Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956) R2 Germany Kinowelt

Carousel Anniversary Ed. (Henry King, 1956) 20th Century Fox

The King and I Anniversary Ed. (Walter Lang, 1956) 20th Century Fox

Illustrated Man (Jack Smight, 1969) Warner Home Video
Operation Crossbow (Michael Anderson, 1965) Warner Home Video
Presenting Lily Mars (Norman Taurog, 1943) Warner Home Video
Up Periscope (Gordon Douglas, 1959) Warner Home Video

Blade Runner - (Beaver examines the new remastered release vs. the old edition) One of the most visually influential science fiction films ever made, Blade Runner has a history as labyrinthine as any of its futuristic film noir sets. A fascinatingly contemplative detective story about a world-weary android-killer and his renegade prey, it has attracted a sizeable cult audience and retains a unique place in cinema. DVD Release Date: September 4th, 2006

Shoeshine  is widely regarded as one of the finest films to have emerged from the Italian neorealist cinema. It was also the first foreign film to receive an Oscar. "The high quality of this motion picture," noted the Academy, "brought to eloquent life in a country scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity."  DVD Release Date: September 25th, 2006

United 93 - Oftentimes, we are haunted by a powerful movie’s first and final images. United 93 is no exception. The last sequence involving the passengers’ counter-attack against the terrorists was really the free world’s first strike against fundamentalist terrorists. The passengers’ collective action was our collective refusal to be cowed by criminals who aren’t afraid of die. In the face of fatalistic determinism, the strongest response is the will to live. Still, I was stunned by the ending’s forceful finality.

After the Wedding - Since “The one and only”, Susanne Bier has been the darling of Danish cinema, but she made a transition as director with “Open Hearts” and moved from the shadow of a light but the most successful Danish romantic comedy in years, towards a darker and more serious approach to love, which she followed up with “Brothers” and now “After the Wedding”.

Three Extremes - Three Asian directors, from Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, join forces to create an omnibus horror film, Three...Extremes, a sequel of sorts to the 2002 Hong Kong/Korean/Thai production Three. Directed by Fruit Chan (segment "Dumplings"), Takashi Miike (segment "Box") and Chan-wook Park (segment "Cut"). The Tartan region 2 PAL edition is compared to Mega Star - Region 0 - NTSC and the LionsGate (2-disc) - Region 1- NTSC. The Tartan DVD Release Date was August 21st, 2006

Target Earth - Nora (Kathleen Crowley) wakes in a deserted city. With increasing horror, she discovers the extent of her predicament. Someone - something - has caused a panic during her unconsciousness, emptying the streets and causing all essential services to be cut off. As she explores the results outside with increasing trepidation, and in some genuinely eerie scenes (shot without permit on the early morning streets of L.A.) the viewer shares in her growing concern.

Serge Gainsbourg, d'autres nouvelles des étoiles - This greatest of songwriters -- a man who deserves to be counted among the greatest of all the twentieth-century's artists -- remade the universe over and over again. There are no Plutos in his oeuvre, and as such I can't give Universal's nearly 5-hour-long release anything other than cinqs étoiles des étoiles.

The Blue Dahlia - Sterling film noir from the pen of Raymond Chandler. Alan Ladd stars as a war veteran framed for the murder of his own wife. Veronica Lake plays the requisite femme fatale. The Blue Dahlia is smartly plotted and unpredictable enough to keep the killer's identity a secret. Classy stuff.

Almanac of Fall - In his first three films Bela Tarr--conceivably the most important Eastern European filmmaker currently working--betrays an impatience with cinematic style, focusing almost exclusively on content, but that tendency was radically overturned with this 1984 feature, whose taste and intelligence are specifically (and exquisitely) cinematic and revealed Tarr as a master stylist. Set entirely in an apartment inhabited by an elderly woman, her son, his former teacher, the old woman's nurse, and the nurse's lover, the film consists mainly of intense two-part dialogues and encounters largely concerned with the old woman's money. DVD Release Date: July 25th, 2006

Tokyo Joe - Not every Humphrey Bogart film is a winner, though most are at least watchable. "Tokyo Joe" falls into the latter category. In this 1949 effort from director Stuart Heisler ("The Glass Key") Bogart plays a World War II hero who returns to postwar Japan to reclaim the life and wife he had long believed dead.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood - The five films brought together in Kino's new specially priced box set are Noir at its most exemplary. Though boasting stars like Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda and helmed by renowned directors, these five films are B movies in the best sense of the term: tight, raw and cannily devoid of gloss. Masters of the genre such as Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann and the expatriated Fritz Lang are captured here in fine form, as are some of the greatest directors of black and white photography in the business. DVD Release Date: September 12th, 2006

Odd Man Out - Director Carol Reed's most ambitious and accomplished film, Odd Man Out stars James Mason as Johnny McQueen, leader of an IRA gang forced into taking on a bank raid in order to raise funds for the organization. It's a tense time and it shows: the hold-up doesn't exactly go as planned. Unable to cope with the demands of the situation, McQueen kills a man and then falls from the speeding getaway car. Badly wounded, he manages to scramble into hiding and we are invited to follow his desperate progress as he clings to life. the new Network PAL edition is compared to existing releases. The Network PAL DVD Release Date was August 28th, 2006

Samaria (Samaritan Girl) - Awarded the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for best direction, and being one of the films in the race for Best Film, "Samaria" is allegory questioning both moral and sin. Divided into three chapters: “Vasumitra” deals with the friendship between Jae-Young and Yeo-Ji, “Samaria” deals with Yeo-Ji’s reaction to the death of her best friend and the final chapter, “Sonata”, concludes. The Tartan DVD Release Date was August 21st, 2006

The Exterminating Angel - In Mexico some rich folk are inexplicably invited to a dinner party at “Calle de la Providencia” - a mansion. As the night progresses it becomes apparent that they are all incapable of leaving the house. A message of idle rich dependency is the subtext. With the servants outside they no contact with them what becomes apparent is the hollowness and pettiness of the bourgeois lifestyle. Buñuel champions the exposure of the aristocratic *lack* of nobility for those who have more wealth than sense and have lost any touch with reality and a value structure. DVD Release Date: August 28th, 2006

The Sun Also Rises - This visual magnificence, in CinemaScope and color, frames a picturesque cast, headed by Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner and Mel Ferrer, that looks hand-picked down to the last bit "extra." Director Henry King has staged a personalized, handsome big "show," from Peter Viertel's admirably faithful script, which slices a few corners and minor characters from the source. While the result is emotionally intriguing, rather than powerful, it remains, nevertheless, Hemingway all the way. DVD Release Date: August 28th, 2006

The Blue Lamp - Introducing PC George Dixon (Warner), charged with showing new boy Andy Mitchell (Hanley) the ropes. There is helping old ladies and giving directions, until the film takes a darker turn when Dixon is killed in a raid on a cinema. The killer (a great turn from young Bogarde) is presented as part of a new breed of post-war criminals, without a code or honour, and even the respectable criminals want to help the police track him down. DVD Release Date: August 21st, 2006

The Devil and Daniel Johnston - To open a film with the statement about Daniel Johnston, as “…the greatest singer-songwriter alive today.” Both is bold and provocative, especially since few ever heard about him. But during the film, it becomes clear, that there may be some truth in that statement, especially after one learns about the contract Elektra drew up for him, where they didn’t demand either success, touring or public appearances, nor would pressure him for material, and would secure him with any medical help he would need. At the same time, the insanity of Daniel Johnston is visual via this contract, as while Elektra basically offered him money for the rest of his life, asking nothing of him than he continued to do what he already did, he turned it down, as they also managed Metallica, and hence he saw them as advocates for the devil. DVD Release Date: August 21st, 2006

Mountain Patrol - The movie is also noteworthy in and of itself--it is a stunning, devastating tale about workaholics who defend the environment not out of idealism but because of a hard-bitten sense of ethics. Yet, strangely, the protagonists’ modus operandi IS a kind of idealism, one of action rather than of talk (i.e. bullshit). Movies like Kekexili feel real rather than manufactured because you see people who are so busy doing what needs to be done that they have no time for the swaggering and the posturing that so-called “heroes” in American movies exhibit (Miami Vice comes to mind). DVD Release Date: August 29th 2006

Rollin With The Nines - Fearing production falling thru, brothers Julian and Will Gilbey chose 100% private financing, thus “Rollin’ with the Nines” is a low-budget film. Production wise it is visible. Most dialogue scenes are single set few actors, with minimum production values, common for low-budget productions. But don’t be fooled by this element. “Rollin’ with the nines” is quiet a good gangster film, and had it had a million pound budget and more professional actors, it would have been recognized as such by more. “Rollin’ with the nines” may be a low-budget amateur film, but its story and action really sucks you in. DVD Release Date: August 21st, 2006

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:

Week of September 11th, 2006

Death Mr Lazerescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) Wellspring Media, Inc

Film Noir - The Dark Side of Hollywood (Sudden Fear / The Long Night / Hangmen Also Die / Railroaded / Behind Locked Doors) Kino Video

Great Yokai War (Takashi Miike, 2005) Tokyo Shock

I Am a Sex Addict (Caveh Zahedi, 2005) Wellspring

International Cinema Collection (A Very Long Engagement / Day for Night / The Damned / Gloomy Sunday / Death in Venice) Warner Home Video

Jan Svankmajer: The Ossuary & Other Tales - Kino Video

Laurel and Hardy Collection, Vol. 2 - Disk 1: A-Haunting We Will Go (1942) Disk 2: The Dancing Masters (1943) Disk 3: Bullfighters (1945) - 20th Century Fox

Phantom (F.W. Murnau, 1922) Flicker Alley

Teen Terror Collection - (Teenage Doll, Teenage Monster, Teenagers from Outer Space) - Image Entertainment

Week of September 18th, 2006

Post coïtum animal triste aka After Sex (Brigitte Roüan, 1997) New Yorker

The Boris Karloff Collection - Night Key (1937), Tower of London (1939), The Climax (1944), The Strange Door (1951) and The Black Castle (1952) - Universal Studios

Edward G Robinson Double Feature #1 (B&W) (The Red House, 1947, Scarlet Street, 1945) Critic's Choice

Henry Fonda - The Signature Collection (Advise and Consent / Battle of the Bulge / Mister Roberts / The Wrong Man) - Warner Home Video

Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960) Criterion Collection

Letter From An Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) R2 UK Metrodome

Madame De... (Max Ophüls, 1953) R2 UK Metrodome

Marius et Jeannette (Robert Guédiguian, 1997) New Yorker Video

Le Plaisir (Max Ophüls, 1952) R2 UK Metrodome

The Quiet Duel (Akira Kurosawa, 1949) Brentwood Home Video
The Reckless Moment (Max Ophüls, 1949) R2 UK Metrodome

So Ends Our Night (John Cromwell , 1941) Vci Video

Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973) Criterion Collection

Le Temps Qui Reste aka Time to Leave (François Ozon, 2005) Warner

Tight Spot (Phil Karlson, 1955) R2 UK Sony Pictures Home Ent.

Yellow Asphalt (Dan Verete , 2000) New Yorker

Criterion's October lineup
Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón, 1991), Clean, Shaven (Lodge H. Kerrigan, 1994), Hands Over the City (Francesco Rosi, 1963), Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989), The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 1948) Criterion Collection, The Double Life of Veronique 2-disc (Krzysztof Kieslowski,1991) Criterion Collection, Pandora's Box 2-disc (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1929) Criterion Collection

FASTER? - No patience for the Beaver homepage? - try the streamlined http://www.dvdbeaver-lite.com/ (a text version with all the same intrepid info!)

DON'T FORGET: Craving the stuff you can't seem to get anywhere else? Beavers TOP YesAsia picks are listed HERE

Peace!

Gary