Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF January 14th, 2019

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This week we have Blu-ray reviews by Arrow, Kino, Turbine (DE), Warner Archive, Twilight Time, Artificial Eye, Lobster Films... of films directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Robert Altman, Pawel Pawlikowski, Terence Fisher, Guillermo del Toro, Hélène Cattet + Bruno Forzani, Agnieszka Holland, Colin Eggleston, Sergio Corbucci, Ferdinando Baldi, Teruo Ishii  plus our Calendar has last newsletter's updates of films-to-Blu-ray, including work by Sergio Leone, Robert Siodmak, Kenji Mizoguchi, Luchino Visconti, Charles Burnett, Luigi Bazzoni, Franco Rossellini, Douglas Sirk, Edward Ludwig, José Ramón Larraz, Catherine Breillat, Hideo Nakata, Leo McCarey, Norman Z. McLeod, Nathan Juran, Jack Arnold and more. We have our Feature Blu-ray is posted for JANUARY Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

Discs of the Year for 2018, The TOP 100 DISCS, Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, HAGSPloitation, BLAXPloitation, OZPloitation, 'WOMEN IN PRISON' CINEMA, CREATURE-FEATURES (on Blu-ray!), PRE-CODE FILMs (on Blu-ray!), SILENT ERA FILMs (on Blu-ray!), HAMMER Studios (on Blu-ray!) The 100 BEST Neo-Noirs (on Blu-ray!), The GREATEST 100 Westerns (on Blu-ray!), Giallo on Blu-ray!, ESSENTIAL NOIR on Blu-ray!, Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.FR (France), Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.DE (Germany) and our LATEST ARTICLES: Movies From... the End of the World,  The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

Feature Blu-rays chosen for the Month of JANUARY!

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NOTE: If there are DVD or Blu-ray titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!

Gary at 2ze dot com

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): The restoration of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927) gets top nod this week. What a Blu-ray package from Lobster Films out of France. Top new film experience goes to Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War - the Artificial Eye Blu-ray is a visual and aural treat. Get this! While I thoroughly enjoyed Arrow's new Django (1966) it is still being hung up over copyright issues - but their work on it make it the definitive Blu-ray edition - let's hope it's released soon. I thought the same company's Blu-ray of Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak was superb - one of the most complete of the year and a heck of a Gothic-genre film. Thumbs skyward. Let the Corpses Tan is a wild genre-blending homage ride and the Kino Blu-ray comes with an articulate intelligent commentary. Totally enjoyable! Horror of Dracula is possibly my favorite Hammer Studio effort and the new Warner Archive Blu-ray offers brighter colors than the previous UK Blu-ray but is also bare-bones. It's always good to have options. Take a look and make your decision. It's always a reason to celebrate to have a Robert Altman film make it to a new Blu-ray - we have Arrow's Gosford Park Special Edition as well as Warcner Archive's bare-bones Blu-ray of Brewster McCloud. most see the greatness in the Ozploitation classic Long Weekend - and Turbine out of Germany bring us the only uncut version on Blu-ray. If you need more Franco Nero - Arrow have a package that couples Django with Texas Adios (made right after) with our stud-ly cowboy returning to the Wild West (Almería, Spain). It was released as Django 2 in some countries. Anne of the Thousand Days with Richard Burton as randy, wily King Henry VIII, and Genevieve Bujold as seductive young Anne Boleyn looks tremendous on Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Orgies of Edo is on Blu-ray from Arrow - it is an edgy film today - image how it was in it premiere in 1969! Agnieszka Holland's Washington Square has made it to Blu-ray from Kino. far from the height of the format - it's a decent period-piece about love and family.

"Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes." Robert Altman

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Crimson Peak BD - Beginning in Buffalo, New York, during the 1880s, Crimson Peak stars Mia Wasikowska as Edith Cushing, an aspiring writer who is haunted by the death of her mother. Edith falls in love with seductive stranger Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), who whisks her off to Allerdale Hall, his baronial, yet dilapidated English mansion built upon a mountain of blood-red clay. Here Edith meets Lucille (Jessica Chastain), Thomas's sister who at times seems hostile and jealous. As Edith struggles to feel at home in the imposing residence, she gradually uncovers a horrendous family secret and encounters supernatural forces that will help her discover the terrible truth behind Crimson Peak. Blu-ray Release Date: January 14th, 2019

Let the Corpses Tan BD - Belgian co-directors and co-writers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani pay tribute to 1970s Italian crime drama films in their third feature film, which is an adaptation of a cult crime novel of the same name by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid. Two thieves attempt to hide out in a scenic and remote Mediterranean village with their loot, but their plans are foiled by a local artist, her family and admirers, and two police officers. Blu-ray Release Date: January 8th, 2019

Long Weekend BD - Attempting to resurrect their failing marriage, Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) set out on a camping trip to a deserted stretch of the Australian coastline hoping a long weekend in the sunshine will help them patch their differences. They are a careless couple, littering the countryside with garbage, shooting guns and even driving away after wounding a kangaroo with their automobile. Their callous disregard for the environment soon becomes apparent when the animals start to seek vengeance. Marcia and Peter have proven themselves to be destroyers of nature. Will the animals allow them to leave or will they too be destroyed? Turbine Blu-ray Release date: November 9th, 2018

Django (1966) BD - Originally banned in Britain for its comic-strip iconoclasm and graphic violence, this rates alongside Leone's 'Dollars' trilogy as one of the daddies of the spaghetti/paella Western. It's a clean- up-and-paint-the-town-blood-red revenge drama with a difference. Nero's mud-spattered ex-Yankee soldier, first seen squelching towards a US-Mexican border ghost town, a coffin forever in tow, has every Western hero's quality in extremis. His speed-of-light gunslinger outlaw has a romantic heart - his wife was killed by one of Major Jackson's KKK-like henchmen - and an enigmatic morality. He solves the war between Jackson's men and General Rodríguez' bandidos by dispensing death to all, but his sympathies are shown when he later teams up with Rodríguez for a gold heist. Arrow Blu-ray Release Date: January, 2019

Brewster McCloud BD - Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) lives deep within the cavernous underground of the Houston Astrodome, but his dreams rise much higher. He aims to fly. Not in a plane. But with strapped-on wings he's designing - encouraged by a mysterious woman (Sally Kellerman) who may be his guardian angel. But Brewster McCloud, Robert Altman's wild, anarchic cult fave, isn't about dreams as much as it is about the highs and lows of humanity. It's a serial-killer mystery. A frenetic car-chase flick. A crazy circus-finale comedy. Shelley Duvall debuts as the tour guide whose seduction of Brewster may lead to his undoing. Ah, love. The thing that at once shapes and unravels us. The thing that may or may not give us wings. Blu-ray Release Date: November 27th, 2018

Horror of Dracula BD - Horror of Dracula is the first in the series of Hammer films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Carol Marsh, Melissa Stribling and Christopher Lee. Dr. Van Helsing, investigating the death of his friend Jonathan Harker concludes that Harker was the victim of a vampire. When Harker's fiancée, Lucy, becomes affected by the terrifying force and hypnotic power of Count Dracula, Van Helsing releases her tortured soul by driving a stake through her heart. But Dracula seeks revenge, targeting Lucy's beautiful sister-in-law, Mina. Van Helsing, now aided by Mina’s husband Arthur, swears to exorcise this evil forever by confronting the vile and depraved Count himself. Blu-ray Release date: December 18th, 2019

Texas Adios BD - Ultrascope spaghetti Western in which Texas sheriff Burt Sullivan (Nero, standard issue laconic) crosses the border with kid brother Jim (Kitosch) to square matters with Cisco Delgado (Suarez), the outlaw who murdered their father. Blu-ray Release Date: November 26th, 2018

Gosford Park BD - Set in 1932, the action unfolds during a weekend shooting party hosted by Sir William McArdle (Alan Bates), and his wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) at his estate, Gosford Park. Among the guests are friends, relatives, the actor and composer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), and an American film producer (Bob Balaban). When Sir William is found murdered in the library, everyone and their servants becomes a suspect. Blu-ray Release Date: November 26th, 2018

Orgies of Edo BD - Legendary Toei director Teruo Ishii tells three stories of moral sickness set during Japan's prosperous Genroku era in this bloody follow-up to his sexploitation classic Shogun's Joy of Torture, and the fourth entry in Toei's abnormal love film series. Ishii s politically incorrect moral lessons paint a trio of tales of tragic heroines caught up in violence, sadomasochism, incest and torture. Blu-ray Release Date: November 19th, 2018

Washington Square BD - She must choose between her father’s fortune and the man she loves! Riveting performances from an all-star cast highlight this passionate tale of a young heiress who must choose between love or money. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Catherine, a lonely young woman in search of happiness... until she is swept off her feet by the handsome Morris Townsend (Ben Chaplin). Suspicious of the young man's true intentions, however, her controlling father (Albert Finney) threatens to disown Catherine if she follows her heart and marries against his wishes. Directed by Agnieszka Holland. Blu-ray Release Date: January 2nd, 2019

Anne of the Thousand Days BD - Directed by Charles Jarrott and produced by veteran Hal Wallis, Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) is a superb costume drama starring Richard Burton as randy, wily King Henry VIII, and Genevieve Bujold as seductive young Anne Boleyn, the woman whose royal romance would change English history forever. As Henry tries to rid himself of his “barren” wife, Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas), clever Anne keeps the shockingly needy king on a string through machination after political machination, eventually causing a final break with the Pope and the Church of Rome. Blu-ray Release Date: December, 2018

Cold War BD - Poland in the late ’40s was a country in ruins, still ravaged by the effects of having not one, but two of the most brutal armies in modern history fighting their way across it. It’s here that writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski sets Cold War, his first film since 2013 Oscar-winner Ida. Taking loose inspiration from his parents’ lives, he’s created something that’s moving, rich with period detail and startlingly well-acted. Blu-ray Release Date: January 7th, 2019

The King of Kings (1927) BD - The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with the biggest budget in the history of Hollywood, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and a cinematic bag of tricks that could belong to none other than Hollywood’s greatest showman, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic. Arguably one of the best-loved films ever made in a 112-minute general release version and the rarely seen 155-minute cut. Blu-ray Release Date: December 11th, 2017
 

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar