Sean Axmaker
Seattle, WA, USA
http://parallax-view.org

1. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. The Lost World [Blu-ray] (Harry O. Hoyt, 1925) Flicker Alley (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. His Girl Friday [Blu-ray] (Howard Hawks, 1940) Criterion Us / UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series [Blu-ray] (David Lynch, 2017) Showtime
5. 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)
6. The Breaking Point [Blu-ray] (Michael Curtiz, 1950) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Beggars of Life [Blu-ray] (William A. Wellman, 1928) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. Inferno 2D + 3D [Blu-ray] (Roy Ward Baker, 1953) Twilight Time (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Letter from an Unknown Woman [Blu-ray] (Max Ophüls, 1948) Olive Signature (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. Deluge [Blu-ray] (Felix E. Feist, 1933) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2017

1. The Bureau: Season 2 / Season 3 (France, 2016-2017) Kino Lorber R1
2. Romanzo Criminale Season 1 / Season 2 (Italy, 2008-2010) Kino Lorber R1
 

1. 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)- if Criterion continue to put them out, they are always going to be blind buys for me. What could be more precious for cinephiles that the preservation of endangered film. This has an absolute masterpiece within- Yang's Taipei Story. As spellbinding as his last film Yi Yi. Of the others- Mysterious & Limite are as worthwhile. Law of the Border- talk about preservation from the rubble! Revenge- didn't care for sadly. Insiang- yet to watch!)
2. Ghost World [Blu-ray] (Terry Zwigoff, 2001) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW). My of my very favourite films ever. Was delighted when Criterion announced it.Waited impatiently for the B&N half price sale and July to arrive!!!
3. Ugetsu [Blu-ray] (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - This was voted top of the pile a few years ago if I remember right, for the DVD version. I just hope DVDBeavers have not forgotten it out of voting exhaustion!!! This Blu Ray print unlike the Masters of Cinema UK release, did not disappoint. Stupendous!
4. The Tree of Wooden Clogs [Blu-ray] (Ermanno Olmi, 1978) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - when people are toting up lists of the Greatest Films Ever Made etc, what chance has Olmi's masterpiece against all the Citizen Kane's, Vertigo's and Pulp Ficton's' of this world. Do viewers have the patience any more to see what a miracle this film is?
5. Fat City [Blu-ray] (John Huston, 1972) - UK Powerhouse Films (BEAVER REVIEW) - if we are talking about the flowering of American cinema in the 1970's- this, with The King Of Marvin Gardens, and The Last Picture Show, are the absolute highlights for me. I know the Twilight Time US release from 2016 would have stolen the thunder from this UK release in terms of votes sadly.
6. Tampopo [Blu-ray] (Juzo Itami, 1985) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)- pure cinematic pleasure! Like Ghost World, just delighted that Criterion picked it up. And a simultaneous UK release!!! Scores high on the 'rewatch'-o-meter!
7. They Live by Night [Blu-ray] (Nicholas Ray, 1948) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - again a superlative Criterion release. The self enclosed fever of first love, the world be damned. Great bonus supplements too!
8. Buster Keaton: 3 Films [Blu-ray] (Sherlock Jr., The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr.) - RB UK Masters of Cinema - Last year MoC put out the Complete Short Film. This year 3 films in superb restorations. Thank you & thank you.
9. Housekeeping [Blu-ray] (Bill Forsyth, 1987) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW) - has the tone of a book (in this case Marylinne Robinson's novel) ever been so beautifully got into film as Bill Forsyth has done? A wonderful autumnal film of failure and withdrawal.
10. 45 Years [Blu-ray] (Andrew Haigh, 2015) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - I'm such a snob I held out for this Criterion release in the B&N sale over the easily available UK one. I wanted the cover art, and booklet and the bonus features. In short, I wanted the best keepsake. Mr Haigh is proving to be a master of tone too!

Deliberate leave outs-
The Aki Kaurismäki Collection (17 films + shorts on 10 discs - Crime and Punishment, Calamari Union, Shadows in Paradise, Drifting Clouds, Hamlet Goes Business, La vie de bohème, Ariel, Match Factory Girl, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, Total Balalaika Show, Take Care of Your Scarf Tatiana, Juha, The Man without a Past, Lights in the Dusk, Le havre, The Other Side of Hope) [Blu-ray] (Aki Kaurismäki) RB UK Curzon Artificial Eye. I'm such a devotee of this director that I had already bought most of these Blu Rays individually from Finland, as they were released in 2014/15. The Finns had the foresight to include English subtitles on all.
Moonlight [Blu-ray] (Barry Jenkins, 2016) RB UK Altitude Film Distribution A new favourite but as we are basing our votes partly of the way a film 'curated' on Blu ray release, I sure this will get it's Criterion pick up soon.
L'argent [Blu-ray] (Robert Bresson, 1983) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) A protest vote, for Criterion being so skimpy on supplements, and not licensing the earlier Kent Jones commentary.
El Sur [Blu-ray] (Víctor Erice, 1983) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW). Like the Kaurismaki, bought the earlier Spanish release in 2013 I think.

Wish List on Blu-ray - Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard 1978)- when Harry Dean Stanton died, I read in at least a couple of obituaries the oft stated comment 'it is said that no film with Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh could ever be truly bad'. Well here is a film with Harry Dean Stanton AND M. Emmet Walsh (and Dustin Hoffman and Gary Busey and Theresa Russell if that's not enough) that is crying out for an UK Powerhouse or Criterion release. Yes the DVD with its director commentary is good enough for now- but it's a great film not many people know enough about!

ED: I very much concur with Billy's wish choice and would add that it was based on Edward Bunker's novel, who wrote and gave a great commentary in this year's Arrow Blu-ray of Animal Factory (directed by Steve Buscemi)
 

Simón Cherpitel
photographer / designer / writer / cinemacom.com
 

The movies we enjoy speak to our feelings & our consciousness. As artistic creations, they reflect their creators: the directors, the writers, the cinematographers, the actors.

What we…. or what I choose to watch reflects myself, my ideals, my desires, my opinions, what makes my feelings go up or down depending on what’s delivered to my eyes & ears.

These are the movies I've most enjoyed on BD this year because of what they give me during repeated watchings. Most are older & maybe things were simpler in the ‘old’ days, or maybe it’s just because i’m getting old. The newest is from 1980 & by a director who worked for Powell & Pressburger & David Lean as cinematographer in the early 1940s.

Altogether this past year, i purchased around 275 BDs & maybe 5 DVDs. One-third of the total came from overseas, & 40 were “double-dips” for better editions of already owned BDs.

1 - Ride the High Country [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1962) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - Sam’s first personal movie - it’s all there, his whole life & career, split into the two main characters, Gil & Wes, the good & the bad & the ugliness of the world (Hammonds & the mining camp) — the characters portray integrity vs compromise - they’re mixed up, Sam was mixed up - Sam made everything personal, which is why even his lesser movies graze greatness - his sense of humanity is real & affecting. (i call him Sam because he’s the only director i ever took a film class from in a dream.) There’s a strong sense of love & something to love in all his movies.
2 - The Ballad of Cable Hogue [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1970) Warner Archive, ALL - Sam loved this more than any of his other movies, maybe because Sam found water in the desert of commercial Hollywood & for a time prospered then died relatively young but as grizzled & beaten up as any of his heroes, especially Hogue…..ah….but remember “Butterfly Morning”….
3 - The Bravados (Henry King, 1958) Explosive Media, RB - Outstanding, unforgettable, generally overlooked Western of misbegotten revenge & inner comeuppance via Gregory Peck, about whom Sam Shepard & Bob Dylan wrote, “I’ll see him in anything…” (in “Brownsville Girl”, as you know referencing King’s The Gunfighter.)
4 - Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1959) Twilight Time (BEAVER REVIEW) - Excepting possibly Huston’s Night of the Iguana, this is the most cinematic & mesmorising movie rendition of any Tennessee Williams play, perhaps because Mankiewicz was directing only, working from Gore Vidal’s script, while the play’s tormented emotional content adversely affected everyone involved, yet resulted in a fascinating work of performance & poetry.
5 - Bad Day at Black Rock [Blu-ray] (John Sturges, 1955) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - This intense, modern day thriller in Western garb broke the ground for ‘old men’ as heroes & cast the mold of the prematurely aged Spencer Tracy’s iconic remembrance.
6 - 23 Paces to Baker Street [Blu-ray] (Henry Hathaway, 1956) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW) - Maybe the neatest, most endearing, nearly forgotten until now, London fog-based suspense mystery of all time, as well as Van Johnson’s most memorable movie.
7 - Love in the Afternoon [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1957) Warner Archive (BEAVER REVIEW) - One of Billy’s best & to me echoing the clearest ‘Lubitsch touch’ he always strove for. (Compare its B&W Euro ambiance with Trouble in Paradise.) In today’s sexual clime it might be considered an off-putting Allenic mesh of old man Cooper & ingénue Hepburn, yet they act so according to the era’s code that the movie remains an enduring delight.
8 - Hopscotch [Blu-ray] (Ronald Neame, 1980) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Walter Matthau & Glenda Jackson make this a great screwball comedy that spoofs the generally sinister CIA---endlessly & repeatedly enjoyable.
9 - The Violent Men [Blu-ray]  (Rudolph Maté, 1955) Sidonis Calysta, RB - a tight, exceptionally well-acted, neatly scripted, & nearly forgotten top Western respected by the French more than Americans, directed by Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc cinematographer & with Glenn Ford, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G Robinson & Brian Keith. Yes, it has forced French subs, but they’re mostly below the CinemaScope frame line & like most good Westerns there’s more image than talk----it’s super to have this BD after years visiting the DVD’s inferior picture.
10 - 5 way tie ! (ah-hah) -
Two Jean-Pierre Melville releases, putting 4 of his movies newly on BD:
Melville Boxset (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956-1972) StudioCanal, RB - 6 movies
Bob le flambeur (1956) - Léon Morin, pretre (1961) - Le Doulos (1963) - L’armée des ombres (1969) - Le Cercle rouge (1970) - Un flic (1972) - Just having Bob, the Fingerman & the Cop on BD for the 1st time makes this the best set of the year.
---with—
Le samouraï [Blu-ray] (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW) - Whether this is Melville’s greatest, it’s clearly a classic & its spirit whispers in the ear of Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog.
—&---
a 3rd Peckinpah:
Junior Bonner [Blu-ray] (Sam Peckinpah, 1972) Kino Classics (BEAVER REVIEW) - not a Western as it’s modern day & outside the ethos, but genuine Peckinpah, & more endearing than the other great enduring rodeo movie Ray’s The Lusty Men. (Thru my daughter i know some real life ‘bullfighters’, as they call themselves.)
—&—
a movie probably nobody else will name:
Phaedra [Blu-ray] (Jules Dassin, 1962) Olive Films - Dassin’s most daring extravaganza is an exhilarating experience, a totally over the top classic Greek tragedy played in the modern world of Onassis shipbuilding (before Ari got Jackie & JFK still lived). Phaedra kills herself from thwarted romance, while her lover stepson soars off the cliff in his modern chariot, & the father consoles the black-cloaked widows of the drowned sailors. Soaring Theodorakis score accentuates the deliciously hysterical madness shot in exquisite B&W.
—&—
the most beautiful vampire movie next to Herzog’s, which doesn’t need my vote to place well but I love it too much to leave it out:
Vampyr [Blu-ray] (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1932) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW) - Dreyer’s excursion into the spooky is spooky indeed, its fangless apparitions more enduringly haunting than all the lip-smacking blood-suckers conjured up under Bram Stoker’s aegis.

…..& now a wild bunch of more widely accepted cinema classics & movies of note:

Celine and Julie Go Boating [Blu-ray] (Jacques Rivette, 1974) RB BFI (BEAVER REVIEW) – Rivette’s most inviting enigma mysteriously wrapped in his puzzling quest for reality in illusion, or the latter in the former, far more accessible than the cineaste’s grail of Out 1, maybe because it’s tighter & shorter.
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Blu-ray] (Chantal Akerman, 1975) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW) - Unexpectedly riveting depiction of confinement by time, space & activity, so circumscribed that you wait for over 3 hours for something to break loose, which it does in sudden self-destructive violence & it may not be by chance that the director killed herself 40 years later.
The Last Laugh [Blu-ray] (F.W. Murnau, 1924) Kino - 2017’s most important silent movie transfer, beautifully executed, about misplaced respect for uniformed social status leading to personal tragedy whimsically changed into fairy tale conclusion. (Jannings’ early pride reminded me of Biberkopf working as guard in parking garage at end of Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. Were these the personalities that empowered Hitler to rise?)

Memories of Underdevelopment [Blu-ray] (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968) RB UK Mr Bongo

(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. Suspiria Three disc (2 Blu-rays + 1 CD) LE [Blu-ray] (Dario Argento, 1977) Synapse Films
2. Hellraiser- Arrow
3. The Sinbad Trilogy (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger) [Blu-ray] (1958-1977) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. The Thing - 4K Restored [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1982) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. Carrie - Limited Edition [Blu-ray] (Brian De Palma, 1976) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Liquid Sky - Vinegar Syndrome
7. Five Element Ninja [Blu-ray] (Cheh Chang, 1982)- 88 Films (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Limited Edition [Blu-ray] (Dario Argento, 1970) UK/ US Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)  
9. The Flying Guillotine [Blu-ray] (Meng Hua Ho, 1975) RB UK 88 Films (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. The Brave Archer [Blu-ray] (Cheh Chang, 1977) RB UK 88 Films

CineVentures Blog

Sacramento, CA, USA

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

Christopher Doyle

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)

1. Variety (aka Varieté) [Blu-ray] (Ewald André Dupont, 1925) Kino Lorber (Kino version with Berklee Silent Orchestra score)
2. Behind the Door [Blu-ray] (Irvin Willat, 1919) Flicker Alley (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. The Young Girls of Rochefort [Blu-ray] (Jacques Demy, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. The Earrings of Madame de... [Blu-ray] (Max Ophüls, 1953) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy [Blu-ray] ( Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Man with a Movie Camera (and other works by Dziga Vertov) (1929) [Blu-ray] - RB UK Masters of Cinema (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T [Blu-ray] (Roy Rowland, 1953) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Westfront 1918 / Kameradschaft [Blu-ray] (G.W Pabst, 1930-1931) RB UK Masters of Cinema (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. J'accuse [Blu-ray] (Abel Gance, 1938) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
11. Bunuel Boxset 7-disc - [Blu-ray] (That Obscure Object of Desire, Belle De Jour - New 50th Anniversary Restoration, Diary of a Chambermaid, Phantom of Liberty, The Milky Way, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Tristana) - RB UK Studiocanal
12. 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)
13. The Marseille Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, César) [Blu-ray] (Alexander Korda, Marc Allégret, Marcel Pagnol, 1931-1936) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

14. 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)

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. Othello [Blu-ray] (Orson Welles, 1952) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. Tampopo [Blu-ray] (Juzo Itami, 1985) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
3. The Marseille Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, César) [Blu-ray] (Alexander Korda, Marc Allégret, Marcel Pagnol, 1931-1936) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. Letter to Brezhnev [Blu-ray] (Chris Bernard, 1985) - RB UK BFI
5. Housekeeping [Blu-ray] (Bill Forsyth, 1987) Region FREE Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Letter from an Unknown Woman [Blu-ray] (Max Ophüls, 1948) Olive Signature (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Manina, The Lighthouse-Keeper's Daughter [Blu-ray] (Willy Rozier, 1952) RB UK Eureka (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) Region FREE UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Doctor Dolittle (Richard Fleischer, 1967). Twilight Time, Region FREE (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. The Vietnam War (Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2017). PBS, RA

Top 5 SD-DVD Releases of 2017

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)

Peter Henné

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)
 

Louis Irwin

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)
 

Scott Murray

TOP 10 BLU-RAYS 2017

1. The Trip To Spain [Blu-ray] (Michael Winterbottom, 2017) Shout! Factory
2. For Love of the Game [Blu-ray]  (Sam Raimi, 1999) Universal Region A
3. The Pumpkin Eater [Blu-ray] (Jack Clayton, 1964) UK Indicator (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. No Highway in the Sky [Blu-ray] (Henry Koster, 1951) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. T-Men and He Walked By Night [Blu-ray] (Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann, 1948) ClassicFlix (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. The Agnès Varda Collection (Cleo from 5 to 7, Jacquot de Nantes, L'une chante, l'autre pas, Le Bonheur, The Gleaners and I, The Beaches of Agnès, Vagabond, La Pointe Courte) [Blu-ray] (Agnès Varda) RB UK Curzon Artificial Eye (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. 100 Years of Olympic Films [Blu-ray] (Leni Riefenstahl, Kon Ichikawa, Claude Lelouch, Carlos Saura, Miloš Forman etc.) - Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)   (BEAVER REVIEW)   (BEAVER REVIEW)   (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)
8. *Quatre Nuits d’un Rêveur (Robert Bresson, 1971) Eternanche/Imagica Region A (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Le samouraï [Blu-ray] (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. The Philadelphia Story [Blu-ray] (George Cukor, 1940) Criterion US / UK (BEAVER REVIEW)

* Came out in 2013

Rants (or why I chose what I chose):

The Trip To Spain: for me, the best new film of 2017 and the best in The Trip series, a touching and melancholic look at maleness and ageing, and a Europe sleep-walking towards its doom. The 6-part series (2entertain DVD Region 2) is better that the theatrical version because it more thoughtfully sets up the ending. In a year when practically every new film lacked ideas, rigour or originality (Hollywood was especially culpable), Winterbottom emerged as a modern-day Rousseau, while happily allowing many to presume he was just recording two middle-aged men trying to imitate the voice of Michael – “Sir Michael” – Caine. This I will watch (and already have) many, many times.

For Love of the Game: the most underrated film ever (accept by my friend Adrian Martin), a sports film that is hauntingly about the meaning and legacy of sport (in this case, baseball), but equally about what humanists liked to call the human condition, and also a love story that is up there with Leo McCarey’s Love Story. The Blu-ray is what we have waited for for decades. To me, Costner is the American actor of our era (and not a bad director, either) and DOP John Bailey one of the greats (and the favourite of my favourite Australian cameraman, and collaborator, Andrew de Groot). I have never liked another Sam Raimi (clearly my fault), so this film is proof one should never avoid a director whose taste seems not to be yours, because one day they could make a For Love of the Game.

The Pumpkin Eater: I haven’t seen the Blu-ray yet (it’s still in the mail), but I trust Gary Tooze at DVDBeaver as to its exquisite quality. Pumpkin is a masterpiece from a director who made three films that deserve consideration in any Top 10: The Innocents (go for the Criterion), Pumpkin and Our Mother’s House (still dreaming). For me, Clayton and Joe Losey made 1960s British Cinema a domaine perdu of intelligent, superbly crafted cinema. Watch The Servant or Accident or Pumpkin and contemplate in awe how the studios funded such filmmakers and audiences queued to see the results. In 1968, I took my fellow Year 12 students to Accident as our end-of-school treat and they all said it was the best film they had seen all year. Imagine that happening now.

No Highway in the Sky: I will watch anything with James Stewart, for he was a god come to Earth, and I suspect this performance is the greatest, better even than those in Mann or Ford. But why compare? We are grateful for every frame he ever gave us, just as we should be for director Henry Koster, a giant of ‘otherness’. This is the truest film about someone on the Autism Spectrum I have seen (my wife is on the Spectrum), just as the source novel by Neville Shute is the best book, and written long before the world knew what Shute was talking about. My wife (she has Asperger’s Syndrome) wept long and hard about the scene where Stewart goes to the cockpit and tries to convince the pilot that the plane will crash, but the pilot doesn’t understand. She says that sums up the frustration Aspies feel at failing to get through better than any lecture, book or even Wes Andersen (and he’s a treasure). This is an astonishing film, beautifully and sensitively made, with remarkable portrayals of the two main female characters. NB: a lesser Koster pleasure, but an exquisite Blu-ray (with Lucien Ballard’s colour-rich cinematography – not his muted style for Sam Peckinpah – has never looked so vibrant) is Dear Brigitte, also starring James Stewart (and, of course, a post-Le Mépris BB.)

T-Men and He Walked By Night: Is life without Anthony Mann films worth living? I wonder, for he is one of the giants, forever residing at the heights of Mount Parnassus. Yet, I avoided his films noir for decades, as I often find the despair in the genre too upsetting. But Mann is Mann and I can’t only watch his Westerns (though there is a lifetime of joy in that, and many have come out this year on Blu-ray in Germany, in very good if not quite sublime versions). Visually, Mann’s films noir demand the Blu-ray treatment they are now getting from Classicflix, with Raw Deal also released in January. He is one of the supreme masters, in all he does. NB: Watch the opening of Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire, shot by Aussie Robert Krasker, and weep. Yes, films once looked that good.

The Agnès Varda Collection, Breillat, Duras (Belgian, French, Vietnamese, but all speaking French) are proof of the brilliance of cinéma féminine. The definition may soon fade and disappear in our gen=der-neutralising times, but for those of us of a certain age the great women directors – too few and too infrequently fêted – have always been a welcome balance to the male view that has dominated by default the voices of cinema. Varda is in many ways the most approachable; it is inconceivable, surely, that anyone could not love, revere and celebrate a narrative feature like Cléo de 5 à 7 or a documentary like Daguerréotypes (sadly not in this box-set). Her selfless work on behalf of her departed husband, Jacques Demy, is extraordinary, especially as his shadow for a while partially eclipsed hers. But not now: Varda cannot be seen as anything but a great, which these Blu-rays truly celebrate.

100 Years of Olympic Films: Especially for the previously unseen footage of the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, where of great interest to me (it was to be my second feature, but …) an Australian gave up a certain gold medal because he believed sportsmanship was more important than personal glory. This 32-Blu-ray box-set is sporting cornucopia, lovingly presented.

Quatre Nuits d’un Rêveur: Since 1971, this has been my favourite film, bumping Robert Rossen’s Lilith, the most perfect film then made according to Jean-Pierre Melville, from top spot. (The only Blu-ray of Lilith is terrible because it’s in the wrong screen ratio; seek out the correct DVD instead.) There is nothing to say about Bresson and attempts to describe his work are almost inevitably pointless and even silly. I revere everything he did and had to instigate a rule of only one film per director in my Top 10, because otherwise there would be nine by Bresson. The Blu-ray is from Japan and has no English subtitles (only Japanese), but, thank heavens, the characters don’t speak much. The image is a bit soft, but this is the only digital release around, so let’s just be exceedingly grateful. Bresson thought the source short story (“White Nights” by Dostoevsky) to be flawed, but from it made a sublime meditation on love. PS: I know it was released last year, but seek out the rare Blu-ray of Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night (script by Preston Sturges), which is Bresson’s Pickpocket 19 years before Pickpocket.

Le samouraï: In my Top 10 between Carl Th. Dreyer’s Ordet and Chabrol’s Que la Bête Meure. There’s nothing left to say about this film. I know Melville thought he was better than Bresson, and he’s almost right. And I know this is not a flawless Blu-ray, but …

The Philadelphia Story: Not quite as great as Cukor’s Holiday, made two years earlier with Hepburn and Grant, and with genius playwright Philip Barry in even crisper and more prophetic form (he predates W. Somerset Maugham in nailing the encroaching spiritual disenchantment). Still, Philadelphia is pure joy, with a cast from the gods. Have two iconic male leads ever sparked more compatibly in a threesome romance as Cary Grant and James Stewart do? “Why, C. K. Dexter Haven. You have unexpected depths.” One could argue these boys prefigure Yves Montand and Sami Frey in Claude Sautet’s César et Rosalie, in finding bonds between men in a romantic triangle rather than the predictable enmity. The visual quality of the Criterion Blu-ray of Philadelphia is why Blu-rays exist. 

Leonard Norwitz

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)

Steve Rutt
 

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2017

1. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) Region FREE UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
2. 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)
3. The Thing - 4K Restored [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1982) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. Othello [Blu-ray] (Orson Welles, 1952) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. The Marseille Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, César) [Blu-ray] (Alexander Korda, Marc Allégret, Marcel Pagnol, 1931-1936) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
6. Hammer Volume One: Fear Warning [Blu-ray] (Maniac, The Gorgon, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, Fanatic) Indicator UK (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)  (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Buster Keaton: 3 Films [Blu-ray] (Sherlock Jr., The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr.) - RB UK Masters of Cinema
8. My 20th Century [Blu-ray] (Ildikó Enyedi, 1989) RB UK Second Run
9. Lino Brocka: Two Films [Blu-ray] (Manila in the Claws, Light and Insiang) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
10. Charlie Chaplin: The Essanay Comedies [Blu-ray] - BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2017

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
 

James-Masaki Ryan

1. Baby Driver (2-disc Blu-ray edition) (Edgar Wright, 2017) Sony (Australia) (ALL)
2. Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films / Machete Maidens Unleashed (Mark Hartley, 2014 / 2010) Umbrella Entertainment (Australia) (ALL)
3. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray] (Karel Zeman, 1962) Region FREE UK Second Run (BEAVER REVIEW)
4. German Concentration Camps Factual Survey [Blu-ray] - RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)
5. Horus: Prince of the Sun (Isao Takahata, 1967) Diskotek (US) (RA)
6. Rebecca [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)
7. Rough Stuff (Jonathan Adams, 2017) Rough Stuff Pty Ltd (Australia) (ALL)
8. The Thing - 4K Restored [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1982) RB UK Arrow (BEAVER REVIEW)
9. Yen Town Space in Inujima [Blu-ray]  (Shunji Iwai, 2017) Universal (Japan) (ALL)
10. Your Name. (5-disc Collector's Edition) (Makoto Shinkai, 2016) Toho (Japan) (ALL)