Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

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

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jenkins


jenkins

wilder, I'm sure you know the halfway to Black Friday sale is taking place. I got this before it sold out but that's just something I mentioned. I'm here to say Champagne & Bullets and Alley Cat are two of their good idea VSA releases, and those tend to sell out and then they're gone. they're not on sale but they're not likely to make it to the next sale

wilder

The Wild Boys is great and I think you'll enjoy it. I considered Alley Cat but decided to wait for the actual Black Friday sale. 5,000 units seems like a lot...is there a particular reason you think it won't last? Have you already seen those two VSA titles?

Got the ones I mentioned and then some. I didn't think I'd even care about this set but the Calendar Girl Murders section of the promo trailer they posted last minute pushed me. They're marketing geniuses for sure because half the time I'm not even sure if I want something but they tell me I definitely do.


jenkins

they absolutely treat us like children and it works so well, and it's even evil. the perspective is they're the most customer-friendly boutique label and the most cold-hearted collector-targeting FOMO label

I guess Champagne & Bullets is the more likely, yeah. I heard someone call Alley Cat an actual, something, I forget the wording of the compliment but he was implying it was better at this than others, and it's the "seedy Los Angeles of the early 80s" so I was projecting

wilder

Quote from: jenkins on May 28, 2021, 09:12:59 PMit's the "seedy Los Angeles of the early 80s" so I was projecting

Was literally going to be my reason for buying. The plot description didn't sound so hot to me but I was like "this is going to be a cool time travel travelogue"

jenkins

totally because, one way to watch a movie is you watch a movie, and another way to watch a movie is as a portrait of a time and historical epoch, which is quoting Kushner because I wanted to steal her line, but she's talking about direct cinema and its reality and just, of course, as you know, wilder, you go full-cinephile when every movie is a representation of the reality of a place and time, and every actor is really there acting, and how are they acting, and what does acting mean then, compared to what acting means now, what is their naturalism like, and what is the size of the emotions being conveyed, what is the fashion of the period both culturally and socially, what are they wearing and saying, what is the script and what is behind them, the production design, it's all really there, you know, it's like life in terms of there aren't boring movies there are boring people, but you can have a lot more fun if you look for the reality in fun movies

WorldForgot


jenkins

I think your interests in depressing movies and different types of movies coalesce in Baby Rosemary which I learned about through the guy who runs the adult movie wing of VS, who said "One of the most downbeat and misery driven sex films out there. And I mean that as high praise."

jenkins

QuoteALLEY CAT is streaming on Amazon Prime, if anyone's interested in checking it out. This was my first viewing. It's inept trash—bad acting (the lead lady, Karin Mani, actually does a decent job), ridiculous incidental music, and cliche after cliche—and I loved every minute of it. I can't wait to see VS's remastering job. It's a perfect VSA entry.

+



lol description of movie:
QuoteIts about a guy that invents a dance called the shimmy slide. Unintentionally the song causes some people to turn satanic and sacrifice people die to hidden backwards messages.

wilder

Quote from: jenkins on May 29, 2021, 04:31:44 PM
I think your interests in depressing movies and different types of movies coalesce in Baby Rosemary which I learned about through the guy who runs the adult movie wing of VS, who said "One of the most downbeat and misery driven sex films out there. And I mean that as high praise."

Okay, you got me. That sounds fucking horrible:

QuoteBABY ROSEMARY (1976):
After the death of her father, a beautiful, though sexually traumatized, young woman enters an erotic nightmare while awaiting his funeral. "Baby Rosemary" is a haunting adult film like no other.

The plot description reminds me of Through the Looking Glass (1976), which was even mentioned in Mondo Digital's review. They also relationally referenced The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), which sounds pretty good, and a gay reimagining, The Destroying Angel (1976)

Quote from: IMDB User melvelvit-1In the envelope-pushing "Me Decade", pornography very nearly went mainstream after DEEP THROAT played to packed houses across the country and a good many porno chic films from this "Golden Age" had decent budgets, actual plot lines, and attractive stars. One such film was THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES (1973), which was considered "thinking man's porn" due to the intelligent, No Exit-esque narrative wherein a virginal suicide makes a pact with the devil to come back for a few days and earn her consignment to hell ("If you have to go to hell go for a reason", the tag line urged).

Peter de Rome's all-male XXX THE DESTROYING ANGEL is a gay version that re-"tool"s the Edgar Allan Poe yarn "William Wilson" into the story of Caswell Campbell, a conflicted seminary student who's given a three-month sabbatical to find himself and come back to God a stronger man. He straight-away gives in to lust and magic mushrooms which, of course, is just another way of saying "If you have to go to hell go for a reason".

Caswell literally "finds himself" being haunted by his dark side, a doppelganger he even has a threesome with in a cleverly staged scene. Despite the low budget and amateur acting, this is an expertly executed vision of a homosexual hell and it's dark theme is brought home through shadowy, seemingly candlelit mis-en-scène inter-cut with religious iconography. The last scene is a black attack on organized religion's denial of natural desires. The oil painting of Poe and his raven over the mantle in Caswell's apartment was also a nice touch.

The sex -and there's lots of it- is on the masochistic side and includes watersports, sex toys, and a cucumber. de Rome's wetdream-cum-nightmare is obviously very personal, the creation of a man with some interesting issues -which begs the question, who was this film intended for? Like Jonas Middleton's XXX THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (made the same year), the disturbing imagery of a phantasmagorical universe would be a guaranteed "wood-killer" for the trenchcoat crowd. It's interesting to note that all three films (MISS JONES, ANGEL, LOOKING GLASS) hypnotically chant the same mantra: heaven and hell are one and the same. Life also imitated art at the time with the LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR crime.

These are excellent films made pornographically and the 1970s actually might have been on to something but, alas, AIDS and the '80s killed that party -literally- and porn went back to being smut kept behind closed doors thanks to the VHS home-video boom. THE DESTROYING ANGEL deserves to be much better-known ...and not just in jerk circles.


I added it to my existing oder. Thanks for the rec!

jenkins

it really is a whole other world of possibilities. Gerard Damiano is going OOP through VS all his releases are hot to the touch, Memories Within Miss Aggie is another adult movie categorized next-level. I haven't bought it yet but I'm sure I will eventually. I own his Skin Flicks, I watched and liked Let My Puppets Come on xHamster, and I bought Throat... 12 Years After just before it zeroed though it's not very good tbh

in this sale the adult movies I bought are all dvds, Showdown, Sex in the Comics, The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, and Baby Rosemary

in terms of the ground VS is occupying in the world of contemporary cinephilia, their partner label Utopia (through OCN Distribution) will be the ones who release Shiva Baby, which I saw and is solid but you know it was a bit of a cultural moment so it's considered a good score

https://twitter.com/utopiamovies/status/1397594580170821632

wilder

I'm optimistic about Utopia. They're also putting out The Scary of Sixty-First later in the year. Saw the short film Shiva Baby evolved from, online, but haven't checked out the feature.

I've got Memories Wihin Miss Aggie in the current bag, and Skin Flicks and Puppets on my shelf but they haven't made it to the player.

You've definitely gone farther down this lane than I have. I never thought my cinephile adventures would take me here, but most mainstream movies are no longer showing me something I'm uncomfortable to see, and if a movie can't hurt me why would I watch it?

WorldForgot

Well put, wilder. Cronenberg on Cronenberg cites a philosophy I adored; paraphrasing here, creating within cinema as a medium 'to show us what we can't see.'

I must witness the shimmy slide o_o

Nearly made a thread for Shiva Baby cuz one of my best friends AD'd the short and feature,and it got so much buzz. Then I saw the film...

Utopia does seem interested in distributing independent voices. That's promising, to a degree.

jenkins

The trailers for Cauldron's releases today




jenkins

VS's new partner label is Saturn's core, which is some deep cut stuff. I'd never heard of these fucks. AGFA is most in-line in terms of scavenging the surface of the American cinematic landscape

first I got into adult movies then I got into VS in general and now I've achieved a feeling of familiarity that's followed by detachment