Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

Started by wilder, November 01, 2011, 01:54:56 AM

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wilder

June 19/20, 2017

Dario Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow UK and Arrow US, from a new 4K restoration from the camera negative



In 1970, young first-time director Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria) made his indelible mark on Italian cinema with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – a film which redefined the 'giallo' genre of murder-mystery thrillers and catapulted him to international stardom.

Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante, We Own the Night), an American writer living in Rome, inadvertently witnesses a brutal attack on a woman (Eva Renzi, Funeral in Berlin) in a modern art gallery. Powerless to help, he grows increasingly obsessed with the incident. Convinced that something he saw that night holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorising Rome, he launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to both himself and his girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall, Spasmo)...

A staggeringly assured debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage establishes the key traits that would define Argento's filmography, including lavish visuals and a flare for wildly inventive, brutal scenes of violence. With sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) and a seductive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West).

wilder

April 4, 2017

Douglas Sirk's Interlude (1957) on blu-ray from Elephant Films (France)



A U.S. newswoman (June Allyson) falls in love with a married symphony composer (Rossano Brazzi) in Munich.

Interlude (1957)- Amazon France






Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession (1954) on blu-ray from Elephant Films (France)



Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town's only resuscitator — at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk's most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, in which Bob and the doctor's widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials and tribulations.

Magnificent Obsession (1954) - Amazon France






Douglas Sirk's Captain Lightfoot (1955) on blu-ray from Elephant Films (France)



An Irish swashbuckler (Rock Hudson) woos a rebel leader's (Jeff Morrow) daughter (Barbara Rush) in 19th-century Ireland.

Captain Lightfoot (1955)- Amazon France



wilder

May 30, 2017

Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947) from Kino



The lovely Mrs. Paradine (Ann Todd) is accused of poisoning her older, blind husband. She hires lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) to represent her. Though Keane is married to a striking and devoted woman, he finds himself strangely attracted to his glamorous defendant. His deepening feelings convince him of her innocence, even though the evidence and his sense of reason may indicate otherwise.



wilder

April 18, 2017

Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988) on blu-ray from Twilight Time, pre-order from Screen Archives on April 5, 2017



When philosophy professor Marion Post (Gena Rowlands) rents an apartment to work on her new book, she soon realizes that she can hear into the next room, which houses a psychiatrist's office. Marion becomes captivated by the sessions of a patient named Hope (Mia Farrow). As Hope talks about her emotional issues, Marion begins to reevaluate her life. She comes to realize that her coldness has shut her off from friends and family, and she has missed a chance for true love.





Screencaps from Arrow UK's release:






wilder

May 23, 2017

The Jacques Rivette Collection (1976-1981) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow US



Contains:

-Duelle (1976)
-Merry-Go-Round (1981)
-Noroît (1976)

The more expensive Arrow UK edition also contains Out 1 (which is available from Carlotta in the US).

The Jacques Rivette Collection - Amazon








2017 TBD

It's the Old Army Game (1926), starring W.C. Fields, on blu-ray from Kino from a new 2K master



Elmer Prettywillie, the village druggist, is awakened by a woman who needs a 2-cent stamp in the middle of the night. Seeking again a state of somnolence, Prettywillie must contend with the clamorous collectors of garbage, and with those of his own castle who have caught forty winks and then some. The letter-carrying lady, in trying to post her missive, manages to summon the city's fire department to the pharmacy where, unable to find a fire, they sit and sip sodas while Prettywillie panders to their every want. When they leave, a bit of a blaze does erupt, but Prettywillie is forced to his own resources. Meanwhile, George Parker is smitten with Elmer's buxom assistant and uses the storefront to promote a bogus land deal. The Prettywillie fortune is thus inflated, enabling the purchase of a flivver, but Elmer ends up wrecking a Florida estate and finally the flivver, foiling the schemers and delighting the denizens of the town, whose jubilation Elmer takes for an acute case of distemper. He jails himself for safekeeping.



Running Wild (1927), starring W.C. Fields, on blu-ray from Kino from a new 2K master



Cowardly Elmer Finch is browbeaten by his wife, daughter, fat son and the family dog. After hypnosis he is domineering. He enters a contract with a fifteen-thousand dollar payoff, so his courage can last beyond the hypnosis.

wilder

#665
October 24, 2017

William Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie (1948) on blu-ray from Kino



One of the most unusual romances ever filmed, Portrait Of Jennie is the picture of sumptuous perfection. Starring Joseph Cotten (Citizen Kane) and Oscar winner Jennifer Jones (A Farewell To Arms). When struggling artist Eben Adams (Cotten) meets the beautiful and mysterious Jennie (Jones), he is instantly captivated. Before long, Jennie has become his great muse and he is enjoying success and bliss beyond his dreams. But there is a price to pay for such elation, and soon Eben must face the truth about who Jennie really is.   



wilder

June 19, 2016

Luis Bunuel's Death in the Garden (1956) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



Amid a revolution in a South American mining outpost, a band of fugitives-a roguish adventurer (Georges Marchal), a local hooker (Simone Signoret), a priest (Michel Piccoli), an aging diamond miner (Charles Vanel) and his def-mute daughter-are to flee for their lives into the jungle. Starving, exhausted and stripped of their old identities, they wander desperately lured by one deceptive promise of salvation after another.

Shot in brilliant Eastmancolor and featuring a star-studded cast, Death in the Garden is a pulsating adventure film, alive with Surrealist gestures, making it classic Luis Bunuel.


Death in the Garden (1956) - Amazon UK









wilder

RealorFake4K.com - Database of UHD titles, discerns between titles from 4K or equivalent sources ("real" 4K") and titles originated from lesser sources (i.e. shot/mastered in 2K, upscaled to 4K - "fake 4K"), where not much difference will be seen compared to a 1080p blu-ray

wilder

Summer 2017 TBD

Henry King's Duel in the Sun (1946) on blu-ray from Kino. This movie has several other uncredited directors, including Josef von Sternberg, who was apparently hired as a visual consultant (for a film in technicolor!).



When her father is hanged for shooting his wife and her lover, half-breed Pearl Chavez goes to live with distant relatives in Texas. Welcomed by Laura Belle and her elder lawyer son Jesse, she meets with hostility from the ranch-owner himself, wheelchair-bound Senator Jackson McCanles, and with lustful interest from womanizing, unruly younger son Lewt.








2017 TBD

James Ivory's Maurice (1987) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group, from a new 4K restoration



Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster's Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one's sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding.

Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. In a time when homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, the two must keep their feelings for one another a complete secret. After a friend is arrested and disgraced for "the unspeakable vice of the Greeks," Clive abandons his forbidden love and marries a young woman. Maurice, however, struggles with his identity and self-confidence, seeking the help of a hypnotist to rid himself of his undeniable urges. But while staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice is seduced by the affectionate and yearning servant Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves), an event that brings about profound changes in Maurice's life and outlook.
   



wilder

Summer 2017 TBD

John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964) from Warner Archive



United States military leaders plot to overthrow the President because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty and they fear a Soviet sneak attack. A classic of suspense directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) and written for the screen by Rod Serling ("The Twilight Zone").



wilder

August 22, 2017

Dusty Nelson's Effects (1980) on blu-ray from AGFA and Something Weird Video, restored in 4K from the only 35mm print in existence by The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA)



Cobbled together with loose change by George Romero's friends, Effects is a mesmerizing D.I.Y. frightmare that no one talks about, but everyone should. A group of coked-up filmmakers -- including Tom Dawn of the Dead Savini, Joe Day of the Dead Pilato, and John Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Harrison -- gather in Pittsburgh to make a slasher. As filming begins and accidents happen, it's clear that something isn't right. And no one can be trusted. Landing somewhere between Snuff and a student film by John Carpenter, Effects is a meta-enhanced takedown on the philosophy of horror that doubles as a sleazy and terrifying movie on its own.

Effects (1980) - Amazon







May 2017 TBD

Tony Richardson's The Loved One (1965) from Warner Archive



The funeral business gets a giant raspberry in this wickedly wacky, resplendently ridiculous farce based on Evelyn Waugh's macabre comic masterpiece and directed with inspired verve by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones). But the American way of death isn't the film's only target: sex, greed, religion and mother love are also in the crosshairs of its satirical shots. Robert Morse plays a bemused would-be poet who gets entangled with an unctuous cemetery entrepreneur (Jonathan Winters), a mom-obsessed mortician (Rod Steiger) and other bizarre characters played by such adept farceurs as John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Tab Hunter, Milton Berle, James Coburn and Liberace.





Quote from: LetterboxdThis is one of those Rosetta Stone films you see and it suddenly explains a lot of things and puts them in their proper context. Particularly, in this case, John Waters. Hilarious, bizarre, and impeccably shot by Haskell Wexler (this looks like "Last Year at Marienbad," and he clearly nicked some shots from Godard's "Contempt")

jenkins

The Loved One is a chiller. i think perhaps John Waters mentions it now and then? though if anything it explains Phantom of the Paradise, and it's worth seeing for general good humor and Paul Williams like this


wilder

Quote from: wilder on October 13, 2014, 01:44:56 AM
October 21, 2014

Bruno Dumont's entire filmography up through Camille Claudel on blu-ray from Blaq Out



Bruno Dumont : 1997 - 2014 - Amazon France


Apparently this contains English subs. Oh baby.

Maybe. Twentynine Palms and Flandres do. Twentynine Palms isn't listed as having English subs on Blaq Out's website but they've been confirmed by someone who purchased the set, and Amazon France lists the box as having them. For the other titles it's unclear. Whatever, the pictures stay.












wilder

#673
August 28, 2017

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Eight Hours Don't Make a Day (1972-1973) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow UK. Also contains the new documentary Fassbinder (2015).



Rainer Werner Fassbinder had been making feature films for three years – and already amassed a filmography that would satisfy most careers – when he decided to take on a bigger challenge. Teaming up with West German television channel WDR, he conceived of Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, a series that would extend to five feature-length episodes to be broadcast at monthly intervals.

Centring on the Krüger family, as well as their lovers, in-laws, friends and co-workers, the series takes a sometimes comic, sometimes dramatic look at domestic relationships and labour relationships, with particular focus on skilled worker Jochen (Gottfried John, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Goldeneye) and his new girlfriend, Marion (Hanna Schygulla, The Marriage of Maria Braun).

Reminiscent of working-class soap operas such as Coronation Street and the family-based sitcoms of Carla Lane, Eight Hours Don't Make a Day has been a one of the more difficult to find entries of Fassbinder's extraordinarily prolific output, but is now presented here in full and newly restored by the Fassbinder Foundation.


Eight Hours Don't Make A Day - Arrow UK











wilder

Quote from: wilder on March 10, 2017, 05:02:01 PM
2017 TBD

Vasili Mass' Spider (1991) on blu-ay from Mondo Macabro



A young model's life spins out of control after she visits the studio of an eccentric artist and poses for a painting of Virgin Mary.





Mondo Macabro's restored trailer - Vimeo (NSFW)

Up for pre-order in June