Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

[wilder]

September 18, 2017

Lubitsch in Berlin (1918-1921) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



Before he arrived in Hollywood to leave his indelible (and inimitable) mark on timeless comedies like Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner, Ernst Lubitsch created an expansive body of work in Germany that proved to be as varied in its tone as it was sophisticated in its measure of man and woman. This set collects six recently restored works from the silent phase of Lubitsch's career, and casts new light on the director both as a fully-formed comic master, and as a virtuoso of cinematographic technique.

Lubitsch in Berlin - Amazon UK



August 29, 2017

Dick Maas’ Amsterdamned (1988) on blu-ray from Blue Underground



A mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders, terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer.

Amsterdamned - Amazon

2017 TBD

Dick Maas’ The Lift (1983) on blu-ray from Blue Underground



A lift begins displaying some erratic behavior, like trapping some party goers and nearly suffocating them, and decapitating a security guard. Felix, the technician from the lift company, can't find anything wrong with the circuitry. When he and a nosy reporter begin asking questions of the lift company's electronics partner (Rising Sun Electronics) his boss puts him on a leave of absence. A subsequent visit to a professor leads them to believe that some evil experiments are being conducted with MICROCHIPS.

[wilder]

2017 TBD

Anthony Mann’s T-Men (1947) on blu-ray from ClassicFlix



Dennis O'Brien is a treasury agent determined to bring a counterfeiting ring to justice. O'Brien and his partner Tony Genaro go undercover to gain the confidence of the ruthless Detroit mob responsible for the phony money.

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[wilder]

Fall 2017 TBD

John Cromwell’s Since You Went Away (1944) on blu-ray from Kino. Cinematography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter)



With her husband Tim off at war, Anne Hilton (Colbert) struggles to be a pillar of strength for her daughters Jane (Jones) and Bridget (Temple). During America's darkest hours, she bravely steers her girls through heartbreak and hardships as she eagerly awaits news from overseas and wonders if life will ever be the same.












Fall 2017 TBD

Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966) on blu-ray from Kino



Considered by many to be one of the Italian horror-meister Mario Bava's best, this occult murder mystery skillfully interweaves elements of the 'giallo' thriller formula with a creepy Gothic ghost story. Set in modern day Transylvania, an evil curse has fallen on the village which has been plagued by a series of bizarre murders, in which female victims keep turning up with gold coins embedded in their hearts. In order to free the village from this evil curse, the local sorceress (Fabienne Dali) must find and destroy the vengeful Baroness Graps (Gianni Vivaldi), who along with the ghost of her murdered daughter, seek to claim the villagers' souls in retribution.

September 11, 2017

Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966) on blu-ray from Arrow UK



Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966) - Amazon UK

[wilder]

September 12, 2017

Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) on 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray

[wilder]

October 23, 2017

John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow UK, from a new 4K transfer from the original camera negative supervised by Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey, in both steelbook and box set versions.





The Thing (1982) Steelbook - Amazon UK

The Thing (1982) Box Set - Amazon UK



October 23/24, 2017

George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn (1971-1973) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow UK and Arrow US



George Romero's name may be synonymous with the living dead subgenre, but his filmography is far richer and more varied than his reputation as "the zombie guy" would suggest. Following the breakout success of his debut feature Night of the Living Dead, the director would embark upon a series of projects which, whilst firmly rooted in the horror genre for the most part, demonstrate a master filmmaker with more than mere gut-munching on his mind.

In There's Always Vanilla, Romero's sophomore 1971 directorial effort, young drifter Chris and beautiful model Lynn embark upon a tumultuous relationship which seems doomed from the outset. 1972's Season of the Witch (originally filmed as Jack's Wife but released to theaters under the title of Hungry Wives) follows the exploits of Joan Mitchell – a housewife whose dissatisfaction with her humdrum life leads to an unhealthy interest in the occult. Lastly, 1973's The Crazies, which sees Romero returning to more "straight" horror territory, has a small rural town finding itself in the grip of an infection which send its hosts into a violent, homicidal frenzy.

Taken together, these three early works, made in the period between Romero's celebrated living dead outings Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, serve to display the broader thematic concerns and auteurist leanings of a skilled craftsman too often pigeonholed within the genre.


Contains:

-There’s Always Vanilla (1971) from a new 2K restoration from the original negative
-Season of the Witch (1972) from a new 4K restoration from original film elements
-The Crazies (1973) from a new 4K restoration from original film elements

George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn - Amazon UK

George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn - Amazon

[jenkins]

i was like in this mood and i googled "black and white cartoons blu-ray" because that was my green light then, and long story short i landed at thunderbean.

first i ordered



and that's because Fleischer's Popeye started me on this btw. but so, this 1930s cartoon is amazing to me

Willie is a young lad who tells of his many outlandish adventures, which are then depicted on-screen. His fantastic accounts are in fact, outright lies, or "whoppers". His stories are usually preceded by his memorable catchphrase, "Say, did I ever tell ya this one?"

they were beginning to imagine cartoons and they were trying to figure out how to do it. they were like "let's have the kid imagine" and it works awesomely. so, sound is around, but barely anyone talks for some reason. everyone moves in that jumpy jazz way, like in Popeye, and it's more that things happen than people say things



i haven't opened it yet because i'm so excited

but i opened Willie Whopper, who slays. Willie Whopper made me feel so excited that i've already ordered two more.



honestly i'd been wanting to watch holiday themed cartoons anyway, because of Nicktoons. i'd been thinking about this kind of thing so boom click order fuck yeah



are you familiar with Snafu through your Looney Tunes discs? this is early people who went on to do that, e.g. Chuck Jones. do you have Looney Tunes discs? can i borrow them? Snafu trips me out in particular because of its writing by Dr. Seuss. voice by Mel Blanc

just further establishing myself as a guy into cartoons. Ricky and Morty season 3 and BoJack Horseman season 4, hell yeah, i can't wait to catch up with those shows one day

[wilder]

If I played videogames I'd be playing this:

[wilder]

September 29, 2017

Doug Pray’s documentary Hype! (1996) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



Drop into the Pacific Northwest in the early '90s and watch a vibrant underground music scene explode into a global "grunge" media frenzy. Hype! follows the music from local bands playing for their friends, to Sub Pop Record's brilliant exploitation of "the Seattle Sound," to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hitting #1 on the charts. Questions of money, authenticity, and fame arise as "grunge fashion" hits the runways and a mass migration of wanna-be Seattle bands saturates the city. The Northwest experience is one of humor, loss, and epic irony. With intense live performances by Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, and many more, Hype! rocks the definitive story of the world's last great local music scene.

[wilder]

August 22, 2017

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



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

Effects (1980) - Amazon

[wilder]

Fall 2017 TBD

Edgar Reitz's Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany (1984-2004) on blu-ray from Second Sight (UK). Betting Criterion will also put it out eventually. Stanley Kubrick was a huge fan.

“Stanley was completely taken by Heimat. The idea of telling such an ‘impossible to tell story’ through the eyes of a bunch of simple villagers he considered completely new and brilliant. To show ‘heaven’ convincingly and without special effects on the top floor of a country inn and have the dead people observe ‘us’ – he was deeply moved. There are a number of other scenes like that. He was so taken by it that he hired the art director and costume designer for preparation of Wartime Lies (Aryan Papers). There are some specific scenes we saw together again and again (having videotaped the BBC2 broadcast) and I remember it all very well.”

Several series of films in 32 episodes written and directed by Edgar Reitz which view life in Germany between 1919 and 2000 through the eyes of a family from the Hunsrück area of the Rhineland. Personal and domestic life is set against glimpses of wider social and political events. The combined length of the 32 films is 53 hours and 25 minutes, making it one of the longest series of feature-length films in cinema history.

The title Heimat is a German word meaning "homeland" or "home place." Usage has come to include that of an ironic reference to the film genre known as Heimatfilm which was popular in Germany in the 1950s. Heimat films were characterized by rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality.

Aesthetically, all three series are notable for their frequent switching between color and black-and-white film to convey different emotional states.

[jenkins]

Release date: out across the sea, probably headed to Criterion

a

For the discerning science fiction fan, this is the best of the Eastern-bloc Cold War Sci-fi epics, a genuinely brilliant and warmly human 'Voyage to the End of the Universe' restored in 4k resolution. It's from before 2001: A Space Odyssey and has an equally wondrous but totally different vision of the future. Hopefully this will soon be readily available here; buying it required some clever footwork by Foreign Exchange of Culver City. Starring my favorite Czech personalities Radovan Lukavský, Zdenek Stepánek, Frantisek Smolík, Irena Kacírková and Dana Medrická. Please Marek, forgive my incompetent diacritical marks! On Blu-ray from NFA (Czech).

b

Janus is now the official North American partner for the NFA. From the titles they mention (in addition to the already in-print Marketa Lazarová) we could expect The Cremator, All My Good Countrymen, Three Wishes for Cinderella, and Ikarie XB1, among others.

Release date: August 22, 2017

MoC trailer:

I can’t think of a better movie to demonstrate how a good silent picture communicates, as opposed to a talking picture that just relies on dialogue. Varieté has few scenes and few dialogue inter-titles; most everything is communicated through the stylized acting and the psychologically ‘active’ camera. Emil Jannings’ performance is 90% externalization of feelings — there’s no information being given, just emotions. Boss reacts to his wife, and then he reacts to his baby. We see what a gentle and caring soul he is, and he also makes a human connection with us. Then Bertha-Marie nails Boss Huller’s attention with her large, dark eyes, and he is lost. We see him resist but the attraction is too great. The basic emotions flowing across Janning’s face show a lot of nuance, and they cross all language barriers. Everyone understands Boss Huller’s situation as a prisoner, when his whole body seems to sag in shame. Everybody can follow Boss’s thoughts when he covets the desirable Bertha-Marie. Emil Jannings isn’t a handsome man, but his acting makes us identify strongly with him. If this guy can desert the baby he loves so much, he’s clearly acting under an irresistible compulsion.

basically this entire review Glenn Erickson is trying to explain how good this movie is.

[wilder]

2017 TBD

Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975) on blu-ray form Warner Archive, from a new 4K remaster



L.A. detective Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) has problems. Missing persons and bedroom stakeouts are no match for his glory days as a pro football player. His wife is having a not-so-secret affair. And while sorting things out, he takes on the case of a runaway teenager that may be a lot more than he can handle.

September 5, 2017

Carl Reiner’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) on blu-ray from Universal



Parodies of the '40s hard boiled detective genre, with a very clever conceit: weaving the plot and production design around memorable movie clips (The Killers, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, White Heat, This Gun for Hire, Sorry, Wrong Number, Notorious). Cool Rigby Reardon tries solving an incomprehensible mystery with the assistance of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Fred MacMurray, Ingrid Bergman, and Ray Milland, among others.

October 9, 2017

Max Ophuls’ Le Plaisir (1952) on blu-ray from Arrow Academy (UK)



The French writer Guy de Maupassant has inspired many great filmmakers. Among those to adapt his short stories and novels were Jean-Luc Godard, Kenji Mizoguchi, Walerian Borowczyk, Harry Kümel, Luis Buñuel and Christian-Jacque. But it was arguably Max Ophuls, with his 1952 feature, Le Plaisir, who proved to be the most adept.

Le Plaisir takes three of de Maupassant's stories as its source: in Le Masque, a masked dandy conceals a secret; in La Maison Tellier, the girls of a small-town brothel are taken on an outing to attend the communion of the madam's niece; and in La Modèle, a painter falls in love with his model, but the course of love isn't as smooth as either expected.

To tell these tales, Ophuls assembled a remarkable cast of French talent, including Jean Gabin (Pépé le Moko, La Grande illusion), Pierre Brasseur (Eyes Without a Face, Spotlight on a Murderer), Danielle Darrieux (Madame de…, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort), Claude Dauphin (Casque d'Or, Barbarella), Simone Simon (Cat People, La Ronde) and many more besides.

October 16/17, 2017

Federico Fellini’s The Voice of the Moon (1990) on blu-ray from Arrow Academy (UK) and Arrow US, from a new 2K restoration of the original film elements



The swansong of the great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (La dolce vita, 8½), The Voice of the Moon emerged without fanfare: it played the Cannes Film Festival out of competition after its Italian premiere and failed to secure distribution in North America and the UK. This new restoration from the original negative seeks to right that wrong and provide the film with a second chance…

Adapted from a novel by Ermano Cavazzoni, The Voice of the Moon concerns itself with Ivo Salvini (Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful), recently released from a mental hospital and in love with Aldini (Nadia Ottaviani). As he attempts to win her heart, he wanders a strange, dreamlike landscape and encounters various oddball characters, including Gonnella (Paolo Villagio, Fantozzi), a paranoid old man prone to conspiracy theories.

Concluding a career that had stretched back more than fifty years, The Voice of the Moon combines the nostalgia of Amarcord (the film is set in Emilia-Romagna countryside of the director's youth), the surreal satire of City of Women and the naïf-adrift-in-a-brutal-world structure of La strada. Plenty for Fellini fans to get their teeth into.

[jenkins]

b

Janus is now the official North American partner for the NFA. From the titles they mention (in addition to the already in-print Marketa Lazarová) we could expect The Cremator, All My Good Countrymen, Three Wishes for Cinderella, and Ikarie XB1, among others.

right, right

The Cremator (1969)

Set in World War II, a demented cremator believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world.

All My Good Countrymen(1969)

Various scenes in the life of a tight-knit community in Czechoslovakia exploring the human spirit in the backdrop of the political changes that they experience.

no trailer but two wildly different scenes

Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973)

Life changes dramatically for a Czech housemaid when the house driver gives her three magical hazel nuts.

youtube description:

One of the most beloved films in all Eastern European cinema, Václav Vorlíček's reworking of the classic Cinderella tale is both delightful and unconventional. Deviating from the original story, yet retaining an air of real magic and beauty, Three Wishes for Cinderella takes the familiar fairy tale and invests it with a feisty and rebellious Cinderella who - far from being some passive beauty - rides a horse, knows how to hunt and actively pursues her handsome Prince.

Shot on location in around the famous Švihov castle and the surrounding forests of Bohemia, the film grounds the familiar fairy tale in a realistic setting with down-to-earth characters, and a remarkable central performance by the young Libuše Šafránková.

Three Wishes for Cinderella became a treasured Christmas holiday classic in various European countries, and one which continues to charm and attract new audiences.

[wilder]

For the discerning science fiction fan, this is the best of the Eastern-bloc Cold War Sci-fi epics, a genuinely brilliant and warmly human 'Voyage to the End of the Universe' restored in 4k resolution. It's from before 2001: A Space Odyssey and has an equally wondrous but totally different vision of the future. Hopefully this will soon be readily available here; buying it required some clever footwork by Foreign Exchange of Culver City. Starring my favorite Czech personalities Radovan Lukavský, Zdenek Stepánek, Frantisek Smolík, Irena Kacírková and Dana Medrická. Please Marek, forgive my incompetent diacritical marks! On Blu-ray from NFA (Czech).

That's what I'm talking about. Some restored footage:

Again, I'm reminded of the thing Matt said in the Ghost Story thread, which is beginning to feel like a manifesto for filmmaking in the 21st century:

One thing I'll say is that I've recently been thinking about how we've reached the limit of how deep a literal/realistic approach to storytelling in film can go. At least for me as a viewer. There've been a bunch of recent movies that have done a great job of being observant and understated and demonstrating all these things that are true about how people behave and how things happen and so on, but... I find that I can't give that much of a shit about it anymore. Meanwhile, movies that engage with symbolism and theme are striking me as able to probe much deeper into its ideas, because of the distillation of its ideas into images and moments. There is so much more feeling in it. I would never say "cinema is dead" but I agree with Scorsese that "images don't mean anything anymore" in the great majority of contemporary cinema, especially when compared to older cinema. Most filmmakers aren't even trying to create new and striking and meaningful images.

My favorite movies of the past few years are incredibly playful with the filmmaking, even when the themes are serious. There is a joy in it. An engagement with the form, and the possibilities. Even though the word "playful" sounds unserious, it's really the only way to be serious.

THE SEVENTH SEAL is playful. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE is playful. ERASERHEAD is playful. CITIZEN KANE is playful. POINT BLANK is playful. THE LOVE WITCH is playful. THE RED SHOES is playful. A GHOST STORY is playful.

So many of these older Russian and Czech movies are great examples of this storytelling style. Most of them are fairly difficult to find in official home video releases, at least English-friendly ones.

The Cremator (1969)

Set in World War II, a demented cremator believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world.

Hell yeah. My boy Juraj. He also made a super cool adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

The 1978 adaptation by the Czechoslovak film-maker Juraj Herz is both a vital addition to – and a radical departure from – the tradition of fairy tales on film. Its title, Panna a netvor, has been translated with equal validity as The Beauty and the Beast or The Virgin and the Monster. As this alternate title implies, the dimension of horror (not to mention outright revulsion) is far stronger in this version than in any of its more mainstream rivals. The Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche confronts its heroine with the very real fear that “the husband who comes secretly gliding into your bed at night is an enormous snake, with widely gaping jaws, a body that could coil around you a dozen times and a neck swollen with deadly poison.”1 Not one of the better-known film versions conveys anything like this degree of terror.

Beauty and the Beast (1978) trailer on Vimeo

Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973)

Life changes dramatically for a Czech housemaid when the house driver gives her three magical hazel nuts.

One of the most beloved films in all Eastern European cinema, Václav Vorlíček's reworking of the classic Cinderella tale is both delightful and unconventional. Deviating from the original story, yet retaining an air of real magic and beauty, Three Wishes for Cinderella takes the familiar fairy tale and invests it with a feisty and rebellious Cinderella who - far from being some passive beauty - rides a horse, knows how to hunt and actively pursues her handsome Prince.

Shot on location in around the famous Švihov castle and the surrounding forests of Bohemia, the film grounds the familiar fairy tale in a realistic setting with down-to-earth characters, and a remarkable central performance by the young Libuše Šafránková.

Three Wishes for Cinderella became a treasured Christmas holiday classic in various European countries, and one which continues to charm and attract new audiences.

Never heard of this. Looks really interesting.

[wilder]

September 15, 2017

David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999) on limited edition blu-ray from Ledick Filmhandel GmbH (Germany). Unfortunately it’s being sourced from the same lackluster transfer as every other eXistenZ blu-ray release thus far, with minor brightness adjustments. However, this German release will include all of the extra features that were absent from the Region A barebones Echo Bridge disc, including three audio commentaries.



Video game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has created a virtual reality game called eXistenZ. After a crazed fan attempts to kill her, Allegra goes on the run with Ted (Jude Law), a young businessman who falls into the role of bodyguard. In an attempt to save her game, Allegra implants into Ted's body the video game pod that carries a damaged copy of eXistenZ. Allegra and Ted engage in a series of experiences that blur the lines between fantasy and reality.

eXistenZ (1999) - Amazon Germany