Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

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

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wilder

October 28, 2019

Alan Parker's Birdy (1984) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Based on the acclaimed, 'unfilmable' novel by William Wharton, about a boy who dreams of flying, Alan Parker's elliptical, ethereal film is just as vividly poetic as its source.

Birdy is story of two unlikely boyhood friends, the confident and popular Al (Nicolas Cage – Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas) and Birdy (Matthew Modine – Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things), awkward, withdrawn, and obsessed with birds. The advent of the war in Vietnam shatters their youth, and they both return irrevocably changed – one physically traumatised, the other emotionally fractured.

This unique and affecting film from director Alan Parker (Midnight Express, Angel Heart), features skilful, highly committed central performances from young stars Modine and Cage (who allegedly had teeth removed for his gruelling role), and a wonderful score by Peter Gabriel. Birdy is a great unsung gem of 1980s cinema, and is presented here in a brand-new, director-approved 2K restoration.




October 28, 2019

Joseph Losey's Time Without Pity (1957) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Following his blacklisting in the McCarthy HUAC hearings, director Joseph Losey (Eva, The Damned, Secret Ceremony) moved to the England in the 1950s. The gritty British suspense thriller, Time Without Pity was the first film he made in the UK under his own name.

In a BAFTA-nominated performance, the great Michael Redgrave (Goodbye Gemini, Connecting Rooms, Dead of Night) stars as an anguished father whose son is convicted of murder and languishing on death row. In a desperate race-against-time, he attempts to prove his son's innocence whilst bringing the real murderer to justice.

With photography by Freddie Francis (The Elephant Man), and a superb supporting cast including Ann Todd (Taste of Fear), Leo McKern (X the Unknown), and Peter Cushing (Corruption, The Beast Must Die), Time Without Pity is brilliantly accomplished slice of Brit-noir, and a potent cry against capital punishment.




October 28, 2019

Howard W. Koch's Badge 373 (1973) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Inspired by the real-life exploits of New York cop Eddie Egan (who was also the basis for Gene Hackman's 'Popeye' Doyle character in The French Connection), Badge 373 is a tough detective thriller, comparable to William Friedkin's more celebrated feature. Duvall (The Godfather, Breakout) delivers a powerfully authentic performance as a brutal New York detective, ruthlessly hunting for the killer of his partner against a backdrop of social upheaval and violent gang wars.



September 16, 2019

Joseph Losey's The Criminal (1960) on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



Ex-con Johnny (Stanley Baker) used his time in prison wisely – to plan the biggest robbery of his career. The robbery goes smoothly and Johnny goes to bury the money in a field until the heat is off, as agreed with friend and racketeer Mike Carter (Sam Wanamaker) and the rest of the gang.

In a moment of weakness, Johnny pockets five hundred odd pounds from the haul. Coupled with a tip-off from his ex-girlfriend (Jill Bennett) this proves to be his undoing and Johnny is soon back in prison. The rest of the gang try in vain to get the location of the money out of him without success until Mike hits upon the idea of a break-out using Johnny's new love Suzanne (Margit Saad) as bait.




September 16, 2019

Joseph Losey's The Go-Between (1970) on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



Based on the novel by L.P Hartley and adapted by Harold Pinter, The Go-Between stars Julie Christie as Marian, about to be engaged to Hugh (Edward Fox), a well-bred viscount and her perfect match. Over the course of a sweltering Norfolk summer in 1900, young Leo (Dominic Guard), becomes besotted with the vivacious Marian whilst staying at their house. Innocent of romantic and sexual matters, he unwittingly becomes a pawn in the forbidden romance between her and eminently unsuitable local farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates).

As the oppressive heat intensifies so too does Leon's burgeoning adolescent questioning of love, attraction and the rules of the upper class that he doesn't really belong to. Both a beautifully subtle critique of the English class system and a visual masterpiece that perfectly captures the timeless beauty of an English Edwardian summer, The Go-Between won director Joseph Losey the Grand Prix (now the Palme D'Or) at Cannes Film Festival in 1971.




October 28, 2019

Fuller at Fox: Five Films 1951-1957 on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK), limited to 2,000 units



A towering figure of American cinema, Samuel Fuller was a master of the B-movie, a pulp maestro whose iconoclastic vision elevated the American genre film to new heights. After the major success of THE STEEL HELMET, Fuller was put under contract by Twentieth Century Fox after being impressed by Darryl F. Zanuck's direct sales pitch (other studios offered Fuller money and tax shelters; Zanuck simply told him, "We make better movies.").

Over a six-year period, Fuller would produce some of the best work of his career, (and therefore, some of the best films in American cinema), an uncompromising series of masterpieces spanning multiple genres (the Western, the War film, film noir, the Crime-Thriller) that would establish the director as a true auteur, whose influence continues to be felt today.

Collected here are five films from this fruitful period, all presented from stunning restorations. The impossibly tense Korean-War drama FIXED BAYONETS! (1951); the outrageous and confrontational spy-thriller PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953); the Cold War submarine-actioner HELL AND HIGH WATER (1954); the lushly photographed, cold-as-ice film noir HOUSE OF BAMBOO (1955); and the audacious Western with a feminist twist, FORTY GUNS (1957).




November 19, 2019

Jean-Pierre Meville's Un Flic aka Dirty Money (1972) on blu-ray from Kino



Coleman (Alain Delon) is a burned-out detective who has seen too much pain. His friend Simon (Richard Crenna) is a brilliant thief who fears no law. Between them is the beautiful woman (Catherine Deneuve) they both love. But when Simon plans the ultimate heist of a train full of mob money, the two men find themselves hurtling towards a final showdown of fate, friendship and betrayal.



September 24, 2019

James Ivory's Quartet (1981) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group



A twisted relationship between a wealthy English couple and a young woman they take in, plays out against a stunning recreation of the Golden Age of 1920s Paris. In adapting Jean Rhys's 1928 autobiographical novel, Merchant Ivory achieved an artistic breakthrough that remains one of the team's finest works. In one of her greatest performances, Isabelle Adjani plays the vulnerable but complicated West-Indian Marya, who, after her shady husband Stefan (Anthony Higgins) is imprisoned, finds shelter in the home of a manipulative and lecherous English art patron (Alan Bates) and his painter wife (Maggie Smith). The dynamic between this trio is set against Hemingway's "moveable feast" of café culture and extravagant nightlife, glitter and literati, beneath which lie traces of something sinister.





October 29, 2019

Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life (1946) on 4K blu-ray from Paramount, restored from the original nitrate negative



George Bailey is a small-town man whose life seems so desperate he contemplates suicide. He had always wanted to leave Bedford Falls to see the world, but circumstances and his own good heart have led him to stay. He sacrficed his education for his brother's, kept the family-run savings and loan afloat, protected the town from the avarice of the greedy banker Mr. Potter, and married his childhood sweetheart. As he prepares to jump from a bridge, his guardian angel intercedes, showing him what life would have become for the residents of Bedford Falls if he had never lived.



September 24, 2019

Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood (1959) on blu-ray from Olive Signature, from a new 4K remaster



In honor of its 60th anniversary, this Olive Signature edition of A Bucket of Blood celebrates the film's enduring legacy. Shot in five days on a shoestring budget of $50,000, A Bucket of Blood remains one of the most iconic collaborations between Roger Corman and Dick Miller, and has rightfully earned its "cult classic" status.

With A Bucket of Blood, the multi-talented Roger Corman singlehandedly created his own genre hyphenate: the black-comedy-beatnik-culture-horror film. Dick Miller (Gremlins, The Trip) stars as Walter, a busboy at the hep-cat hangout the Yellow Door Café who dreams of artistic greatness. Inspired by the scribes and artists who surround him, Walter is introduced to the world of sculpture quite literally by accident – thanks to thin walls and a sharp steak knife. From his very first piece – the aptly titled "Dead Cat" – Walter is hailed a genius by the art snob set, a wunderkind who, unbeknownst to his doting devotees, has raised murder to the level of high art. But when the tortured artist turns his creativity towards the human form, he's sure to make their blood run cold.




November 4, 2019

John Gilling's Pickup Alley (1957) on blu-ray from Arrow (UK)



Spurred on by the murder of his drug-addicted sister by ruthless crime boss Frank McNally (Trevor Howard, Brief Encounter), US agent Charles Sturgis (Victor Mature, Cry of the City) launches a transnational woman-hunt for McNally's shapely associate, Gina Broger (Anita Ekberg, Killer Nun, La dolce vita). His investigation takes him on a thrill-ride from New York to London, Lisbon, Rome, Naples and finally Athens... A globe-trotting adventure boasting a top-tier international cast, Pickup Alley affords the viewer shockingly frank portrayals of drug addiction; a glamourous travelogue of exotic locations, and intriguing depictions of sleazy villains.



October 15, 2019

Julian Rothman's The Bloody Brood (1959) on blu-ray from Kino, from a new remaster of the original 35mm elements



Two years before directing the 3-D cult favorite The Mask (1961), Julian Roffman made his feature directorial debut with this early canuxploitation film, The Bloody Brood (1959). When his brother turns up dead after eating a hamburger laced with ground glass, Cliff (Jack Betts) sets out to investigate the murder, venturing into the underground world of beatnik culture and its sinister underbelly of drugs and vice. Peter Falk (TV's Columbo) makes his feature debut as Nico, sinister mentor and drug-dealer to the tuned-in kids of the beat generation.



September 2019 TBD

William Wyler's The Letter (1940) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Six years after exploding to stardom in Of Human Bondage, Bette Davis equaled that excitement with another W. Somerset Maugham role as an adulteress using her sexual wiles to escape a murder conviction in The Letter. The film throbs with sultry tension thanks to Davis, an impeccable supporting cast, atmospheric cinematography and the artistry of three-time Academy Award® winner* William Wyler, Davis' director on Jezebel and The Little Foxes. Nominated for seven Oscars®, including Best Picture, Actress, Director and Supporting Actor, The Letter remains one of Hollywood's most special deliveries, a peerless example of melodrama as movie art.



September 2019 TBD

Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Over-the-hill boxer Stoker Thompson thinks he can still win a bout despite doubts from his wife and his manager. He goes into his next fight determined to beat his opponent, not realizing his manager has taken money from a tough gambler to have Stoker take a dive.



Quote from: wilder on June 06, 2019, 05:40:20 PMAugust 19/20, 2019

William Friedkin's Cruising (1980) on blu-ray from Arrow US & Arrow UK, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative supervised by William Friedkin



New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who is preying on the patrons of the city's underground bars. Captain Edelson tasks young rookie Steve Burns with infiltrating the S&M subculture to try and lure the killer out of the shadows. As he immerses himself deeper and deeper into the underworld, Steve risks losing his own identity in the process.


wilder

November 18, 2019

Joseph Losey's Secret Ceremony (1968) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Joseph Losey's lurid and often misunderstood drama stars the great Elizabeth Taylor (Suddenly, Last Summer) as an ageing London prostitute who befriends a young woman (Mia Farrow, See No Evil) that reminds her of her long-dead daughter. As the bizarre relationship between the two evolves, the appearance of Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear), as Farrow's abusive stepfather, ignites deep emotions and dark passions.





November 18, 2019

Paul Wegener and Carl Boese's Der Golem (1920) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema, from a 4K restoration of the original film negative



An iconic early horror masterpiece, Der Golem was Paul Wegener s third attempt at adapting the Golem character for the big screen. Starring and co-directing with Carl Boese, Wegener crafted one of silent cinema s most enduring masterpieces.

In the Jewish ghetto in 16th century Prague, Rabbi Low (Albert Streinruck, Asphalt) creates a forbidding clay Golem (played by director Paul Wegener) to protect his people from the tyrannical Emperor Luhois (Otto Gebuhr). Brought to life with a demon spirit and an amulet placed in the centre of the creature s chest, the Golem is a seemingly indestructible juggernaut, performing acts of great heroism. But when the Rabbi s assistant attempts to control the Golem for selfish gain, it becomes a terrifying force of destruction, rampaging through the ghetto leaving fire and death in its wake.

A landmark film in the horror canon, influencing most notably James Whale s 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein, Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam is also a pre-eminent example of German Expressionism, and an important contribution to the golden age of Weimar Cinema.






October 15, 2019

Roman Polanksi's The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, from a new remaster



A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.



October 29, 2019

Blake Edwards' Days of Wine and Roses (1962) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, from a 4K remaster of the original camera negative



A San Francisco public-relations hotshot is a "social" drinker...who never stops socializing. His vivacious wife starts drinking to keep him company. They live for good times. But eventually good times turn bad.



November 5, 2019

Hitchcock: British International Pictures Collection (1927-1931) on blu-ray from Kino





2020 TBD

Vittorio De Sica's Indiscretion of an American Housewife (1953) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes (Jennifer Jones) becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria (Montgomery Clift). As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?



2020 TBD

Preston Sturges' The Great McGinty (1940) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



In a dive south of the border, bartender Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) stops a young man from committing suicide after a moment of dishonesty, and relates how a moment of honesty brought him down in a flashback. As a young man, McGinty joins a crooked political boss and rises from extortionist to alderman. Urged by the boss to marry his secretary to give respectability to his run for mayor, McGinty agrees -- only to fall in love with his wife and decide to do an honest thing for once in his life.



December 10, 2019

Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978) on blu-ray from Kino.



Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto star in this powerful, critically acclaimed drama about three auto assembly line workers who hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.




Available Now

Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow (1955) on blu-ray from Elephant Films (France). DVDBeaver review here



When a toy manufacturer feels ignored and unappreciated by by his wife and children, he begins to rekindle a past love when a former employee comes back into his life.



Available Now

Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996) on blu-ray from Koch Media (Germany). DVDBeaver review here



A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.



November 12, 2019

Bertrand Blier's Buffet Froid (1979) on blu-ray from Kino



Buffet Froid has logic that is both twisted and stark: a husband befriends his wife's murderer, a high-ranking official plans his own assassination, a lost knife is found in the belly of a subway passenger. Together with the Chief of Police and a murderer who is afraid of the dark, Gerard Depardieu is drawn into an inescapable complicity of murder, treachery and paranoia which draws him closer to a fateful end.



November 19, 2019

Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) on 4K blu-ray from Synapse



An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy gradually realizes that something very sinister is going on at the school.



November 26, 2019

Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987) on blu-ray from Arrow, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative



In the not-too-distant future, a newly transfered Detroit police officer is remade into an indestructible cybernetic cop after being dismembered by a gang of thugs in an abandoned warehouse. Reborn as RoboCop he is programmed to serve and protect the citizens of Detroit and eliminate the rampant crime in the city streets so that a massive city-wide reconstruction project can get under way. But once he has completed his task, he sets his sights on the corruption inside Security Concepts - the corporation that created him.



December 10, 2019

The Anne Bancroft Collection o blu-ray from Shout Factory




Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

Pilot Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) encounters the beautiful Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe) while staying at a hotel in New York City. Jed pursues Nell, initially thinking she's a woman of means, but comes to learn that she is actually a babysitter when her child charge, Bunny Jones (Donna Corcoran), interrupts a conversation between the two. Soon Jed becomes worried about Nell's mental stability when it appears the woman is physically threatening Bunny.

The Miracle Worker (1962)

Blind and deaf after suffering a terrible fever as a baby, young Helen Keller (Patty Duke) has spent years unable to communicate, leaving her frustrated and occasionally violent. As a last chance before she is institutionalized, her parents (Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine) contact a school for the blind, which sends half-blind Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) to teach Helen. Helen is initially resistant, but Annie gradually forms a bond with her and shows Helen ways of reaching others.

The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

Harold Pinter pens this 'portrait of a bad marriage' drama based on the novel by Penelope Mortimer. Despite her unwillingness to stop having children, Jo Armitage (Anne Bancroft), a thrice-married mother of several children by different fathers, is not exactly cut out for motherhood. Inflicting her existing brood on her third husband, screenwriter Jake (Peter Finch), does little to cement their marriage, and Jake's serial infidelities eventually lead a depressed and isolated Jo to a complete breakdown.

The Graduate (1967)

Shy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father's business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katherine Ross). But there's one problem: She's Mrs. Robinson's daughter!

Fatso (1980)

This boisterous, heartwarming comedy about a man caught between his health, his self-esteem and his appetite, highlights DeLuise's genius for blending pathos and comedy. Bancroft's deft direction brings to uproarious life the joys and struggles of our relationship with food.

All his life, Dominic DiNapoli (DeLuise) has found comfort in food. But when his sister Antoinette (Bancroft) implores him to stop eating himself into an early grave, Dominic begins bouncing from crash diets to the support group "Chubby Checkers" to all manner of binges in between. In the end, Dominic discovers that what he needs most is a steady diet of love — from his family, from a new and lovely neighborhood acquaintance ... and most importantly, from himself.


To Be or Not to Be (1983)

Frederick Bronski (Mel Brooks) and his adulterous wife, Anna (Anne Bancroft), are a pair of hammy actors running a low-rent theater in Warsaw, Poland. When the Nazis invade, the Bronskis find their theater becoming a makeshift refuge for local Jews and a gateway to the Polish underground. Using their limited acting skills, the members of the theater troupe attempt to deceive the Nazis and lead an escape. Meanwhile, a Polish pilot (Tim Matheson) thinks he has found a spy in England.

Agnes of God (1985)

Dr. Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda) is a court-appointed psychiatrist sent to evaluate Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), a young nun whose infant has been found strangled. With Agnes claiming a virgin conception and having no memory of giving birth, Livingston must distinguish between the lies and the nun's perception-altering faith. Complicating her investigation, Livingston continually clashes with the overbearing Mother Miriam Ruth (Anne Bancroft), who insists that Livingston leave Agnes alone.

84 Charing Cross Road (1987)

New York City bibliophile Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft) writes to the London bookshop Marks & Co in search of some titles she has not been able to turn up locally. Store manager Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins) responds politely to her chatty letter, and over the course of two decades, a deep, long-distance friendship evolves. Based on Hanff's epistolary memoir and its later two-person stage adaptation, the film version incorporates new characters, including Doel's wife, Nora (Judi Dench).



wilder

Quote from: wilder on July 10, 2019, 11:59:41 PMSeptember 24, 2019

Ida Lupino: Filmmaker Collection on blu-ray from Kino



jenkins

wilder i just learned about Grapevine and i don't know what to do about it yet, haven't sampled them thus far. basically they release nonremastered silents on bluray


wilder

^ Cool to hear about more of these independent preservation efforts. They seem to be going after the obscure of the obscure.




February 11, 2020

Fred Wolf's The Point (1971) on blu-ray from MVD Visual



In late 1970, Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson released his groundbreaking album, "The Point!", a thematically brilliant, densely orchestrated concept album packed with more hooks than a meat locker. According to Nilsson himself, "I looked at the trees and realized all the leaves came to points and even the branches came to points. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and even if it doesn't, there's a point to it.'" Produced in 1970, the animated film version of The Point! first aired February 2, 1971, as an ABC Movie of the Week. The film was directed by Academy Award© winner Fred Wolf and produced by Murakami-Wolf Films in association with Nilsson House Music. Complete with story and songs written by Nilsson and narration by Ringo Starr, The Point! is a timeless enchanting fable for the whole family to enjoy!

THE POINT: Years ago there was a place called The Land of the Point, because everything in The Land of the Point had one - the barns, the houses, the cars, everything - even the people. Everyone, that is, except Oblio (Mike Lookinland, "The Brady Bunch"), who was born round-headed. Since he had no point, Oblio - along with his trusty dog, Arrow - was banished to the Pointless Forest. Join them to see what wonders await these two intrepid travelers as they make their way on their amazing, song-filled journey of discovery!






January 28, 2020

Richard Quine's Bell, Book and Candle (1958) on blu-ray from Sony



Meet Gillan Holroyd (Kim Novak), Greenwich Village's most seductive sorceress. Powerful, glamorous, and a wee bit bored, Gillian knows that witches can't fall in love. But they can have fun... especially if their lover belongs to another woman! So when Gillian discovers handsome new neighbor Shep Henderson (James Stewart) is the fiance of an old college nemesis (Janice Rule), she promptly puts the befuddled publisher under her spell. But while her sex hex may have heated up Shep's heart, it has also unthawed her own, leading to a romantic complication that not even Pyewacket, Gillian's mind-reading cat, could have foreseen.

Presented in eye popping Technicolor transfer that beautifully captures James Wong Howe's stunning cinematography.






2020 TBD

Joseph Strick's The Balcony (1963) on blu-ray Kino, from a 4K restoration



In an unnamed city, Madame Irma (Shelley Winters) runs a brothel where people explore role-playing and other sexual fantasies. When her police chief lover (Peter Falk) arrives, she learns that a violent revolution is brewing outside and many of the country's leaders have been killed in the uprising. Soon, the brothel's customers and employees are forced to take to the city streets in costume and impersonate the slain leaders in order to help restore sanity.





January 21, 2020

Luis Bunuel's The Brute (1953) on blu-ray from VCI



A tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.



November 5, 2019

Daniel Petrie's Resurrection (1980) on blu-ray from Universal



Ellen Burstyn experiences the afterlife for a brief time after a car accident that kills her husband. As she begins her long process of physical healing, she discovers that she has the ability to heal physical infirmities. While most people simply accept her gift, her lover (Sam Shepard) becomes mentally unbalanced and dangerous because she does not place the healings within a religious context.



January 21 2020

Kitten with a Whip (1964) on pressed MOD blu-ray from Universal



Ann-Margret stars as Jody Drew, a sweet, sexy psycho-babe on the run from the law. She's escaped from a detention center, stabbed a guard and burned the place to the ground. David Patton (John Forsythe) doesn't know all this. He's just a Senatorial candidate trying to do all the right things. But, Jody makes sure that all the wrong things happen. She twists poor David's life into a knot, first threatening him with a rape charge then, with a little help from her friends, kidnapping him for a Mexican joy ride. Kitten with a Whip is so hot it sizzles... so jazzy it swings. It's the cult classic of the century that'll suck you in and knock you out!



March 10, 2020

The Bolshevik Trilogy - Three Films by Vsevolod Pudovkin (1926-1928) on blu-ray from Flicker Alley



Experience a trilogy of Russian master filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin's seminal works: Mother (1926), The End of St. Petersburg (1927) and, in a stunning new 2K remaster furnished by Lobster Films, Storm Over Asia (1928).


After serving alongside his fellow Russians in the first World War, Vsevolod Pudovkin was radically altered by a life-changing screening of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, inspiring the young man to shift away from his studies in chemistry in order to pursue the cinematic arts.


Pudovkin embarked on his narrative feature debut in 1926 with Mother, regarded by many as a masterpiece of the Russian silent era, and a showcase for Pudovkin's emotive approach to editing. Pudovkin followed Mother's tale of proletariat uprising with the Bolshevik-themed The End of St. Petersburg and the Mongolia-set Storm Over Asia in 1927 and 1928 respectively, dazzling the world with a trio of masterful films centered around this tumultuous and revolutionary period in Russian history.





January 27, 2020

Curtis Harrington's Night Tide (1961) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Presented by Nicolas Winding Refn in a new 4K restoration, Curtis Harrington's acclaimed fantasy-thriller, featuring Dennis Hopper (The Last Movie) in his first starring role, is an offbeat classic of American cinema. Hopper plays a sailor on shore leave, when he meets a young woman (Linda Lawson) who may not be as she seems...

Exclusive to this two-disc set is a bonus Blu-ray devoted to Harrington's short films, encompassing his seven decades as a filmmaker and featuring experimental works, documentaries, and the two adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher that bookended his career.



February 24, 2020

Sidney Gilliat's Endless Night (1972) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK), from a 4K restoration



The final feature by Sidney Gilliat, Endless Night capped a career that encompassed screenplays for Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed, the anarchic St. Trinian'scomedies, and his own directorial gems such as mystery-thriller Green for Danger.

Adapting Agatha Christie's celebrated novel of the same name, the film reunites the co-stars of cult classic Twisted Nerve, Hywel Bennett (The Virgin Soldiers) and Hayley Mills (Take a Girl Like You), and boasts an impressive supporting cast including Britt Ekland (The Wicker Man), Per Oscarsson (A Dandy in Aspic) and George Sanders (All About Eve).




February 17, 2020

Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



In contemporary Japan and Hong Kong, a successful model revives memories of her calligrapher father by having her lovers give her pleasure by writing on her body. An affair with an Englishman leads her to start writing herself, using others as her paper.



February 17, 2020

Dennis Potter's Secret Friends (1991) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Unfairly neglected since its original low-key cinema run, Secret Friends is the only feature to be written and directed by Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven, The Singing Detective).

Made shortly after his hugely controversial mini-series Blackeyes, the film centres on a writer, played by Alan Bates (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), who descends into a kind of madness during a train journey as memories, fantasies and psychotic visions collide.




December 3, 2019

Bruno Nuytenn's Camille Claudel (1988) on blu-ray from Kino



The story of the troubled life of French sculptor Camille Claudel and her long relationship with legendary sculptor Auguste Rodin. The growth of this relationship coincides with the rise of Claudel's career, helping her overcome prejudices against female artists. However, their romance soon sours due to the increasing pressures of Rodin's fame and his love for another woman.



January 14, 2020

Jack CLayton's Room at the Top (1959) on blu-ray from Kino



Classic 'kitchen sink drama' from the British New Wave of the 1960s. Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) is an ambitious young man who is tired of slaving away at his job and sets his sights on his boss's daughter, Susan, thinking she will provide a short-cut to the top. Hindered by his working class background, and frustrated by the opposition of Susan's parents, Joe seeks solace in the arms of a lonely older woman named Alice (Simone Signoret). But when he then inadvertently causes Alice's death in a road accident, Joe's whole world begins to unravel.



January 7, 2020

Robert Sidomak's Cobra Woman (1944) on blu-ray from Kino



Upon discovering his fiancée Tollea has been kidnapped, Ramu and his friend Kado set out for a Pacific isle where all strangers are to be killed on arrival and the inhabitants, who are frequently sacrificed to an angry volcano god, worship the cobra. The island is ruled over by Tollea's evil twin Naja, the Cobra Woman, who, besides having designs on her new prisoner Ramu, also desires to eliminate any competition from her benevolent sister.



October 29, 2019

Jean Renoir's Le Marsellaise (1938) on blu-ray from Kino



An historical epic set during the French revolution, follows a battalion of citizen soldiers as they gather together to stop aristocratic rule and take down Louis XVI and his foreign-born queen, Marie Antoinette.



2020 TBD

Francesco Rosi's Lucky Luciano (1973) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



A federal narcotics agent (Charles Siragusa) spends years trying to bring deported mob boss Luciano (Gian Maria Volonte) to justice.



November 26, 2019

Preston Sturges' Christmas in July (1940) on blu-ray from Kino



A workplace practical joke goes awry when an office clerk (Dick Powell), believing he has won a $25,000 prize, takes his girlfriend (Ellen Drew) on an extravagant Christmas shopping spree...in the middle of July! When the truth comes out, he's not prepared for the consequences.



February 25, 2020

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Quai Des Orfevres (1947) on blu-ray from Kino



When the sleazy movie financier who has been pursuing nightclub performer Jenny Lamour turns up dead, her jealous husband is the prime suspect in Inspector Antoine's investigation for the Quai des Orfèvres, France's Scotland Yard.



December 3, 2019

George Roy Hill's Slaughterhouse Five (1972) on blu-ray from Arrow, from a 4K restoration



Past, present and future collide in darkly satirical fashion in Slaughterhouse-Five! Based on Kurt Vonnegut's classic 1969 novel, this tale of time travel and alien abduction emerged as part of a wave of more cerebral science-fiction films in the late 60s to early 70s, elevating the genre beyond the B-movie fare of previous decades.

Upstate New York, 1968. Mild-mannered Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks, The Sugarland Express) finds himself "unstuck in time". Traveling back and forth across the entire span of his existence, he experiences key events of his life in a random order, including his formative years, the firebombing of Dresden and finally, at some undefined point in the future, his surreal adventures on a distant planet.




December 2, 2019

Jacques Demy's Model Shop (1969) on blu-ray from Arrow UK



French auteur Jacques Demy's enchanting and eccentric romantic drama, in which an aimless American architect (Lockwood) pursues Demy's sad-eyed French heroine Lola (Anouk Aimee) across the fractured topography of late-sixties Los Angeles.



December 9, 2019

Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control (2009) on blu-ray from Arrow UK



Set in contemporary Spain, the story of a mysterious loner--a stranger--whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a criminal job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged.



February 24/25, 2020

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Manon (1949) on blu-ray from Arrow US & Arrow UK



This masterful adaptation of Prévost's 1731 novel Manon Lescaut marks quite a departure for Henri-Georges Clouzot, the French director lauded for his acclaimed thrillers The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques.

A classical tragic romance transposed to a World War II setting, Clouzot's film follows the travails of Manon (Cécile Aubry), a village girl accused of collaborating with the Nazis who is rescued from imminent execution by a former French Resistance fighter (Michel Auclair). The couple move to Paris, but their relationship turns stormy as they struggle to survive, resorting to profiteering, prostitution and even murder. Eventually escaping to Palestine, the pair attempt a treacherous desert crossing in search of the happiness which seems to forever elude them. Clouzot's astute portrayal of doomed young lovers caught in the disarray of post-war France wowed the jury of the 1949 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion award.




February 10, 2020

Michael Carné's Hotel du Nord (1938) on blu-ray from Arrow UK



Directed by Marcel Carné, the master of poetic realism, Hôtel du Nord is a haunting, fatalistic melodrama which sits alongside Le Quai des brumes and Le Jour se lève as one of the auteur's greatest pre-war works.

Adapted from an acclaimed novel by Eugène Dabit, the son the proprietors of the real Hôtel du Nord (situated on the banks of the Canal St. Martin in Paris), Carné's film tells of Renée (Annabella) and Pierre (Jean-Pierre Aumont, Day for Night), doomed lovers who plan to end their lives at the humble guesthouse. When Pierre shoots Renée but can't pull the trigger on himself, he flees with help of a seedy criminal, Edmond (Louis Jouvet, Quai des Orfèvres) and his mistress Raymonde (Arletty, Les Enfants du paradis). Renée makes a surprise recovery and returns to the hotel to work as a maid, but when Edmond falls in love with her and Pierre returns from prison, the stage is set for tragedy.




March 3, 2020

Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996) on blu-ray from Arrow US & Arrow UK



Robert Altman's jazz-scored film explores themes of love, crime, race, and politics in 1930's Kansas City.



March 30, 2020

The Alejandro Jodorowsky Collection on blu-ray from Arrow, from 4K restorations



Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of world cinema s most fabled iconoclasts. Often venerated as the ultimate cult film director, the Chilean artist shot to prominence as a 1970s counter-cultural icon thanks to the masterful movies presented on this collection: Fando y Lis, El Topo and The Holy Mountain. These extraordinary films, presented here alongside his stunning new film Psychomagic, bedazzled audiences with their unique aesthetic, contrasting violence and beauty; the sublime and the sacrilegious; the mystical and the macabre...

Jodorowsky s first feature, Fando y Lis, tells of young Fando and his paraplegic sweetheart Lis s journey through a series of surreal scenarios to find the enchanted city of Tar. An acid-western packed with vivid imagery, El Topo stars Jodorowsky as a master-gunfighter who duels with four sharp-shooting adversaries on his journey across a desert dreamscape. In The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky plays The Alchemist, a guru who guides a troupe of pilgrims on a quest to ascend the Holy Mountain in search of spiritual enlightenment. Jodorowsky s new cinematic experience, Psychomagic, A Healing Art, explores the directors radical therapeutic work.




January 28, 2020

Roy William Neill's Black Angel (1946) on blu-ray from Arrow, from a new restoration of the original elements



When the beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is slain in her chic apartment, the men in her life become suspects. There is Martin Blair (Dan Duryea, Scarlet Street), her alcoholic musician ex-husband, nursing a broken heart; there is the shady nightclub owner Marko (Peter Lorre, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon) who has been sneaking around her place, and there is Kirk Bennett (John Phillips), the adulterer who found his mistress s dead body and fled the scene. When Bennett is convicted and sentenced to death, his long-suffering wife Catherine (June Vincent) joins forces with the heartbroken pianist Martin Blair to uncover the truth...



March 24, 2020

Philip Ridley's The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995) on blu-ray from Arrow, from a 2K restoration of the original camera negative



Described by critic Mark Kermode as an "extraordinary filmmaker" and "one of the UK's most imaginative talents", visionary British director Philip Ridley followed his sensational debut The Reflecting Skin with another surreal incursion into the dark heart of the 'American dream' in The Passion of Darkly Noon.

Darkly Noon (Brendan Fraser) is the sole survivor of a military-style attack on an isolated religious community. Stumbling through a forest in a daze, he is rescued by the free-spirited and enigmatic Callie (Ashley Judd). Darkly finds himself feeling strange new desires for Callie as she nurses him back to health... only to watch her jump into the arms of her returning mute lover Clay (Viggo Mortensen). Lost in the woods with only his fundamentalist upbringing to make sense of his unrequited passions, Darkly soon descends into an explosive and lethal rage.






December 10, 2019

Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) on blu-ray from Lionsgate



In this lavish, 1930s-era drama, Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide. Now, Francis Ford Coppola's extraordinary film is brought to vivid new life in The Cotton Club Encore.

Featuring never-before-seen scenes and musical sequences that deepen and enrich the storylines, this remastered and beautifully restored version represents Coppola's fully realized vision of The Cotton Club.




November 19, 2019

Vincente Minelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative



An unscrupulous movie producer uses an actress, a director, and a writer to achieve success.



December 17, 2019

Robert Florey's Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) on blu-ray from Scream Factory



Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe, Murders In The Rue Morgue is a haunting atmospheric thriller heavily influenced by the German Expressionist classic, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, and features Bela Lugosi in one of his most sinister roles!

In 19th Century Paris, the maniacal Dr. Mirakle abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship. He constantly meets failure as the abducted women die. Medical student Pierre Dupin discovers what Mirakle is doing too late to prevent the abduction of his girlfriend Camille. Now he desperately tries to enlist the help of the police to get her back..




November 19, 2019

Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932) on blu-ray from Universal



One of the most influential movies of all time, the original Scarface is an exciting story of organized crime's brutal control over Chicago during the Prohibition era. Academy Award® winner Paul Muni gives an electrifying performance as Tony Camonte, an ambitious criminal with a ruthless drive to be the city's top crime boss. Produced by the legendary Howard Hughes and directed by Howard Hawks, this compelling tale of ambition, betrayal and revenge is a groundbreaking masterpiece that influenced all gangster films to follow. Filmed during the "pre-code" era before censorship shaped the way movies were made, "this powerful gangster film is the most potent of the 1930s" (Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide).



December 17, 2019

Ben Stiller's The Cable Guy (1996) on blu-ray from Sony



A lonely and disturbed cable guy raised on television just wants a new friend, but his target, a designer, rejects him, with bad consequences.



December 17, 2019

James Ivory's The Remains of the Day (1993) on blu-ray from Sony



In post-World War I England, head butler Stevens has devoted his life entirely to service. With careful and unfailing devotion, he adheres to a system of old-fashioned propriety. His worldview is challenged and complicated by a vivacious housekeeper who falls in love with him and for whom he cares deeply, though he is unable to directly express it. Stevens must also quietly contend with the fact his master, Lord Darlington, is an influential, yet naïve gentleman under the spell of Nazi sympathizers.



March 24, 2020

Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



When two brothers organize the robbery of their parents' jewelry store the job goes horribly wrong, triggering a series of events that they both could not have foreseen.



January 27, 2020

Fritz Lang's Cloak and Dagger (1946) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



From legendary director Fritz Lang comes an engrossing spy thriller years ahead of its time. Gary Cooper is a US scientist, parachuted into war-torn Nazi Germany to obtain military secrets. But the deeper he probes, the deadlier his mission becomes...especially when his involvement with mysterious Lilli Palmer catapults him into an intense maelstrom of danger, betrayal and murder.


March 30, 2020

Buster Keaton: Three Films 1924-1926 on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK), from 4K restorations



Between 1920 and 1929, Buster Keaton created a peerless run of feature films that established him as "arguably the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". Collected here are three further films from that era; The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925) and Battling Butler (1926). The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present all three films from stunning 4K restorations in their UK debuts on Blu-ray.



March 16, 2020

Sidney Lumet's Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



Author Eugene O'Neill gives an autobiographical account of his explosive homelife, fused by a drug-addicted mother, a father who wallows in drink after realizing he is no longer a famous actor and an older brother who is emotionally unstable and a misfit. The family is reflected by the youngest son, who is a sensitive and aspiring writer.



March 16, 2020

John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



A quartet of international crooks -- Peterson, O'Hara, Ross and Ravello -- is stranded in Italy while their steamer is being repaired. With them are a British couple, the Dannreuthers. The four are headed for Africa, presumably to sell vacuum cleaners but actually to buy land supposedly loaded with uranium. They are joined by others who apparently have similar designs



November 11, 2019

John Huston's Moby Dick (1956) on blu-ray from Studio Canal UK



Ahab longs to hunt down and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale who tore off Ahab's leg years ago. Unfortunately, his maniacal fixation spreads to the crew and ultimately leads to disaster.



March 16, 2020

Robert Bresson's Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) on blu-ray from Artificial Eye (UK)



A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.



January 13, 2020

Bryan Forbes' Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) on blu-ray from Network (UK)



Fraught with the kind of tension that makes breathing difficult, this frighteningly eerie story of a middle-aged couple unable to cope with the loss of their own child has won numerous awards. Myra is a mentally unstable medium that believes if she kidnaps a child of wealthy parents, she can prove her psychic abilities by 'finding' the child. Award-winning performances from Kim Stanley as the disturbed Myra and Richard Attenborough as Billy the meek, apologetic husband combine with tension packed location cinematography to make this thriller an enduring portrait of madness.

jenkins

Quote from: wilder on May 07, 2019, 06:32:33 PM
August 27, 2019

Philippe Mora's documentary Brother Can You Spare a Dime? (1975) on blu-ray from VCI



Brother Can You Spare a Dime? is the chronicle of an unforgettable piece of American history - twelve crazy, painful seesaw years, from the Wall Street crash to Pearl Harbor.

By juxtaposing contemporary news and documentary footage with extracts from Hollywood classics such as Golddiggers, Lady Killer and Wild Boys of the Road, director Philippe Mora offers us an immediate, intricate and evocative scrapbook of the 1930's. Somehow there are uncanny echoes of some of our current preoccupations: strikers at Ford's, mass unemployment, breadlines, vigilante gangs and failing fortunes...

Two heroes emerge: James Cagney, the rough diamond, hood-with-a-heart-of-gold star of the Movies, the little man who won't be beaten, and Franklin D. Roosevelt himself: tough yet benign, stepping into the breach with confidence and determination, yet imperceptibly crumpling under the weight of responsibility as he leads America through her most difficult years until the final humiliation of Pearl Harbor.

Songs and images stick in the mind: fortunes dwindle, the small man's savings disappear, even the banks go bust; men lose their jobs and join the breadlines to the haunting title song of Brother, can you spare a dime?; hobos and okies take to the road while Bessie Smith sings Nobody loves you when you're down and out; a ragged child huddles against the bleak landscape as Woody Guthrie sings the Dust Bowl Blues; an abandoned cat shivers on the ledge of a flooded home... Only Hollywood offers an escape from reality for these are the Golden Years of Bogart, Cooper and Dietrich. We glimpse Gable and Vivien Leigh at the screen test of Gone with the Wind; George Raft dances a languorous tango with Carole Lombard; Shirley Temple dimples and Chaplin jokes while Busby Berkeley fills the screen with his lavish extravaganzas...and the marathon dancers stumble on... As Ginger Rogers says: It's the depression, dearie...





figured you'd covered this one. just heard about it again another way and i'm like dying to see it now. same director as:



QuoteFrom Academy Award Winning Producer David Puttnam (Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, The Killing Fields) comes the most controversial documentary (that was BANNED at the Cannes Film Festival) about Hitler ever made. Utilizing intimate color home movie footage shot by Eva Braun, it presents the private life of a dictator, going on picnics and joking with friends, displaying an affable face to the man labeled as the Devil incarnate by history. The film interweaves rare propaganda films, which presented Hitler as he wanted to be seen, consoling war widows and frolicking with young children. Director Philippe Mora combines these materials together to form an unintentional autobiography of Hitler's rise and fall, from the formation of the Nazi state through the end of WWII. Mora lets the images speak for themselves, leading to misinterpretations and its bans in Germany and Israel. But it is one of the most fearsome anti-Nazi films ever made. As the opening credits state, ''If Hitler is dehumanized and shown only as a devil, any future Hitler may not be recognized, simply because he is a human being.''

jenkins

Quote from: wilder on February 08, 2019, 08:30:51 PM

RKO Classic Romances Collection on blu-ray from Kino



-Millie (1931) Dir: John Francis Dillon | Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman & Joan Blondell
-Kept Husbands (1931) Dir: Lloyd Bacon | Clara Kimball Young, Joel McCrea & Ned Sparks
-The Lady Refuses (1931) Dir: George Archainbaud | Betty Compson & John Darrow
-The Woman Between (1931) Dir: Victor Schertziner | Lili Damita & Lester Vail
-Sin Takes a Holiday (1930) Dir: Paul L. Stein | Constance Bennett, Basil Rathbone & Zasu Pitts


currently wanting this while it's part of a 3for2 special at amazon

update: i bought it with Blue Velvet and Panique

wilder

April 20, 2020

Jack Garfein's The Strange One (1957) aka End as a Man on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Ben Gazzara stars as Cadet Sgt. Jocko DeParis, a sadomasochistic bully in a Southern military academy who uses his magnetism and the school's own military code to manipulate his fellow cadets and officers. When he engineers the expulsion of a hated rival, his reign of terror begins to unravel.

Adapted from Calder Willingham's novel, End as a Man, this uncompromising exposé of the practice of hazing in a military college features a number of actors from New York's famed Actors Studio – including Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Clifton James, and George Peppard – each at the start of their lengthy careers in film.



May 18, 2020

Bill Norton's Cisko Pike (1972) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Just released from prison for drug-dealing, Cisco Pike dreams of making a comeback. A once-famous rock singer, he finds his music contacts are more interested in his dope connections than his new songs.



May 18, 2020

Melvin Van Peeble's The Watermelon Man (1970) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



A bigoted, white salesman (played by stand-up comedian Godfrey Cambridge) wakes up one morning to find he has become black. Although it has been somewhat overshadowed by Melvin Van Peebles' next film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Watermelon Man has never felt more relevant than it does today.



May 18, 2020

Joseph L. Anderson's Spring Night Summer Night (1967) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK), from a new 4K restoration



Jessica, the eldest daughter of a coal miner-turned-farmer, has a fling with her half-brother Carl, which complicates things more when she becomes pregnant.

With its non-professional cast, this sensitive drama, which explores the intimate relationship between a coal-miner's daughter and her half-brother, is American independent cinema's closest relation to Italian Neorealism. Presented by Nicolas Winding Refn in a beautiful new restoration, Joseph L Anderson's film played international festivals in 2019 to great acclaim.




April 14, 2020

Alain Corneau's Serie Noire (1979) on blu-ray from Film Movement, from a new 4K restoration



Franck, a door-to-door salesman married to Jeanne, is looking for a customer who owes money when he meets Mona, a seventeen-year-old who lives with her rich and hateful aunt. Franck's wife leaves and his boss has him arrested for embezzlement. But Mona pays back the money and suggests he kill her aunt to get hold of her fortune.... An adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel A Hell of a Woman.





June 30, 2020

John Harrison's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) on blu-ray from Scream Factory



Three chilling tales with a connecting story. In "Lot 249", a college student is menaced by a mummy. "Cat From Hell" finds the millionaire owner of the titular feline hiring a hitman to kill the pet. Finally, in "Lover's Vow" an artist suffers severe retribution after taking a vow of silence after witnessing the murder of a friend.





2020 TBD

Bruno Barreto's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976) on blu-ray from Film Movement



Dona Flor (Sonia Braga) marries Vadinho (José Wilker), who is very handsome and passionate, but doesn't work or offer much else. She is able to make money for the family by cooking for her neighbors, but she gambles away most of the money. One day, Vadinho suddenly dies. Dona misses marriage, so she marries Dr. Teodoro Madureira (Mauro Mendonça). He is the opposite of Vadinho -- he has a great career, but he lacks passion. While Dona Flor is married to Teodoro, her late husband's ghost appears.





March 24, 2020

Downtown 81 (2000) on blu-ray from Metrograph Pictures and Kino Lorber



In 1981, writer and Warhol associate Glenn O'Brien, Swiss photographer Edo Bertoglio, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a graffiti innovator and noise music artist who'd just begun to exhibit his paintings, hit the streets of lower Manhattan to make a movie about the bombed out bohemia that they knew, with a script by O'Brien, Bertoglio directing, and Basquiat, a naturally compelling presence, starring. Left incomplete due to money problems and assembled for release in 2000, Downtown 81, which follows Basquiat trying to move a painting while hustling for a place to sleep, became a window on a lost world of life on the margins and crazy creative ferment.

Starring Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring Fab 5 Freddy, Deborah Harry. With musical performances by DNA, James White and the Blacks, Kid Creole and the Coconuts.






March 24, 2020

William Wyler's Dodsworth (1936) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



A retired auto manufacturer consents to a European vacation to please his vain wife, who is in denial about her age and uses the trip as a chance to flirt with other men.



April 28, 2020

James Ivory's The Europeans (1979) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group, from a new 4K restoration



A pivotal film for Merchant Ivory, who demonstrate great intelligence and wit with their faithful adaptation of Henry James' story of an encounter between a family or pre-Civil War New Englanders and their European cousins, whose sophisticated ways dazzle and attract some family members and scandalize others.

The fortune-hunting Baroness Eugenia Muenster (Lee Remick) arrives with her artistic and dashing brother Felix (Tim Woodward) for a transatlantic visit with their cousins, the Wentworths. Less calculating than his sister, the bohemian, happy-go-lucky Felix falls for Gertrude Wentworth (Lisa Eichhorn), who is already being courted (and bored) by the earnest Unitarian Minister suitor Mr. Brand (Norman Snow). Eugenia meanwhile sets her sights on the reserved and attractive Robert Acton (Robin Ellis), who is torn between his captivation with the Baroness and his distrust of her European worldliness. Delightful, elegant and superbly acted, this film inaugurated Merchant Ivory's long winning streak of period literary adaptations.






2020 TBD

John Landis' Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) on blu-ray from Kino



An episodic spoof of late-night television, set around a showing of the fictional sci-fi B-movie "Amazon Women on the Moon.





April 21, 2020

G.W. Pabst's The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927) on blu-ray from Kino



An epic of the Weimar cinema, The Love of Jeanne Ney follows a young French woman's struggle for happiness amid the political turbulence and corruption of post-World War I Europe. A tour-de-force for director G.W. Pabst (Diary of a Lost Girl, Pandora's Box), is a stunning cinematic experiment that never fails to surprise the viewer as it races towards its exhilarating conclusion.



April 28, 2020

F.W. Murnau's Tartuffe (1925) on blu-ray from Kino



The most gifted visual storyteller of the German silent era, F. W. Murnau crafted works of great subtlety and emotional complexity through his absolute command of the cinematic medium. Known for such dazzling films as Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Faust (1926), and Sunrise (1927), Murnau was also drawn to more intimate dramas exploring the dark corners of the human mind. In Tartuffe (Herr Tartüff), he revisits Moliére's fable of religious hypocrisy, in which a faithful wife (Lil Dagover) tries to convince her husband (Werner Krauss) that their morally superior guest, Tartuffe (Emil Jannings), is in fact a lecherous hypocrite with a taste for the grape. To endow the story with contemporary relevance, Murnau frames Moliére's tale with a modern-day plot concerning a housekeeper's stealthy efforts to poison her elderly master and take control of his estate.



April 14, 2020

Paul Wegener & Carl Boese's The Golem (1920) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration of the German release version



In 16th-century Prague, a Jewish rabbi creates a giant creature from clay, called the Golem, and using sorcery, brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution...

Widely recognized as the source of the Frankenstein myth, the ancient Hebrew legend of the Golem provided actor/director Paul Wegener with the substance for one of the most adventurous films of the German silent cinema. One of the greatest achievements of the legendary UFA Studios, it remains an undeniable landmark in the evolution of the horror film.




May 12, 2020

The Barbara Stanwyck Collection on blu-ray from Kino



Internes Can't Take Money (1937)
Dr. Kildare (Joel McCrea) saves a gangster's (Lloyd Nolan) life and helps an ex-convict (Barbara Stanwyck) find her child. Directed by Alfred Santel

The Great Man's Lady (1942)
As Hoyt City prepares to erect a statue to its founding father, Hannah, a 109-year-old widow, recounts her touching rags-to-riches life story to a young biographer. Directed by William A. Wellman.

The Bride Wore Boots (1946)
A steeplechase horse called Albert loves a Southern breeder's (Barbara Stanwyck) husband (Robert Cummings), a writer who hates horses. Directed by Irving Pichel.



May 26, 2020

Joan Tewkesbury's Old Boyfriends (1979) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



A suicidal psychologist (Talia Shire) travels the country seeking boyfriends (Richard Jordan, Keith Carradine) from her past.



April 7, 2020

Victor Halperin's Supernatural (1933) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 2K master



After her brother's death, Roma Courtney (Carole Lombard) becomes the heiress to his fortune. When fake psychic Paul Bavian (Alan Dinehart) claims to have a message from Roma's dead brother, he coaxes Roma into participating in a séance. Although Roma's fiancé, Grant (Randolph Scott), first believes the séance is nothing more than a scam, he eventually realizes that the vengeful spirit of an executed murderer (Vivienne Osborne) has possessed Roma's body.



April 7, 2020

Ernst Lubitsch's Angel (1937) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K remaster



A British diplomat's (Herbert Marshall) wife (Marlene Dietrich) goes to Paris and falls for an American (Melvyn Douglas) who knows her husband.



2020 TBD

James Whales' The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) on blu-ray from Kino



When a famous doctor kills his adulterous wife, he is defended by his best friend, an attorney who suspects that his own wife is having an affair.



2020 TBD

Jack Webb's Dragnet (1954) on blu-ray from Kino



Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) are Los Angeles Police Department detectives, and they need every bit of skill they have to solve their latest case: the shooting death of low-end bookie Miller Starkie. While initial evidence points to gangster Max Troy (Stacy Harris) and his trigger-man, Chester Davitt, Friday and Smith have trouble getting an indictment. Only through their own tenaciousness can they make sure justice is served.



April 28, 2020

John Schlesinger's Billy Liar (1963) on blu-ray from Kino



A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.



May 5, 2020

John Boulting's Brighton Rock (1947) on blu-ray from Kino



Roy Boulton directs this classic adaptation of the Graham Greene novel detailing the activities of a group of thugs in 1930s Brighton. Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough) is the head of a gang of small time crooks who make their money from a protection racket centred around Brighton race course. Pinkie is known for his short fuse and brutality, so his murder of a rival, Fred (Alan Wheatley), is very much in character. Pinkie believes, nonetheless, that he has got away with the crime until the promptings of a suspicious local woman, Ida (Hermione Baddeley), threaten to have the case reopened. Since only one person can identify him as the murderer, the waitress, Rose Brown (Carol Marsh), Pinkie comes up with an ingenious solution - marry Rose to stop her testifying against him. But will things go to plan?



April 28, 2020

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) on blu-ry from Shout Factory



Times are tough at Premiere Properties. Shelley "the machine" Levene and Dave Moss are veteran salesmen, but only Ricky Roma is on a hot streak. The new Glengarry sales leads could turn everything around, but the front office is holding them back until these "losers" prove themselves. Then someone decides to take matters into his own hands, stealing the Glengarry leads and leaving everyone wondering who did it. Based on David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.



May 26, 2020

Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) on 4K Blu-ray from Shout Factory



One of AFI's Top 100 Films of All Time, The Deer Hunter follows a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers from their blue-collar lives, hunting in the woods of the Alleghenies, to the hell of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Academy Award® winners** Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken star in this unforgettable saga of friendship and courage. Experience the brutality of war and the depths of emotional strain on the human spirit in this extraordinarily powerful film classic.



April 6, 2020

David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) on 4K blu-ray from StudioCanal UK, from a new 4K restoration approved by David Lynch



A stunning new 4K restoration of THE ELEPHANT MAN, with both picture and sound overseen by revered director David Lynch, this release is the perfect celebration of the films 40th anniversary. Starring Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN is an extraordinary and intensely moving true story of bravery and humanity. John Merrick (John Hurt) is The Elephant Man, forced into circus sideshows and spurned by society because of the disfiguring disabilities he was born with. Rescued by a well meaning surgeon (Anthony Hopkins), he tries to escape a life of prejudice and cruelty as he tries to fit into a world ruled by Victorian sensibilities. Beautifully shot in black and white by the incomparable Freddie Francis, THE ELEPHANT MAN is an unforgettable story of human dignity and survival.


wilder

June 22, 2020

Robert Siodmak's Criss Cross (1949) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK), from a 4K master struck from the original camera negative



Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster – Novecento, Birdman of Alcatraz) is a hardworking armoured car driver with a fatal attraction to his ex-wife Anna (Yvonne De Carlo – The Munsters), who's now married to notorious hoodlum Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea – Winchester '73). Unable to stay away from her, Steve has a secret tryst with Anna ... only to be discovered by Dundee. To cover up their affair, Steve convinces Dundee that he only met with Anna to get Dundee's help in robbing an upcoming payroll shipment he will be driving. The hood falls for the ruse, which triggers a series of harrowing events that ultimately lead to violence and death.





June 22, 2020

Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



As she investigates the morale of American troops, Phoebe is cynically wooed by fellow Iowan Captain John Pringle (John Lund), who is trying to cover up his affair with Nazi-tainted chanteuse Erika von Schlütow (Marlene Dietrich)



May 26, 2020

J.L. Anderson's Spring Night Summer Night (1967) on blu-ray from Flicker Alley, from a 4K restoration and reconstruction of the film. Also coming from Indicator in the UK.



Italian Neorealism meets the coal-mining country of southeast Ohio in this little-seen wonder of 1960s, American independent cinema. Director J.L. Anderson, a film professor at the University of Ohio, utilized non-professional actors, on-location photography, a shoestring budget, and a passionate knowledge of international film to create what Richard Brody of The New Yorker calls a "tense, myth-drenched drama of liberation and retribution."

Carl (Ted Heimerdinger) and Jessie (Larue Hall) are half-siblings who feel trapped by the existential and economic pressures of living in the small mining town of Canaan, Ohio. Their shared rebellion soon takes on the form of an illicit love affair depicted in interwoven sequences of lusty poeticism and ethnographic vérité. When Jessie becomes pregnant, the tension between the couple's youthful vitality and the dire realities of rural society leads to consequences both despairing and hopeful.

Bumped from its premiere slot at the 1968 New York Film Festival to make room for John Cassavetes' Faces, the fate of Spring Night Summer Night was nearly sealed when its original distributor insisted that it be recut as an exploitation film under the title Miss Jessica Is Pregnant. Fortunately, thanks to the brilliant restoration efforts of Peter Conheim, Ross Lipman, and filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn—along with the generous support of Refn's byNWR—the film was scanned in 4K resolution from the 35mm camera negative, and carefully reconstructed according to J.L. Anderson's original vision.






July 15, 2020

Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) on blu-ray from Arrow (UK)



During World War II, British soldier Jack Celliers is captured by Japanese forces and held in a prison camp by the honor-bound Capt. Yanoi. Yanoi and gruff Sgt. Hara become intrigued with Celliers' open defiance in the face of their staunchly old-world ideas about cowardice and shame. Meanwhile, a translator, Lt. Col. John Lawrence, attempts to find common ground between British and Japanese beliefs.





April 28, 2020

Robert Wise's Blood on the Moon (1948) on blu-ray from Warner Archive. One of Scorsese's favorites.



Robert Wise is at the helm as Robert Mitchum, Robert Preston, and Barbara Bel Geddes star in this taut Western thriller about a gunslinging drifter who realizes he's been hired to be a villain. Out on the Texas frontier, Jim Garry (Mitchum) rides into town, quickly getting caught in a simmering confrontation between homesteaders and cattle ranchers. After accepting employment from an old mercenary friend, Tate Riling (Preston), Garry comes to realize that Riling has been manipulating the tensions between rancher John Lufton (Tom Tully) and the local settlers in a bid to swindle the Luftons out of their livestock. Garry becomes torn between his conscience and his greed until he finds himself falling for John Lufton's daughter, the formidable Amy (Bel Geddes). Soon, the two old friends will face off in a bloody showdown from which only one will leave alive. Based on the novel Gunman's Chance by Luke Short.







April 21, 2020

John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



"An army post in peacetime is a dull place." But beneath the smooth surface of military routine, a deadly tension mounts between the Pendertons: he a hidebound career officer wrestling with inner demons, she a caged lioness needful of love, whatever the source. Their off-kilter relationship plays out under the voyeuristic gaze of a soldier soon to become the focal point of tragedy.

This 2-disc set presents Reflections in a Golden Eye in both of its forms: the original "gold"-hued version of the film, as legendary director Huston intended, and the full-color general theatrical release version. Both have been newly remastered especially for this release.








August 11, 2020

David Jacobson's Dahmer (2002) on blu-ray from MVD Marquee, from a 4K master struck from the original camera negative supervised by director David Jacobson



One of America's most notorious serial killers was Jeffrey Dahmer, a Wisconsin sex offender whose exploits included murdering and dismembering 15 boys and storing their body parts in his freezer. Dahmer, in turn, was later murdered by an inmate during his incarceration. Jeremy Renner stars in this biographical drama that humanizes the killer to a surprising degree and explores the mental state that caused him to commit such horrific acts.



June 30, 2020

Wild Palms (1993) on blu-ray from Kino



A dark sexy, noir Los Angeles of the future is the backdrop for Oliver Stone's haunting, sci-fi saga of greed, treason and virtual reality. Harry Wyckoff (James Belushi) is about to become a player in a dark and terrifying battle where everything is at stake and no one is who they seem. Featuring an all-star cast, this story about a cult, a corporation, and a conspiracy to rule the country, is one of the most original movie events in recent history. 



June 16, 2020

Karl Reisz's Isadora (1968) on blu-ray from Kino



This biography of modern-dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (Vanessa Redgrave) details the performer's tumultuous life. The film reveals how the beautiful, outspoken and graceful American-born dancer rejected ballet and moved to Europe to pursue a freer form of movement. Duncan's many love affairs are also heavily featured, most notably her relationship with Paris Singer (Jason Robards), an heir to the Singer sewing-machine fortune, and the volatile Russian writer Sergei Yesenin (Ivan Tchenko).



May 5, 2020

Basil Dearden's Pool of London (1951) on blu-ray from



Merchant sailor Dan MacDonald (Bonar Colleano) has a lucrative sideline in smuggling black market goods ashore. While docked in London, MacDonald and his best friend, Johnny Lambert (Earl Cameron), get mixed up with a gang of ruthless jewel thieves, who hire MacDonald to smuggle their loot out of the country. Complications arise when Earl falls for a charming but pernicious young woman named Pat (Susan Shaw), and is charged with a murder he did not commit.



May 19, 2020

Basil Dearden's The Captive Heart (1946) on blu-ray from Kino



In 1940, Czech soldier Capt. Hasek (Michael Redgrave) is being pursued by the Nazi secret police. To conceal his true identity, he pretends to be a dead British soldier named Capt. Geoffrey Mitchell. But to keep the lie going, he must also write to Mitchell's wife, Celia (Rachel Kempson), as her dead husband from the POW camp where he's imprisoned. Meanwhile, Hasek's fellow prisoners are beginning to suspect that he is not who he claims to be, and so he must convince them that he's not a spy.



June 9, 2020

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 2K restoration



Screen legends Joan Fontaine (Rebecca, Suspicion, The Bigamist) and Burt Lancaster (Desert Fury, I Walk Alone, The Train) star in Kiss the Blood off My Hands, a classic film noir about fate and love amongst the most unlikely individuals. Former POW Bill Saunders (Lancaster), now living in England, is scarred with unstable and violent tendencies. After killing a man in a bar fight, he flees the scene and manages to find cover in the home of Nurse Jane Wharton (Fontaine), who agrees to take him in and believes his story that the killing was an accident. Now in love, Nurse Wharton tries to secure Saunders a job delivering medical supplies when he's released from prison after serving time for fighting with a police officer. Things take a turn, however, when a racketeer (Robert Newton, Odd Man Out) who witnessed Saunders' murder threatens to turn him into the police unless he agrees to assist in a crime. Beautifully shot in glorious black-and-white by the great Russell Metty (Touch of Evil, The Lady Gambles) and stylishly directed by Norman Foster (Journey into Fear, Woman on the Run).



Summer 2020 TBD

Sidney J. Furie's The Ipcress File (1965) on blu-ray from Kino, from a new 4K restoration



Tasked with investigating the kidnappings and brainwashed reappearances of top scientists, including Dr. Radcliffe (Aubrey Richards), the insubordinate British spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) navigates his way through criminals, secret agents, and his superiors (Nigel Green, Guy Doleman). While attempting to bring in the suspect Bluejay (Frank Gatliff), Palmer discovers a mysterious audiotape labeled "IPCRESS," an inconspicuous, but ominous, piece of evidence.



May 19, 2020

Frank Capra's American Madness (1932) on blu-ray from Sony



During the Depression, the bank owned by generous Dickson (Walter Huston) is barely staying afloat, and things get worse when $100,000 is lifted from the vault. Fingers are pointed at reformed crook Matt (Pat O'Brien), who got a job and a fresh start from Dickson. The innocent Matt can clear his name by admitting that on the night of the robbery he was breaking up a tryst between Dickson's wife and another teller. But this revelation may crush Dickson, and Matt's conscience plays tug-of-war.


wilder

#864
2020 TBD

Phillip Borsos' The Grey Fox (1982) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative. Shot by Frank Tidy (The Duellists)



After decades in prison, stagecoach robber Bill Miner (Richard Farnsworth) emerges in 1901 a free man without a place in 20th century society...until he sees The Great Train Robbery and is inspired to once again do what he does best.





June 9, 2020

Ildikó Enyedi's My 20th Century (1989) on blu-ray from Kino, from a (2K or 4K?) restoration



Awarded the Camera d'Or for best first feature at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, Hungarian trailblazer Ildikó Enyedi's My 20th Century is a luminous, unconventional fairy tale. Two twins, Lili the anarchist and Dóra, a luxurious woman of loose morals (both played by the young Polish actress Dorotha Segda), are separated as young girls. Their lives proceed on opposing tracks until their paths reconnect on the Orient Express with Mr. Z. (Tarkovsky mainstay Oleg Yankovsky) who loves them jointly. Defiantly in pursuit of happiness and in retreat from the "mass murdering century," they are all entranced by Thomas Edison's inventions and drunk on the miracle of existence. Among the greatest of cinematic debuts, My 20th Century introduced the world to Enyedi (On Body and Soul), who remains a vital, distinctive artist into the 21st century.





May 19, 2020

Paul Mazursky's Enemies: A Love Story (1989) on blu-ray from Sony



Herman Broder (Ron Silver), a Holocaust survivor living in New York City and struggling with depression after his ordeals in the war, makes his living ghostwriting for a rabbi. Herman is married to Yadwiga (Margaret Sophie Stein) but is also having an affair with Masha (Lena Olin), a married woman. Things grow even more chaotic when Herman's first wife, Tamara (Anjelica Huston), who he thought had died in the war, shows up in New York as well. Based on the novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer.



May 26, 2020

Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980) on blu-ray from Paramount. Unfortunately this looks to be a BD-R.



Atlantic City is revitalized as a resort when gambling is legalized. But the new industry also brings unsettling changes. For Lou (Burt Lancaster), 40 years a bodyguard-boyfriend to aging beauty queen Grace (Kate Reid), his number-running sideline escalates to mob involvement.



June 2, 2020

Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) on 4K blu-ray from Universal



When a seaside community finds itself under attack by a great white shark, three men embark on a quest to kill it before it strikes again.



May 12, 2020

Michael Curtiz's The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, newly restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation



Bodies are mysteriously disappearing all over town, and a new wax museum has just opened. Is there a connection? But of course! In this horror classic, Fay Wray (King Kong) stars as the intended next victim of a mad wax sculptor obsessed with her resemblance to one of his prior creations. Glenda Farrell plays a quintessential wisecracking newspaper reporter, and noted actor Lionel Atwill is the deranged artist who loses his studio to a fire set by his partner. Filmed in the early Two-Color Technicolor® process, The Mystery of the Wax Museum was considered a lost film for decades, until a well-worn print was discovered nearly 50 years ago. Thanks to the meticulous new restoration presented on this disc, the film can now be experienced as intended.



Summer 2020 TBD

Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart (1996) on blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing



Philadelphia teenager Edna Buxton (Illeana Douglas) wins a talent contest during the early rock 'n' roll era, changes her name to Denise Waverly and moves to New York City to make it big. Though she flops as a recording artist, fast-talking record producer Joel Millner (John Turturro) recognizes her songwriting talent and teams her with struggling songsmith Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz). The ups and downs of Denise's career parallel the tumult of the 1960s pop scene.



June 30, 2020

Airplane! (1980) on blu-ray from Paramount, from a new 4K restoration



This spoof comedy takes shots at the slew of disaster movies that were released in the 70s. When the passengers and crew of a jet are incapacitated due to food poisoning, a rogue pilot with a drinking problem must cooperate with his ex-girlfriend turned stewardess to bring the plane to a safe landing.

wilder

June 28, 2020

Jack Fisk's Raggedy Man (1981) on blu-ray from Kino



While World War II rages overseas, a divorced mother of two, Nita Longley (Sissy Spacek), struggles to makes ends meet as a telephone operator in small-town Texas. As the subject of disdainful gossip due to her divorce, Nita faces a lonely existence of ostracism, where only the unscrupulous approach her -- often with ill intent. When she befriends Teddy (Eric Roberts), a sailor on leave, her situation improves, but he's soon sent to war. Once again, Nita must face her plight alone.





July 28, 2020

George Miller's Lorenzo's Oil (1992) on blu-ray from Kino



True-life drama of a father and mother who battled against the odds to save their son's life. Augusto and Michaela Odone are dealt a cruel blow by fate: five-year-old Lorenzo is diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease, but the Odones' persistence and faith leads to the cure which saves their boy and re-writes medical history. Directed by George Miller, and starring Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, Peter Ustinov, Kathleen Wilhoite, and Gerry Bamman.

Quote from:  Letterboxd user Les_VampiresHollywood Man: Okay George this is really simple Oscar bait stuff. Just show the parent's being super sad, slap some ugly makeup on the kid, and film in flat lighting and we'll all have Oscars by next year.

George Miller: Sounds good. I had a thought though. What if when the father learns of the disease we flash giant words super-imposed over his face and then have him collapse down the stairs clutching his chest like a Greek tragedy?

Hollywood Man: Oooookay sure, but again it doesn't need to be that compli-

George Miller: And what if the mother is in church and we have this massively high angle that tracks down right to her eye level as she looks up as if we're God and she's questioning why her?

Hollywood Man: George this all sounds really-

George Miller: And the music can be this operatic tome by Ennio Morricone based on the darkest movements by Mozart and Brahms!

Hollywood Man: ...look George do you just want to make a new Mad Max movie or what?

George Miller: Eventually, but first let me tell you about this script I'm writing about a talking pig.

Quote from: Andrew JohnsonMiller ping-pongs between the macabre and melodrama with such deftness that the film feels like as much of a miracle as its titular medicine. The style is too tonally inconsistent. This should not work, and yet, in Miller's hands, it does.

The first act is so brutal and uncomfortable that I nearly turned it off. Miller presents the disease as something akin to a demonic spirit, a foreign invader that twists and contorts the body into something unrecognizable.





July 28, 2020

Michael WInner's The System aka The Girl-Getters (1964) on blu-ray from Kino. Also available from Indicator (UK)



In a picturesque village on the sea, resident Tinker (Oliver Reed) has developed a foolproof plan to seduce -- and then ditch -- wealthy ladies. Thanks to his work photographing tourists on summer vacation, he retains the names and addresses of his female clients, which get put in a pool. He and his hoodlum friends then make their selections and go out on the prowl. But the jaded Tinker finds his callous worldview shaken when he becomes smitten with an on-the-ball model (Jane Merrow).





June 2, 2020

Frank Simon's The Queen (1968) on blu-ray from Kino



More than 40 years before RuPaul's Drag Race, this ground-breaking documentary about the 1967 Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant introduced audiences to the world of competitive drag. The film takes us backstage to kiki with the contestants as they rehearse, throw shade, and transform into their drag personas in the lead-up to the big event. Organized by LGBTQ icon and activist Flawless Sabrina, the competition boasted a star-studded panel of judges including Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, and Terry Southern.. But perhaps most memorable is an epic diatribe calling out the pageant's bias delivered by Crystal LaBeija, who would go on to form the influential House of LaBeija, heavily featured in Paris Is Burning (1990). A vibrant piece of queer history, The Queen can now be seen in full resplendence thanks to a new restoration from the original camera negative.





June 30, 2020

G.W. Pabst's Paracelsus (1943) on blu-ray from Kino



A physician, alchemist, and spiritual guru, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of science. And, like its subject, this 1943 film is shrouded in mystery, even though it was directed by one of the supreme stylists of the German cinema: G.W. Pabst. Werner Krauss (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) stars as the Swiss-born scientist, who faces the seemingly impossible task of protecting the German people from a coming plague, and calming a rising tide of mass hysteria. Despite being called "a remarkably interesting film" by The New York Times's Vincent Canby (when it received its belated U.S. premiere in 1974), Paracelsus continues to be overlooked, along with most all of the films made in Germany during World War II. With fresh eyes, however, we can see that Paracelsus is not a propaganda film, but the work of an oppressed artist attempting to convey a humanist, possibly subversive message under the gaze of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.



June 9, 2020

Reinhold Schünzel's Victor and Victoria (1933) on blu-ray from Kino



In this dazzling musical romance, a young woman (Renate Müller), unable to find work as a music hall singer, partners with a down-and-out thespian (Hermann Thimig) to revamp her act. Pretending to be a man performing in drag, Victoria becomes the toast of the international stage. But she soon finds that her playful bending of genders enmeshes her personal and professional life in a tangle of unexpected complications. Produced in the final days of the Weimar Republic, Victor and Victoria received limited exposure in the United States, and is today best known by Blake Edwards's 1982 remake and the 1995 Broadway production. Viewers will be delighted to discover that the original is every bit as charming and outrageous, reminiscent of the sly sex comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder.)



June 2, 2020

Michael Winner's The Mechanic (1972) on blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing, from a new 2K restoration



Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson) is a veteran hit man who, owing to his penchant for making his targets' deaths seem like accidents, thinks himself an artist. It's made him very rich, but as he hits middle age, he's so depressed and lonely that he takes on one of his victim's sons, Steve McKenna (Jan-Michael Vincent), as his apprentice. Arthur puts him through a rigorous training period and brings him on several hits. As Steven improves, Arthur worries that he'll discover who killed his father.



May 18, 2020

Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) on blu-ray from BFI (UK), from Cinelicious' 4K restoration. Hope is this new disc will solve the encoding issues present on the US blu-ray release.



This kaleidoscopic masterpiece, one of the most subversive, intoxicating films of the 60s and a classic of queer cinema, is a headlong dive into a dazzling unseen Tokyo night-world of drag queen bars and fabulous divas. 

Toshio Matsumoto, one of Japan's leading experimental filmmakers, bends and distorts time, and freely mixes documentary interviews, Brechtian film-within-a-film asides, Oedipal premonitions of disaster, his own avant-garde shorts (eight of which are included on this release), and even on-screen cartoon balloons. Trans actor Peter gives an astonishing performance as Eddie, hostess at Bar Genet – where she's ignited a violent love-triangle with reigning drag queen Leda for the attentions of club owner Gonda.






April 20, 2020

Michael Elliott's The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968) on DVD from BFI (UK)



In the near future, society is split into two strata: The 'low-drives' make up the zombie-like majority, mentally anaesthetized by an incessant diet of television, largely consisting of pornography. Television, and by extension the masses, is controlled by the 'high-drives', an educated class who remain servile through their perpetual quest for better ratings and audience subjugation. When the low-drives start to become increasingly uninterested in the programming on offer, co-ordinator Ugo Priest (Leonard Rossiter) ends up accidentally happening upon a new entertainment concept.....reality television.

First broadcast in 1968, The Year of the Sex Olympics is one of the most original pieces of television drama ever written and would foreshadow the likes of Big Brother and the phenomenon that is Love Island.


Five ways The Year of the Sex Olympics predicted the way we live now - BFI





June 29, 2020

Takeshi Kitano Collection (1989-1993) on limited edition blu-ray from BFI (UK)



Violent Cop
QuoteDetective Azuma ('Beat' Takeshi) is a renegade cop who frequently resorts to violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague is supplying drugs from within the police force. After his colleague is murdered and his sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice.

Boiling Point
QuoteWhen the mild mannered Masaki (Yûrei Yanagi) falls foul of the Yakuza he decides to buy a gun to defend himself. He heads to Okinawa where he forms an unlikely partnership with Uehara ('Beat' Takeshi) who has his own reasons for wanting revenge.

Sonatine
QuoteMurakawa ('Beat' Takeshi), an established and ruthless gangster, is sent to intervene in a gang war on the island of Okinawa. When the situation takes a turn for the worse, Murakawa and his men are forced to retreat into hiding, but it's not long before their enemies track them down. A final and breathtaking showdown becomes inevitable.


May 11, 2020

Fritz Lang's The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



After enjoying fantastic success with Fritz Lang s two-part "Indian Epic" in 1959, German producer Artur Brauner signed the great director to direct one more film. The result would be the picture that, in closing the saga he began nearly forty years earlier, brought Lang s career full-circle, and would come to represent his final celluloid testament by extension: his final film masterpiece.

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse [Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse] finds that diabolical Weimar name resurfacing in the Cold War era, linked to a new methodology of murder and mayhem. Seances, assassinations, and Nazi-engineered surveillance tech all abound in Lang s paranoid, and ultimate, filmic labyrinth.

One of the great and cherished "last films" in the history of cinema, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse provides a stylistic glimpse into the 1960s works on such subjects as sex-crime, youth-culture, and LSD that Lang would unfortunately never come to realise. Nonetheless, Lang s final film remains an explosive, and definitive, closing statement.




August 3, 2020

Mike Hodges' Flash Gordon (1980) on 4K blu-ray and standard blu-ray from StudioCanal (UK), from a 4K restoration



Prepare to save the universe with the King of the Impossible! Alex Raymond's famous comic strip blasts to life in the timeless sci-fi cult adventure Flash Gordon!

Although NASA scientists are claiming the unexpected eclipse and strange "hot hail" are nothing to worry about, Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol) knows better, and takes football star Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) with him into space to rectify things. They land on planet Mongo, where the despot Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) is attacking Earth out of pure boredom. With the help of a race of Hawkmen, Flash and the gang struggle to save their home planet.






Summer 2020 TBD

Jeff Lieberman's Blue Sunshine (1978) on 4K blu-ray from Camera Obscura (Germany)



A bizarre series of murders begins in Los Angeles, where people start going bald and then become homicidal maniacs. But could the blame rest on a particularly dangerous form of LSD called Blue Sunshine the murderers took ten years before?


wilder

#866
December 15, 2020

Jerry Schatzberg's Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) on blu-ray from Kino



A distraught fashion model (Faye Dunaway), once the best, recalls her empty life of alcohol, drugs and sex.





I have the French blu-ray of this movie, it's worth seeing.



July 14, 2020

Leontine Sagan's Mädchen in Uniform (1931) on blu-ray from Kino



After the death of her mother, teenage Manuela (Hertha Thiele) is sent off to a boarding school run by the autocratic Fräulein von Nordeck (Emilia Unda). Initially withdrawn from the other girls due to her grief and anger at being sent away, Manuela is drawn out of her shell by the beautiful and sympathetic young teacher Elizabeth von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). But when Manuela's fondness for her teacher turns into a romantic attachment, it becomes a school-wide scandal.



July 21, 2020

István Szabó's Mephisto (1981) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



A German stage actor finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany. As his associates and friends flee or are ground under by the Nazi terror, the popularity of his character supersedes his own existence until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons.





July 21, 2020

István Szabó's Confidence (1980) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



This powerful drama from Oscar®-winning director István Szabó explores the nature of love, trust, loyalty and betrayal borne under the weight of exceptional circumstances. János and Katalin are strangers but forced to pose as husband and wife to hide their links to the anti-Nazi resistance in Budapest 1944. The intensity and intimacy of this relationship forces them to passionately confront their past, challenging what they believe and in whom they can place their trust.



July 21, 2020

István Szabó's Colonel Redl (1985) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl (Brandauer), an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.



May 19, 2020

David Miller's Lonely Are the Brave (1962) on blu-ray from Kino



A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.



August 25, 2020

Larry Yust's Trick Baby (1972) on blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing, based on the novel by Iceberg Slim



The son of a black prostitute and a white client, Johnny "Folks" O'Brien (Kiel Martin) spends his childhood in the ghetto hearing the hateful name "trick baby," only to realize as an adult just how useful it is to pass for white. Together with his mentor, con man "Blue" Howard (Mel Stewart), Folks succeeds in ripping off many of Philadelphia's wealthy whites with a clever diamond scam. The streak ends, however, when his latest victim turns out to be the father of a local Mafioso.



July 20, 2020

Three Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations Starring Bela Lugosi on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



This trio of classic 1930s horror films Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, and The Raven is also distinguished by a trio of factors regarding their production. Most notably, each film is based on a work by master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe. Part of the legendary wave of horror films made by Universal Pictures in the 30s, all three feature dynamic performances from Dracula's Bela Lugosi, with two of them also enlivened by the appearance of Frankenstein's Boris Karloff. And finally, all three benefit from being rare examples of Pre-Code studio horror, their sometimes-startling depictions of sadism and shock a result of being crafted during that brief period in Hollywood before the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code's rigid guidelines for moral content.

Director Robert Florey, who gave the Marx Brothers their cinema start with The Cocoanuts in 1929, worked with Metropolis cinematographer Karl Freund to give a German Expressionism look to Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), with Lugosi as a mad scientist running a twisted carnival sideshow in 19th-century Paris, and murdering women to find a mate for his talking ape main attraction. Lugosi and Karloff teamed forces for the first time in The Black Cat, a nightmarish psychodrama that became Universal's biggest hit of 1934, with Detour director Edgar G. Ulmer bringing a feverish flair to the tale of a satanic, necrophiliac architect (Karloff) locked in battle with an old friend (Lugosi) in search of his family. Prolific B-movie director Lew Landers made 1935's The Raven so grotesque that all American horror films were banned in the U.K. for two years in its wake. Specifically referencing Poe within its story, Lugosi is a plastic surgeon obsessed with the writer, who tortures fleeing murderer Karloff through monstrous medical means.

Significant and still unsettling early works of American studio horror filmmaking, these three Pre-Code chillers demonstrate the enduring power of Poe's work, and the equally continuous appeal of classic Universal horror's two most iconic stars.





June 29, 2020

Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital (1982) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Mick Travis is a reporter who is about to shoot a documentary on Britannia Hospital, an institution which mirrors the downsides of British Society...

The concluding installment in Lindsay Anderson's Mick Travis trilogy, following If.... and O Lucky Man!, Britannia Hospital finds the filmmaker casting a sourly satirical eye over Thatcher's Britain. With a phenomenal cast at his disposal – everyone from Alan Bates (Georgy Girl) and Joan Plowright (Time Without Pity) to Robin Askwith (Confessions of a Window Cleaner) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars) to Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) reprising the role of Travis – Anderson trains his sights on royalty, trade unions, the media, and scientific research in typically uncompromising fashion.



wilder

Quote from: wilder on July 10, 2019, 11:59:41 PMJune 30, 2020

Wild Palms (1993) on blu-ray from Kino. Written by Bruce Wagner



A dark, sexy, noir Los Angeles of the future is the backdrop for Oliver Stone's haunting, sci-fi saga of greed, treason and virtual reality. Harry Wyckoff (James Belushi) is about to become a player in a dark and terrifying battle where everything is at stake and no one is who they seem. Featuring an all-star cast, this story about a cult, a corporation, and a conspiracy to rule the country, is one of the most original movie events in recent history.


Resized caps from the forthcoming blu-ray. DVDBeaver review here.











wilder

August 25, 2020

Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow (1955) on blu-ray from Kino



When a toy manufacturer feels ignored and unappreciated by by his wife and children, he begins to rekindle a past love when a former employee comes back into his life.



August 25, 2020

Douglas Sirk's All I Desire (1953) on blu-ray from Kino



Actress Naomi Murdoch returns home to the husband and children she abandoned ten years before. She was invited by her daughter Lily to see her in the Riverdale high school play. Her arrival wakes up old conflicts and sets off new emotional storms.



August 18, 2020

Budd Boetticher's The Red Ball Express (1952) on blu-ray from Kino



Tense World War II tale based on the true story of a special truck convoy created to transport urgent supplies to General Patton's army situated inside German-occupied France. Charles Drake (No Name on the Bullet) and screen great Sidney Poitier (Lilies of the Field). During the height of the war, General Patton's Third Army is in desperate need of supplies after a successful invasion of Paris. An elite military truck force is established to deliver goods to the soldiers. Members of this platoon must not only withstand minefields and Nazi resistance, they must also learn to overcome their personal and racial prejudices towards one another. Red Ball Express is a gripping, powerful action-thriller based on true events. Hugh O'Brian (Ambush Bay) and Jack Kelly (Young Billy Young) lead the strong supporting cast. 



Juy 28, 2020

William Wyler's The Shakedown (1929) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



Dave Roberts (James Murray) is a professional boxer better at losing in fixed matches than in knocking out his opponents. He turns up in towns and is part of a group who sets up corrupt boxing matches. Dave's life on the margins changes after he meets a mother and son. As he begins to care for them, he ultimately has to decide whether to continue in his low-life ways or turn the tables on those who have been forcing him to participate in them.



August 25, 2020

Cecil B. DeMille's Sign of the Cross (1932) on blu-ray from Kino



Claudette Colbert (Bluebeard's Eighth Wife) and Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution). Ancient Rome comes to life on a grand scale in the epic spectacular The Sign of the Cross. In the year 64 A.D., the corrupt and maniacal Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar (Laughton) torches the city so he can blame the ensuing destruction on the unsuspecting Christians. Meanwhile, Roman Prefect Marcus Superbus (March) falls for an innocent and beautiful Christian maiden, Mercia (Elissa Landi, The Count of Monte Cristo). When the seductive and wicked Empress Poppaea (Colbert) learns that she has a romantic rival for Marcus's attentions, she conspires with Nero to send all Christians to a chilling death. Filled with some of the most outrageous and breathtaking scenes ever filmed, including the infamous "milk bath," this pre-Code classic is a dynamic testament to DeMille's visionary style. The great Karl Struss (Sunrise) received an Oscar nomination for his stunning cinematography.







August 11, 2020

Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1981) on blu-ray from Kino



A young mail carrier, Jules (Frederic Andrei), becomes entranced with the voice of American diva Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez). She doesn't believe in being recorded, but Jules secretly records her singing on a tape. His recording gets mixed up with another tape that incriminates a police chief, who is working with the mob. Jules quickly becomes the target of mob gangsters, and he must find a way to get himself out of the situation alive.



Restored:




June 30, 2020

David S. Ward's Cannery Row (1982) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative



The canneries stand empty now that the sardines have abandoned the waters, but life continues on the Row. Here, you'll find Doc (Nick Nolte), a marine biologist and community mentor; Suzy (Debra Winger), a good-hearted newcomer gone astray; and Mack, Hazel and all the boys working hard at not working. Here, you'll also find the love of a man for a woman, of a writer for a place and of life for more life. Based on works by John Steinbeck and written for the screen and directed by The Sting's David S. Ward, Cannery Row – from its lyrical John Huston narration and saggy blues to its top-drawer performances, waterfront sets and whimsical charm – is an atmospheric gem, one that has its world "spinning in greased grooves."



July 28, 2020

Jack Hazan's A Bigger Splash (1973) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



An intimate and innovative film about English-born painter of Southern California, artist David Hockney, during the multi-year creation of one of his towering achievements, "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)". Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid featuring Hockney, as well as his circle of friends, capturing the agonized end of the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, Peter Schlesinger.





July 21, 2020

Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Universal



A slave leads a violent revolt against the Imperial Rome at its glorious height. Filmed in Technirama.



October 13, 2020

Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Lionsgate



Twin stories about different kinds of addiction: A young man (Jared Leto) who along with his best friend (Marlon Wayans) and girlfriend is addicted to heroin, dreams of transcending his life of hustling and owning a store in New York City, while his mother (Ellen Burstyn), depressed and obsessed by television and diet pills envisions her chance to shine again on a game show.



August 25, 2020

Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper (1982) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Blue Underground



A blade-wielding psychopath is on the loose, turning The Big Apple bright red with the blood of beautiful young women. As NYPD detectives follow the trail of butchery from the decks of the Staten Island Ferry to the sex shows of Times Square, each brutal murder becomes a sadistic taunt. In the city that never sleeps, he's the killer that can't be stopped! 

Quote from: blu-ray.comThe boutique label [Blue Underground] has also confirmed that it is finalizing five brand new 4K restorations of genre films, and that going forward select new releases will debut as 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combos.



June 29, 2020

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur's  CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (2018) on blu-ray from Second Sight (UK)



Jiří Menzel's debut film Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) made a profound impression on young film student Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. Years later, he invited Menzel to meet him in a Prague café - and so began a conversation and a friendship that has culminated in this epic, seven-and -a-half-hour film that not only explores the deceptively whimsical comic films of Jiří Menzel, but all of the artists who strove to make films that whispered subversion and rebellion often at the risk of their livelihood, or even their lives.

Expansive, affectionate and deeply passionate, CzechMate – In Search of Jiří Menzel is an extraordinary documentary film, a labour of love by archivist and filmmaker Dungarpur. Its depth and scale are unparalleled in the study of the Czechoslovak cinema.

Filmed over a period of seven years, Dungarpur and his team interviewed filmmakers, actors, crew members, writers, historians and critics who had been touched by the New Wave - including Věra Chytilová, Miloš Forman, Vojtěch Jasný, Ivan Passer, Ken Loach, Juraj Jakubisko, Jaromír Šofr, Andrzej Wajda, Dušan Hanák, Štefan Uher, Jan Němec, and Miroslav Ondříček among them.




May 27, 2020

Antole Litvak's Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) on blu-ray from Imprint / Via Vision (Australia)



Whilst on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a plot to murder her.



August 26, 2020

Sidney Lumet's Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) on blu-ray from Imprint / Via Vision (Australia)




A newly elected District attorney finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father and his partner.



August 26, 2020

George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951) on blu-ray from Imprint / Via Vision (Australia)




George Eastman is a poor young man determined to win a place in respectable society and the heart of a beautiful socialite. But a factory girl with a dark secret threatens Eastman's professional and romantic prospects. Consumed with fear and desire, Eastman is ultimately driven to a desperate act of passion that unravels his world forever.

jenkins

William Wyler's The Shakedown (1929) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration
QuoteDave Roberts (James Murray) is a professional boxer better at losing in fixed matches than in knocking out his opponents. He turns up in towns and is part of a group who sets up corrupt boxing matches. Dave's life on the margins changes after he meets a mother and son. As he begins to care for them, he ultimately has to decide whether to continue in his low-life ways or turn the tables on those who have been forcing him to participate in them.

because i immediately want to see it i realize i have a thing for boxing melodramas. my generation both missed out on that and actually had De Palma's Snake Eyes, which is you know a thriller melodrama

wilder have you gotten into Cecil B. DeMille? i confess i'm afraid of him because i don't think i'll like him. although he made expensive movies i worry he's a poorman's von Sternberg

Diva for sure yeah, criterion put out Betty Blue it's true. i've been kind of waning on wonderful movies with beautiful people in my recent years