(BEAVER REVIEW)  - A human remnant of colonialism hangs on as a minor landlord in revolutionary Cuba, yet his ennui erodes any possibility of a place in the new society.
Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 [Blu-ray] (Limite - Mário Peixoto, Revenge - Ermek Shinarbaev, Insiang - Lino Brocka, Mysterious Object at Noon - Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Law of the Border - Lütfi Ö. Akad, Taipei Story - Edward Yang) - Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
All the movies in the set have enduring impact—yet for me, this was a set to see once & sell (with over 1500 movies on my shelves, i can only re-see so many every 2-3 years). All these 6 are intense aesthetic experiences, completely worth watching & generally real downers all. Yang’s Taipei Story echoes A Brighter Summer Day, & specially interesting is the interview with lead actor later director Hsiao-Hsien Hou.
His Girl Friday [Blu-ray] (Howard Hawks, 1940) Criterion Us / UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Now we’re waiting for Bringing Up Baby.
Woman of the Year [Blu-ray] (George Stevens, 1942) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Tracy & Hepburn—that’s all there’s to say, as Gary said.
The Crimson Kimono [Blu-ray] (Sam Fuller, 1959) Twilight Time (BEAVER REVIEW) - The year would not be complete without at least one wonderful Fuller melodrama.
The Quiet American [Blu-ray]  (Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1958) Twilight Time, (BEAVER REVIEW)  - Mankiewicz has a go at Graham Greene before the American got ugly….& twisting the author’s tale to imagine Audie Murphy going innocently to hell & not coming back.
Festival [Blu-ray] (Murray Lerner, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Newport, RI. Relive or live the early 1960s—the folk boom, Joan Baez very young & stunningly alluring, the birth of the Dylan mystic….. As Gary said, “…an amazing time-capsule….the feeling of the time & place are ‘magical’ expressions beautifully exported…”
The Paradine Case [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1947) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - Another Hitch, tho minor, bites the BD with only three of his post 1938 movies remaining to be et: Mr & Mrs Smith, Stage Fright & Under Capricorn.
Bitter Victory [Blu-ray] [Blu-ray] (Nick Ray, 1958) Sidonis Calysta, RB - Yes, forced French caps but mostly below the image.
The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson, 1956) Sidonis Calysta, RB - Bogart’s last movie with Schulberg smashing the boxing racket like he’d beaten the waterfront mob. Like all Sidonis of English films - non-removable subs.
Solaris [Blu-ray] (Steven Soderbergh, 2002) Filmconfect (Rough Trade), ALL - I like this as well or better than the Tarkovsky adaptation of the same Stanislaw Lem sci-fi novel. It’s less philosophically ruminating, more focused on the protagonist’s failure to respect his wife’s persona & the resulting grief, allowing Tarkovsky’s persisting ambiguity to be ameliorated with forgiveness.
The Deadly Affair [Blu-ray] (Sidney Lumet, 1966) UK Indicator (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Big Knife [Blu-ray] (Robert Aldrich, 1955) Arrow US (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Sun Also Rises [Blu-ray] (Henry King, 1957) Signal One, RB - In many ways the most entertaining of Hemingway stories put on screen, with Ty Power & Ava Gardner hoping something besides the sun may rise however futile according to the docs, while Errol Flynn stays delightfully drunk as he does in his other great final role trying to save the elephants, & Eddie Albert has a ball in both.
The Yakuza [Blu-ray] (Sydney Pollack, 1974) Warner Archive - Super later Robert Mitchum thriller with magnificent Japanese acting presence of Takakura Ken.
Portrait of Jennie [Blu-ray] (William Dieterle, 1948) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW)
Joe Versus the Volcano [Blu-ray] (John Patrick Shanley, 1990) Warner Archive, ALL - Totally outrageous, preposterous, absurd latter day screwball comedy & concept made acceptable by the sincerity of players Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan. It’s unimaginable that only maybe Ebert & Schickel among critics appreciated at the time. A classic.
S.O.B. [Blu-ray] (Blake Edwards, 1981) Warner Archive - Hollywood satire is maybe Edwards’ finest, most biting comedy. Julie Andrews even bares a breast in support of the cause.
Seven Days in May [Blu-ray] (John Frankenheimer, 1964) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - Gary loves it even more than I — he’s seen it 20 times, me only 12.
Blood Alley [Blu-ray] (William A Wellman, 1955) Warner Archive, ALL - Instead of wagon train of Western settlers, John Wayne skippers a steamer of Chinese refugees to freedom with San Francisco Bay & the Sacramento River doubling for the Formosa straits. If you know Marin County, you know that just round the bend lies San Quentin prison. An truly rousing fun adventure with Lauren Bacall looking great before she had to deal with Bogie’s dying.
The Sea Chase [Blu-ray] (John Farrow, 1955) Warner Archive, ALL - Like Blood Alley, another watery Wayne melodrama, this one with John as a ‘good’ German carrying out duty among Nazi swine, assisted by the love of a more mature Lana Turner, & rather less fun thru tragic overtones but feeling better today than it did but 10 years after the end of WWII.
Night Moves [Blu-ray] (Arthur Penn, 1975) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - Love this noirish mystery thriller, especially where Hackman’s character says “going to a Rohmer movie is like watching paint dry.”
The Savage Innocents [Blu-ray] (Nicholas Ray, 1960) Olive Films (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Man with Two Brains [Blu-ray] (Carl Reiner, 1983) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - Agreed: “hilarious”. Few comedies endure because the jokes get stale, but here the laughter never fades because it’s inherent in the whole.
The Killer Is Loose [Blu-ray] (Budd Boetticher, 1956) Classic Flix (BEAVER REVIEW) - Unforgettable for 50 years after my first 13-year-old view. Boetticher went directly from this to his legendary teaming with Randolph Scott. Note the scene where Corey shoots John Larch thru the milk carton…..didn’t a man from Manchuria do the same a few years later?
Between Heaven & Hell [Blu-ray] (Richard Fleischer, 1956) Signal One, RB (BEAVER REVIEW)
8 Million Ways to Die [Blu-ray] (Hal Ashby, 1986) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - Ashby’s last movie is not the slick hard nose run for profitable fun with a traditional Private Eye sneer where Laurence Block’s hero is relegated to LA instead of NY, instead it crashes in an unpredictable collision that enthralls thru Ashby’s & Jeff Bridges oddball playing behind & before the camera.
Dunkirk [Blu-ray] (Leslie Norman , 1958) RB UK Studiocanal - This version of the evacuation is minus only the aerial highlights of Nolan’s new spectacle, in fact the spare & brief air bits are completely real combat clips, while the human stories of the soldiers on the ground & beach & their civilian sailor rescuers characterise more deeply---I’m not sure as I've only read about this possible shortcoming of the new movie.
Hell in the Pacific [Blu-ray] (John Boorman, 1968) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - As Gary writes, “a bold effort & it works wonderfully well.”
 

3 of the great Billy’s:

One, Two, Three [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1961) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder, 1966) Twilight Time, RA
Avanti! [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1972) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW)

A newly discovered Blu-ray:

Attack! [Blu-ray] (Robert Aldrich, 1956) Filmedia, ALL - Superbly sharp BD of brutal WWII duty & cowardice melodrama in stark B&W - This French ed has apparently been around awhile (from the listing date) at Amazon France, but Beaver never chewed it, & I only stumbled on by chance last spring (although I'd been looking for years). Now it’s also at Amazon USA but at steep price with earliest BD buyer review posted 2 months ago. The French subs are not forced, only optional.

The hour of the Western:
Beyond the 4 at the top, 10 more cowboy classics got Blu-rayed for the 1st time in 2017:

Duel in the Sun (Roadshow Edition) [Blu-ray] (King Vidor, 1946) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - David O Selznick’s splashy follow-up to GWTW makes for an operatic epic that sprawls beautifully towards tragedy & achieves the legend it seeks.
Hour of the Gun [Blu-ray] (John Sturges, 1967) Twilight Time, ALL (BEAVER REVIEW) - The OK Corral gunfight has been done well more times than any other Western incident…. maybe it’s the 3-some of Wyatt, Doc & Clanton, with girls & brothers on both sides, giving lots of interrelationship complexity, & that Wyatt lived to PR the legend, whereas the Billy the Kid & Pat Garrett tale offers but two major characters on grey-tinged edges of the law, & the James gang has only the outlaw, his bro & a dirty little coward. (The 3 other enduringly entertaining OK shootouts are: Ford’s My Darling Clementine, Sturges’ Gunfight at the OK Corral, & Casmatos’ Tombstone, with a side note of Frank Perry’s ‘Doc’.)
Terror in a Texas Town [Blu-ray] (Joseph H. Lewis, 1958) Arrow US/ UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Maybe only writer Dalton Trumbo could dream up a Western duel between a black-clad, one-handed gunslinger & a harpoon wielding sailor turned cowboy—unforgettable forever.
Four Faces West [Blu-ray] (Alfred E. Green, 1948) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW) - A lovely Western, literally, (& Gary says why), the sort that gave Joel McCrea his image of decency, without a shot being fired, like a precursor to Tourneur’s Stars in My Crown, one of my & Rosenbaum’s most cherished movies (in his essential 100)
Ulzana’s Raid [Blu-ray] (Robert Aldrich, 1972) Elephant Films RB - Burt & Bob had wanted a heroic, naturalistic demise for the hero in their first movie Apache, & 18 years later do it with Burt switching sides to die & the chief going to his grave at the hands of a fellow Indian.
Night Passage [Blu-ray] (James Neilson, 1957) Koch Media, RB (BEAVER REVIEW) - Highly entertaining with Stewart vs his bad bro Audie Murphy & Dan Duryea delightfully guzzling scenery & spitting out the subtext.
Bend of the River [Blu-ray] (Anthony Mann, 1952) RB DE Alive (BEAVER REVIEW) - The 2nd Mann/Stewart outing builds on Winchester ’73 like the 2nd movement in a Western symphony that sweeps from the Southwest to Western Canada & back again.
Lawman [Blu-ray] (Michael Winner, 1971) Twilight Time, (BEAVER REVIEW) - A nearly absurdly bleak & brutal take on law, justice & pride leading to avoidable tragic results, & i like it mainly for the cast of Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J Cobb, Robert Duvall, Richard Jordan, JD Cannon, Ralph Waite, Albert Salmi, Joseph Wiseman, John McGiver & the list seems to go on like many of their bodies dropping dead for no reason except wanting to ignore a wantonly accidental killing.
The Law & Jake Wade [Blu-ray] (John Sturges, 1958) Warner Archives, ALL - Nearly all of Sturges’ Westerns are tightly woven with interestingly believable character interplays, & here we have Robert Taylor vs Richard Widmark & gang, with law & order a bit on the fuzzy side.
No Name on the Bullet [Blu-ray] (Jack Arnold, 1959) Koch Media, RB - Who has gunman Audie Murphy come to town to kill? The question haunts the community & leads to the outing of several citizen’s hidden sins.
Wild Bill [Blu-ray] (Walter Hill, 1995) Twilight Time, ALL - Going blind, Jeff Bridges plays the somewhat unhinged Hickok’s final card game like he’s indifferent to David Arquette’s nutty McCall, who hangs for it, shooting him in the back of the head over his deadman’s hand of aces & eights, in Deadwood, of course, whose name permeates the sense of the characters futures, including Ellen Barkin doing Calamity Jane & John Hurt looking on.

10 NEW 2016-2017 movies, some may be future classics but too soon to tell:

Julieta [Blu-ray] (Pedro Almodóvar, 2016) Sony Pictures (BEAVER REVIEW)
Things to Come [Blu-ray] (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2016) MPI (BEAVER REVIEW)
Song to Song [Blu-ray] (Terrence Malick, 2017) - A cinema lyric poet’s take on the ennui of people populating the pop music scene?….Or the impossibility or improbability of finding last love within those inhabitants?….Or coming to realise that there’s something more than merely losing yourself in the music of the moment…?
Voyage of Time (Terrence Malick, 2016) France Télévisions Distribution, RB - Movies’ premiere lyrical poet picks up & expands creation & life’s evolution from his introduction in The Tree of Life.
Paterson [Blu-ray] (Jim Jarmusch, 2016) Universal, RA - A movie set in visual form similar to William Carlos Williams style embracing the mundane about a bus driver writing poetry similar to Williams’ in his spare time.
A Quiet Passion [Blu-ray] (Terence Davies, 2016) Thunderbird Releasing, RB - Emily Dickinson ‘did not stop for death so death stopped for her’.
I Am Not Your Negro [Blu-ray] (Raoul Peck, 2016) Magnolia - The life & times of James Baldwin mostly in his words sensitively spoken by Samuel L Jackson.
The Accountant [Blu-ray] (Gavin O'Connor, 2016) Warner Brothers - A surprisingly intelligent & effective action thriller, far more satisfying than the comic book super heroes running rampant in today’s cinemas, with Ben Affleck equally surprisingly believable as an autistic numbers cruncher trained to be also an effective super combat artist.
Lion [Blu-ray] (Garth Davis, 2016) Lionsgate, RA - A rather sweet movie from true story of a child lost in modern India growing up to find his old home using Google Earth, showing what seems the real India of the present in a manner not seen (I think) since the movies of Satyajit Ray.
Rules Don’t Apply [Blu-ray] (Warren Beatty, 2016) 20th Century Fox, RA - Beatty makes a pretty buoyant movie while giving a fascinatingly quirky portrayal that makes you think this is probably pretty close to how Howard Hughes really was, much more than Leo’s more actorly performance in Scorsese’s biopic some years ago.

Above were only movies making first appearances in the BD medium. Here are most of the best I’ve “double-dipped” for, generally furthered by new 4K restored transfers:

The Complete Monterey Pop Festival [Blu-ray] - Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - 4K overkill of 16mm original shows that finer is better, plus two new interviews added to the complete package from 8 years ago.
Stalker [Blu-ray] (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Super improvement over the UK Artificial Eye of only a year ago.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1974) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW) - 4K again proves superior, plus a ton of extra material, but Twilight Time’s Encore of 2016 worth keeping for additional commentary track.
Straw Dogs [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1971) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Close examination of Gary’s captures show that bit rate is not as vital as 4K trouncing 2K (presumably) --- a 5th great Sam BD for the year.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (50th Anniversary Special Edition) [Blu-ray] (Sergio Leone, 1966) (50th Anniversary Special Edition) - Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - Gorgeous new transfer, again 4K, & mucho xtras.
One-Eyed Jacks [Blu-ray] (Marlon Brando, 1961) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW) - Image on par with Criterion’s but valuable for the added commentary.
The Wild One [Blu-ray] (László Benedek, 1953) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Image improved over previous BD eds plus xtra xtras.
Compulsion [Blu-ray] (Richard Fleischer, 1959) - Kino (BEAVER REVIEW) - Image better than the UK Signal One but latter worth keeping for different extras.
The incredible Shrinking Man [Blu-ray] (Jack Arnold, 1957) Arrow, RB - Image same as German edition, with several great extras added.
The Big Heat [Blu-ray] (Fritz Lang, 1953) - UK Powerhouse Films (BEAVER REVIEW) - Definitive edition so far, best image, with Twilight Time duo, Julie & Nick, commentary. Fortunately demand for movie is such that i’ve had no trouble selling off my previous ES & TT eds.
The Lady from Shanghai [Blu-ray] (Orson Welles, 1947) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Best transfer plus more extras but keeping the TCM ed for other extras.
Experiment in Terror [Blu-ray] (Blake Edwards, 1962) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Edwards’ experiment in suspense totally succeeds with late policier noir ambiance, & UK Indicator again demonstrates that it cares enough to deliver the very best in transfers & extras.
Ronin [Blu-ray] (John Frankenheimer, 1998) Arrow US/UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - Advertised as new 4K transfer, it looks great & has Frankenheimer’s great commentary that I’d previously kept the old DVD for. It’s great that he recorded so many for the DVDs before he died, & wish other directors would take their cue from his approach, such as here where he talks about shooting on Super 35 for cropping more full matte & losing little of the horizontal in standard screen TV showings.
Inferno 2D + 3D [Blu-ray] (Roy Ward Baker, 1953) Twilight Time (BEAVER REVIEW) - Improvement over Panamint import with English subs & commentary track - i was fortunate to see this in 3D in ’53 when i was 10—a mesmorising intro to Robert Ryan’s persona. I never forgot the movie. Baker went on to make the best of the Titanic movies, A Night to Remember.
The Party [Blu-ray] (Blake Edwards, 1968) RB UK Eureka Classics (BEAVER REVIEW) – Tremendously & repeatedly funny non-pink Kitty comedy by Edwards & Sellers, much improvised according to the extras, & the Brits also do it better from the US KL in image quality & having English subs that for whatever reason Kino is generally reluctant to give.
Letter from an Unknown Woman [Blu-ray] (Max Ophüls, 1948) Olive Signature (BEAVER REVIEW) - Olive again improves on itself in every way, as Gary thoroughly discusses.
Barry Lyndon [Blu-ray] (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW) – Gary’s comparison makes it clear how much this new image is superior to the old----- a fitting effect for a movie about the importance of image.
Rawhide [Blu-ray] (Henry Hathaway, 1951) RB UK Signal One Entertainment (BEAVER REVIEW) - Improves on the USA KL with better image, English subs & a commentary.
Valdez Is Coming [Blu-ray] (Edwin Sherin, 1971) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW) - Slight image improvement over the German ed, & has commentary that lickety-split relates all sorts of info & convoluted trivia about the creative talent involved but very little concerning the movie, as though doing the commentary simply gave the commentator the chance to show off how much he knows about everybody.
Four Film Noir Classics (The Dark Mirror, Secret Beyond the Door, Force of Evil, The Big Combo) [Blu-ray] (Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Abraham Polonsky, Joseph H. Lewis, 1946-1955) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW) Had em all but replaced for the sometimes better transfers, especially Big C, & mostly for all the great commentaries—nice HC booklet too. Probably the noir release of the year.
Broken Arrow [Blu-ray] (Delmer Daves, 1950) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - The image is surprisingly no better than & maybe identical to the Spanish edition I've had for several years, but it does have subs, benefitting my wife who’s hard of hearing.
The Apartment [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1960) RB UK Arrow - It’s supposed to be here before the end of the year, & assume it will be filled with the extra features that so far Arrow has not failed to provide.

A odd disappointment……but not really at $10:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (40th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray] (Steven Spielberg, 1977) Sony Pictures (BEAVER REVIEW)L - Like Gary, I found the new ed image lacking---the older one simply looks better on my plasma…..thus I’ve given the new version to my daughter, but retained the new xtras disc. It seems in this case the 4K matters not over the previous presumably 2K, tho I’m curious why (according to Beaver specs) the feature is 20% larger in the previous ed, yet the bit rates are nearly identical?

& finally 2 DVDs:

1. The Westerner (Sam Peckinpah, Andre de Toth, Tom Cries, 1960) Shout Factory, ALL - The critically highly-rated but little seen TV series developed by Sam as a reputation building effort toward his ultimate epic ambition. Two discs have all the shows with commentaries on Sam’s directed eps by his usual gang of admirers.
2. The Dying of the Light (Peter Flynn, 2015) First Run Features, ALL - Actually released in Dec, 2016, but relatively unnoticed, about the fading profession of movie projectionist

1. George Romero Between Night And Dawn Limited Edition: There's Always Vanilla/Season of the Witch/The Crazies (George Romero, 1971-1973) Arrow Video; Region ALL

1. Blow-Up [Blu-ray] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Barry Lyndon [Blu-ray] (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. Rumble Fish [Blu-ray] (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. Lifeboat [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944) Kino (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. Vampyr [Blu-ray] (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1932) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Funeral Parade of Roses [Blu-ray] (Toshio Matsumoto, 1969) Cinelicious Pics (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? [Blu-ray] (Sydney Pollack, 1969) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. Le samouraï [Blu-ray] (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. The Vietnam War (Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2017). PBS, RA
10. Barton Fink [Blu-ray] (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 1991) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)

Most improved score for silent film Variety with Berklee Orchestra

Most useful movie website: DVD Beaver for preventing us from wasting our money in inferior transfers!

1. Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology [Blu-ray] (Alice Guy, Lois Weber, Mabel Normand, Madeline Brandeis, Germaine Dulac, Lotte Reiniger, et.al, 1902-1946) Flicker Alley (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Le Moulin [Blu-ray] (Huang Ya Li, 2015), Roots Films (RA): Unique, exquisitely done documentary of an avant-garde poetry group in 1930s Taiwan. The film is a poem itself, and like its subject, imbued with a deep love of modernism.
3. Dead Slow Ahead [Blu-ray] (Maruo Herce, 2015), Potemkine (RB): Gorgeous, other-worldly documentary about life aboard a cargo ship.
4. Super Citizen Ko [Blu-ray] (Wan Jen, 1995), Group Power Workshop (RA): A thoughtful and quite moving film about an elderly man haunted by memories of political repression in 1950s Taiwan.
5. I Am Not Your Negro [Blu-ray] (Raoul Peck, 2016) Magnolia
6. Les Sorcières de Salem [Blu-ray] (Raymond Rouleau, 1957), Pathé (RB)
7. Witchhammer [Blu-ray] (Otakar Vávra, 1970) Region FREE UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy [Blu-ray] ( Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Right Now, Wrong Then [Blu-ray] (Hong Sang-soo, 2015), Grasshopper (RA)
10. Black Girl [Blu-ray] (Ousmane Sembène, 1966) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2017

1. Eight Films by Jean Rouch (Jean Rouch, 1955-1969), Icarus (R1) (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Absent Without Leave (Kek Huat Lau, 2016), Hummingbird (R3): The filmmaker sets out to discover the details behind the hushed history of his revolutionary grandfather and the struggle he participated in.
3. Machines (Rahul Jain, 2016), Kino (R1)
4. The Road to Mandalay (Midi Z, 2016), Edko Films (R3): If one can overlook the last few minutes, which seem to have wandered in, quite unwelcome, from an entirely different kind of movie, then this film about Burmese migrants in Thailand is otherwise something quite special.
5. Exquisite Ecstasies (Peter Tscherkassky, 1981-2015), Index (R0)
6. A Quiet Dream (Zhang Lu, 2016), CJ E&M (R3)
7. The Bacchus Lady (E J-yong, 2016), CGV Arthouse (R3)

1. The Wanderers [Blu-ray] (Philip Kaufman, 1979) - Kino
2. Cease Fire! [Blu-ray 3D] (Owen Crump, 1953) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. The Sea Wolf [Blu-ray] (Michael Curtiz, 1941) Warner Archive
4. [tie] Daredevils of the Red Circle (12 Chapter Serial) [Blu-ray] (William Witney, 1939)  Kino & Sunset in the West [Blu-ray] (William Witney, 1950) Kino
5. One, Two, Three [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1961) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. The Young Girls of Rochefort [Blu-ray] (Jacques Demy, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. The Yellow Handkerchief (Yoji Yamada, 1977) Twilight Time; RA (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. Hell and High Water (Samuel Fuller, 1954) Twilight Time; ALL (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. The Yakuza [Blu-ray] (Sydney Pollack, 1974) Warner Archive
10. Cyborg 2087 [Blu-ray] (Franklin Adreon, 1966) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)

Honorable Mention: Funeral Parade of Roses, The Violent Years/Anatomy of a Psycho, Maigret Sets a Trap, Sayonara, The Devil’s Rain, Avanti!, Don't Torture a Duckling, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, Gun Fury (3-D), The Old Dark House, Erik the Conqueror, Funny Bones, Beggars of Life, The Crimson Kimono, Inferno (3-D), Willard, Caltiki, the Immortal Monster, The Delinquents, Deluge, Two for the Road, Othello

DVD
1. Porky Pig 101 ( 5-disc) - Warner Archive
2. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: The Vault Series (Various, 1972-1984) Time-Life; R1
3. Green Acres – The Complete Series (Various, 1965-1970) Shout! Factory; R1
4. Lou Grant – Season Four (Various, 1980-81) Shout! Factory; R1
5. Decoy – The Complete Series (Various, 1957-58) Film Chest; ALL

Note: This somewhat eclectic list is, by design, intended to acknowledge the varied ambitious aims and accomplishments by labels and the people working for them: restorations: their commitment to serials and B-Westerns (particularly the long beleaguered Roy Rogers series); quality commentary tracks (by Michael Schlesinger, Tom Weaver and others); to heretofore under-acknowledged foreign titles (The Yellow Handkerchief); to audio and 3-D restorations (Hell and High Water, Cease Fire!); and to acknowledge the high-def debuts of highly obscure titles (Cyborg 2087). On the admittedly waning DVD front, indie labels continue complete series runs of shows the bigger studios long ago abandoned half-finished or never released at all. Who says hard media is dead?

1. The Murderers Are Among Us (Wolfgang Staudte, 1946). DEFA Film Library, R1.
2. The Russians Are Coming / Career (Heiner Carow, 1968/87, 1970). DEFA Film Library, R1.
3. The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996). First Run, R1.
4. Unlocking the Cage (Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker, 2016). First Run, R1.
5. The Goddess (Yonggang Wu, 1934) R2 UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)

1. Barry Lyndon [Blu-ray] (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Le gai savoir aka Joy of Learning [Blu-ray] (Jean-Luc Godard, 1969) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. Good Morning [Blu-ray] (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. Terror in a Texas Town [Blu-ray] (Joseph H. Lewis, 1958) Arrow US/ UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. They Live by Night [Blu-ray] (Nicholas Ray, 1948) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchism [Blu-ray] (Eros + Massacre, Heroic Purgatory and Coup d'etat) - Arrow Academy (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Stalker [Blu-ray] (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. The Boy Friend [Blu-ray] (Ken Russell, 1971) Warner Archive
9. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) RB UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. Time to Die [Blu-ray] (Arturo Ripstein, 1966) Film Movement

Blu-Ray close contenders:

Spotlight on a Murderer [Blu-ray] (Georges Franju, 1961) UK / US Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Man from Planet X [Blu-ray] (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1951) Shout! Factory (BEAVER REVIEW)
Ride the High Country [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1962) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me [Blu-ray] (David Lynch, 1992) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)

1 Othello [Blu-ray] (Orson Welles, 1952) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
2 The Marseille Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, César) [Blu-ray] (Alexander Korda, Marc Allégret, Marcel Pagnol, 1931-1936) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
3 Stalker [Blu-ray] (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
4 L'argent [Blu-ray] (Robert Bresson, 1983) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
5 Celine and Julie Go Boating [Blu-ray] (Jacques Rivette, 1974) RB BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
6 The Éric Rohmer Collection (The Aviator's Wife | A Good Marriage | Pauline at the Beach | Full Moon in Paris | The Green Ray | My Girlfriend's Boyfriend | The Marquise of O... | Perceval | Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle | The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque) [Blu-ray] (Éric Rohmer, 1976-1993) RB UK Arrow
7 Eight Hours Don't Make a Day - A Family Series [Blu-ray] (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972-1973) RB UK Arrow
8 The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) RB UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
9 The Before Trilogy [Blu-ray] (Before Sunrise - 1995, Before Sunset - 2004, Before Midnight - 2013) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)
10 Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder 1976) Arrow B

1. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1974) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. The Wages of Fear [Blu-ray] (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. Buster Keaton: 3 Films [Blu-ray] (Sherlock Jr., The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr.) - RB UK Masters of Cinema
4. The Thing - 4K Restored [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1982) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) RB UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. The Apartment [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1960) RB UK Arrow
7. Stalker [Blu-ray] (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. Daughter of the Nile [Blu-ray] (Hsiao-Hsien Hou, 1987) RB UK Masters of Cinema (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. The Last Detail [Blu-ray] (Hal Ashby, 1973) RB Powerhouse Films UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. Four Film Noir Classics (The Dark Mirror, Secret Beyond the Door, Force of Evil, The Big Combo) [Blu-ray] (Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Abraham Polonsky, Joseph H. Lewis, 1946-1955) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)

1. Westworld: The Complete First Season [4K UHD Blu-ray] - Warner
WESTWORLD has it all: concept, visuals, characters, performances, music, mystery, subtext. The Blu-ray is terrific. The UHD, better.
I thought I should re-acquaint myself with the original 1973 movie, written and directed by Michael Crichton and starring Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, and Yul Brynner as the gunslinger. It’s like comparing roller skates to a Ferrari’s (no offense, WFTDA). Westworld is not an example of a movie of its time. It’s just a bad movie with a smart concept. The only thing it has going for it is Brynner, whose role in that film, by the way, has nothing in common with Chris Adams expect that he is dressed in black.

So, back to the TV series. Let us be clear about this, the TV series is not just an updated version of the movie. It is a story told by the man - together with his wife, Lisa Joy - who wrote Memento and created Person of Interest and, with his brother, Christopher, co-wrote The Dark Knight and Interstellar. It has the sensibility of someone intrigued by how Time can be manipulated for dramatic purposes. It is that feature, even more than the amusement park simile that keeps our attention. It is also of no little consequence that the two Westworlds have no character roles in common. The focus is almost entirely on the androids and their creators, not on the guests, with the interesting exception of the “Man in Black” - a guest, played to perfection, I might add, by Ed Harris. No, WESTWORLD is a quite different species altogether. Its commonality with Crichton’s work, merely a copyright inconvenience. With Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden and Thandie Newton.

2. The Vietnam War [Blu-ray] (Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2017). PBS, RA
Kern Burns’ best and most important historical documentary to date is my Number 2 choice, a grade not given for excellence of image or sound, but for relevance and heart. If you care anything about the political world you live in, you owe it to yourself to watch this. . . all 17 hours.

3. Dunkirk [4K UHD Blu-ray] (Christopher Nolan, 2017) Warner
To have seen this movie in a proper IMAX theatre was the movie-going experience of the year and then some. This, despite poorly judged audio levels (I’m convinced Nolan is hearing impaired!) The transition to home video is a compromise and probably couldn’t have been otherwise - cuts from the giant verticals of IMAX to wide screen can be tolerated in the theatre in ways they cannot at home, no matter the size of your screen. So, 1.43:1 is trimmed to 1.78:1, while the widescreen portions of the movie are retained at 2.20:1. The good news is that the IMAX faux bass is gone, even if relative sound levels remain the same. So the 50mm machine gun attack that makes us jump out of our skin is still several times louder than the bomb exploding 20 yards away. I thought these events occur too closely in time not to be noticed. Still do. Yet the work is still riveting, especially once you stop trying to figure out the Time thing.

4. American Gods [Blu-ray] (Brian Fuller & David Slade, 2017), Lionsgate,
AMERICAN GODS pushes the envelope well beyond the physical limits of what’s possible, to say nothing of acceptable, for a medium that once considered The Andy Griffith Show as philosophy worth thinking about, and All in the Family and M*A*S*H as cutting edge. Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel makes the transition to television and sweeps away all previous concepts of storytelling before it. Along with their peculiar take on history, legend and religion, Fuller & Slade do the Chris Nolan thing with Time, taking eight episodes before it all folds back on itself. Take a deep breath before entering. Do not expect to know where you are or why for some while into the series. And we thought the Jupiter Mission was an acid trip!

5. My Life as a Zucchini [Blu-ray] (Claude Barras, 2016), Universal, RA
Contrary to the usual sinister view of life in a foster home, Claude Barras presents a stop motion comedy-drama that will either have you throwing rocks at your screen for presumed dishonesty or melting your heart. I took the latter course. Ma vie de Courgette has been nominated for this year’s Academy Awards.

6. Since You Went Away [Blu-ray] (John Cromwell, 1944) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
Inexplicably absent from AFI’s listing of “America's 100 Greatest Love Stories,” SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, a WWII home front melodrama, made the year before the war ended, contains not one, not two, but six love stories, blended so beautifully you might not take note of any of them as such. The American Film Institute didn’t. Perhaps it’s because the primary object of the lead character’s (Claudette Colbert) love is never seen except in photographs. Yet stand-ins abound: in the dignity of Joseph Cotten’s torch-carrying affair he carries on his sleeve each time he visits the family; in the heartbreaking love story between the eldest daughter (Jennifer Jones) and the son (Robert Walker) of the family boarder (Monty Woolley); between Walker and Woolley, who can’t bring themselves to get past expectations; in the loyalty of the family cook (Hattie McDaniel) with hardly a patronizing trace of race; and, though it is no longer in fashion, love of country. When they say they don’t make movies like they used to, they’re talking about SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. A lovely and respectful transfer to Blu-ray.

7. DOCTOR WHO: Series 10 [Blu-ray] (S. Moffat, 2017), BBC,
I may hold a minority view here, but I found Jenna Coleman a downright awful Companion, especially paired with Peter Capaldi, who seemed on the verge of seasickness for his first two seasons. I admit that Jenna’s makeup, with every pore carefully filled and every eyebrow hair precisely trimmed, didn’t help her humanity one bit. Pearl Mackie, on the other hand, the Doctor’s first black companion if I am not mistaken, is everything Jenna is not - a Barbie doll, for one thing, with her hair a-flung this way and not, nor could she mistaken for anything or anyone other than her own woman, despite her character’s name: Bill Potts. And she couples with Capaldi just so. Between the two of them and Moffat’s final season, they bring the Twelfth Doctor to his close with panache and, could it be possible!, originality. The usual standards apply to the Blu-ray.

8. ORPHAN BLACK: Season 5 [Blu-ray] (G Manson & J Fawcett, 2017), BBC, RA+?
Imaginative & implausible, feminist to the tenth power, engaging, baffling, at times thrilling, often heartwarming, ORPHAN BLACK comes to its conclusion with the fifth season. Whatever else you can say about it, it’s a show that knows when its hand is played out, even if its fanbase is placing odds on which clone will form the basis for the speculative spin-off. (My money is on Alison, as in “The Continuing Adventures of Alison and Donnie.”)

9. Streets of Fire [Blu-ray] (Walter Hill, 1984) Shout! Factory (BEAVER REVIEW)
Unlike Walter Hill’s misjudgment as to adding a comic strip to the otherwise excellent Blu-ray transfer of The Warriors, excess can only be a good thing for STREETS OF FIRE, which happy to say, suffers no such ill treatment in this snappy new transfer from Shout Factory. It hits all the right notes, and gets the sync right as a bonus. Gorgeous, gleaming color, smoke, fire, noise, music, great fight scenes. Let’s give a shout out to Walter and the Gang.

10. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T [Blu-ray] (Roy Rowland, 1953) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Indicator edition of Dr. Seuss’ 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T makes for a surprising feast of color, music, dance and design, a fantasy musical film from six decades ago, clearly marketed for children, but thoroughly enjoyable for adults who appreciate whimsy and invention - more than the current crop of kids, I imagine. I’d like to be wrong about that.

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2017
(No time to put a DVD list together. Sorry.)

1. Othello [Blu-ray] (Orson Welles, 1952) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 [Blu-ray] (Limite - Mário Peixoto, Revenge - Ermek Shinarbaev, Insiang - Lino Brocka, Mysterious Object at Noon - Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Law of the Border - Lütfi Ö. Akad, Taipei Story - Edward Yang) - Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. Vampir Cuadecuc [Blu-ray] (Pere Portabella, 1971) R0 UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. The 4 Marx Brothers at Paramount (The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup) [Blu-ray] (1929-1933) RB Arrow UK (BEAVER REVIEW) (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. Ana-ta-han [Blu-ray] (Josef von Sternberg, 1953) Kino (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. A Brighter Summer Day [Blu-ray] (Edward Yang, 1991) RB Criterion UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Moses and Aaron [Blu-ray] (Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, 1973) Grasshopper Film
8. Letter from an Unknown Woman [Blu-ray] (Max Ophüls, 1948) Olive Signature (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Lost in Paris [Blu-ray] (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, 2016) Oscilloscope Pictures
10. A New Leaf [Blu-ray] (Elaine May, 1971) Olive Signature

A major reason for listing Criterion's Othello first is that it includes the digital premieres of not one and not two but three Orson Welles features: both of his edits of Othello available with his own soundtracks, heard for the first time in the U.S. in several decades, and Filming Othello, his last feature.

And one more worthy mention: Black Girl [Blu-ray] (Ousmane Sembène, 1966) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

1. Porky Pig 101 ( 5-disc) - Warner Archive
2. Every Picture Tells a Story: The Art Films of James Scott (Scott 1984) BFI ALL PAL
3. Louis Malle Documentary Collection (Malle, 1962-1986) Curzon AE, R2 PAL
4. Someday My Prince Will Come (Isaacs 2005) Second Run ALL PAL
5. Ta kafa: Stories from the Street (Zimmerman 2005) Second Run ALL PAL (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. The Goddess (Yonggang Wu, 1934) R2 UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Dead Hands Dig Deep (Love 2016) Monster Pictures ALL NTSC
8. The Spring River Flows East (Chusheng Cai, Junli Zheng, 1947) R2 UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Betjeman - The Collection (Various,1968-1976) Simply Media R2 PAL
10. Eurocrime! The Italian Cop & Gangster Movies that Ruled the 70s (Malloy, 2012) Nucleus, R2 PAL

1. The Before Trilogy [Blu-ray] (Before Sunrise - 1995, Before Sunset - 2004, Before Midnight - 2013) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Toni Erdmann Maren Ade 2016 Future Film RB
3. I, Daniel Blake Ken Loach 2016 Scanbox RB
4. The Story of Sin [Blu-ray] (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975) Arrow Video US
5. Personal Shopper [Blu-ray] (Olivier Assayas, 2016) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Melville Boxset [Blu-ray] (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956-1972) StudioCanal, RB
7. Lady Macbeth [Blu-ray] William Oldroyd 2016 Altitude Film RB
8. Stalker [Blu-ray] (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Criterion US UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Elle [Blu-ray] (Paul Verhoeven, 2016) Sony (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. Toivon tuolla puolen / The Other Side of Hope Aki Kaurismäki 2017 Future Film RB