Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

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

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

wilder

September 13, 2022

Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction (1987) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



Stylish and sexy, Fatal Attraction took audiences to terrifying new heights with its thrilling story of a casual encounter gone terribly awry. This box-office smash was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Adrian Lyne - Indecent Proposal, Flashdance). Michael Douglas plays Dan Gallagher, a New York attorney who has a tryst with seductive Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) while his wife (Anne Archer) is away. Dan later shrugs off the affair as a mistake and considers it over. But Alex won't be ignored. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever... even if it means destroying Dan's family to keep him.



September 27, 2022

Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal (1993) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson are Diana and David Murphy, a financially strapped couple who are betting on a quick trip to Las Vegas to deal them a lucky hand. But the odds are suddenly even more attractive when billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford) ups the ante - complete financial freedom.

The price? One night of passion with Diana. The Payoff? A cool $1 million. But what seems to be a quick and simple solution to their money problems creates more friction that the couple bargained for as the high stakes of trust, love and attraction come into play as part of Gage's compelling proposal.




2022 TBD

John Frankenheimer's The Train (1964) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



With the Allies poised to retake Paris from the Germans, Col. Franz Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) conspires to sneak out by train all of the art masterpieces looted by the German army. But museum curator Mademoiselle Villard (Suzanne Flon) alerts the French Resistance, and soon railway inspector Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) is pressed into service. He reroutes the train, and cleverly deceives Von Waldheim by renaming each train station along the way.



Late 2022 TBD

Don Siegel's Escape from Alcatraz (1979) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood), a hardened con with a history of prison breaks, is sent to serve the rest of his life sentence at Alcatraz -- America's most infamously brutal and inescapable maximum security prison. Morris quickly realizes the prison's dehumanizing effects and clashes with its cruel warden (Patrick McGoohan). Fed up with life at Alcatraz, Morris and two convict brothers (Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau) meticulously plan the unthinkable: an escape from the island.



July 26, 2022

George Kaczender's Don't Let the Angels Fall (1969) on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome partner label Canadian International Pictures



Haunted by memories of a recent affair, securities advisor Robert Harrison (The Andromeda Strain's Arthur Hill) feels a growing sense of alienation from his wife Myrna (Last Night's Charmion King) and their sons Michael (John Kastner) and Guy (Jon Michaelson). As Michael embraces radical politics and Guy becomes dangerously isolated from his peers, Robert remains largely oblivious, distracted by visions of his recent mistress (Point Blank's Sharon Acker) and other infidelities. As confidence in Robert fades, the family spirals out of control, which paves the way for a shocking, perception-shifting discovery.

The first Canadian film to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this remarkable feature directorial debut from George Kaczender (In Praise of Older Women, Agency) builds on the experiments of Michelangelo Antonioni and Alain Resnais to deliver an impressively modern, unsentimental look at family dysfunction and midlife malaise. The only original screenplay by celebrated novelist Timothy Findley (The Wars), Don't Let the Angels Fall taps into the existential currents of '60s literary icons John Updike (Rabbit, Run) and John Cheever (The Swimmer) to deliver a haunting, evocative, occasionally psychedelic experience.





July 26, 2022

Aleksandr Ptushko's Sampo (1959) on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome partner label Deaf Crocodile Films



Based on the Finnish national epic "Kalevala," director Aleksandr Ptushko's ravishing, mystical fantasy tells the story of a sinister witch Louhi (Anna Orochko) who covets the Sampo, a magical, rainbow-colored mill that can produce endless salt, grain, and gold. When the hero Lemminkäinen (Andris Oshin) attempts to stop her, Louhi steals the sun, plunging the world into eternal darkness. A Finnish/Soviet co-production and shot like its predecessor ILYA MUROMETS in gorgeous CinemaScope, SAMPO features some of Ptushko's most surreal and fantastical imagery: a glowing red horse plowing a field of vipers; a boat of fire with a stag's head; a weeping mother literally walking across the sea to find her lost son. With its witch's incantations and repeated scenes of forging magical items – "Give me fire for the furnace from the nave of the sky!" – there is a Macbeth-like occult force to the film as well, underscored by the raging blue-gray seas and rock-strewn landscapes.




July 26, 2022

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



Based on the novel by Jorge Amado, this Brazilian comedy follows the strange events that befall Doña Flor (Sonia Braga) after she is left a widow by the death of her wild, irresponsible husband. (He died after another wanton night of carousing) Attempting to marry more wisely the second time around, Doña Flor weds a stable, but boring, pharmacist who has no interest in sex. When she discovers that her new sex life is less than satisfying, Doña Flor is visited by the sexy ghost of her late husband.




August 30, 2022

Julio Medem's Sex and Lucía (2001) on blu-ray from Music Box Films



Lucía is a young waitress in Madrid, who seeks refuge on a quiet, secluded Mediterranean island after the loss of her longtime boyfriend. Amidst the fresh air, dazzling sun, and glistening deep blue water, Lucía begins to piece together the dark corners of her past relationship.



2022

Jacques Deray's The Outside Man (1972) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



A French hit man is hired by a crime family to end the life of a rival mobster, but things fall apart when the boss who hired him is killed.





August 30, 2022

Curtis Harrington's Mata Hari (1985) on blu-ray from Kino



Based loosely on the real-life story of the World War I spy. The exotic dancer uses her contacts in European high society, along with her seductive charm, to collect military secrets during the war. She successfully plays both sides against each other until at last her deceptions catch up with her.

Quote from: Letterboxd user Lencho of the ApesA cineaste's wet-dream, a triumph of kino-eye authorship, magpie-style -- opening scenes reference Shaw Brothers exotica and Colonel Blimp before it settles down into a softcore pastiche of Visconti that's heaven to look at, with glancing references along the way to anything else that Harrington thought was appropriate. (There's some Shanghai Express in there, and... um... I forget...)



August 9, 2022

Frank Borzage's Little Man, What Now? (1934) on blu-ray from Kino



A young couple struggling against poverty must keep their marriage a secret in order for the husband to keep his job, as his boss doesn't like to hire married men.



September 6, 2022

Jules Dassin's He Who Must Die aka Celui qui doit mourir (1957) on blu-ray from Kino



Set in a Turkish-occupied Greek village shortly after World War I, Jules Dassin's stunning He Who Must Die tells the story of the townspeople's efforts to stage their Passion Play, an event that occurs once every seven years. The leading citizens choose who will play the parts: a stuttering young shepherd is chosen as Jesus; the town butcher as Judas; the town prostitute as Mary Magdalene. But as the movie unfolds, the Passion becomes a reality, and the villagers actualize their biblical roles against the tragic backdrop of a country uprooted by war and poverty.

Adapted from author Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ) by the world-renowned Jules Dassin, the director of Rififi, Never on Sunday and Topkapi, this powerful film asks: What would happen if Jesus came down to Earth a second time?




2022 TBD

Rene Clement's Joy House aka Les Felins (1964) on blu-ray from Kino



"The French James Dean," Alain Delon (Un Flic) stars as Marc, a small-time con man on the run from a mobster. After seeking refuge in the mansion of the widowed Barbara (Lola Albright) and her curvaceous cousin, Melinda (Jane Fonda), Marc becomes trapped in the passionate snares of both women, who are full of deadly surprises.



August 9, 2022

Sidney Lumet's Equus (1977) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



Dr. Martin Dysart (Richard Burton), a psychiatrist who has grown unhappy with his life, takes on the peculiar case of Alan Strang (Peter Firth), a reserved teenager who has been accused of brutally blinding six horses. Dysart slowly unravels Alan's background, learning that he grew up in a strained household with a devoutly religious mother (Joan Plowright) and an atheist father (Colin Blakely). But as Dysart begins to trace the roots of Alan's problems, his own also begin to surface.




August 9, 2022

Phil Joanou's State of Grace (1990) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



Gone for a decade, Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) is welcomed back into the fold in his Irish-American neighborhood in New York City. A one-time street tough, Terry is now an undercover officer targeting crime boss Frankie Flannery (Ed Harris). In the name of duty, Terry rekindles his dormant friendship with Frankie's younger brother, Jackie (Gary Oldman). But as Terry gets closer to his goal, his feelings for the youngest Flannery, his old flame Kathleen (Robin Wright), complicate his mission.



October 25, 2022

James Foley's At Close Range (1986) on blu-ray from MVD Visual



Based on a true story, "At Close Range" follows the lives of the Whitewood family in rural Pennsylvania. Brothers Brad Jr. (Sean Penn) and Tommy (Chris Penn) are the sons of organized crime leader Brad Sr. (Christopher Walken), who draws his sons into his life of crime. After starting their own gang, Brad Jr. and Tommy are arrested in a failed robbery attempt, and are forced to face the truth: that their father will do anything to avoid being arrested for his crimes.



September 19, 2022

Universal Noir #1 (1947-1954) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



A new series of box sets – following Indicator's acclaimed Columbia Noir series – focusing on the film noir output of another of the major Hollywood studios, Universal Pictures.

QuoteThe Web (1947)

Leopold Kroner, formerly of Colby Enterprises, is released after five years in prison for embezzlement. Andrew Colby (Price), claiming that Kroner has threatened him, hires lawyer Bob Regan (O'Brien) as a secret bodyguard. Sure enough, Kroner turns up in Colby's room with a gun, and Regan kills him. Then Regan, who sticks around to romance Colby's secretary Noel (Raines), begins to suspect he's been used. Director Gordon and the superb cast spin a web of deception, seduction and murder in this first-rate crime drama. Cinematography by Irving Glassberg (The Tarnished Angels, Bend of the River).

Larceny (1948)

A con man sets out to swindle a widow out of the money she's received to build a memorial to her war-hero husband, but instead winds up falling in love with her. Cinematography by Irving Glassberg (Bend of the River, The Tarnished Angels).

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)

Bill Saunders, disturbed ex-soldier, kills a man in a postwar London pub brawl. Fleeing, he hides out in the apartment of lonely nurse Jane Wharton. Later, despite misgivings about his violent nature, Jane becomes involved with Bill, who resolves to reform. She gets him a job driving a medical supplies truck. But racketeer Harry Carter, who witnessed the killing, wants to use Bill's talents for crime.

Abandoned (1949)

Dennis O'Keefe and Gale Storm expose a baby-selling racket in the searing crime drama Abandoned, co-starring Jeff Chandler and Raymond Burr. When Paula Considine (Storm) arrives in Los Angeles to find her sister Mary, she soon learns the unwed mother is dead and her newborn infant is missing. Teaming up with cynical reporter named Mark Sitko (O'Keefe), Paula discovers Mary was the victim of a black market adoption ring run by Mrs. Leona Donner (Marjorie Rambeau) and her sleazy assistant Kerric (Burr). Hoping to entrap the pair, Paula and Sitko devise a plan but the sting operation proves to have deadly consequences. Directed by Joe Newman.

Deported (1950)

The real-life deportation of gangster Lucky Luciano was the inspiration for this romanticized and slightly crackbrained crime drama. Jeff Chandler plays the Luciano counterpart, who once he arrives in Italy renews his criminal activities. Chandler masterminds a black-market racket, capitalizing upon wartime shortages in Europe. He falls in love with a Contessa (Marta Toren), who is the benign patroness of the small village where he lives. Under her influence, Chandler abandons his life of crime, turns his back on the ill-gotten gains that he's already smuggled into Italy, and becomes a pillar of the community. And if you believe all that, we have some land in Florida we'd like to show you.

Naked Alibi (1954)

Though drunken baker Al Willis (Gene Barry) insists he's innocent of all charges, police chief Joe Conroy (Sterling Hayden) is determined to throw the book at Willis for murdering a fellow cop. Though the evidence is thin, Conroy is so certain of the baker's guilt that he continues to pursue his suspect even after being fired from the police force. Enlisting the aid of Willis' abused girlfriend, Marianna (Gloria Grahame), Conroy trails his man to Mexico in a heated chase.



September 20, 2022

Anthony Asquith's Orders to Kill (1958) on blu-ray from Indicator US



Based on a story by real-life spy Donald Downes, and co-scripted by another former spy, Paul Dehn (The Deadly Affair, Fragment of Fear), Anthony Asquith's film follows an American airman sent into occupied France with orders to kill a suspected double agent... but the mission does not go according to plan.



July 18, 2022

Jirí Menzel's Larks on a String (1990) on blu-ray from Second Run (UK), from a 4K restoration



Shot in 1968, whilst Czechoslovakia enjoyed a brief moment of political liberalization, Larks on a String is a searing political satire from director Jirí Menzel and writer Bohumil Hrabal. Like their earlier Oscar-winning triumph Closely Observed Trains, it audaciously combines black humour with grim reality.

Set in a scrap metal yard where dissidents are interned to be 're-educated', the film is both a powerful critique of totalitarianism and a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit. Promptly banned by the Communist regime, the film remained unseen until 1990, when it was released to great acclaim, winning the grand prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Now regarded as a lost masterpiece, Menzel's wry comic drama is a hymn to humanity and nonconformity.





September 19, 2022

The Oslo Trilogy: Three Films By Joachim Trier (2006-2021) on blu-ray from Mubi (UK)



QuoteReprise (2006)

Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman Høiner) have been best friends since childhood. Both young men share a passion for the works of reclusive novelist Sten Egil Dahl, and both harbor literary ambitions. However, fate deals differently with the friends as each strives to make his dream come true.

Oslo, August 31 (2011)

Anders is about to finish a detox treatment in a rural center. As part of his therapy, one morning he goes to the city to perform for a job interview. Taking advantage of the permit, he stays in the city and meets people who have not seen for a long time. He is an intelligent man, handsome and of good family, but he is deeply disturbed by the opportunities he has missed and by the people he has disappointed. However, when night comes he dreams of finding love and starting a new life full of hope in the future from the next day. Starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Hans Olav Brenner, Ingrid Olava, and Renate Reinsve.

The Worst Person in the World (2021)

Acclaimed filmmaker Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st, Louder Than Bombs) returns with The Worst Person in the World, a wistful and subversive romantic drama about the quest for love and meaning. Set in contemporary Oslo, it features a star-making lead performance from Renate Reinsve as a young woman who, on the verge of turning thirty, navigates multiple love affairs, existential uncertainty and career dissatisfaction as she slowly starts deciding what she wants to do, who she wants to be, and ultimately who she wants to become.



August 22, 2022

John Dahl's Red Rock West (1993) on blu-ray from Plan B Entertainment (UK)



Dead tired and flat broke after driving 12,000 miles, an unemployed Texan, Michael (Cage), walks into a tavern in tiny Red Rock, Wyoming, and is immediately offered a job. There's just one problem: the owner thinks Michael is a hitman, and the "job" is murdering the owner's wife (Boyle). Just when Michael decides to take the money and run, the real hitman (Hopper) arrives, ready to do the job right.



Summer 2022 TBD

Walter Hill Box Set (1975-2006) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)





September 28, 2022

Barbet Schroeder's Barfly (1987) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



Henry Chinaski never cared for the American dream, the thought of needing to become 'something' and fit into the system disgusts him. He believes that life is free and yours to live like you see fit, and if that in some cases involves copious amounts of whiskey then so be it. Henry spends his days drinking and listening to the radio, and he spends his nights drinking and fighting against Eddy who he thinks personifies shallowness and shameless self promoting. Sometimes in the middle of this he finds the time to jot down a few lines of poetry or a short story. After fighting Eddy and winning for a change Henry is thrown out of his regular bar where Eddy is a bartender.



September 28, 2022

Adrian Lyne's Lolita (1997) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



Humbert Humbert is a remarkable man with a poisonous wound: the indelible memory of a fated childhood love and a haunting urge to rediscover its lost passion through an obsession with a twelve-year-old girl named Lolita.



September 28, 2022

Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala (1975) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



A Russian explorer brings the Asiatic hunter who saved his life back to civilization.

wilder

October 25, 2022

Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison but decide to show him one last good time along the way.



Late 2022

John Schlesinger's Marathon Man (1976) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A graduate history student is unwillingly trapped in a killing game of intrigue involving a Nazi fugitive.



October 11, 2022

Steven Soderbergh's The Limey (1999) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Lionsgate



An extremely volatile and dangerous Englishman goes to Los Angeles to find the man he considers responsible for his daughter's death.



November 15, 2022

Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Lionsgate



They were perfect strangers, set to pull off the perfect crime. When a heist goes horribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.



October 25, 2022

Peter Medak's The Changeling (1980) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Severin



A man staying at a old mansion which has been unoccupied for years finds himself disturbed by a strange presence which haunts the house.




September 13, 2022

John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



Centennial celebration are underway in seaside town of Antonio Bay, glowing fog rolls in and all hell breaks loose.



September 13, 2022

Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



A young soldier must choose between his two platoon leaders and confront the horrors of war and the duality of man.



October 25, 2022

Columbia Classics Collection: Volume 3 (1934-1997) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Sony



-It Happened One Night (1934)
-From Here to Eternity (1953)
-To Sir with Love (1967)
-The Last Picture Show (1971)
-Annie (1982)
-As Good as It Gets (1997)



December 31, 2022

Walter Hill's The Driver (1978) on 4K UHD blu-ray from StudioCanal (France)



In Los Angeles, a mysterious getaway driver renowned for his speed and ability behind the wheel is pursued by an obsessive detective and his men. Drawn into their cat-and-mouse game is a beautiful gambler who saw the driver's face during a casino heist, but refuses to identify him to the police.



August 4, 2022

Mike Hodges' Get Carter (1971) on 4K UHD blu-ray from BFI (UK)



After his brother's suspicious death, coldblooded gangster Jack Carter returns to his hometown of Newcastle to investigate and exact vengeance.



November 1, 2022

Román Viñoly Barreto's El Vampiro Negro (1953) on blu-ray from Flicker Alley



A virtually unknown remake of M, Fritz Lang's seminal 1931 thriller, El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is a revisionist take on the tale by Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto. Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Film Noir Foundation, a stunning restoration of the film was created by UCLA Film & Television Archive, now presented in its first-ever home video release – with special thanks to Fernando Martín Peña and Argentina Sono Film.

Argentine beauty Olga Zubarry stars as a cabaret performer trying to protect her young daughter (Gogó) from a mysterious murderer while parrying the advances of the prosecutor (Roberto Escalada) pursuing the killer. Nathán Pinzón, who also appeared in Viñoly Barreto's The Beast Must Die (La bestia debe morir) a year earlier, gives an impressive against-type performance as the disturbed pedophile hiding in plain sight.

This variation on Fritz Lang's classic is a proto-feminist reimagining of the tale, focusing on the lives of female characters ignored in the earlier iterations. The film's brooding cinematography (by Aníbal González Paz) enhances Olga Zubarry's exceptional performance, which won her the Argentine Film Critics Association award for Best Actress. El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is a significant rediscovery in cinema history, and, thanks to the dedication of the Film Noir Foundation and its partners at UCLA Film & Television Archive, it is now available in a beautiful Blu-ray/DVD dual-format edition packed with special features.




September 27, 2022

Reinhard Hauff's A Knife in the Head (1978) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group, from a new 4K restoration



Hoffman (Bruno Ganz) is searching for his wife (Angela Winkler) at the youth center where she works. When a police raid turns into an armed struggle with revolutionaries, Hoffman is caught in the crossfire and shot in the head. Once a promising bio-geneticist, Hoffman is now unable to move and barely able to remember the incident. While terrorists claim him as a hero, police frame him to justify shooting him. Hoffman must painstakingly piece together his memory to discover what really happened.




September 13, 2022

Diane Kurys' Entre Nous (1983) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group



In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.



October 11, 2022

Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group



Two whimsical, aimless thugs harass and assault women, steal, murder, and alternately charm, fight, or sprint their way out of trouble. They take whatever the bourgeois characters value: whether it's cars, peace of mind, or daughters. Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor. She's on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.



October 25, 2022

Joseph Anthony's The Rainmaker (1956) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 6K (!) restoration of the original VistaVision negative



During the Great Depression, a drought is wreaking havoc on a small, destitute Kansas town. Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), a slick grifter, arrives in town, promising he can make it rain in exchange for $100. His offer is accepted by H. C. Curry (Cameron Prudhomme), a rancher whose spinster daughter, Lizzie (Katharine Hepburn), is desperate for a suitor. Lizzie finally finds confidence when Starbuck, ever the smooth talker, convinces her she's beautiful.



September 13, 2022

Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



This charming, whimsical story about a waifish daydreamer with artistic aspirations is structured around a video-recorded confession. In Patricia Rozema's fanciful character study, aspiring photographer Polly (comedian Sheila McCarthy) lands a job at a Toronto art gallery run by Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), who is also a painter. Polly is impressed with Gabrielle's paintings, but as Polly gets to know her lover Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald) and becomes entangled in their lives, she realizes Gabrielle isn't exactly who she appears to be. The gauche absent-minded temp with spiky orange hair and the polished, bourgeois curator with a gift for gab are like night and day, yet a strong connection builds between these two women through their shared love of art, and their genuine curiosity and appetite for love. Winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.




2022 TBD

Milos Forman's Valmont (1989) on blu-ray from Kino



Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman.




November 29, 2022

William Wyler's Detective Story (1951) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



James McLeod (Kirk Douglas) is a stern police detective who has no tolerance for crime. At home, however, he is a loving husband to his wife, Mary (Eleanor Parker). The police are ready to conclude the case of abortionist Karl Schneider (George Macready), who is responsible for the death of at least one patient, but McLeod's hatred for the doctor prolongs the investigation. The detective soon uncovers a dark secret that threatens to destroy his sanity and ruin his life.



October 18, 2022

Irvin Kershner's Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) on blu-ray from Kino



Faye Dunaway (The Thomas Crown Affair) stars in this deviously original supernatural thriller from acclaimed director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back). World-renowned for her sensational, erotic portraits of models in settings of glorified urban violence, Laura Mars (Dunaway) exhibits a mystifying psychic ability. In her mind's eye, she "witnesses" a series of bizarre murders with terrifying clarity. All of the victims are people Laura has known. Homicide detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones, Black Moon Rising) attempts to unravel the mystery...and makes a bloodcurdling discovery.

The chilling Eyes of Laura Mars was scripted by masters of suspense John Carpenter (Halloween) and David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs), with a crackerjack cast that includes Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Rene Auberjonois (M*A*S*H) and Raul Julia (The Addams Family).




September 6, 2022

Paul Newman's Rachel, Rachel (1968) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Rachel is a 35 year old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.



August 16, 2022

Hal Saline's Denise Calls Up (1995) on blu-ray from Sony



An inventive romantic comedy, Denise Calls Up follows a group of workaholic young professionals who keep their social lives and interactions restricted solely to the telephone lines. With a strong ensemble cast Denise Calls Up is a clever and funny examination of love in the '90s, as well as all of life's modern hang-ups.




September 20, 2022

Lewis Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 4K restoration



Young Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) inadvertently causes the death of her cruel, authoritarian aunt. Martha lies to the cops, and Walter (Kirk Douglas), who saw the crime, corroborates the girl's story. Eventually, they wed out of convenience; the meek Walter is genuinely in love, and Martha thinks that her secret is safe since she has married the one witness to her aunt's death. However, when her childhood pal, Sam (Van Heflin), shows up, Martha knows her dark past may not stay a secret for long.



August 23, 2022

Douglas Sirk's Thunder on the Hill (1951) on blu-ray from Universal



A convicted murderer is being transported to Norwich for execution when a flood strands her and her guards at a convent hospital. During her stay, a nun becomes convinced of her innocence and sets out to find the real killer.



September 20, 2022

Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.



September 20, 2022

Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



In a series of vignettes, Woody Allen reveals the fools we all become in the name of sex.



September 20, 2022

Woody Allen's Love & Death (1975) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



A devout coward vows to assassinate Napoleon in the name of love.



September 27, 2022

Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.



September 27, 2022

Woody Allens Interiors (1978) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



Three sisters find their lives spinning out of control in the wake of their parents' sudden, unexpected divorce.



September 27, 2022

Woody Allen's Zelig (1983) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others. Written by Scott Renshaw



November 14, 2022

Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (1982) on blu-ray from BFI (UK), from a 4K restoration



Six years after the Glorious Revolution, during the reign of William and Mary over England, haughty and gifted artist Neville is contracted by a woman to produce 12 drawings of her wealthy husband's estate and garden. In return, she pays him a modest fee and sleeps with him. However, there is more intrigue and mystery unfolding around him than Neville first realizes, and he becomes part of a complicated plot beyond his control.




October 10, 2022

Roddy McDowall's The Ballad of Tam Lin (1970) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



Based on an ancient Scottish folk song, an older woman uses witchcraft to keep her young jet-set friends.




December 5, 2022

Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth (1997) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



The dramatically brutal life of a family struggling to get by in South London is unflinchingly depicted in Gary Oldman's debut feature as writer/director. In a moving performance for which she was named Best Acterss at the Cannes Film Festival, Kathy Burke stars with Ray Winstone, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse and Edna Dore in this story of love, dependency, abuse and poverty.




August 8, 2022

Robert Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



A reconstruction of the trial of Joan of Arc (based entirely on the transcripts of the real-life trial), concerning Joan's imprisonment, interrogation and final execution at the hands of the English, filmed in a spare, low-key fashion.



December 5, 2022

Mitchell Leisen's Remember the Night (1940) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Legendary screen duo Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray star in this heartwarming holiday classic, which is more popular than ever as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. Stanwyck is a petty shoplifter caught stealing a bracelet and MacMurray is the Assistant District Attorney who gets her sent off to jail just before the holidays, then suffers a crisis of conscience and bails her out. When he invites her to join him and his family for Christmas, it begins a relationship that strains—but ultimately redeems—all parties. Featuring a wonderful supporting cast (Beulah Bondi, Sterling Holloway and Elizabeth Patterson), stylish costumes by Edith Head, a hilarious yet poignant script by Preston Sturges and superb direction by Mitchell Leisen, this is a timeless holiday favorite that can be enjoyed in any season.



October 24, 2022

Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Schoedsack's The Most Dangerous Game (1932) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



An insane hunter arranges for a ship to be wrecked on an island where he can indulge in some sort of hunting and killing of the passengers.



September 19, 2022

Károly Makk's Szerelem aka Love (1971) on blu-ray from Second Run (UK)



The wife of a political prisoner tends to her mother-in-law and keeps from the old woman the truth about her son, whom she believes is in New York making a film. Károly Makk's beloved film, based on the autobiographical writings of Tibor Déry, is a meditation on time, memory, love and loss.




October 26, 2022

Louis Malle' Pretty Baby (1978) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



A pre-teen girl grows up in a house of prostitution in the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1917.





October 26, 2022

John G. Avlidsen's Save the Tiger (1973) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



Jack Lemmon plays Harry Stoner, a man caught in violent collision with his past and present life. He believes there is nothing significant in his life except survival, and that instinct pushes him beyond moral conduct. He'll juggle the books, supply women for clients... and even set fire to his own dress manufacturing factory. He is drawn to an America when life not only had values and heroes, it all seemed worth living and building. But Harry is frightened to break away from the emptiness of his seemingly successful life.


wilder

A new British label, Radiance Films, founded by Arrow Video's Francesco Simeoni, has announced their first slate of releases. Kat Ellinger is working with them as a disc producer.

QuoteRadiance Films is founded on a passion for cinema. A series of films, books, merchandise and more curated from a variety of genres and modes of filmmaking, from arthouse provocateurs to genre classics. Each release is created from the best available materials and includes a wealth of supplementary features on disc and extensive booklets featuring new and archival writing, where applicable.

January 2, 2023

Elio Petri's The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK), from a 2K restoration



Gian Maria Volonté (A Fistful of Dollars), stars in one of provocative filmmaker Elio (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) Petri's most politically charged films as factory worker Lulu: a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, following an accident at work. Too tired to sleep with his girlfriend, cut out of his son's life by his ex, humiliated and disrespected, The Working Class Goes to Heaven is an oftentimes surreal and darkly comic look at the life of an everyday Italian trying to find a sense of purpose in a world where he is only allowed to be a tool for industry. A savage takedown of capitalism and industrial corruption, the film was recipient of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or and features a gloriously unhinged, award-winning performance from Volonté, accompanied by an exceptional score by Ennio Morricone and stunning cinematography by Luigi Kuveiller (Deep Red).



January 2, 2023

Kôsaku Yamashita's Big Time Gambling Boss (1968) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (US & UK)



Tokyo, 1934. Gang boss Arakawa is too ill and a successor must be named. The choice falls on Nakai, but being an outsider he refuses and suggests senior clansman Matsuda instead. But Matsuda is in jail and the elders won't wait for his release, so they appoint the younger and more malleable Ishido to take the reins. Clan honour and loyalties are severely tested when Matsuda is released, resulting in an increasingly violent internal strife. An atmospheric tale of gangland intrigue written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honour and Humanity) and starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, (Lone Wolf and Cub, The Bounty Hunter Trilogy) and genre legend Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss is one of the all-time classics of the yakuza genre. Paul Schrader called it the richest and most complex film of its type, while novelist Yukio Mishima hailed it as a masterpiece. Radiance Films is proud to present this crucial re-discovery for the first time ever on Blu-ray.



February 6, 2023

Jean-Denis Bonan's A Woman Kills (1968) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (US & UK), from a 2K restoration



A series of prostitute murders disturb the public with the thought of a serial killer on the loose. Hélène Picard, a prostitute, is sentenced and executed for the murders, but shortly thereafter similar crimes continue. Executioner Louis Guilbeau meanwhile develops a relationship with the investigating officer, Solange, who soon learns Louis may not be who he says he is. Filmed in the tumultuous events of May 1968, Jean-Denis Bonan's A Woman Kills never found distribution due to controversy around the director's first film and producer Anatole Dauman (The Beast, Hiroshima mon amour) was unable to find distribution for the film for 45 years until Luna Park Films brought it back to life in a new restoration. Now released on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere, audiences outside of France can finally experience this utterly singular film, a new wave-influenced serial killer film that presents its narrative in an almost true crime approach yet focuses more on the psychological aspect with echoes of Polanski and Franju, set to a discordant, jazzy score.




February 6, 2023 TBD

George Armitage's Miami Blues (1990) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



George Armitage (Grosse Pointe Blank) adapted celebrated noir author Charles Willeford's novel Miami Blues for the screen with new star Alec Baldwin in the lead role as Frederick J. Frenger, Jr., a sociopathic criminal. Arriving in Miami fresh out of jail he commits one crime after another when he meets young hooker Susie (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Single White Female) who he starts to build a pseudo-married life with, including the home cooking and the white picket fence. As Frederick tries to juggle domesticity with his mounting crimes, dogged cop Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward, Tremors) threatens to put his freedom in jeopardy. Baldwin is brilliant as the unhinged criminal tearing through Miami while Armitage perfectly balances the humour and violence in this singular crime comedy that betrays the quirky influence of producer Jonathan Demme (Something Wild, Married to the Mob).



2023 TBD

Rudolf Thome's Red Sun (1970) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (US & UK)



Thomas (Marquard Bohm, Kings of the Road) gets a ride to Munich where he finds his ex-girlfriend Peggy (counter culture activist and model Uschi Obermaier) who takes him in. In her flat he finds Peggy and her roommates have a commune-like lifestyle where they kill the men in their lives after five days, but will Thomas realise in time? A pop fantasy focused on the post-'68 and women's liberation movements, Red Sun was compared to a comic strip by Wim Wenders and is a beautiful art-genre collision that is both brilliantly bizarre and provocative. Director Rudolf Thome was an emerging talent in the New German Cinema alongside Wenders, Fassbinder and Herzog, but received little international distribution and fell into international obscurity despite a consistent career covering six decades. Radiance Films is proud to present Red Sun to English-speaking audiences for the first time in a restoration overseen by Thome.




2023 TBD

Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



Junior high school student Dawn "Wiener-dog" Wiener is perpetually teased by her classmates and tormented by the school bully, Brandon. All she wants is to be popular and that would certainly help her emerging crush on the lead of her brother's garage band. Todd (Happiness) Solondz's celebrated coming-of-age comedy won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and young star Heather Matarazzo was awarded Best Debut Performance at the prestigious Independent Spirit Awards.



2023 TBD

Bo Widerberg's The Man on the Roof (1976) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



Police officer Stig Nyman is murdered by an unseen assailant brandishing a bayonet. His colleagues Beck, Rönn and Kollberg pick up the case quickly, keen to solve the crime on one of their own. Investigating Nyman and drawing up a list of potential suspects leads the team to discover he was a lousy cop who abused his power with a history of brutality. As their search draws closer they are caught unaware by a rooftop assassin with a sniper rifle, picking off every cop he can. The Man on the Roof was adapted from the novel by celebrated writers Sjöwall and Wahlöö, whose Martin Beck character has been realised in multiple films and recent TV series Beck. Influenced by The French Connection's gritty vérité style, celebrated director Bo Widerberg created an incredible spectacle here that would become legendary in Sweden and remains the greatest crime film from the heart of Scandi noir.



2023 TBD

Luigi Comencini's The Sunday Woman (1975) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (US & UK), from a new 2K restoration of the original camera negative



An odious architect is beaten to death and a high society wife (Jacqueline Bisset, Day for Night) and her gay friend (Jean-Louis Trintignant, The Conformist) are the key suspects with a discarded letter implicating them in the crime. Commissioner Santamaria (Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini's 8 ½) is assigned to the case and tries to uncover the murder suspect in upper-class Turin. With a murder mystery narrative worthy of Agatha Christie, The Sunday Woman is also a sharp critique of Turin's upper crust. The screenplay, by the celebrated duo Age & Scarpelli, famed for their masterpieces in the Commedia all'Italiana boom including Big Deal on Madonna Street and The Organizer, is a whip-smart adaptation of the best-selling novels by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini with the lead character of Santamaria inspired by the real-life head of the Flying Squad. The much-heralded director Luigi Comencini (Misunderstood) often worked in a combination of comedy and drama, finding humour in tragedy, and is only waiting to be rediscovered as a master of post-war Italian cinema.



2023 TBD

Alain Cavalier's Fill 'er up with Super (1976)  on blu-ray from Radiance Films (US & UK), from a new 2K restoration of the original camera negative



Klouk (Bernard Crombey) is a car salesman who has to miss a family holiday to deliver a luxury Chevrolet station wagon to his boss' wealthy client. He decides to take his friend Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary) along with him for the ride across the length of France from Lille to the Cote d'Azur. On the way they give a lift to hitchhiker Charles (Etienne Chicot) who also brings along his friend Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey). A buddy road movie that came together from genuine friendship developed throughout the months-long script workshop giving the film a casual and naturalistic quality that pre-dates Richard Linklater's similar approaches by some decades. A meditation on friendship and masculinity, this was one of the last films Alain Cavalier made before approaching more experimental forms of filmmaking but prefigures his later breaking down of fiction and documentary barriers with the freewheeling approach of Fill 'er up with Super .



2023 TBD

Amy Seimetz's She Dies Tomorrow (2020) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



When Amy is suddenly stricken by the random idea she will die tomorrow, a bizarre phenomena starts passing through her social circle, where each and every person is eventually hit by the same realisation they will not last until the next sunrise, despite there being no obvious reason to believe this. Rather than riffing on the notion of contagion as conventional plague Amy Seimetz's She Dies Tomorrow takes an abstract route into the subject, one which recalls films such as Pulse, where contagion features a strong existential element, in its sometimes absurdly comic, yet deeply unsettling, exploration of a group of people facing imminent unexplained death. As such, the film fits neatly into the stable of Lynchian horror, which seeks to explore genre by breaking down boundaries, as well as enhancing sensory elements such as the use of hallucinatory colour and dreamlike sequences.

WorldForgot

Woahh those editions of Red Sun and She Dies Tomorrow are very enticing.

wilder

November 8, 2022

Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.




April 25, 2023

Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without A Cause (1955) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



Story of rebellious middle-class teens, disenfranchised with their parents, and given to a life of thuggery and deadly dangerous drag racing to win over women.



April 11, 2023

John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



A gallery of high-living lowlifes will stop at nothing to get their sweaty hands on a jewel-encrusted falcon. Detective Sam Spade wants to find out why—and who will take the fall for his partner's murder.



April 11, 2023

Stuart Rosenberg's Cool Hand Luke (1967) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



His crime: nonconformity. His sentence: the chain gang. Paul Newman plays one of his best-loved roles as Cool Hand Luke, the loner who won't—or can't—comform to the arbitrary rules of his captivity.



February 7, 2023

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Dark Sky Films



Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.



December 13, 2022

Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.



March 28, 2023

William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



Fifteen years after Regan's exorcism, a police lieutenant hunts a cruel serial killer, whose murders involve torture, decapitation, and the desecration of religious icons.



2023 TBD

Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.




March 28, 2023

Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.



December 6, 2022

Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Paramount



The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.



February 21, 2023

Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988) on 4K UHD blu-ray from MVD Visual



After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.



February 21, 2023

James Ivory's The Remains of the Day (1993) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer.




Q1 2023

William Friedkin's Bug (2006) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



An unhinged war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.



2023 TBD

Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



An honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.



2023 TBD

Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino, also coming from Masters of Cinema in the UK



Hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.



January 24, 2023

Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks. In self-defense, the vengeful man kills muggers on the mean streets after dark.



December 6, 2022

Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Sony



A lovelorn screenwriter becomes desperate as he tries and fails to adapt 'The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orlean for the screen.



November 22, 2022

Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



A teenage girl in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine, and has a disturbing dream involving wolves prowling the woods below her bedroom window.



February 13, 2023

Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow UK



The life of Emperor Pu Yi, who took the throne at age three, in 1908, before witnessing decades of cultural and political upheaval, within and without the walls of the Forbidden City.



November 21, 2022

Orson Welles' The Trial (1962) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal UK



An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.




February 8, 2023

Max Ophuls' Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) on 4K UHD blu-ray from The Jokers (France)



A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.



October 19, 22

Jacques Becker's Casque d'Or (1952) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal (France). Includes English subtitles.



Three gangsters and an ex-con carpenter all fall for the same beautiful golden-haired woman in Belle Époque France.




April 14, 2023

Newt Arnold's Bloodsport (1988) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Capelight Pictures (Germany)



"Bloodsport" follows Frank Dux, an American martial artist serving in the military, who decides to leave the army to compete in a martial arts tournament in Hong Kong where fights to the death can occur.



December 16, 2022

Cinematic Journeys: Two Films by Juleen Compton on blu-ray from Flicker Alley



Stranded (1965)
follows Raina, a young American woman (played by Compton), traveling through Greece with her American lover (Gary Collins), and her French, gay best friend (Gian Pietro Calasso). A free spirit, Raina rejects the limitations of marriage and domesticity imposed on women of her generation and instead chooses to adventure across Europe on a quest for self-determination.

The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966)
The story of a clairvoyant teenage girl, Norma Jean (Sharon Henesy), who struggles between the responsibility of seeing the future and the attentions of a rock-n-roll band (Marco St. John, Sam Waterston, Skip Hinnant) set on exploiting her powers for profit. Centered around an enigmatic dome structure delivered to the magical pastoral Ozark countryside, this film explores a battle of wills, both spiritual and material.





November 29, 2022

Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way (1981) on blu-ray from Fun City Editions



Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.





January 31, 2023

Julien Duvivier's Flesh and Fantasy (1943) on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome Labs



A trilogy of tales of love and death.

First, a drowning during Mardi Gras leads to a bitter woman's masked reckoning. Next, an upstanding citizen is driven to madness and murder by a palm reader's prophesy. Finally, a circus tightrope walker is haunted by dreams of a mysterious woman and his own death.

One of the first horror anthology films made by an American studio – and two years before DEAD OF NIGHT – award-winning director Julien Duvivier (PÉPÉ LE MOKO) delivers FLESH AND FANTASY, three strange and at times surreal stories of the supernatural with an all-star cast that includes Edward G. Robinson (Soylent Green), Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity), and Charles Boyer (Gaslight), who also co-produced. Stunningly photographed by Oscar® winner Stanley Cortez (THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) and lushly scored by Oscar® nominee Alexander Tansman, Vinegar Syndrome Labs presents the Blu-ray debut of this landmark in 1940s genre filmmaking, newly restored in 2K and featuring insightful critical appreciations along with rare archival materials.





December 27, 2022

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant (2002) on blu-ray from Big World Pictures (2002)



After his wife leaves him, a photographer has an existential crisis and tries to cope with his cousin's visit.



December 27, 2022

Jean Becker's Elisa (1995) on blu-ray from Altered Innocence



Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.




January 31, 2022

Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981) on blu-ray from Paramount



Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.



February 21, 2023

Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992) on blu-ray from Sony



Catherine Deneuve stars in this Oscar-winning (Best Foreign Language Film, 1992) tale of passion and revolution in colonial Veitnam. Deneuve stars as Elaine Devries, the seemingly repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina. Her steely exterior, however, is only a mask intended to hide her torrid love affairs from upperclass society. But when her adopted Indochinese daughter innocently falls in love with Elaine's secret lover, the scandalous lover's triangle threatens to destroy their entire family. A sensual story of unbridled passion set against the violence of the bloody Communist uprising, Indochine is a historically accurate, emotionally wrenching epic of love and war.




January 10, 2023

Jacques Rivette's Gang of Four (1989) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group



A drama following 4 women at stage school. Considered by some to be the summation of director Jacques Rivette's work as a whole.




January 24, 2023

Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Vern Haskell, a nice rancher, seeks out to avenge his fiancé's death when she is killed during a robbery. His revenge leads him to Chuck-a-luck, Altar Keane's ranch set up to hide criminals, and he finds more than he bargains for.



October 25, 2022

Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men - a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Mr. Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug it is already too late...



December 6, 2022

John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.



February 14, 2023

Jacques Rivette's Love on the Ground (1984) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group



A play within a play within a play within a play. Actors perform a play in a house, an audience member invites them to work in his own home improvising a play around his own life. The line between fiction and reality blurs.



December 13, 2022

Raphael D. Silver's On the Yard (1978) & A Walk on the Moon (1987) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group







November 29, 2022

Abel Ferrara's R 'Xmas (2001) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



A New York drug dealer is kidnapped, and his wife must try to come up with the money and drugs to free him from his abductors before Christmas.



November 22, 2022

John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving (1962) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



A young man, inching his way up from working-class traditions via a white-collar job, finds himself trapped by the frightening reality of his girlfriend's pregnancy and is forced into marrying her and moving in with his mother-in-law due to a housing shortage in their Northern England town.



March 21, 2023

Anatole Litvak's Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



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



December 13, 2022

Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures (formerly Olive Films)



During the depression, a union leader and a young woman become criminals to exact revenge on the management of a railroad.



December 20, 2022

Arthur Hiller's The Hospital (1971) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures. From a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky.



Black comedy in which a suicidal doctor struggles to find meaning in his life while a murderer stalks the halls of his hospital.



November 1, 2022

Nicholas Kazan's Dream Lover (1993) on blu-ray from Sandpiper Pictures



Ray is young, charming, successful and the owner of a prosperous architect company. However, he has recently gone through a very painful divorce. His friends try to cheer him up by showing him the positive sides of being single but for Ray marriage and stability is just too important. But when he meets Lena his gloom is quickly forgotten. She is beautiful, sensual, mysterious and he is drawn to her like a moth to a candle. They marry quickly, have their first child and Ray lives in a total bliss. But then strange incidents occur which shed some light on Lena's background. Ray slowly realizes that he hardly knows anything about her at all. Who has he really married?



January 31, 2023

Ralph Nelson's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) on blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment. Written by Rod Serling.



After suffering a knockout against Cassius Clay, it´s the final bell for Mountain Rivera. A fight doctor confirms one more punch for the washed-up heavyweight and he could become permanently disabled. Reluctantly but with but with the support of his faithful trainer and a kindly employment counselor Rivera tries to land a job outside the ring. But his calculating manager Maish has other plans for Rivera.



November 22, 2022

Rod Serling's Night Gallery: Season 3 (1972-1973) on blu-ray from Kino



Rod Serling presents tales of horror.



2023 TBD

James Foley's After Dark My Sweet (1990) on blu-ray from Kino



When a couple of conniving lowlifes hatch a plot to kidnap the scion of a wealthy local family, they pick the wrong man to carry out the job: Kid Collins, a disturbed ex-boxer on the lam from a mental institution.



January 31, 2023

Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai (1947) on blu-ray from Kino



When unemployed Irishman Michael O'Hara saves Elsa Bannister from thugs, she obtains him a position on her invalid lawyer husband Arthur's yacht, as a deckhand. It soon becomes clear that Elsa has designs on O'Hara, and also wants her husband out of the way.



2023 TBD

Ken Russell's Whore (1991) on blu-ray from Kino



The life of a jaded L.A. prostitute is described in this haunting drama, through flashbacks of her past marriage, brutal, inhumane abuse and her time on the streets.




2023 TBD

Edward Dmytryk's The Carpetbaggers (1964) on blu-ray from Kino



Harold Robbins' best-seller about '30s Hollywood comes to the screen in a torrent of frank, controversial and (for the times) sensational scenes that helped break the Production Code. George Peppard is the ruthless tycoon who (with amazing parallels to Howard Hughes) builds a multi-million-dollar empire. Carroll Baker, who performs a razzle-dazzle striptease atop a glittery chandelier, is the Jean Harlow-type star. In addition to its depiction of the wild life in Tinseltown's early days, the film also boasts Alan Ladd's terrific final screen performance as the hero's sidekick, Nevada Smith.



2023 TBD

Tom Gries' Will Penny (1968) on blu-ray from Kino



Aging cowboy Will Penny (Charlton Heston) takes a new job on an Oregon ranch and finds himself lodging for the winter in an old mountain cabin which has been temporarily occupied by Catherine, a married woman who is travelling to rejoin her husband. The pair soon finds themselves attracted to each other, but propriety prevents them from following their feelings. However, the situation changes when they are interrupted by the lunatic Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasence) and his gang of dangerous bandits.




2023 TBD

Mark Robson's The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) on blu-ray from Kino



Two jet pilots forge a lasting friendship while fighting the Korean War.



March 7, 2023

Cecil B. DeMille's Crusades (1935) on blu-ray from Kino



King Richard of England (Henry Wilcoxon) has no desire to marry the awful Princess Alice of France (Katherine DeMille). The Third Crusade offers him a good excuse to flee, so he sets off with his knights on a long journey to the Holy Land. When supplies diminish, Richard marries Princess Berengaria of Navarre (Loretta Young) in exchange for food from her father. Nearing their destination, Berengaria is captured by Saladin, Sultan of Islam (Ian Keith), whom Richard is determined to destroy.









November 29, 2022

Harry Keller's The Unguarded Moment (1956) on blu-ray from Kino. One of the few examples of 'color noir'.



In a rare dramatic role, Esther Williams stars as a high school teacher stalked by a peeping tom who might be the same homicidal sex fiend wanted by the police. Based on a story by Rosalind Russell and Larry Marcus, The Unguarded Moment is a moody melodrama that co-stars John Saxon in one of his first major roles and George Nader as the investigating detective.



February 14, 2022

Stuart Walker's White Woman (1933) on blu-ray from Kino



Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton star in the gripping Pre-Code drama about forbidden love, White Woman. The life of a glamorous nightclub performer (Lombard) changes drastically when she agrees to marry a wealthy plantation owner (Laughton). As the two begin their domestic life together on his remote Malaysian estate, she realizes the extent of his cruel and jealous nature. She soon finds herself drawn to another man but must keep their love secret to avoid the wrath of her husband.



March 7, 2023

Joe May's Asphalt (1929) on blu-ray from Kino



From its elaborate and stylish opening scenes, Asphalt immediately establishes itself as a startling cinematic achievement of Weimar cinema. Gustav Frölich, best known as the young protagonist of Metropolis, stars as a strait-laced traffic cop who has the simple task of escorting a diamond thief to the police station. However, Holk's routine assignment becomes complicated when he discovers the criminal in his custody: the exotic and beautiful Else (Betty Amann). Working alongside cinematographer Günther Rittau (The Blue Angel), director Joe May (The Indian Tomb) takes a simple melodrama and transforms it into a masterwork, with a brooding visual style, nuanced performances, and psychological complexity.



2023 TBD

Ida Lupino's Outrage (1950) on blu-ray from Kino



A young woman who has just become engaged has her life completely shattered when she is raped while on her way home from work.



March 21, 2023

Frank Tuttle's Lucky Jordan (1942) on blu-ray from Kino



Alan Ladd (China, O.S.S., Calcutta, Shane) stars as a wise guy who finds himself in one predicament after another in Lucky Jordan. When he discovers that he can no longer avoid the draft, a self-serving New York racketeer (Ladd) fails at his half-hearted attempt at military life. He goes AWOL, stealing a car that happens to contain a briefcase full of valuable military plans. What follows is an escapade filled with Nazi spies, espionage, assassins, saboteurs...and a beautiful member of the WAC determined to reform the gangster.



March 7, 2023

Susan Seidelman's Making Mr. Right (1987) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 2K restoration. Shot by Ed Lachman.



A scientist builds a robot that looks exactly like him to go on a long-term space mission. A lovelorn female publicist, hired to promote the robot as a fundraising tool, "educates" him on human behavior -- with surprising results.




March 28, 203

If I Had A Million (1932) on blu-ray from Kino



To prevent his inheritance from going to his greedy family, a steel tycoon (Richard Bennett) chooses eight random strangers and gives them each $1 million. Among those chosen are an entertainer (W.C. Fields) who uses the money to clear bad drivers from the road, a Marine (Gary Cooper) who believes the check is an April Fool's Day prank, and an office clerk (Charles Laughton) who finally sees an opportunity to quit his job. The unexpected windfalls bring joy -- or tragedy -- to the recipients. Segments directed by James Cruze (The Great Gabbo), H. Bruce Humberstone (I Wake Up Screaming), Ernst Lubitsch (Broken Lullaby), Norman Z. McLeod (It's a Gift), Lothar Mendes (The Man Who Could Work Miracles), Stephen Roberts (The Story of Temple Drake), William A. Seiter (Hot Saturday) & Norman Taurog (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).



November 15, 2022

Terence Young's The Valachi Papers (1972) on blu-ray from Kino



Sentenced to 15 years in prison, former mob "button man" Joe Valachi turns informant when he learns top Mafia capo Vito Genovese has put a $100,000 contract out on his life.



February 14, 2023

The Francois Truffaut Collection on blu-ray from Kino



THE WILD CHILD (1970)
In a most mature and aesthetic achievement, Truffaut creates an absorbing drama, delicate and unpredictable as life itself. Based on the true account of 18th-century doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, the film follows the capture of a young boy who is discovered living like an animal in the forest. Truffaut himself gives a memorable performance as Itard, unyielding in his belief that the child, played with haunting precision by Jean-Pierre Cargol, can be transformed into a civilized being.

SMALL CHANGE (1976)
Truffaut weaves his love of kids and cinema seamlessly together in this tribute to the joys, yearnings, pains and wonders of childhood. The film presents a group of ten youngsters, boys and girls, whose adventures in the quaint village of Thiers illustrate—from the first baby bottle to the first kiss—the different stages of passage from early childhood to adolescence. Also known as Pocket Money, this kaleidoscopic coming-of-age tale finds Truffaut at his most charming and insightful.

THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN (1977)
This irresistibly sophisticated comedy paints the delirious portrait of saturnine satyr Bertrand Morane (Charles Denner), who worships the feminine spirit—the idea of woman. Truffaut neither condemns nor glorifies him, for what could be so worthy of a subject of obsession as women? The film is a splendid example of the auteur's nimble way with stories of erotic love. Featuring screen goddesses Brigette Fossey, Nelly Borgeaud, Geneviève Fortanel, Nathalie Baye and Leslie Caron.

THE GREEN ROOM (1978)
In a most personal and rigorous film, Truffaut stars as Julien Davenne, a man who so loves the dead that he can no longer love the living. While building a shrine to his deceased wife, he meets Cecilia (Nathalie Baye), who is also in mourning. She falls in love with him, thereby giving him a last chance at resurrection. Also known as The Vanishing Fiancée and based on the writings of Henry James, this classic film is a somber, haunting parable of life and death—and the barrier of memory that stands between.



February 14, 2023

Francois Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968) on blu-ray from Kino



Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?



February 14, 2023

Francois Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid (1969) on blu-ray from Kino



In this tale of obsessive love, based on Cornell Woolrich's WALTZ INTO DARKNESS, wealthy plantation owner Louis Mahé, of Réunion Island, falls madly in love with his mail-order bride, Julie, despite the fact that she is not quite what she seems — and is, in fact, a lot worse. Even after becoming the victim of her deleterious influences and discovering that she is not the woman with whom he had been corresponding, Louis allows himself to be drawn into a downward spiral of criminality and a self-injurious lifestyle just to prove his undying devotion to this French femme fatale.



February 14, 2023

Francois Truffaut's The Story of Adele H. (1975) on blu-ray from Kino



Adèle Hugo, youngest daughter of famed French poet and author Victor Hugo, develops an obsession for a young British officer and stalks him, despite his scorn for her, following him first to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to Barbados.



November 28, 2022

Jacques Becker: The Essential Collection on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



Jacques Becker was an important and influential French filmmaker who was admired by the directors that led the French New Wave movement. He made his directorial debut in 1942 after a year in a German prisoner-of war camp. The entire output of his working career was only 13 films including some of the greatest French masterpieces. Becker had a very strong presence in French cinema and constantly tried to create something different which is noticeable in his films as each is unique and very different in style and genre. This essential collection includes 5 films of the prestigious filmmaker: Falbalas (1944), Edward and Caroline (1951), Casque d'Or (1952), Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954) and Le Trou (1960).



March 1, 2023

Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in three Mafia Tales by Damiano Damiani on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



The most American of directors according to celebrated critic Paolo Mereghetti, Damiano Damiani (A Bullet for the General) nevertheless surveyed his own country's mafia history unlike anyone before him, to critical and box office success. Three such classic films are collected in this Blu-ray box set, presented from new restorations.

The Day of the Owl stars Franco Nero as a police chief who, while investigating the death of a construction worker, goes up against corrupt officials and a ruthless mafia boss (Lee J. Cobb). Adapted from the celebrated novel by Leonardo Sciascia (Illustrious Corpses, Todo Modo), The Day of the Owl was the first book to openly deal with organised crime in Sicily. A prestigious production, it was in the running for best film at the Berlin Film Festival and found wins at home in the David di Donatello Awards for Claudia Cardinale, Nero, Damiani, and Best Production.

Nero portrays a simple man thrown in jail for a misdemeanour in The Case is Closed: Forget It. Inside, he sees the grim reality of life behind bars, where the mafia controls everything. A powerful production with Nero in top form and supported by a strong cast including Riccardo Cucciolla (Rabid Dogs) and John Steiner (Tenebrae), the intensity of Damiani's film places it among the finest prison dramas. Presented in Italian and for the first time with the original English dub.

In How to Kill a Judge, Nero plays filmmaker Giacomo Solaris, whose latest film features a judge corrupted by the mafia and who is later found murdered. The real judge the character is based on seizes the footage, but is later killed in the same way. Feeling a degree of responsibility, Solaris investigates, but as the assassinations increase around him, will he reach the source of the conspiracy? Full of twists and a fascinating meta-commentary on cinema, Damiani points the camera at himself and the genre as he investigates the social impact of mafia violence, a fitting end to this survey of Damiani's Cosa Nostra.




October 24, 2022

Eduard Grecner's Dragon's Return (1968) on blu-ray from Second Sight (UK)



Set at an unspecified past time in a world ruled by superstition, a reclusive potter nicknamed 'Dragon', is exiled from his isolated homestead. He returns years later, aiming to win back the trust of the villagers – but faces suspicion, guilt, and simmering violence. A key film from Slovak cinema's golden era, Eduard Grečner's film is a radical fusion of ancient folklore and experimental modernism. Shot in luminous monochrome and boasting an extraordinary score by Ilja Zeljenka, it is an elemental vision of a world lost in time.



February 20, 2023

Vojtech Jasný's The Cassandra Cat (1963) on blu-ray from Second Run (UK)



Human behavior is observed by a glasses wearing cat, who is capable of seeing human beings as they really are.



February 8, 2023

John Huston's Freud (1962) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



This pseudo-biographical movie depicts 5 years from 1885 in the life of the Viennese psychologist Freud. Disillusioned with the way his colleagues refuse to treat patients in a mental asylum, following a trip to Paris to visit Dr Charcot he sees how hysterical patients are treated by means of hypnosis



March 20, 2023

Ernst Lubitsch's Broken Lullaby (1932) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



ften overlooked amongst director Ernst Lubitsch's comedies and musicals, Broken Lullaby is a riveting and brilliant romantic drama from the pre-Code era, starring Lionel Barrymore (It's a Wonderful Life), Nancy Carroll (The Kiss Before the Mirror), and Phillips Holmes (The Criminal Code).

Musician Paul Renard is haunted by the memory of Walter, a German soldier he killed during the First World War. He travels to Walter's home town, and, passing himself off as a friend of the deceased, is taken in by his grieving family. But when he finds himself falling in love with Elsa, Walter's fiancée, he becomes worried that the truth will emerge...

With a screenplay by regular Lubitsch collaborator Samson Raphaelson (The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait), Broken Lullaby was rapturously received by critics at the time, with one describing it as 'the most unusual and dramatic situation the screen has presented'.




March 20, 2023

Ernst Lubitsch's Bluebeards Eighth Wife (1938) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Seven-times married, the wealthy playboy Michael Brandon meets the beautiful, tempestuous Nicole, and makes her his eighth wife. Determined she won't be just another of his conquests, Nicole contrives to frustrate Michael's advances in order to keep him keen. Michael, however, believes she is trying to force him to divorce her in order to take advantage of a generous pre-nuptial agreement, and a battle of wills ensues.

One of Lubitsch's greatest films, and a huge influence on the modern romantic comedy, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife boasts a sizzling screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend, Sunset Blvd.), and a memorable supporting turn from David Niven (A Matter of Life and Death).




March 20, 2023

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



Whilst defending a man who stands accused of murdering his wife, attorney Paul Lukas comes to suspect that his own wife is being unfaithful. Following her through the streets of Vienna, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea of her infidelity.

Made in between Whale's Universal horror classics The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man, The Kiss Before the Mirror is a ravishingly staged pre-Code classic.




March 20, 2023

Frank Capra's State of the Union (1948) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



The immortal screen couple Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) take the lead in this fabulously witty political comedy drama from director Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life), filmed against the background of the 1948 Presidential election.

Wealthy aeroplane manufacturer Grant Matthews is encouraged to become a presidential candidate by his girlfriend, press baron Kay Thorndyke. Forced to publicly reunite with his estranged wife Mary in order to present the illusion of a happy marriage, he comes close to nomination. But, as Grant and Mary realise that political success will mean compromising their principles, Grant has a change of heart.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Harold Lindsay and Russel Crouse (The Sound of Music), and with supporting turns from Angela Lansbury (Gaslight) and Adolphe Menjou (The Sniper), State of the Union is a brilliant blend of political satire and romantic comedy.




November 7, 2022

Joseph Losey's The Sleeping Tiger (1954) on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



A psychiatrist, Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) catches young gunman Frank Clemens (Dirk Bogarde) breaking into his house. Rather than send him to prison he invites the delinquent to stay at his home as a social guinea pig – Esmond believes he can curb the fugitive's criminal tendencies. Further tensions arise however when the youth begins an affair with Esmond's wife (Alexis Smith).



October 31, 2022

Jocelyn Moorhouse's Proof (1991) on blu-ray from Film4 (UK)



Multi-layered and intensely original this is the widely-acclaimed story of a blind man whose deeply rooted mistrust of humanity prompts him to compulsively take photographs that document his world. The only problem is he's got to get somebody to describe his pictures to him. And when there's no one you can trust it's hard to find someone on whom you can rely.






December 7, 2022

John Ruane's Death in New Brunswick (1991) on blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment (Australia)



Carl Fitzgerald is down-on-his-luck until he meets Sophie, a beautiful Greek girl. He gets a job as a cook, but accidentally kills fellow worker Mustafa. He turns to his unscrupulous best friend for help and together they attempt to dispose of the body.



October 26, 2022

Lynne Littman's Testament (1983) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



There are errands to run, laundry to sort, piano lessons to tackle. But an ordinary day like any other ends abruptly with a startling TV news bulletin, followed moments later by a blinding flash. With her husband away and her three frightened children gathered around her, Carol Wetherly (Jane Alexander) must face the unthinkable – the devastating aftermath of a nuclear attack.




February 22, 2023

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



In Resurrection, an unforgettable story of love and devotion, Ellen Burstyn delivers a tour-de-force performance as a woman who experiences clinical death and returns to life with the amazing ability to heal others. Attributing her powers to human love rather than divine intervention, she begins to aid the residents of her childhood town. After healing a zealous young farmer (Sam Shepard), she starts to fall in love with him. As their affair develops, he tries to make her confess that her powers come from God and not from within. Her refusal leads to a violent climax that will change the healer and all who touch her forever.


WorldForgot



The Street Fighter Trilogy from Arrow Video UK

New 2K restorations of The Street Fighter/Return of the Street Fighter from 2K scans of the negatives by Arrow
New HD remaster presentation of TSFLR by Arrow


wilder

September 19, 2023

William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) on 4K UHD from Warner Bros.



When an innocent young girl is possessed by a demon, a priest struggling with his faith is asked by her mother, to perform the ancient rite of exorcism.



October 10, 2023

Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) on 4K UHD from Paramount



A young couple move into an apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins to control her life.



November 7, 2023

George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Universal



A summer night in 1962 with the radio as a backdrop becomes the focal point in the lives of four small town California teenagers as they face decisions, both immediate and long term, about the directions of their lives. Steve, wants to break up with Laurie, his devoted high school sweetheart and pursue new experiences away from home. Curt, is hesitant about going away to school and leaving the comfortable, familiar surroundings of family and friends. John, tries to maintain his "too cool for school" image as a hip guy, but can't seem to shake a nagging awareness that life is somehow passing him by. Finally, there's Terry, the nerdy wannabe trying to fit in but who still manages to screw up.. By the next morning, their lives will be changed, some only temporarily and some for a lifetime.



November 14, 2023

Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Universal



While traveling through the California desert for a business appointment, David Mann passes a smoky tanker truck. A game of cat-and-mouse quickly escalates into a life-and-death battle between David and the unseen trucker, with their vehicles as weapons.



August 1, 2023

Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



In 1917 California farm country, two brothers contend for the favor of their strict, Bible-quoting father. Unbeknownst to the father, the wife who left him when the boys were small has returned to the nearby town, where she now runs a successful brothel.



August 1, 2023

Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



A small-town sheriff enlists the help of a cripple, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.



November 7, 2023

Andrew Davis' The Fugitive (1993) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Warner Bros.



A Chicago surgeon falsely convicted of killing his wife is determined to prove his innocence by leading his pursuers to the man who actually committed the crime.



May 30, 2023

Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers (1988) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Severin



In between his celebrated THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT and THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER, writer/director Peter Greenaway – "one of the most distinctive, provocative talents of his generation" (The Guardian) – shocked/delighted international audiences with this slyly deranged black comedy classic: Oscar® nominee Dame Joan Plowright (ENCHANTED APRIL), four-time BAFTA Award nominee Juliet Stevenson (TRULY MADLY DEEPLY) and two-time Golden Globe nominee Joely Richardson (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) star as three generations of women who murder their husbands in an unsettling salvo of sumptuous visuals, macabre capers and numerical mischief. Bernard Hill (THE LORD OF THE RINGS, TITANIC) co-stars in this "fascinating brain buster of very bad manners" (Entertainment Weekly), now featuring a new 4K scan from the original negative personally supervised by Greenaway.




July 18, 2023

Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow



Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.



July 11, 2023

Michael Mann's Blackhat (2015) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow



A man is released from prison to help American and Chinese authorities pursue a mysterious cyber criminal. The dangerous search leads them from Chicago to Hong Kong.



May 30, 2023

Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A demented preacher relentlessly torments two small children in the Depression-era Bible Belt in order to get at their dead father's stolen fortune.



2023 TBD

Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express (1974) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



Famous detective Hercule Poirot is on the Orient Express, but the train is caught in the snow. When one of the passengers is discovered murdered, Poirot immediately starts investigating.



June 20, 2023

John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A US Army hero returns to New York from Korea, but has been mysteriously programmed by Communists to assassinate a presidential nominee, but when his Army buddy becomes suspicious of the goings on, he is on the trail to stop him.



August 29, 2023

Sydney Pollack's 3 Days of the Condor (1975) 4K UHD from Kino



A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.



2023 TBD

Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 (1953) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A cynical serviceman in a World War II POW camp has to prove he's not an informer.



2023 TBD

Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



Mistaken for insane, a man arrives in San Francisco to inform the world that strange aliens have arrived on earth to overtake human life.



2023 TBD

Michael Ritchie's Prime Cut (1972) on 4K UHD from Kino



Marvin is an underworld enforcer sent to Kansas City to collect money from Hackman, a mysterious mobster who has no intention of paying up.



2023 TBD

Ted Kotcheff's North Dallas Forty (1979) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A semi-fictional account of life as a professional Football (American-style) player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.




2023 TBD

Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (1952) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A retired Marshal must defend his town from a revengeful villain.



2023 TBD

Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Kino



A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.



July 4, 2023

Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Paramount



An insurance salesman discovers his whole life is actually a reality TV show.



August 15, 2023

William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Paramount



A runaway princess in Rome finds love with a reporter who knows her true identity.



July 25, 2023

Byron Haskin's War of the Worlds (1953) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Paramount



A mysterious object has landed in a small California town. The Martian invasion of Earth has begun.



April 4, 2023

Martin Brest's Midnight Run (1988) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Shout Factory



Jack Walsh is a tough ex-cop turned bounty hunter. Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas is a sensitive accountant who embezzled $15 million from the Mob, gave it to charity and then jumped bail. Jack's in for a cool $100,000 if he can deliver The Duke from New York to L.A. on time. The FBI is after The Duke to testify - the Mob is after him for revenge - and Walsh is after him to just shut up.



October 10, 2023

Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale (1993) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Tribeca Film



In Robert De Niro's stunning directorial debut, a devoted father battles a local mob boss for the life of his son. Growing up on the racially divided streets of 1960s New York, 9-year-old Calogero, or "C", idolizes sophisticated local gangster Sonny (Chazz Palminteri), despite stern warnings from his working-class father (Robert De Niro). But when "C" gets older, he finds himself torn between two worlds and must choose between earning respect like his father or commanding it like Sonny. Vividly evoking the sights and sounds of the iconic neighborhood, "A Bronx Tale" is a compelling story of love and loyalty.



May 1, 2023

Peter Weir Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Second Run (UK)



On Valentine's Day 1900, three school girls and a school teacher go missing under mysterious circumstances during a trip to Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia.



May 22, 2023

Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow (UK)



Journalist Raoul Duke and his lawyer Dr. Gonzo drive from L.A. to Las Vegas on a drugs binge. They nominally cover news stories, including a convention on drug abuse, but also sink deeper into a frightening psychedelic otherworld. As Vietnam, Altamont, and the Tate killings impinge from the world of TV news, Duke and Gonzo see casinos, reptiles, and the American Dream.



April 3, 2023

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's City of Lost Children (1995) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



The City of Lost Children is a dazzling fantasy adventure from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, creators of Delicatessen and has been newly restored. They bring their surreal vision to the story of Krank, a tormented scientist who sets about kidnapping local children in order to steal their dreams and so reverse his accelerated ageing process. When Krank's henchmen kidnap his brother, local fisherman and former circus strongman One (Hellboy's Ron Perlman) sets out on a journey to Krank's nightmarish laboratory, accompanied by a little orphan girl called Miette.



2023 TBD

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen (1991) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



In a burnt-out city on the verge of collapse, a canny butcher employs various young handymen, kills them, and then sells them as meat. When ex-circus performer Louison arrives looking for work, it seems that his head will be the next on the block. But Louison falls in love with Julie, the butcher's daughter, and together they join forces with an underground vegetarian group who plan to bring an end to the butcher's cruel regime.



September 18, 2023

Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



The true story of a Polish Jewish musician, who struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.



June 26, 2023

Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



A screenwriter finds his marriage falling apart as he attempts to get started a film version of the "The Odyssey."



June 2023

John Huston's The Misfits (1961) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Capelight Pictures (UK)



While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe) ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland (Clark Gable) and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli (Eli Wallach). The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift) arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses




August 21, 2023

Newt Arnold's Bloodsport (1988) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Altitude Film Distribution (UK)



Inside a hidden Hong Kong arena, elite combatants clash in the Kumite, the little-known but hotly contested world championship of full-contact fighting. No Westerner had ever won this titanic tournament - until iron-willed American Frank Dux entered it.



August 25, 2023

David Cronenberg's Shivers (1975) on 4K UHD blu-ray from NSM Records (Germany)



The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.



August 23, 2023

Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment (Australia)



Richard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of war, slowly realized his own involvement with the aborigines...and their prophecies.



July 13, 2023

Peter Greenaway's The Draughtman's Contract (1982) on blu-ray from Zeitgeist



In an apparently idyllic 17th century Wiltshire, an ambitious draughtsman is commissioned by the wife of an aristocrat to produce twelve drawings of her husband's estate and negotiates terms to include sexual favours from his employer. But when a corpse is dragged from the moat, the draughtsman's drawings may reveal more than he realised.




June 20, 2023

Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) and The Falls (1980) on blu-ray from Zeitgeist



A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) is Peter Greenaway's beautifully disturbing and darkly humorous take on erotic obsession and death. In a horrific automobile-swan accident in front of the Rotterdam Zoo, two women die and a third, Alba (Andrea Ferréol), loses her leg. The two widowers, twin zoologists Oliver and Oswald (Eric and Brian Deacon, in roles originally offered to the Quay Brothers), fixate on their wives' bodies, and slowly become obsessed with evolution and decomposition—even going as far as to meticulously craft exquisitely morbid time-lapsed films of decaying creatures. The plot thickens when a mad surgeon schemes to use Alba as a subject in his experiments with animal symmetry and Vermeer homage. Full of surprises and magnificent conundrums, A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS is a perversely comic and teasing treat for the mind and senses.


The Falls (1980)
The Falls (1980) is arguably the most significant film of Peter Greenaway's prolific career. Shot as a pseudo-documentary, this magnum opus dazzlingly details 92 case histories of people who have been affected by the VUE (Violent Unknown Event)—a mysterious, apocalyptic phenomenon related to birds, flying, and bizarre invented languages.





June 20, 2023

Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital Redux (1988) on blu-ray from Zeitgeist



While their mother is dying in the modern Gimli, Manitoba hospital, two young children are told a tale by their Icelandic grandmother about Einar the Lonely, his friend Gunnar, and the angelic Snjofridur in a Gimli of old.




April 25, 2023

Karen Shakhnazarov's Assassin of the Tsar (1991) on blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile



From Karen Shakhnazarov, director of ZEROGRAD, ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR is a mysterious and labyrinthine psychological drama in which the tormented chambers of a patient's mind come to warp everything around him, even the folds of history itself. In one of his finest latter-day performances, the great Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, TIME AFTER TIME) stars as Timofeyev, a severe schizophrenic in a dreary Soviet mental hospital who is convinced that, impossibly, he's the killer of two Tsars: Alexander II in 1881 and Nicholas II in 1918. The thoughtful new head of the hospital, Dr. Smirnov (Oleg Yankovskiy) is determined to cure Timofeyev of his madness – but instead finds himself literally pulled back through time, inhabiting the ghosts of the past as they march towards their tragic destiny.




April 25, 2023

Jim McBride's Breathless (1983) on blu-ray from Fun City Editions



Richard Gere (American Gigolo and Days of Heaven) is electrifying as Jesse Lujack, a small-time criminal obsessed with Jerry Lee Lewis, the Silver Surfer and Monica (Valérie Kaprisky, Andrzej Żuławski's La Femme Publique), the beautiful French exchange student he spent a passionate couple of nights with in Vegas. High-tailing it to Los Angeles to rendezvous again with Monica, Jesse steals a fast car and accidentally shoots and kills a highway patrolman. Now the most wanted fugitive in L.A., Jesse should get across the border to Mexico as soon as possible, but Monica leaves him breathless...

Co-writer and director Jim McBride (David Holzman's Diary and Great Balls of Fire) and co-writer L.M. Kit Carson (Paris, Texas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) boldly set out to create an American version of Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking debut Breathless and the result is a wildly energetic and imaginative neo-noir romance that has become a cult classic. The spirited supporting cast includes memorable character players John P. Ryan, Garry Goodrow, Art Metrano, James Hong, Miguel Pinero, William Tepper and Lisa Jane Persky. With its rockin' and atmospheric soundtrack, candy-colored cinematography by Richard H. Kline (Body Heat) and production design by Richard Sylbert (Chinatown), as well as the uncommonly strong sexual chemistry of its leads, Breathless is truly a cinematic feast for the senses. Ahead of its time when released, viewers have finally caught up to Breathless and now it's been restored in 2K from its 35mm interpositive and presented with an alternate ending that's been unseen for decades!





April 25, 2023

Atom Egoyan's Speaking Parts (1989) on blu-ray from Canadian International Pictures



Hotel employee Lisa (The Sweet Hereafter's Arsinée Khanjian) develops an obsession with her co-worker Lance (Dog Park's Michael McManus), a struggling actor who has appeared in several films as an extra. With the help of a local video store, Lisa carefully investigates Lance's body of work, as he undergoes his own pursuit – of screenwriter Clara (The Stepfather's Gabrielle Rose) and a film role inspired by her late brother. As their connection grows, this production's ties to reality start to unravel... and so do our three protagonists.

One of the most singular and defining films from celebrated Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan (The Adjuster, Exotica), Speaking Parts mixes the all-consuming video addictions of Videodrome with an artfully perverse exploration of fractured inner lives. Produced in collaboration with Egoyan, this deluxe special edition also includes three of the filmmaker's early shorts and Sarabande, his little-seen 1997 film starring Khanjian, Yo-Yo Ma, Don McKellar, and Lori Singer.





April 25, 2023

Denys Arcand's Gina (1975) on blu-ray from Canadian International Pictures



After being sent to rural Quebec to perform at a seedy motel, exotic dancer Gina (The Silent Partner's Céline Lomez) establishes a friendship with a group of visiting documentary filmmakers and becomes aware of a lecherous Ski-Doo gang hiding out on an abandoned ship. Keenly aware of one another's presence, Gina and the gang develop an antagonistic relationship that eventually leads to a horrific assault. But what these ski-masked snow deviants don't realize is that Gina works for some of Montreal's most dangerous criminals, and they're on their way to enact an ugly revenge.

Three decades before winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for The Barbarian Invasions, Denys Arcand started his fiction filmmaking career with an informal trilogy (Dirty Money, Réjeanne Padovani, and Gina) that remains the high-water mark for Canadian crime cinema. Improbably fusing labor politics with an explosive exploitation narrative, Gina has a conviction and assurance that resists easy categorization. Part frigid hangout movie, part vicious revenge saga, this is a one-of-a-kind powerhouse that builds to a gruesome climax and the greatest snowmobile chase in movie history.





April 25, 2023

Wojciech Has' The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) on blu-ray from Yellow Veil Pictures



Józef visits his dying father at a remote mental institutions, where time itself doesn't seem to exist, and the line between dreams and memories become indistinguishable.

Adapted from a selection of short stories from Polish-jewish writer Bruno Schultz, Wojciech J. Has's masterpiece of surrealist Polish cinema is a phantasmagoric look at the collective trauma of the Holocaust.





April 25, 2023

Patrice Chéreau's The Wounded Man (1983) on blu-ray from Altered Innocence



New 4K restoration from the original camera negative! Henri is a frustrated teenager living with his parents in a provincial French coastal town. When they drag him to the train station to bid adieu to his sister, Henri sneaks off to a secluded bathroom and interrupts a hustler named Jean satisfying the masochistic desires of an older male client. Henri falls desperately in love with the sexy criminal, but Jean evades Henri's affections. Undeterred, Henri shadows Jean as he traverses the dark and dangerous underbelly of their sleepy village. But as he descends deeper and deeper into Jean's world, there may not be an easy way out. Patrice Chéreau's 1983 drama is a revelation: an amazingly accomplished work that genuinely channels the transgressive, unsanitized sensibility of Jean Genet, boasting a breakout lead performance by young Jean-Hugues Anglade and a script that took co-writers Chéreau and legendary gay French author and activist Hervé Guibert six years to perfect. The result is a rich, strange, and sumptuous film leading us to exhilaratingly mysterious and unfamiliar spaces both physical and psychological.




May 30, 2023

Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) on blu-ray from Yellow Veil Pictures



Set during the Napoleonic wars, the film follows the exploits of Alfons von Worden, an officer traveling through the sierra Mountains and with each passing traveler, the interweaving stories grow stranger.

One of Wojciech Has' most acclaimed films, this surrealist cult epic has attracted support from Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and even Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.






May 30, 2023

Alex Proyas' Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1988) on blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment



Set against an overwhelming desert landscape, Felix (Michael Lake, Sweetie) and Betty Crabtree (Rhys Davis, Dead End Drive-In) are eccentric siblings living together in an isolated homestead in a post-apocalyptic era. Modern technology is absent, with wheels and gears operating a variety of broken devices to assist their struggle to survive. When they encounter a wandering stranger named Smith (Norman Boyd), their simple lives become tumultuous as the wheelchair-bound Felix dreams of flying and Betty believes their new arrival to be a demonic presence - the characters all yearning for escape but seemingly do not know how. The debut feature from Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds is presented here in its original 4:3 ratio from a 2K scan of the original 16mm negatives. This audio and visual feast has been resurrected from cinematic obscurity to coincide with its 30th anniversary of production.




May 30, 2023

Aleksandr Ptushko's The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967) on blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile



Based on a famous fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin, THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN is one of director Aleksandr Ptushko's most sublime creations: a ravishingly beautiful fantasy about love, magic, betrayal and abandoned family. Driven from the Russian court by her sisters' scheming, the young Tsarina (Larisa Golubkina) is thrown into the sea in a cask with her infant son. Surviving the storm-tossed voyage, the mother and her now magically-adult son (Oleg Vidov) land on a remote island where he falls in love with a Swan Princess in human form (Kseniya Ryabinkina), and longs for reunion with his estranged father, Tsar Saltan (Vladimir Andreyev). Like his earlier masterpieces SAMPO and ILYA MUROMETS (also released by Deaf Crocodile), TSAR SALTAN is filled with breathtaking imagery: carved wooden lions who shed tears; peasants in pagan ritual masks, dancing in the snow; the treacherous faces of conspirators bathed in red candle glow like the witches in Macbeth. Ptushko's second-to-last feature, TSAR SALTAN has been gorgeously restored by Mosfilm and Deaf Crocodile for its first-ever Blu-ray release in the U.S., co-presented with Seagull Films.




May 30, 2023

Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day (2001) on blu-ray from The Film Desk



American newlyweds Dr. Shane and June Brown (Vincent Gallo and Tricia Vessey) travel to Paris for their honeymoon. Once there, Shane begins a search for his former medical collegaue Leo (Alex Descas), who may have information or a cure for the tropical virus that has transformed Leo's wife (Béatrice Dalle) into a murderous sexual carnivore, and may soon do the same to Shane.




July 25, 2023

Wojciech Has' How to Be Loved (1963) on blu-ray from Yellow Veil Pictures



During a trip from Warsaw to Paris an actress reflects on the last few years of her life during the German occupation while hiding a fellow actor wanted for murder. Based on a novel by Kazimierz Brandys and told in a series of vignettes, Wojciech Has's psychological tragedy marks the end of the Polish Film School and an important transition in the Polish director's career.




July 25, 2023

Miloš Makovec, Jiří Brdečka, Evald Schorm's Prague Nights (1969) on blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile



In the vein of horror anthologies like Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH, the long-unseen PRAGUE NIGHTS is a gorgeous and supernatural vision of ancient and modern Prague, caught between Mod Sixties fashions and nightmarish Medieval catacombs, and filled with Qabbalistic magic, occult rituals, giant Golems, clockwork automatons and satanic visitors.




August 29, 2023

Michael Roemer's Vengeance is Mine (1984) on blu-ray from The Film Desk



Returning to her East Coast childhood home to heal old familial wounds, Jo (Brooke Adams, Days Of Heaven, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers), finds her adoptive mother withdrawn and distant, and a half-sister who has successfully escaped the cold clutches of their family. Impulsively, Jo enters into the troubled life of the neighbors, befriending a couple whose marriage is collapsing under the weight of alcoholism and mental illness.

A melodrama without the traditional indicators, Vengeance Is Mine (originally titled Haunted), is a considerably more pointed continuation of Roemer's previous insights on fraught relationships. Though completely different in tone than Nothing But A Man and The Plot Against Harry, Vengeance Is Mine forms a trinity of utterly original works confronting the inevitable complications within the American family.





October 17, 2023

William Wyler's The Desperate Hours (1955) on blu-ray from Arrow



Director William Wyler's suspense classic marks the only time cinema giants Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March worked together. And the result is everything you'd expect: taut, terrifying and terrific. Bogart plays an escaped con who has nothing to lose. March is a suburban Everyman who has everything to lose - his family is held hostage by Bogart. As the Desperate Hours tick by, the two men square off in a battle of wills and cunning that tightens into an unforgettable, fear-drenched finale.




June 13, 2023

Marleen Gorris' A Question of Silence (1982) on blu-ray from Severin



Three women, strangers with no premeditated thoughts, kill a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day. A female psychiatrist (Cox Habbema) is assigned to the case to find out why.




May 30, 2023

Marek Kanievska's Another Country (1983) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



In a shabby apartment in Moscow, an American journalist asks a retired spy why he betrayed his country and defected to the USSR fifty years ago. The answers take them back to 1932, where in the closed atmosphere of a British boys' school, young Guy Bennett realises that his attraction to his classmates is more than a passing phase.




May 30, 2023

Sidney Lumet's The Morning After (1986) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



A washed up, alcoholic actress who is prone to blackouts wakes up next to a murdered man. Did she kill him and, if not, is she in danger?



June 6, 2023

The Strangler (1964) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



Leo Kroll is a mother-fixated lab technician who collects dolls. He is also a serial killer, responsible for the strangulation deaths of several nurses.



June 27, 2023

Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar (2002) on blu-ray from MVD Visual. Previously released by Fun City Editions



Morvern Calllar's boyfriend kills himself, leaving behind a mix tape and an unpublished novel. Instead of reporting his death, Morvern puts her name on his novel, sends it to a publisher, and uses his bank card to pay for a trip to Spain with her friend Lana, where she tries to lose herself in sensation and chaos.



October 24, 2023

Agustín Navarro's Cautro balazos aka Four Bullets for Joe (1964) on blu-ray from MVD Visual



The mysterious death of a man who is about to leave a small town in Kansas with his girlfriend sets off a series of unfortunate events that will only end when her brother, the legendary and notorious gunslinger Frank Dalton (Paul Piaget, Hour of Death) exacts a ruthless and bloody revenge.



September 19, 2023

Early Short Films of the French New Wave (1956-1968) on blu-ray from Icarus Films



19 Short Films: All the World's Memory (Alain Resnais) Fool's Mate (Jacques Rivette) The Marines (François Reichenbach) All the Boys are Called Patrick (Jean-Luc Godard) The Song of Styrene (Alain Resnais) Ô Saisons, Ô Châteux (Agnès Varda) The Overworked (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) A Story of Water (Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, 1958) Charlotte and Her Boyfriend (Jean-Luc Godard) Love Exists (Maurice Pialat) Janine (Maurice Pialat) 500 Francs (Melvin Van Peebles) Paris, a Winter's Day (Guy Gilles) In Memory of Rock (François Reichenbach) The Little Cafe (François Reichenbach) The Goumbé of the Young Revelers (Jean Rouch) The Botanical Avatar of Mademoiselle Flora (Jeanne Barbillon) The Fifteen-Year-Old Widows (Jean Rouch) Directing Actors by Jean Renoir (Gisèle Braunberger)



September 26, 2023

E.A. Dupont's Piccadilly (1929) on blu-ray from Milestone



A young Chinese woman, working in the kitchen at a London dance club, is given the chance to become the club's main act which soon leads to a plot of betrayal, forbidden love and murder.



July 13, 2023

Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives (1922) on BD-R from Flicker Alley



In this silent classic, Sergius Karamzin (Erich von Stroheim) is a con artist who pretends to be a count in order to charm and swindle naïve women for money. He lives in Monte Carlo, Monaco, with his cousins, "princesses" Olga (Maude George) and Vera (Mae Busch), who are in on his scams. When Karamzin meets American diplomat Andrew Hughes (Rudolph Christians), the count immediately takes aim at his wife, Helen (Miss DuPont). But Karamzin soon finds he has double-crossed too many women.



March 7, 2023

Frank Borzage: 1922 Silents on blu-ray from Undercrank Productions



Academy Award-winning director Frank Borzage is perhaps best known today for his silent film masterpieces 7th HEAVEN (1927) and STREET ANGEL (1928) starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. But Borzage had a substantial silent era career directing a string of dramatic hits in the 1920s, none of which have been available for fans.

FRANK BORZAGE: 1922 SILENTS presents two important films Borzage made for Cosmopolitan Productions - BACK PAY and THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN. These two rare features are presented here in new 2K digital scans from 35mm archival preservations by the Library of Congress, and new musical scores have been created for them by Andrew Earle Simpson.


Back Pay (1922)
The tale of Hester Bevins (Seena Owen), a restless small-town girl who leaves town and boyfriend Jerry (Matt Moore) behind for luxury in the big city. But that luxury comes at a terrible cost.

The Valley of Silent Men (1922)
An adventure story of the far North, shot on location in Canada. Following a series of bizarre and identical murders, suspicion falls on the mysterious Marette Radisson (Alma Rubens). Or is the man who loves her - Corporal James Kent of the Mounties (Lew Cody) - the killer?



July 8, 2023

Jack Bernhard's Blonde Ice (1948) on blu-ray from ClassicFlix



A society reporter keeps herself in the headlines by marrying a series of wealthy men, all of whom die under mysterious circumstances.



2023 TBD

David Mamet's Oleanna (1994) on blu-ray from ?



When a student visits her professor to discuss how she failed his course, the discussion takes an awkward turn.



March 14, 2023

Michael Curtiz's Flamingo Road (1949) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Carnival dancer Lane Bellamy finds herself stranded in a southern town ruled by corrupt political boss Titus Semple. Lane becomes romantically involved with sheriff Fielding Carlisle, a weakling whose career is being driven by Titus. Seeing Lane as a liability to his own political ambitions, Titus mounts a campaign to get her driven out of town.




March 14, 2023

Edward Buzzell's Neptune's Daughter (1949) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



A swimsuit fashion designer is determined to protect her scatterbrained sister from a South American heart-breaker, but a case of mistaken identity complicates matters.




April 25, 2023

William A. Wellman's Safe in Hell (1931) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Gilda (Dorothy Mackaill) thought she had fallen as far as a woman could fall when she got a call telling her a client was requesting her "services." But when the client turns out to be the man responsible for her fall from grace, Gilda flies into a murderous rage. Taking it on the lam, Gilda finds shelter in the arms of a sailor boyfriend (Donald Cook) who smuggles her to sanctuary and safety, or so he thinks. In reality he has booked her a bridal suite in hell. This pre-code crime classic, touted at the time as "Not For Children," is frank, startling and arresting, as gripping today as it was eight decades ago. Directed by William A. Wellman, SAFE IN HELL is full of terrors and delights, including the most striking ensemble seen this side of FREAKS and a truly twisted stunner of a finale.



March 14, 2023

Laurence Olivier's The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Elsie Marina, a second-rate hoofer living in a theatrical boarding house in Brixton, is plucked from the chorus to entertain the Regent of Carpathia for the evening and ultimately smooths his rough edges.



April 25, 2023

Raoul Walsh's The Strawberry Blonde (1941) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Quick-tempered but likable Biff grimes falls big for beautiful Virginia Brush, but he's not the only young man in the neighborhood who's smitten.



April 25, 2023

Tay Garnett's One Way Passage (1932) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.



April 25, 2023

Raoul Walsh's A Lion in the Streets (1953) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



A charismatic peddler from the bayous finds his true calling in politics.



May 30, 2023

Vincente Minelli's The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Who will be the next Mrs. Corbett? Will it be the chic designer? The Miss Montana Pageant hopeful? The headstrong lady across the hall? It's a big decision for any boy to make for his recently widowed dad! Like father, like son. You'll like'em both when renowned child actor and future Oscar winner* Ronny Howard portrays Eddie and Glenn Ford is his dad. Vincente Minnelli (Gigi) directs, using his flair for vivid colors and balancing the film's humor with the real sense of loss a family feels over a loved one's passing. Shirley Jones, Dina Merrill and Stella Stevens portray the prospects under Eddie's self-appointed scrutiny.



May 2, 2023

Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Mae Doyle comes back to her hometown a cynical woman. Her brother Joe fears that his love, fish cannery worker Peggy, may wind up like Mae. Mae marries Jerry and has a baby; she is happy but restless, drawn to Jerry's friend Earl.



March 14, 2023

Anatole Litvak's Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



In the wake of a trial that convicted four Nazi agents of spying against the U.S., Warner Bros. became the first Hollywood studio to fire a salvo at Hitler's Germany. Months before World War II erupted, it released this thriller based on revelations that emerged from the trial and other real-life sources. The story is a brisk connect-the-dots tale that ties German-American Bund operatives (Francis Lederer, George Sanders and Paul Lukas among others) to Berlin. Chief among those connecting the dots: FBI agent Edward Renard (Edward G. Robinson). The drama wasn't limited to the screen. Production personnel received threats and violence erupted at some screenings. Directed with hard-hitting verve by Anatole Litvak, CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY struck a nerve in its era. It remains a milestone of filmmaking commitment today.



April 25, 2023

Stuart Heisler's Storm Warning (1980) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Marsha Mitchell, a traveling dress model, stops in a southern town to see her sister who has married a Ku Klux Klansman. Marsha sees the KKK commit a murder and helps District Attorney Burt Rainey in bringing the criminals to justice.



March 7, 2023

Daniel Mann's I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



Lillian Roth has it all: youth, beauty, movie and Broadway fame and a devoted fiance. Then her fiance dies, and Lillian takes one drink to ease her grief. Then another. Then ten. Then thousands. And soon her youth, her career and her life are drowning in an ocean of booze.



May 30, 2023

Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christine (1933) on blu-ray from Warner Archive



To escape the burdens of rule, Sweden's Queen Christina rides into the countryside disguised as a boy. There she meets and secretly falls for a dashing Spanish envoy on his way to the royal court. Imagine the envoy's delighted surprise when he and the young "nobleman" must share a bed at an overcrowded inn. "It had been so enchanting to be a woman, not a queen. Just a woman in a man's arms," Christina murmurs to her lover when her true identity is revealed. But she knows her people will not accept her marriage to a foreigner. Torn between her duty and her heart, she must make a fateful decision.

wilder

July 11, 2023

Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil (1948) on blu-ray from Kino, from a new 4K restoration



A crooked lawyer tries to protect his numbers running brother from a ruthless crime boss.



July 18, 2023

John Cassavetes' Gloria (1980) on blu-ray from Kino



She's an ex-gun moll and showgirl suddenly forced to protect a kid whose parents have been rubbed out by the mob.



August 22, 2023

Paul Schrader's Hardcore (1979) on blu-ray from Kino



A deeply religious Midwestern businessman ventures into the sordid underworld of pornography in California to look for his runaway teenage daughter who is making porno films.



August 22, 2023

Louise Malle's Pretty Baby (1978) on blu-ray from Kino



A pre-teen girl grows up in a house of prostitution in the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1917.



September 12, 2023

James Foley's After Dark My Sweet (1990) on blu-ray from Kino



When a couple of conniving lowlifes hatch a plot to kidnap the scion of a wealthy local family, they pick the wrong man to carry out the job: Kid Collins, a disturbed ex-boxer on the lam from a mental institution.



June 20, 2023

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) on blu-ray from Kino



Two jet pilots forge a lasting friendship while fighting the Korean War.



May 9, 2023

Max Ophuls' There's No Tomorrow (1939) on blu-ray from Kino



After an unhappy marriage, a woman of the world is forced to become a dancer in a cabaret in order to raise her young son.



July 18, 2023

Abel Glance's End of the World (1931) on blu-ray from Kino



The two Novalic brothers, Jean and Martial, are in love with the same woman, Genevieve. Jean is an impoverished actor and an idealistic dreamer, who does not want Genevieve to share in his life of suffering. Martial is an internationally-respected astronomer who discovers the return of Lexell's Comet, on a collision course for Earth. Meanwhile, the rich play while the world is arming for war. Martial decides to use the impending threat of world destruction to reorganize and improve global society. But he is opposed by the rich financiers and government officials who stand to lose their power and influence.



August 15, 2023

Marcel Ophuls' Is Paris Burning? (1966) on blu-ray from Kino



August 1944. With the invasion of Europe well underway and Germany in retreat, the Allied forces are poised to take the French capital. General Von Choltitz receives a direct order from Hitler that if he cannot hold Paris he must destroy it, completely. After a group of students serving in the French resistance are massacred, Colonel Tanguy incites the public to turn on the occupying Nazis. Reluctantly, Von Choltitz gives the order for bombs to be placed at strategic points in the city, sufficient to decimate all its historical monuments and most of the population...



May 9, 2023

Marcel Ophuls' The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) on blu-ray from Kino



In 1969 this epic account of France under the Nazi occupation opened at a tiny theater on the Left Bank of Paris. This documentary, which had already been refused by French TV, was immediately hailed as one of the most moving and influential films of all time. "The Sorrow and the Pity" went on to garner international acclaim --including an Oscar nomination and a recurring homage in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall."



2023 TBD

Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon (1976) on blu-ray from Kino



F.Scott Fitzgerald's novel is brought to life in this story of a movie producer slowly working himself to death.



2023 TBD

Sam Wood's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) on blu-ray from Kino



During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.










November 27, 2023

Alain Cavalier's Le Combat dans l'île (1962) on blu-ray from Radiance Films (UK)



Clement (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Il sorpasso) is a wealthy son of an industrialist who lives a secret life as a right-wing terrorist. Double-crossed following an assassination attempt he flees to the countryside with his wife, Anne (Romy Schneider, La piscine) where they stay with his childhood friend, Paul (Henri Serre, Jules et Jim). Clement plots his revenge but Anne falls for Paul and a love triangle is just one of many complications in this multi-layered discovery from the French New Wave. With the support of producer Louis Malle, Alain Cavalier (Fill 'Er Up with Super) directed his debut, a noirish drama beautifully shot by cinematographer Pierre Lhomme (Army of Shadows). While echoing the political turmoil of the 1960s, the film probes bourgeois values and the relationship between sex and violence, acting as a precursor to The Conformist and demonstrating the influence of Chabrol.




July 17, 2023

Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs (1985) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



O.C. and Stiggs aren't your average unhappy teenagers. They not only despise their suburban surroundings, they plot against it. They seek revenge against the middle class Schwab family, who embody all they detest: middle class. The film, a raunchy teen comedy described by the British Film Institute as "probably Altman's least successful film," was shot in 1983, but not released until long after post-production was completed. MGM shelved it for a couple of years, finally giving it a theatrical release in 1987 and 1988.



July 17, 2023

Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



In the 1930s Bowie, T-Dub and Chicamaw escape prison and begin robbing banks to get above the poverty that has saturated the nation and stay ahead of the law...



July 24, 2023

Josef Von Sternberg's Jet Pilot (1957) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Air Force Colonel is tasked to escort a defecting Soviet pilot who is scheming to lure him to the USSR.



July 24, 2023

Josef Von Sternberg's Thunderbolt (1929) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.



July 24, 2023

John Farrow's Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



A mind reader discovers he has been cursed with the gift of seeing the future.



July 24, 2023

Rouben Mamoulian's The Song of Songs (1933) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Country orphan Lily goes to Berlin to stay with her aunt and meets Richard, a handsome sculptor. Persuaded to pose for Richard, her physical charms melt away his 'strictly business' attitude and they become lovers. But Richard, wanting his freedom, connives to marry her to his wealthy client Baron von Merzbach... whose household includes a jealous former mistress and a susceptible farm manager.



September 18, 2023

Universal Noir #2 on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



Starring the cream of US and British acting talent – including Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, Phyllis Calvert, Fred MacMurray, Ava Gardner, Ann Blyth, Jessica Tandy, Cedric Hardwicke, Fredric March, and Barbara Stanwyck – these dark and dangerous dramas feature witnesses to murder (Lady on a Train), family rifts (Time Out of Mind), amnesia and smuggling (Singapore), murderous infidelity (A Woman's Vengeance), mercy killing (An Act of Murder), and gambling addiction (The Lady Gambles).



October 30, 2023

G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)



The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.




April 24, 2023

Jerzy Skolimowski's Identification Marks: None + Hands Up!  (1965-1981) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



Identification Marks: None (1965

A day in the life of student Andrzej (played by Skolimowski himsef) who, between the morning and late afternoon, gives up on his studies, breaks up with his partner, and decides to join the army. Before his departure, Andrzej tries to straighten out his life, and encounters Barbara, who he sees as the woman he has always waited for.


Hands Up! (1981)

The fourth of a series of semi-autobiographical films in which Skolimowski plays his alter ego Andrzej Leszczyc. Hands Up! was made in 1967 but was banned for 18 years by Poland's then Communist regime. After Poland's liberation, Skolimowski was invited to revisit the film which he duly did, adding a 20 minute sequence that explains why the film was so withheld by the censors.



March 13, 2023

Basil Dearden's Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



Young Sophia Dorothea marries Prince George Louis, but it's far from a love match. Then she falls for Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmark.



September 18, 2023

Kira Muratova's Brief Encounters (1967) on blu-ray from Studio Canal (UK)



BRIEF ENCOUNTERS (1967) was the debut feature from Kira Muratova. It was here we saw the beginnings of Muratova's impressionistic style, blending observational realism with new wave experimentation. Despite the continued censorship Muratova's work received (Brief Encounters was banned for twenty years), she still managed to emerge as one of the leading figures in Ukraine and Russian cinema, building a very successful film career from the 1960s onwards due to her boundary pushing directorial approach and aesthetics.

Brief Encounters tells the story of an intricate love triangle, connecting a city planner (played by Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer Vladimir Vysotsky), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) whom she hires as their housekeeper.





October 25, 2023

William Friedkin's Bug (2006) on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



At a rundown desert motel, Agnes (Ashley Judd) begins a tentative relationship with a newcomer named Peter (Michael Shannon). He has a strange charisma, one that offers fearful and unstable Agnes a flicker of hope. When Peter reveals that the military deliberately infected him with a bug and that he has tiny insects crawling under his skin, paranoia begins to envelope the desperate pair.



June 28, 2023

Louise Malle's Damage (1992) on blu-ray from from Imprint (Australia)



A member of Parliament (Irons) falls passionately in love with his son's fiancée. They pursue their affair with obsessive abandon despite the dangers of discovery and what it would do to his complacent life and his son.



July 26, 2023

Directed by Sidney J. Furie on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)



Influential auteur Sidney J. Furie is best known for his strong visual style and clever use of cinematography. A BAFTA Award-winner for Best Director, and a Palme d'Or nominee, Furie's remarkable career spans more than five decades, countless genres, and has seen him helm over 40 feature films. These five classic films are accompanied by brand NEW audio commentaries featuring Sidney J. Furie himself, as well as featurettes, interviews, video essays, and a collectable booklet exploring Furie's legacy.

-The Lawyer (1970)
-Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
-Hit! (1973)
-Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living In New York (1975)
-The Boys In Company C (1978)





May 10, 2023

Essential Film Noir Collection 4 on blu-ray from Imprint (Australia)





Essential Film Noir: Collection 4 includes five acclaimed and much sought after classics: Rope of Sand (1949), Appointment with Danger (1950), The Enforcer (1951), Beware, My Lovely (1952) & Jennifer (1953).




July 26, 2023

Larry Clark's Kids (1995) on blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment (Australia)



An HIV-positive skateboarder sets out to deflower as many virgins as possible while a local girl who contracted his disease tries to save his next target from her same fate.