Slimer, the Ecto-1, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and unlicensed nuclear accelerators. The Bits celebrates the occasion with this retrospective featuring some quotes from movie critics, production & exhibition trivia, a list of the movie’s deluxe 70-millimeter presentations, and a compilation of box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context. [Read on here…]

All right, we’re closing out the week today with just a smattering of new announcement news...

First, Disney and ABC have set Once Upon a Time: The Complete Third Season for DVD only release on 8/19, followed by Revenge: The Complete Third Season on 8/26, Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Tenth Season on 9/2, Castle: The Complete Sixth Season on 9/16, and Nashville: The Complete Second Season and Scandal: The Complete Third Season on 9/23. [Read on here…]

We’ve got a couple more bits of announcement news for you today...

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that it’s celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Ghostbusters with a new limited (to 700 theaters) theatrical re-release on 8/29 and also new 4K-remastered Blu-ray editions of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II on 9/16. Each Blu-ray will be a 2-disc set in Digibook packaging. There will also be a Limited Edition box set of both films, including an exclusive Slimer figurine. It appears that all of the prevoius extras will carry over to the new editions, and you’ll get new disc-based content too. [Read on here...]

Here at The Bits today, Tim Salmons has turned in a review of Disney’s Frozen on Blu-ray. Do check that out.

Also, today happens to be the 15th anniversary of a little film called Free Enterprise, starring William Shatner, directed by our old friend Robert Meyer Burnett, and produced by Mark A. Altman (who also writes the occasional MOS DEF column here at The Bits). So our own Michael Coate has taken the opportunity to do a new interview with Rob and Mark for his latest History, Legacy & Showmanship column. You’ll find that here, so we hope you enjoy it! [Read on here...]

“Get a Life!” exclaimed William Shatner to a legion of Star Trek fans in a classic 1986 Saturday Night Live skit. Among those who did indeed get a life were Mark A. Altman and Robert Meyer Burnett. The pair succeeded in creating Free Enterprise, the affectionate 1999 comedy about a pair of pop culture geeks who meet their idol, William Shatner. Be careful about wanting to meet your heroes may have been the moral of the story as Mark (Eric McCormack) and Robert (Rafer Weigel) discover Mr. Shatner is not quite the person they think he is. [Read on here…]