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Kadin Dusmani - A genuine TURKISH GIALLO from 1967! At
that time, the Italians had just started warming up on the genre
while their best examples came years later. This Turkish lost,
spooky, misty, gothic giallo horror stands on its own, faithful
to itself, quite original in ideas, full of surprises and almost
empty as far as "similarities" to other films are concerned! The
only surviving print was found in very good condition and ONAR
FILMS is presenting it in another worldwide premiere.
Unthinkable
BD - When a film is banished straight to DVD/Blu-ray
we don't get our expectations too damn high. It is, however, not
a precursor for ineffectual films - in fact, Unthinkable might
be the new poster boy for these occasional exceptions. As a
psychological thriller, director Gregor Jordan's (”The
Informers”) film, works quite well. Raising the questions of
grey-area politic, in this case how the US deals with
terrorists, it also scores some heavy points. Performances?
Michael Sheen - always brilliant, Carrie-Anne Moss, suitably
cloaking her sexuality, as FBI agent Helen Brody - one of her
best roles, Samuel L Jackson? - well, I wasn't quite sold on his
less formal black-ops interrogator specialist Henry Herald 'H'
Humphries. It was by no means a deal breaker but, well...
Blu-ray Release date: June 15th, 2010
The Maid -With a few brushstrokes, Sebastian Silva communicates
the complicated social and moral dynamic involved in having a
live-in maid. His talent for incisive detail is apparent from
the opening minutes of his new film, in which we see an
upper-middle-class Chilean family celebrating the birthday of
Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), who has lived with them for 21
years. DVD Release Date: June 22nd, 2010
Showgirls
BD - The film is not, in short, quite unredeemably
bad, and despite its NC-17 rating, it isn't anywhere near as
perverted as "Basic Instinct." The actors throw themselves into
it with the abandon that material like this demands, and Verhoeven brings to it the same skill he once lavished on good
movies, like "The Fourth Man" and "Total Recall." It's just that
you can't believe a single second of it, and you do begin to
wish that in his research for his next project, Eszterhas makes
it his business to learn something about eroticism. "Showgirls"
is such a waste of a perfectly good NC-17 rating.
Blu-ray
Release Date: June 15th, 2010
The Deadly Tower - In August 1966, University of Texas at Austin
student and ex-Marine Charles Whitman took over the top of the
school's 307-foot Main Building tower and went on a shooting
rampage, killing 14 people before he was fatally shot by police.
Kurt Russell stars as Whitman in this chilling made-for-TV
depiction of his shocking massacre; with Ned Beatty, John
Forsythe, and Richard Yniguez. DVD Release Date: January 12th,
2010
The Aviator
BD - From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to
the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its
finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of
golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his
subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio
in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium
reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era.
Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the
film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most
spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous
attention to art direction and costume design suggests an
impassioned pursuit of craftsmanship from a bygone era; every
frame seems to glow with gilded detail. And while DiCaprio bears
little physical resemblance to Hughes during the film's 20-year
span (late 1920s to late '40s), he efficiently captures the
eccentric millionaire's golden-boy essence, and his tragic
descent into obsessive-compulsive seclusion.
Blu-ray Release
date: November 6th, 2007
Martin - Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) takes his troubled cousin Martin
(John Amplas) into his home in exchange for working in his shop.
Although he looks barely twenty, both Martin and his cousin are
of the belief that he's actually 84 years old and a vampire.
Cuda wants to save Martin's soul and destroy him (he is allowed
in the meantime only to take victims outside of the city or be
destroyed without salvation) but Martin is adamant that his
condition is not due to a curse and that magic or religion can
save him. Is he a vampire or just mentally ill (Cuda's niece
thinks the family traditions have "infected" Martin and is
herself deteriorating under Cuda's fanaticism). DVD Release
Date: June 21st, 2010
Shogun Assassin - Shogun Assassin is the North American
theatrical version of the first two 'Lone Wolf and Cub' films,
'Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance' and 'Lone Wolf and Cub:
Baby Cart at the River Styx'. The plot for Shogun Assasin's
takes 12 minutes of footage 'Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of
Vengeance' and over seventy minutes of footage from 'Lone Wolf
and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx'. To help simply and stream
line the story, a voice over was added for Shogun Assassin.
Story wise Shogun Assassin stays fairly close to the first 'Lone
Wolf and Cub' with the main difference being the removal of all Yagyu Clan references and in their place the shogun has become
the main nemesis of Ogami Ittō, the renegade samurai. DVD
Release Date: November 11th, 2008
Voyager ('Homo Faber') - Oscar nominee Sam Shepard takes on the
role of a lifetime in award-winning director Volker
Schlondorff's powerful story of a monumental love affair that
spanned two generations and six continents. Following a trail of
odd coincidences that leads him from a plane crash in Mexico to
a transatlantic voyage, engineer Walter Faber (Shepard) meets
the beautiful young Sabeth (Julie Delpy). Traveling across
Europe together, Faber's life is rejuvenated by Sabeth's love
until phantoms from his past confront him with an unbelievable
truth. DVD Release Date: May 25th, 2010
Everlasting Moments
BD - Swedish master Jan Troell, director of
the beloved classics The Emigrants and The New Land, returns
triumphantly with Everlasting Moments, the vivid, heartrending
story of a woman liberated by art at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Though poor and abused by her alcoholic
husband, Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen, in a beautifully
nuanced portrayal) finds an outlet in photography, which opens
up her world for the first time. With a burnished bronze tint
that evokes faded photographs, and a broad empathetic palette,
Everlasting Moments—based on a true story—is a miraculous
tribute to the power of image making. Blu-ray Release date: June
29th, 2010
Deanna Durbin: Sweetheart Pack -
Deanna Durbin: Sweetheart Pack
starts with her first feature for Universal, Three Smart Girls.
She is not the center of this film, sharing the spotlight with
Nan Grey and Barbara Read as her sisters, but she is very
memorable from the very first time she appears on screen with a
song My Heart Is Singing. This film fares the worst image-wise
with very heavy grain and some damage visible. The next film on
the first disc is Something in the Wind, which was one of her
last movies. When the set was announced, this title was missing
from the press release and One Hundred Men and a Girl - her best
known film - was in its place. It would, actually, make more
sense being in the package. DVD Release Date: August 3rd, 2004
Crime of Passion - After a tryst at a local hotel with her
lover, writer Sonia (Serena Grandi, Tinto Brass' MIRANDA) is
brutally murdered. The prime suspect is her husband actor Peter
(Fabio Testi) who has been having his own share of affairs. Then
there's the other likely suspects, Sonia's sister Tania (Grandi
again), young actress Milena (Anna Maria Petrova), Tania's
daughter Anna, playwright Stefan (John Armstead, KREOLA), and
his wife/Peter's lover Julia (Florinda Bolkan). Assistant
detective Ivan Zanova (Peter Martignetti) is certainly not up to
weaving through the complexity of their world and his
infatuation with crippled, emotionally immature Anna is a little
creepy. DVD Release Date: April 27th, 2010
Lizard in a Woman's Skin - Carol (Florinda Bolkan,
FOOTPRINTS)
has been having disturbing dreams of a lesbian encounter with
her neighbor Julia (Anita Strindberg, YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM
AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY) who has a habit of throwing drug-laden
orgies in her next door flat. Carol's psychiatrist (Jorge Rigaud,
ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK) believes that Julia symbolizes
Carol's unconscious envy of the woman's liberated lifestyle.
When Carol has a dream in which she murders Julia (under the
watchful eyes of two hippies) and the woman turns up dead in the
exact manner, Carol becomes the prime suspect; but is someone
trying to frame her? DVD Release Date: June 7th, 2010
The Illusionist
BD - Based on Steven Millhauser’s short story,
“Eisenheim the Illusionist,” Neil Burger's 2006 film, The
Illusionist, is appropriately set in the turn-of-the-century
Austro-Hungarian Empire with Van Dyke-bearded Edward Norton's
penetrating stare and a haunting Philip Glass score as keen
parts of its mysterious and alluring aura. The plot revolves
around some potential political volatility with a young and
masterful magician figuring in as an integral cog in the
country's future. His, once, puppy-love with royal Sophie
(Jessica Biel) surfaces as a less developed and uninteresting
element in the intriguing and intentionally paced plot.
Blu-ray
Release Date: June 8th, 2010
Night Train to Munich - Carol Reed’s
Night Train to Munich is a
twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight, combining comedy,
romance, and thrills with the greatest of ease. Paced like an
out-of-control locomotive, Night Train takes viewers on a World
War II–era journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as
Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret
Lockwood), who are being aided by a debonair British undercover
agent, played by Rex Harrison. This captivating, long-overlooked
adventure—which also features Paul Henreid and a clever
screenplay by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, best known for
writing Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes—is a deftly
concocted spy game that could give the master of suspense a run
for his money. DVD Release Date: June 29th, 2010
Word is Out - Word Is Out (1977) is a documentary film directed
by a collective of six people known as the Mariposa Film Group:
Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein, Lucy Massie Phenix, and Veronica Selver. Peter Adair also produced the film.
The film premiered in November 1977 at the Castro Theater in San
Francisco and was released in 1978. The film intercuts
interviews with 26 very diverse people—ranging in age from 18 to
77, in locales from San Francisco to New Mexico to Boston, in
type from a bee-hived housewife to a sultry drag queen—who speak
of their experiences as gay men and lesbians. Writer Elsa Gidlow,
professor Sally Gearhart, and inventor John Burnside are among
the interviewees. DVD Release Date: June 8th, 2010
Crimson Tide
BD - From the pop quizzes the junior officers throw
at each other about classic submarine movies to the potentially
internecine duel between the captain and the exec about military
strategy and the subsequent mutiny and its consequences; from
the captain's Jack Russell terrier that has the run of the ship
to the attack by a Russian sub, this is one a very few Jerry
Bruckheimer feature films I can get completely caught up in. The
director, Tony Scott, is working with a coherent script that
doesn't get sidetracked by romances (think Top Gun). Even the
usual heroics that so often define war stories are kept at bay –
no michael intended. Blu-ray Release Date: February 5, 2008
The Perils of Pauline - The Perils of Pauline (1947), made when
Hutton was at the peak of her fame and appeal, is very loosely
based on the exploits of Pearl White, queen of the silent movie
serials. The real White had been a circus performer who hurt her
back falling off a horse, and had gone to work as a secretary
with a film company. She got her break when the female lead of a
western got sick. White didn't do many of her own stunts because
of the back injury - small men stood in for her. Instead, she
spent more time developing her screen persona. DVD Release Date:
February 1st, 2000
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