Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF June 21st, 2010

This Week's Highlights

Gnunha yinda murdi! Haneke, Visconti, Cukor on Blu-ray and DVDs of film via Michael Powell, Schaffner, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Noir and more.. We offer new calendar updates, a new contest with another GREAT Criterion DVD prize, September announced Criterions and a last call for OOPs! Have a fabulous week!

FOLLOW US on TWITTER! (where we post all important reviews, contests - prizes, calendar updates - plus much more...)

June 21st CONTEST - identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win a sealed Criterion DVD of The Fugitive Kind! Best of luck!

If there are DVD titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!

Gary at 2ze dot com

Out of Print Criterions as of June 30th, 2010 -  GET WHILE YOU CAN!

Billy Liar PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
Bob le flambeur PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
Diary of A Chambermaid PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
Kind Hearts and Coronets PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (DVD and Blu-ray editions) PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Milky Way PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
The Phantom of Liberty PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
That Obscure Object of Desire PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
Touchez pas au grisbi PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)
A Woman Is a Woman PURCHASE LINK (BEAVER REVIEW)

Amazon Blu-ray Blowout HERE

• The Movies & TV Boxed Set Sale (up to 60% OFF!)

• WORLD CINEMA SALE STILL ON - UP To 70% OFF HERE

• SALES: US Blu-ray up to 53% OFF        

•  Amazon France Blu-ray SALE (BUY 1 get 1 FREE!)

LATEST ADDITIONS to the Calendar: (PRE-ORDER & save!):

The Mission [Blu-ray] (Roland Joffé, 1986) Warner

Three Kings [Blu-ray] (David O. Russell, 1999) Warner

Good [Blu-ray] (Vicente Amorim, 2008) - NEM

Cemetery Junction [Blu-ray] (Ricky Gervais, 2010) Sony Pictures

The Zookeeper (Ralph Ziman, 2001) Brink

Vigilante [Blu-ray] (William Lustig, 1983) Blue Underground

The Pirates of Penzance (Wilford Leach, 1983) Universal Studios

The Square [Blu-ray] (Nash Edgerton, 2008) Apparition

A Quiet Little Marriage (Mo Perkins, 2008) MPI

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (Werner Herzog, 2009) First Look

9th Company (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] (Fyodor Bondarchuk, 2005) Well Go USA

An Empress and the Warriors [Blu-ray] (Siu-Tung Ching, 2008) Weinstein Company

Mercury Rising [Blu-ray] (Harold Becker, 1998) Universal

Starcrash (Roger Corman Cult Classics) [Blu-ray] (Luigi Cozzi, 1978) Shout! Factory

Sons of Anarchy: Season Two [Blu-ray] - Twentieth Century Fox

Return of 5 Deadly Venoms (Cheh Chang, 1978) - Weinstein Company

A Zed & Two Noughts [Blu-ray] (Peter Greenaway, 1985) RB UK

Storm (Hans-Christian Schmid, 2009) R2 UK Soda Pictures

Double Take (Johan Grimonprez, 2009) R2 UK Soda Pictures

The Bergman Faith Trilogy - R2 UK Palisades Tartan

Secretary [Blu-ray] (Steven Shainberg, 2002) RB UK Palisades Tartan

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Slithis - The discovery of several mutilated dogs along the canals of Venice Beach and the subsequent murder of a couple in a nearby home prompts the police to believe that some sort of mutilation cult has appeared in the area. Frustrated high school journalism teacher Wayne Connors (Alan Blanchard) decides to do some poking around of his own and discovers traces of mud at the murder scene. His science teacher friend Dr. John (J.C. Claire) identifies the slightly radioactive mud as "slithis" which first appeared in Utah in a lake near a nuclear power leak and was capable of absorbing and taking on the characteristics of living organisms. DVD Release Date: June 1st, 2010

The White Ribbon BD - Something is wrong in the village. Some malevolent force, some rot in the foundation. This wrongness is first sensed in a series of incidental "accidents." Then the maiming of a child takes place. This forces the villagers, who all know one another, to look around more carefully. Is one of them guilty? How can that be? One person couldn't be responsible for all of these disturbing events. Have many been seized in an evil contagion? Sony Blu-ray Release Date June 29th, 2010

Samson and Delilah BD - Samson and Delilah's world is small--an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone they discover that life isn't always fair, but love never judges. A winner of numerous international awards, Samson and Delilah marks the emergence of a major new talent in writer/ director Warwick Thornton. Offering a rare insight into the issues confronting the youth of a lost generation of Aborigines, it has already been hailed by critics as the one of the greatest films ever to come out of Australia. Blu-ray Release date: June 21st, 2010

The Leopard BD - Making its long-awaited U.S. home video debut, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) is an epic on the grandest possible scale. The film recreates, with nostalgia, drama, and opulence, the tumultuous years of Italy’s Risorgimento—when the aristocracy lost its grip and the middle classes rose and formed a unified, democratic Italy. Burt Lancaster stars as the aging prince watching his culture and fortune wane in the face of a new generation, represented by his upstart nephew (Alain Delon) and his beautiful fiancée (Claudia Cardinale). Awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, The Leopard translates Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel, and the history it recounts, into a truly cinematic masterpiece. Blu-ray Release Date: June 29th, 2010

Enter the Dragon BD - Recruited by an intelligence agency, outstanding martial arts student Bruce Lee participates in a brutal karate tournament hosted by the evil Han. Along with champions Roper and Williams, he uncovers Han's white slavery and drug trafficking ring located on a secret island fortress. In the exciting climax, hundreds of freed prisoners fight in an epic battle with Lee and Han locked in a deadly duel. Blu-ray Release date: March 27th, 2007

A Star is Born BD - Judy Garland is at her peak, pulling out all the stops, daring the gods in this dark, weighty fable of the price one pays to be at the top. This version, directed by Cukor, is lent all manner of mythic significance by Garland, teetering on the abyss before the slide. There would be other triumphs in concert, but this is the peak of her film career. Here she finally exposed her powerful dramatic range, coupled with the magnificent singing voice that she pushed further than anyone could imagine. Her genius is attached to an uncomfortable, intense plot that allows reason for the tremulous mannerisms and bottomless, dark eyes. Blu-ray Release Date: June 22nd, 2010

Invasion of the Bee Girls - "Invasion of the Bee Girls" is the best schlock soft-core science fiction movie since maybe "The Vengeance of She." It may, in fact, provide a clue to the most puzzling aspect of that 1968 epic. You will recall that Olinka Berova, who played She, was plagued by a strange buzzing in her ears. This was in fact the sound track calling her back to the trackless wastes of lost eons, although for a long time we didn't catch on. All we knew was that every time she heard the buzzing, Olinka started taking off her clothes. Members of the audience were even moved to float a few tentative buzzes themselves. Now comes a movie in which every time we hear the buzzing on the sound track a man drops dead of an acute coronary. Secret Key DVD Release Date: June 15th, 2010

Classic British Thrillers - The British Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 was passed to give motion pictures made in the United Kingdom an edge over Hollywood imports. However technically crude, these low budget quota quickies provided on-the-job training for some of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of British Cinema. The Phantom Light (1935), Red Ensign (1935) and The Upturned Glass (1947). DVD Release Date: July 28th, 2008

The War Lord - One of the finest historical adventure films ever made, The War Lord dramatises with uncommon intelligence and integrity the brutality, difficulties and injustices of the Middle Ages. Charlton Heston (Ben Hur, Touch of Evil, The Ten Commandments) stars as Chrysagon, an honoured knight who takes over a castle tower in the swampland of Normandy to strengthen his duke's authority. DVD Release Date: June 21st, 2010

Love Rites - Hugo (Matthieu Carriere, MALPERTUIS) gets side-tracked from his trip to pick up some valuable vintage Fortuny dresses when he sites enigmatic prostitute Myriam (Marina Pierro, THE ART OF LOVE) on the Metro. Myriam is no mere prostitute. Carrying herself with the air of a courtesan (or a geisha), she lets Hugo pursue her and capture her. She gets him to confess his secret desires to her in the pews of an old church and he allows himself to be lead blind through the streets by her. Cult Epics DVD Release Date: April 26th, 2005

Forgotten Noir Vol. 13 - Breakdown: There's action and drama in AND out of the ring when an ex-convict (William Bishop) becomes a rising heavyweight fighter and a championship contender--and then, on the eve of the big fight, finds the man who can prove that he was framed for the crime for which he served time. "The fight scenes hold the spectator on the edge of his seat"--Harrison's Reports. Eye Witness (aka: Your Witness): Made in the Hitchcock style (and produced by longtime Hitchcock partner Joan Harrison), this witty English-made mystery/courtroom drama stars Robert Montgomery (who also directed) as a New York lawyer who comes to England to help a wartime pal (Michael Ripper) wrongly accused of murder. Who is the mysterious missing witness and will she be found in time to save a man's life? DVD Release Date: February 23rd, 2010

Master Lee's Drunkard Cinema - In THE NEEDLE AVENGER, a young man joins a kung-fu academy but fails to fit in (probably because he skips lessons to practice his needle throwing - which begs the question why he joined the academy in the first place). He soon runs off with the master's daughter and becomes a salt smuggler. He ends up joining with the school's top fighter - his former rival - against a local mob leader.Meanwhile, in CHALLENGE THE DRAGON (aka WAY OF THE TIGER not to be confused with Bruce Lee's WAY OF THE DRAGON although I'm sure they TIGER's producers and distributors wouldn't have minded), Tang Lung protects a village from mobsters who are after their ginseng crop. DVD Release Date: March 16th, 2010

Eden and After - In the labyrinthine Eden Cafe where ads for Coca-Cola share wall space with living friezes of nude models and slogans like "Drink Blood" a group of French students play games of Russian Roulette, poisoning, and rape. The Dutchman (Pierre Zimmer) enters the scene and demonstrates a "trick" he learned in Africa in which he heals one of the students who he has asked to pick up pieces of broken glass. He gives fear powder (not cocaine because that's already on the menu as a beverage at the Eden Cafe) to Violette (Catherine Jourdan) and she imagines herself in Tunisia in a series of sadomasochistic vignettes with the Dutchman and her fellow students inhabiting various roles (characters playing multiple roles - including themselves as actors - is an element of several Robbe-Grillet films) suffering multiple deaths and Violette even encounters her own double.

Trans-Europ-Express - The film begins simply. Writer Alain Robbe-Grillet gets aboard the train with his wife (Catherine Robbe-Grillet, herself the author of the S&M classic L'IMAGE) and a film producer who then suggests they make a film using the train - the Trans-Europ-Express from Paris to Antwerp - as a setting with drug trafficking and rape. Off the top of his head, Robbe-Grillet voices the proposed scenario which features the actor Jean-Louis Trintignant (winking at the camera in his first close-up) as Elias buying a valise with a false bottom and heads to Antwerp to collect a shipment of cocaine. His journey is constantly rewritten and deconstructed by the three on the train who involve him with prostitutes, fake cops, bombs (early on, a rail yard is used to represent the scattered train compartments after an explosion accomplished in an intentionally artificial manner with an comic explosion optical effect).

The Lost Continent - THE LOST CONTINENT is a crazy-quilt of a film, with chunks of several unrelated plotlines sewn together willy nilly. Eric Porter plays Lansen, the captain of a tramp steamer who has agreed to deliver contraband dynamite for a hefty price. His passengers are a polyglot of the good, the bad and the worse. Shipwrecked on a mysterious isle in the Sargasso Sea, Lansen and party find themselves prisoners of a bizarre inbred colony still governed by the long-abandoned edicts of the Spanish Inquisition. DVD Release Date: January 11th, 2010

Silver Lode - Silver Lode tells the story of Dan Ballard (John Payne) and Rose Evans (Lizabeth Scott) who are about to be married when Marshal Ned McCarthy (Dan Duryea) and his deputies ride into town looking for Ballard. McCarthy accuses Ballard of having murdered his brother and has come to arrest him. At first the townspeople are on Ballard's side but gradually they turn against him especially when they believe that he has killed the town sheriff (Emile Meyer). Ballard tries to prove his innocence and expose McCarthy, who appears to be a reference to Senator Joseph McCarthy. DVD Release Date: May 25, 2010

Hell to Eternity - “Based on a true story” is generally an irrelevant claim, an attempt to add a little heft to a film that’s apparently in need of that something extra. Every now and then, though, there’s a movie like Phil Karlson’s Hell to Eternity (1960) where its basis on a real story keeps viewers from being distracted with its implausibilies, in effect cutting down second-guessing whether the details of the real-life story are known or not. In this case, an L.A. kid is adopted by a Japanese family so that he learns to speak that language. During World War II his bilingual abilities allow him to talk over a thousand civilians and soldiers on Saipan into surrendering. DVD Release Date: June 5th, 2007
 

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