Random DVD and Blu-ray announcements

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

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WorldForgot

Holy crap, alwayz wanted to watch this and now it's up for free. Weekend made

jenkins

Quote from: WorldForgot on May 01, 2021, 09:47:42 AM
Holy crap, alwayz wanted to watch this and now it's up for free. Weekend made

niice

they announced the six new partner label titles and there are two new partner labels now, Gunpowder & Sky and Circle Collective




wilder

The new American indie cinema: Vinegar Syndrome partner labels + Oscilloscope / Mubi / Neon. It's a small club now but that makes it easy.

Kino's also begun dabbling in new releases (Abel Ferrara's Tommaso, the Dardenne Bros. Young Ahmed, Bruno Dumont's Coincoin & the Extra-Humans, and Rick Alverson's The Mountain, among others)

Shout Factory put out The Nest and The House That Jack Built, but those are stylistic standouts from their usual focus.

Criterion and A24 seem to catch what James Gray would call "the middle" - the slightly bigger budget fare.


On the foreign front for new releases you've got Cohen Media Group / Grasshopper Film / Kimstim, and across the pond there's Anti-Worlds.

Cohen Media can be counted on for Ozon and some French cinema. Grasshopper Film had Bertrand Bonello's Nocturama. Kimstim has put out Bruno Dumont's past couple features.

Breaking Glass, Film Movement, and Strand Releasing have slowed to a trickle.


These labels are detailed on the first page of this thread, relevant links, etc. but not separated by new release companies vs catalog.




Prospect looks interesting but that's quite a price.

Will get Adoration of course, likely the two you recommended above (The Candy Snatchers  & The Passing), and maybe The Leather Boys and Donny's Bar Mitzvah depending if the May sale includes those.

jenkins

I receive different information about the cutoff date for movie release dates included in the sale, but there is a cutoff, most likely February, though as indicated I can't say for certain. but anyway today's announcements won't be a part of the sale. Six-String Samurai won't be, or any of the may releases, or April releases, and I don't think March either

so, since they won't be part of the sale, and I'm hype for them, I just now ordered Home Grown Horrors and Donny's Bar Mitzvah, although there are plenty more that interest me, and if this was in fact sale season I'd add on The Leather Boys



AGFA has the best trailers and descriptions in the game

jenkins

Quote from: jenkins on April 30, 2021, 08:46:10 PM
I forget the name of the cult movie company associated with Kino

Code Red. their upcoming Cardona release is Guyana: Cult of The Damned

jenkins

QuoteSo which of our announced May slate are you most excited for? Is it SURF II, on Blu-ray for the first time and presented in both its standard theatrical version along with its unreleased, original director's cut? Vol. 1 in our three part, expanding box set of the films of Rene Cardona Jr., featuring his gory jungle cannibal epic, TREASURE OF THE AMAZON, along with the nasty CYCLONE (in both its Spanish and English cuts), and the off the wall BERMUDA TRIANGLE? Or perhaps its Televised Terror: Vol1, offering a trio of star-studded, made-for-tv murder thrillers, CALENDAR GIRL MURDERS, ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?, and CHILD IN THE NIGHT?

But what of our three (!?!) surprise titles? As you may remember, we're about to unveil another world's first in the form of a UHD two-pack. That's two gory (and gooey) films in UHD (and Blu-ray), packaged together, totaling over three hours of explosive 4K entertainment. Plus the world Blu-ray premier of a wild sci-fi/fantasy spectacle that's all but guaranteed to trigger pangs of late 80s cable nostalgia.


jenkins

wilder,

have you dipped your toes into Cauldron (American Rickshaw?,) Culture Shock, (???,) or Massacre Video (the people's court company, recently released Toxic Zombies)?

wilder

I've got Abrakadabra from Cauldron, American Rampage / Danger USA (last post) from Massacre Video, and will gamble on Death Collector from Culture Shock. Those are the only releases I'm familiar with from them.

This is how Death Collector has been described:

Quote from: Letterboxd user Justine WieseA low budget, regionally shot, dystopian sorta-western that feels like an Alex Cox film with Lynchian overtones

I remember when Louis C Justin was posting YouTube videos like 10 years ago before his label started. As soon as Massacre Video went live he took them all down.

jenkins

always my dude. for some this board is 100% PTA and for me it's 90% wilder

let me remind myself about what I read about American Rickshaw on the VS fb group, here it is

Quoteit's like an Italian version of big trouble little China. It's batshit wild.

the website info

QuoteDirected by Italian genre legend Sergio Martino (All the Colors of the Dark) and Written by Sauro Scavolini (A Man Called Blade) with a story by Roberto Leoni (Santa Sangre) this late 80s Miami-lensed Action/Horror hybrid

you know I haven't gone all region although it's not that expensive to and rather practical, but it appears to be that the UK equivalent of VS is 88 Films. 88 Films has gone Hong Kong. I adore this movie but consider this ridiculous

wilder

I love parts of Sergio Martino's The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh. It's stylistically bold enough that I'd definitely take a look at anything else Martino produced. Saw All the Colors... many years ago but can't remember much of it. I think it had some hallucinatory, wide angle stuff involving an orgy or ritual (?) or something. I get all gialli confused.

Quote from: jenkins on May 13, 2021, 06:20:04 PMyou know I haven't gone all region although it's not that expensive to and rather practical, but it appears to be that the UK equivalent of VS is 88 Films.

There's some crossover in titles and maybe they're using some VS transfers (no idea) but I wouldn't necessarily call 88 Films the UK equivalent of Vinegar Syndrome. As far as I know they're not doing their own scans or spearheading restoration work. I could be wrong. There is definite title crossover but I'm not certain their transfers are as consistently top-tier across the board. Hollow Man, for example. Mostly basing this off of caps and reviews.

I've got 88's releases of Delirium, which has a US release forthcoming that I know you posted about, and Just Before Dawn, which has an inferior transfer to at least one of Code Red's releases, but I think that's it.

jenkins

yeah. some superficial similarities but interior differences. I heard about them through the VS group who bring them up like all the time. but totally, VS' restoration work is a cut above. and the fact is they got a wide range of movies, it's taken me roughly a year to familiarize myself with the possibilities. I previously mentioned some mentionables but I forgot to then mention this Curtis Harrington movie

that cover to Delirium is really something else. it has noticeable charms. eventually I need to own Just Before Dawn

wilder

June 14, 2021

Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct on 4K UHD blu-ray from StudioCanal (UK), from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative supervised by Paul Verhoeven.



Michael Douglas stars as hardboiled San Francisco detective Nick Curran, a troubled cop with a history of trigger-happy shootings and a weakness for beautiful women and dangerous relationships. Sharon Stone is Catherine Tramell, a stunning, enigmatic novelist with a talent for seduction and a history of relationships that end in death. The death of a former rock star sends Nick into the orbit of the victim's lover, Catherine, who immediately becomes prime suspect in the murder. Catherine ignites Nick's suspicions and his passion, and he soon becomes involved in his most dangerous liaison yet.





July 19, 2021

Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow (UK), from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative



Runaway lovers Clarence and Alabama play a dangerous game when they come to possess a suitcase of mob contraband. They head for Los Angeles, where they'll sell the goods and begin a new life. But both sides of the law have other ideas.



July 13, 2021

Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Paramount



In the 1970s, a high school boy is given an opportunity to follow and write a story about the hot new rock band Stillwater as they tour the USA.



2021 TBD

Wolfgang Petersen's The Neverending Story (1984) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Constantin Film (Germany)



A troubled boy dives into a wondrous fantasy world through the pages of a mysterious book.

This movie has a sordid history on blu-ray. Previous to this release, the best transfers were on the Dutch blu-ray and the latest German release from Constantin Film.

See rollover comparisons between the most recent German blu-ray and the US blu-ray transfer here:

Comparison 1
Comparison 2
Comparison 3



June 8, 2021

Stanley Kwan's Center Stage (1991) on blu-ray from Film Movement, from a 4K restoration



Maggie Cheung embodies tragic silent screen siren Ruan Lingyu, known as the "Greta Garbo of China," in this unconventional biopic by Hong Kong New Wave master Stanley Kwan. Praised for her moving and emotive onscreen presence, Ruan's private life, which was frequent fodder for the vicious Shanghai tabloids, began to mirror the melodramas which brought her fame, culminating in her suicide at age 24. Kwan and Cheung paint a kaleidoscopic yet intimate portrait of the ill-fated actress, deftly blending lush period drama, archival footage, and metatextual documentary sequences of Cheung reflecting on Ruan's lasting legacy.





June 8, 2000

Francois Ozon's Under the Sand (2000) on blu-ray from Kino



For many years, Marie (Charlotte Rampling) and Jean (Bruno Cremer) have happily spent their vacations together at their country house. One day at the beach, Marie naps in the sand while Jean goes for a swim. When she awakens, he is gone. Did he drown? Did he run off? Distraught, Marie notifies the authorities. But after an extensive search, no body is found, and Marie is left in a painful limbo, unable to properly grieve for her lost love.



May 25, 2021

Jacques Doillon's Ponette (1996) on blu-ray from Kino



An extremely captivating movie on how a little girl copes with her mother's death. She withdraws from all the people around her, waiting for her mother to come back. She tries waiting, and when her mother still doesn't appear, tries magic chants, praying to God, and then becoming a child of God, to have some power over Him.



July 27, 2021

Veit Harlan's Immense (1943) & Opfergang aka The Great Sacrifice (1944) on blu-ray from Kino



During World War II, Kristina Söderbaum came to represent, for the German people, an ideal woman: the embodiment of strength and beauty, as well as a paragon of fidelity and sacrifice. Immensee stars Söderbaum as Elisabeth, a woman in love with Reinhardt, a brilliant composer (Carl Raddatz), but who instead marries someone more reliable (Paul Klinger). Years later, Reinhardt returns, and Elisabeth has a chance to be true to her one greatest love.

In The Great Sacrifice, Söderbaum is Äls, a goddess of a woman who captures the heart of a married man Albrecht (Raddatz). When Äls falls victim to a serious illness, Albrect's loyal wife (Irene von Meyendorff) sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her husband. Filmed in the rich, warm hues of the Agfacolor process (exquisitely restored by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung), both films are heavy with mood, highlighted by feverish dream sequences that give sublime visual expression to the character's overwrought emotions.






Quote from: BFIOpfergang and Veit Harlan's sexual subversions
By Brad Stevens

In the second part of a special focus on Veit Harlan, Brad Stevens reveals how the director's later work continued to undermine fascist ideology.

It is now generally acknowledged that the ideological underpinnings of classical Hollywood were frequently subverted by auteur directors, with the masterpieces of Howard Hawks and John Ford taking a critical perspective on American society while superficially appearing to affirm its norms. Indeed, ever since Cahiers du cinéma published Young Mr. Lincoln, texte collectif in 1970, the notion of ideological contradiction has been central to discourses on American cinema.

Yet a different set of rules would seem to apply to films made in Nazi Germany, which are seldom discussed in aesthetic (as opposed to historical) terms. This proscription pertains not just to propagandistic texts, but also to those Nazi-era productions which contain no reference to fascist politics. To an extent, such a viewpoint is understandable: what business had directors turning out innocuous comedies or romances when millions of Jews were being slaughtered by their government? Since overtly criticising the regime was, of course, impossible, the only action any self-respecting German artist could have taken was to leave the country.

Yet a recent viewing of several titles by Veit Harlan has led me to conclude that Nazi cinema may have been as riven with contradictions and disturbances as anything by Alfred Hitchcock or Vincente Minnelli. In last month's column, I claimed that the mise en scène of Harlan's Jew Suss (Jud Süß, 1940) disrupted the film's surface antisemitism. But the director's later output may well be even more subversive.

As Harlan's oeuvre progresses, a strikingly obsessive narrative structure emerges, one in which a young man either woos or is wooed by a young woman who is considered an acceptable match for him, even though (or perhaps because) their relationship is quasi-incestuous. In Opfergang (1944) this woman is the protagonist's cousin; in Hanna Amon (1951) she is his sister; and in Different from You and Me (Anders als du und ich, 1957) she is a live-in maid whose relationship to the protagonist, Klaus (Christian Wolff), is essentially that of a sibling. In all three films, the young man falls under the spell of a temptress – one representing a world of exotic sophistication – whom he must ultimately renounce. In Opfergang this is Äls (Harlan's wife, Kristina Söderbaum), an unconventional foreigner who refuses to settle in one place, while in Hanna Amon it is Vera Colombani (Ilse Steppat), who has many of the same characteristics. Different from You and Me provides a fascinating variation on this theme, since its 'other woman' is actually a man, the gay Manfred (Günther Theil).

This pattern, already dimly visible in Jew Suss (in which Karl and Dorothea seem more like brother and sister than husband and wife) and Immensee (1943), can be traced back to F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), which Harlan remade as The Journey to Tilsit (Die Reise nach Tilsit, 1939). Yet what distinguishes Harlan's approach from Murnau's is the greater sympathy he accords his 'woman from the city' characters. This is apparent even in Jew Suss where, although the project's nature prevents Harlan from taking an unambiguously positive view of his 'snake in paradise' (an image explicitly evoked in Hanna Amon), the film's ostensible villain is clearly its emotional centre. But Opfergang goes much further in this direction, suggesting not merely an intuitive resistance to a reactionary formula, but rather a coherent oppositional project.

Opfergang is notable for many reasons, not least the ways in which it anticipates Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999); the masked women who tempt Dr. Harford (Tom Cruise) with the possibility of consequenceless sexual intercourse might have been taken directly from Opfergang. What makes this more than just a random reference is the fact that Kubrick was married to Harlan's niece, Christiane Harlan, and once considered directing a film about the making of Jew Suss. (Christiane relates a story about an awkward meeting between Kubrick and her uncle in Felix Moeller's documentary Harlan: Im Schatten von Jud Süß.)

Commentators often claim that Opfergang's emphasis on sacrifice has propagandistic overtones, insisting it prepared German cinemagoers to make whatever sacrifices were necessary for the good of the fatherland. It is easy enough to see how such a view might be sustained by attending solely to the film's plot. The central character, Albrecht (Carl Raddatz), returns to Germany after having travelled the world, and decides to marry his cousin, Octavia (Irene von Meyendorff). Albrecht subsequently meets and falls in love with Octavia's neighbour, Äls, who chooses death rather than destroy his marriage.

This, one might assume, is the 'sacrificial rite' of the title. But Harlan's dialogue places the emphasis elsewhere. When Äls is confined to her sickbed by a typhus epidemic, Albrecht keeps her spirits up by appearing beneath her window on horseback at the same time every day – at least, that is, until he also succumbs to the epidemic.

Albrecht later learns that, during his illness, Octavia had taken his place, disguising herself as a man and riding past Äls's house. It is Äls's doctor who informs Albrecht of this, preceding his remarks with the observation that "Octavia does not need a sacrifice. She is making a sacrifice." There would, then, appear to be two 'sacrificial rites', and though both are performed by women eager to defend socially permissible expressions of heterosexual ardour, they effectively render heterosexuality redundant. Octavia's masquerade as Albrecht – taken in conjunction with the scene in which she mediates her own voyeuristic look by commenting on how Äls attracts the gaze of men in the street – suggests the real nature of the desire being affirmed here. While Äls and Octavia both imagine themselves to be undertaking rites of sacrifice for Albrecht's sake, the final scene – in which Octavia, who had earlier sent Äls a gift of flowers, throws a rose into the sea – makes it quite clear that the love at this film's heart is a lesbian one.

This celebration of same-sex passion, anticipated by the two women at the masked ball (who seem as likely to make love with each other as with Albrecht), is rendered all the more audacious by its appearance in a work aimed at an audience which would have regarded homosexuality as an abomination. Opfergang deserves our respect, not despite its being a product of the Third Reich, but precisely because of that fact.



August 10, 2021

David Miller's Back Street (1961) on blu-ray from Kino. Produced by Ross Hunter.



From David Miller, the acclaimed director of Sudden Fear, Midnight Lace, Lonely Are the Brave and Captain Newman, M.D., comes this quintessential tearjerker starring Susan Hayward (Rawhide, I Want to Live!) and John Gavin (Psycho, Thoroughly Modern Millie). Based on the bestselling novel by Fannie Hurst (Imitation of Life), Back Street tells the story of two people who meet and fall in love but are unable to marry due to impossible circumstances. However, despite their situation, they carry on a lifelong illicit affair until tragedy strikes. For this lush 1961 color version that garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design, producer Ross Hunter (All That Heaven Allows) teamed Hayward and Gavin as the star-crossed lovers with Vera Miles (23 Paces to Baker Street), Charles Drake (Harvey) and Virginia Grey (Portrait in Black) cast in prominent supporting roles.



June 8, 2021

Curtis Bernhardt's The Woman One Longs For (1929) on blu-ray from Kino



The Woman One Longs For is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Kortner and Frida Richard. It was based on the novel of the same title by Max Brod, published in Vienna by Paul Zsolnay Verlag in 1927.



August 10, 2021

Frank Borzage's Desire (1936) on blu-ray from Kino, from a 2K remaster struck from an interpositive



An automotive engineer bound for a holiday in Spain meets a sultry jewel thief.



August 17, 2021

Billy Wilder's The Emperor Waltz (1948) on blu-ray from Kino



American gramophone salesman Virgil Smith (Crosby) wants to sell his wares in pre-WWI Austria. To get the ball rolling, he hits on the idea of going straight to the top and selling one to Emperor Franz Joseph (Richard Haydn, No Time for Love, The Sound of Music). First off, the palace guards think he's carrying a bomb and he's arrested. He subsequently meets Countess Johanna von Stolzenberg-Stolzenberg (Fontaine) and, after the usual misunderstandings, falls in love with her. She falls in love with his dog, Buttons. The relation is fraught with obstacles and the emperor thinks royal blood marrying a commoner is bad darts altogether—what is to become of Smith and his countess?



2021 TBD

Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) on blu-ray from Kino, from a new 4K restoration



Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.



2021 TBD

Delbert Mann's Marty (1955) on blu-ray from Kino, from a new 2K remaster



A middle-aged butcher and a school teacher who have given up on the idea of love, meet at a dance and fall in love.



April 20, 2021

Michael Curtiz's Doctor X (1932) on blu-ray from Warner Archive, from a 4K restoration of the last-known surviving nitrate technicolor print

Scorsese had a framed poster for this film on a wall in his office visible in the background of a he did during lockdown



The New York newspapers have dubbed him "The Moon Killer". He stalks the streets at night, strangling and cannibalizing men and women. There have been six victims so far, and the police believe that a scientist at the Academy of Surgical Research is responsible. Is it Dr. Wells, Dr. Haines, Dr. Rowitz, Dr. Duke or is it Dr. Xavier ("Dr. X"), who runs the academy? Dr. X's young and lovely daughter will be instrumental in solving the crime, as will the hysterical maid and the sinister butler. Our trip through this morbid tale is guided by the wisecracking reporter who will find himself toe-tagged, gassed, tossed around and generally manhandled before the mystery is solved...




April 27, 2021

Louis CK's Pootie Tang (2001) on blu-ray from Paramount



He's the too-hip hero with a style and a language all his own! Based on the hilarious character who first appeared on "The Chris Rock Show," Pootie Tang (Lance Crouther) is a hit-record-singing, criminal-empire-busting, superhero idolized by kids-and women-everywhere. But when Pootie's one-man war against greed, cuts into profits LecterCorp's, demented CEO (Robert Vaughn) plunges the superdude into a super-funk by swiping his magical villain-whupping belt.



September 7, 2021

Paul Guilfoyle's Life at Stake (1954) on blu-ray from Film Detective



Spoiled young Doris Hillman (Lansbury) invites struggling architect Edward Shaw (Andes) to come in as her husband's partner in a lucrative real estate deal. However, when Edward becomes romantically involved with Doris, he learns that something deadly is going on. There's a life at stake, and it could be his own. This independent production from the golden age of film noir was described by the Los Angeles Times as "a study in fear." It also shows Angela Lansbury, already a double Oscar nominee, as you've never seen her. She's a charming femme fatale. But is she as bad as she seems?



July 19, 2021

Ingmar Bergman Vol. 1 (1944-1950) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



Contain's Eva, not included in Criterion's box set



July 19, 2021

Joseph Losey's The Damned (1962) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



In England, a young American falls in love with the sister of a sadistic and lecherous motorcycle gang leader who despises the American. The couple takes refuge from the gang leader's harassment in a cave where they discover a group of children, who are the result of an experiment by a scientist seeking to develop a race of humans capable of surviving an atomic blast.



July 19, 2021

Werner Herzog's Invincible (2001) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)



The film is based on the true story of Zishe Breitbart, a Jewish blacksmith's son from Poland who becomes a sensation in Weimar, Berlin as a mythical strongman. His employer Hanussen dreams of establishing an all-powerful Ministry of the Occult in Hitler's government. Yet as Hitler's hold on power grows more sure, and Berlin erupts in a ferment of anti-Semitism, Zishe must decide how he will use his strength. Plagued by nightmares, he takes counsel from a local rabbi. He becomes convinced that he has been chosen by God to warn his people of the grave danger they face.



June 21, 2021

Ewald André Dupont's Piccadily (1929) on blu-ray from BFI (UK)



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.

jenkins

bit embarrassed bc this movie was sold out so I could only buy the shirt and I therefore own a shirt to a movie I haven't seen. I did it for the cat. and it's a giallo shirt that's yellow I mean


WorldForgot

Quote from: jenkins on May 19, 2021, 10:33:32 PM
I did it for the cat. and it's a giallo shirt that's yellow I mean



Hype.

Great cover art for that Almost Famous release!
Also, saved that Opfergang and Veit Harlan's sexual subversions bfi write up as a pdf. I ought to start making excursions to Cinefile again to watch what I can't cop. Rly want to purchase Center Stage.

jenkins

long story short, the distribution company for Little Annie Rooney doesn't have it in stock and they might have lost that licensing, although it's currently sitting around for a decent price at Hamilton and trust me, it's a silent movie that's worth it