Hello!

Now this is nice to hear …. while we calmly wait for Paramount Presents’ upcoming 4K disc of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, an announcement arrives of an equally hot prospect … a June 18 release date for Roman Polanski’s 1974 masterpiece Chinatown on 4K Ultra HD.

For this one Paramount Presents adds new extras — a piece with the film’s assistant director, and two from Sam Wasson, author of the book that added much to the popularity of Polanski’s picture, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years Of Hollywood.

An added Blu-ray will include the 1990 sequel, The Two Jakes. This one ought to be great in 4K — it’s up there with the best experiences we’ve had in a movie theater. I remember seeing it from the long-gone ‘Cathay Balcony’ of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Among the web finds thoughtfully circulated by Joe Dante is this nice appreciation at Pocket Worthy of the late, great Tower Records company. Its superstore on the Sunset Strip was a must-stop destination with a lot of character — we had to approach from the East or the West ’cause my old car had trouble climbing the hill from West Hollywood.

The article by Ben Marks goes deeper than the history of the vast retail chain, describing what buying music was like in those old days. A vinyl album might cost less than $5 dollars, new. We’d see long-haired hipsters in leather carrying stacks of 30 albums to checkout, with their Jaguars and Rolls-Royces waiting outside …

Then there was me, pondering if I should spend eating money on an LP of the Les Baxter soundtrack to Master of the World. Hey, it was stereophonic!  I decided to eat instead.

The article makes mention of the documentary All Things Must Pass, which we reviewed at CineSavant early in 2016 … I still recommend it. The Pocket Worthy article is a click away:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson