Exciting news from the Blu-ray front. We’re all going to be able to see the amazingness that is a couple of midgets washing Jesus’ asshole in glorious high definition.

That’s right. Jodorowsky’s cult classics, El Topo and The Holy Mountain have been announced with all-new, director supervised, HD transfers. Blu-ray.com is reporting that the discs will be available on April 26th.

The only problem I can see is that there was no word about his other two films in the iconic boxset (Fando y Lis – which is actually my favorite – and La Cravate) getting any sort of Blu-ray re-release. Still, looking ahead towards April, along with some very interesting Criterion rumors, things are definitely promising.

Cut and paste job from Blu-ray.com…

EL TOPO specs:
El Topo, first released theatrically in 1969, made Jodorowsky a household name with the counterculture crowd of the early 1970s. El Topo provided the template for “Midnight Movie Madness,” screening seven nights a week at midnight for seven straight months at the infamous Elgin Cinema in New York. Paradoxically, the film was thoroughly panned by the film critic of the New York Times but it was then lauded by the paper’s art critic who called it “a monumental work of filmic art.” To say that El Topo became a “cult classic” is something of an understatement in light of its surprisingly broad acceptance fueled, in part, by ringing endorsements from John Lennon and Yoko Ono that made it a commercial success in its own time.The film conflates classic American western and avant-garde European sensibilities with Zen Buddhism and the Bible as master gunfighter and mystic El Topo (played by writer/director Jodorowsky) attempts to defeat four sharp-shooting rivals on a bizarre path to allegorical self-awareness and resurrection.

Special features include:

• Feature commentary by Alejandro Jodorowsky
• On-camera interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Photo gallery
• Original script excerpts
• Original theatrical trailer

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN specs:
The Holy Mountain was Jodorowsky’s high budget follow-up to the worldwide success of El Topo, and took his psychedelic allegorical mastery to another level. He prepared for making the film by undergoing a psycho-spiritual boot camp, training in the spiritual arts and rituals that included a week of sleep deprivation under the supervision of a Zen master and LSD trips shepherded by a guru. Prior to shooting the film, the crew lived in isolation under Jodorowsky’s direction for a month. Visually and viscerally, the film is a masterwork that benefitted greatly from a labor intensive 2K scan restoration, which greatly enhanced The Holy Mountain’s color palate from its initial release.

When it was screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, riots broke out in response to Jodorowsky’s flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism. The Holy Mountain chronicles a quest for enlightenment, pitting illusion against the truth as The Alchemist, played by the director, assembles a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. Strange and provocative mystical rites to divest them of their worldly baggage ensue as they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.

The Holy Mountain will be on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art’s PS1 Annex in Long Island City, New York beginning May 22, 2011. It will simultaneously be shown on multiple screens of varying shapes and sizes throughout the exhibition’s run with visiting artists and filmmakers offering lectures and master classes on Jodorowsky and his cultural impact. The Chilean-born, Paris-based Jodorowsky will be in attendance at the exhibition’s opening.

Special features include:

• Feature commentary by Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Deleted scenes with commentary by Alejandro Jodorowsky
• The Holy Mountain restoration process
• Photo gallery
• Original script excerpts
• Original theatrical trailer