Indiana’s own Bill Peet, he of Disney fame, is being feted again more than 50 years after one of his most famous creations.
The late Arsenal Tech High School and John Herron Art Institute graduate was a writer and story artist for 1961’s “101 Dalmatians.” He imagined the “TV show within a movie” scene that featured smiling dog Thunderbolt.
That small scene is now fully fleshed out and expanded, and is the primary new bonus feature on the just-released diamond-edition Blu-ray Disc of “101 Dalmatians.” The all-new short is called “The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt” and includes scenes based on sketches recovered from Disney’s animation library.
The fully restored “101 Dalmatians” includes more bonus features, such as the cleverly titled “Dalmatians 101: Hosted by Cameron Boyce,” as well as classic bonus features.
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Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment also has released onto Blu-ray “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” — a very good heartwarming comedy starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner. Based on the best-selling book, the movie follows a boy through his terrible day. But it’s not his terrible day alone; soon, he discovers that his parents aren’t immune to such travails. In the end, he learns that it’s families that count.
Valentine’s-themed titles are in abundance this week, including “A Day in the Country” (Criterion Collection), famed director Jean Renoir’s visual ode to the stunning French countryside and the romancing of a mother and grown daughter by two local men; “The Song” (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), a music-driven romantic drama starring Alan Powell, Ali Faukner and Caitlin Nicol-Thomas and even featuring a re-cut of “Turn! Turn! Turn” by the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn in the soundtrack; “In Your Eyes” (Anchor Bay Entertainment), a paranormal romance that examines how opposites attract; and romantic TV show “Hart to Hart: The Complete Fourth Season” (Shout! Factory).
Other top titles include “Olive Kitteridge” (HBO Home Enterainment), the four-part miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray; “Force Majeure” (Magnolia Home Entertainment), a Swedish-language dark comedy/psychodrama that won a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign language film; and “Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown” (Paramount Home Media), the Charles M. Schulz feature-length movie that is newly remastered and on DVD for the first time ever.