New to Blu: August 22-28 > Jaws, 101 Dalmatians

Jaws and 101 Dalmatians are the pick of this week’s back-catalogue litter.

The Blu-ray of Steven Spielberg’s benchmark blockbuster sounds mouth-watering, “with a spectacular high-def presentation …

“Bruce the Shark, in particular, shows a few scars not seen before, and its fish skin is looking especially slimmer and smoother than ever.

“Overall, this is a magnificent and splendid presentation of a great classic.”

“The movie has been restored by putting the negative through a wetgate process and then putting careful work into correcting multiple tears and other issues faced by a film of its age. The results are a pleasure to see.”

“This is certainly one of the finest high definition presentations of a Universal catalogue release we’ve seen during this centenary year …

“Jaws was released originally with a thrillingly effective mono track (which to Universal’s credit is also provided on this Blu-ray courtesy of a DTS 2.0 mix), and I worried about how ‘tarting up’ the original mix would potentially distract from the audio presentation. I needn’t have worried. This is very smart repurposing.”

Among the new extras are an HD restoration process short and a movie-length, SD documentary.

Disney’s 101 Dalmatians is being unleashed here ahead of the US and the UK while being re-issued as a box set on the eve of Madagascar 3’s belated theatrical release are Madagascar/Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa.

Bargain-hunting chop-socky fans can snap up Chuck Norris’ A Force of One, Good Guys Wear Black and The Octagon for $15 each.

Also from the ‘80s comes the conspiracy thriller re-make, Blow Out.