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Whiplash
BD - A talented young jazz drummer experiences
a trial by fire when he's recruited by a ferocious instructor
whose unyielding search for perfection may lead to his undoing.
For as far back as Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) can remember,
he's been watching his father fail. Determined to make a name
for himself no matter what it takes, Andrew enrolls in a
prestigious east coast music conservatory where his talent
quickly catches the attention of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons)
a esteemed music teacher who's notorious for his caustic
approach in the classroom. The leader of the school's top jazz
ensemble, Fletcher promptly transfers Neyman into his band,
giving the ambitious young drummer a shot at true greatness. He
may achieve it, too, if Neyman's methods don't drive him to
madness first. Blu-ray Release date: February 24th, 2015
The Connection
BD - Experimental director Shirley Clarke's first
feature film is a no-compromise look at the dead-end world of
drug addiction in Manhattan. Awaiting their next "connection",
eight dopers sit in a bleak New York loft. The addicts agree to
allow filmmaker William Redfield to shoot a documentary of their
lifestyle--for a price. When their connection arrives, he
suspects the filmmaker of being a narc and abruptly runs away.
The film ends with Redfield agreeing to try some heroin himself
in order to more thoroughly understand his "actors". While it
appears totally improvised (especially a supposedly impromptu
jam session with four musician junkies,) The Connection was
adapted from a play by Jack Gelber. Roscoe Lee Browne appears in
the cast in one of his earliest movie roles.
Blu-ray Release
date: February 24th, 2015
God Told Me To
BD - A delirious mix of sci-fi, pseudo-religious
fantasy and horror detective thriller, with Lo Bianco as the
perfect existential anti-hero - a New York cop and closet
Catholic, guiltily trapped between wife and mistress. His
investigations into a bizarre spate of mass murders lead right
to the top: Jesus Christ, no less, is provoking innocent
citizens to go on a murderous rampage. The wonderfully insane
plot - involving spaceships, genetics and police corruption -
builds to an ambiguous climax: a 'gay' confrontation which
suggests an outrageous alternative to anal intercourse. God Told
Me To overflows with such perverse and subversive notions that
no amount of shoddy editing and substandard camerawork can
conceal the film's unusual qualities. Digging deep into the
psyche of American manhood, it lays bare the guilt-ridden
oppressions of a soulless society. Blu-ray Release date:
February 24th, 2015
The Secret Life of Words
BD - Writer-director Isabel Coixet's
(My Life Without Me) beautifully wrought chamber drama The
Secret Life of Words opens on Hanna (Sarah Polley), a laconic,
backward and introverted girl in her early '30s, quietly
drowning in her own isolation. Partially deaf from working an
untold number of hours in a loud factory, Hanna must wear a
hearing aid. When her supervisors -- deeply concerned about the
four years that have lapsed in Hanna's life without a break --
force her to go on holiday for a month, she hesitantly takes off
for a coastal village in the north of Ireland. Once there, she
decides to dine in a local restaurant, and overhears, by chance,
a telephone conversation conducted by Victor (Eddie Marsan),
regarding an accident on a nearby oil rig that he precipitated,
which left a victim, Josef (Tim Robbins) in its wake.
Blu-ray
Release Date: October 28th, 2011
Kiss Me, Stupid
BD - Dean Martin stars in this
once-controversial comedy as Dino, a Las Vegas crooner,
alcoholic, and celebrity playboy. Dino requires women like
oxygen -- a companionless night leaves him with a headache. Ray Walston is Orville, a provincial piano teacher, aspiring
songwriter, and jealous husband. Orville violently obsesses over
his wife Zelda's (Felicia Farr) fidelity -- any man she
encounters becomes his sworn enemy. When a chance detour brings
Dino to Orville's hometown of Climax, NV, it is the perfect
opportunity for the piano teacher and his songwriting partner,
Barney (Cliff Osmond), to pitch their tunes. Yet, Orville
predictably fears the possible combination of Dino's libido with
Zelda's childhood crush on the singer. Before the two can meet,
Orville deceitfully bullies Zelda out of their house and Barney
hires local roadhouse prostitute Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to
pose as Orville's wife. Blu-ray Release date: February 17th,
2015
Wetlands
BD - Helen Memel Carla Juri is one troubled soul. The
product of severe emotional abuse early in life, she developed
weird, OCD-like attitudes toward sex and cleanliness as an
adolescent, and began to harbor serious issues involving trust.
As a young woman, she rebelled against the repression that she
knew as a youngster, by engaging in unconventional sexual
activity such as onanism with vegetables, and practicing
horrible scatological acts, such as barefoot strolls through raw
sewage, and direct exposure to filthy public toilet seats. When
Helen clumsily attempts to shave her nether regions, she ends up
with a serious injury and must be hospitalized; bedridden, she
begins to reflect on her wild and colorful life and sexual
history. Meanwhile, she also develops feelings for a male nurse
in the hospital Christoph Letkowski, though it remains unclear
if she has the stability necessary to get out of her predicament
and make the relationship work. Blu-ray Release date: January
13th, 2015
Watership Down
BD - With this passion project,
screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved
what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen
adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel
about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern
forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily
expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design,
and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John
Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott,
Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory
about freedom amid political turmoil. Blu-ray Release date:
February 24th, 2015
Wild River
BD - With a touch of humanism and social conviction
Wild River focuses on a TVA dam project that will evict a family
(matriarch Van Fleet) and her significant number of black
employees. Lee Remick, as well as being jaw-dropping stunning as
a country lass, is a widowed daughter of said family and graces
the screen with another of her magnificent performances.
Montgomery Clift's character, Chuck Glover, has the unenviable
job as the ministry employee who must shoo the tenants to
vacate. Monty and Remick establish a relationship which helps
convert Cliff to the side of the righteous. Kazan's build seems
slower than the erratic pace of the plot but it is still
superior Hollywood fare shot in magnificent cinemascope.
Masters of Cinema's Blu-ray Release date: February 23rd, 2015
Fright Night (Sony Japan added)
BD - Charley (Ragsdale) has seen
a coffin being carried into the house next door and a corpse
being dragged out, but no one will take him seriously. In
desperation he enlists a TV vampire killer, who's initially
charmed by neighbour-from-hell Jerry (Sarandon), before noticing
the absence of his reflection in a mirror. A farrago of
cartoonish exaggeration (mouthfuls of fangs, razor-sharp talons
and eyes like burning coals), knowing humour and '80s camp, it
shouldn't even begin to work, and yet, strangely, it does, sort
of, thanks to the assured handling of writer/director Holland,
and two performances in particular - Geoffreys as Charley's pal
Evil, and McDowall as the timid vampire killer. Sony (Japan)
Blu-ray Release date: November 5th, 2014
Enemy
BD - Adapted from author Jose Saramago's novel The Double,
director Denis Villeneuve's enigmatic drama Enemy stars Jake
Gyllenhaal as a detached college professor whose life becomes
hopelessly intertwined with that of his doppelganger - a
sexually insatiable actor. Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a socially
isolated man who's more comfortable lecturing to college
students than he is making love to his lustful girlfriend Mary (Mélanie
Laurent). One day, on the advice of a colleague, Adam sits down
to watch a romantic comedy and what he sees on the screen leaves
him deeply disturbed: A supporting player in the film credited
as Anthony Clair (also Gyllenhaal), is Adam's spitting image -
right down to the distinctive scar on both of their chests.
Curzons Blu-ray Release date: February 9th, 2015
Black Sunday (Kino AIP)
BD - Secluded castles, musty hallways,
tree branches that reach like hands, mist-shrouded forests,
stranded travelers, duplicitous lovers who conspire to murder,
secret passageways that descend to deteriorating crypts--this is
the stuff of Italian gothic horror, one of the most exciting and
atmospheric sub-genres of film, and Mario Bava was one of its
greatest practitioners. Blu-ray Release Date: February 24th,
2015
Lady Chatterley's Lover
BD - This adaptation of D. H.
Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover stars Sylvia
Kristel as Constance Chatterley, the young wife of an
emotionally distant aristocrat in 1910's England, who becomes
only less accessible to his spouse when he loses the use of his
legs in World War I. He gives her leave to take up a lover, but
when Constance turns to the bed of the low-born groundskeeper,
Mellors Nicholas Clay, she not only discovers what passionate
lovemaking is really like, but also experiences actual intimacy
and love for the first time, leading to a dramatic love
triangle, and a bevy of subtext about classism and emotional
freedom. Blu-ray Release date: February 17th, 2015
How To Murder Your Wife
BD - George Axelrod's script for
How to Murder Your Wife isn't politically correct in the least,
but you're likely to get a charge out of it -- provided you are
of the male persuasion, that is. Jack Lemmon stars as Stanley
Ford, a successful cartoonist and a confirmed bachelor who
shares a lavish apartment with his misogynistic manservant,
Charles (Terry-Thomas). While attending a friend's bachelor
party, Stanley falls head over heels in love with the gorgeous
bikini-clad girl (Virna Lisi) who pops out of a cake. He
impulsively marries her, but thinks better of it the next day.
Alas, Stanley can't get a divorce because his bride is an
Italian Catholic (this is 1966). Blu-ray Release date:
February 17th, 2015
Psych-Out
BD - Jennie (Susan Strasberg) travels to San
Francisco to locate her hippie brother Steve (Bruce Dern). She
meets Stoney (Jack Nicholson) in a coffeehouse and he helps her
look for Steve, who Stoney has seen in his various attempts to
start a rock & roll band. Stoney and his pals transform the
square girl into a swinging hippie chick, complete with a mod
miniskirt. Along with their buddy Dave (Dean Stockwell), they
search for Steve amidst the psychedelic splendor of the
Haight-Ashbury hippie haunts. Dave is killed by a car when he
wanders around in an STP-induced stupor. LSD, marijuana, and the
good and the bad sides of hippie life are illustrated with
non-judgmental accuracy. Blu-ray Release date: February 17th,
2015
The Legend of Lizzie Borden - New England spinster
Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the charge of murdering her
father and stepmother in 1892, but this made-for-TV movie, like
most recreations of the murders and subsequent trial, adheres to
the popular consensus that Borden was guilty. Elizabeth
Montgomery takes a break from playing victims to portray the
enigmatic Borden. The trial scenes are lifted directly from the
original court records; scripter William Bast's speculation as
to what really happened the night the elder Bordens were hacked
to death is pure but credible conjecture. Accompanied by a
"parental guidance suggested" tag, The Legend of Lizzie
Borden was first broadcast February 10, 1975. DVD Release
Date: October 7th, 2014
Once Upon a Time Veronica - Veronica is fresh out of
medical school. It's a crucial time in her life, a period filled
with doubts and important decisions to be made: tough career
choices, her intimate bond with her ailing father, and her
active but chaotic love life. Veronica must deal with all of
them as she tries to cope with the adult life that lies ahead.
Once Upon a Time Veronica is a fairy tale in reverse.
There are no fairy godmothers, no weddings, and no dreams.
Veronica s story reveals itself through adventures, misfortunes,
desires and songs. DVD Release Date: February 3rd, 2015
Traitors - Malika, leader of Traitors, an all-female
punk rock band, has a strong vision of the world, her hometown
of Tangier, and her place in it. When she needs money to save
her family from eviction and to realize her dreams for the band,
Malika agrees to a fast cash proposition: a smuggling run over
the mountains for a dangerous drug dealer. But her companion on
the road is Amal, a burnt-out young drug mule who Malika decides
to free from her enslavement to the dangerous drug dealers. The
challenge will put Malika's rebel ethos to the test, and to
survive she will have to call on all her instincts and nerve.
DVD Release Date: 24 February 2015
The Disembodied - The Disembodied is a voodoo
melodrama set in a Hollywood-backlot jungle. The villain of the
piece is Tonda (Allison Hayes), the craven wife of jungle doctor
Metz (John Wengraf). Whenever she can't get what she wants,
Tonda resorts to voodoo to confound and destroy her enemies.
Naturally, she receives her comeuppance in a particularly untidy
fashion. Top billing is bestowed upon Paul Burke, who after
achieving stardom in
TV's Naked City and
12 O'Clock High tended to remove Disembodied
from his resume. The film was originally released on a double
bill with
From Hell it Came. DVD Release Date: November
18th, 2010
Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain - On December 3rd, 1984, a
Union Carbide pesticide leak killed more than 10,000 people in
just a few hours in Bhopal, India. Based on true events, Bhopal:
A Prayer for Rain chronicles the days leading up to the world's
deadliest industrial disaster. While muckraking journalist
Motwani (Kal Penn) investigates a suspicious accidental death at
the plant, American Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson (Martin
Sheen) faces plummeting profits despite the unregulated and
ever-increasingly unsafe technology used by his Indian
employees. DVD Release Date: February 3rd, 2015
Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story -
Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) stars as Blanche Taylor
Moore; grandmother, churchgoing pillar of her North Carolina
small town, and serial murderer, in this riveting true story
that leads to the gas chamber. Childhood memories of her
womanizing and abusive father fill Moore with a hidden rage
towards all men. Her former boyfriend, first husband and father
all died of arsenic poisoning. Now her fiancé, the town's
minister, is stricken the same way. DVD Release Date: January
4th, 2012
The Stranger Within - Who is the father of Ann
Collins' baby? Her husband had a vasectomy years ago. And
Ann hasn't been with another man. Even more mysterious: as the
baby grows inside her, Ann begins to change. She is beset by
strange illnesses, pours tablespoons of salt on her food, turns
the thermostat to 50 degrees, speed-reads academic tomes. But
much bigger shocks are yet to come. Barbara Eden (I Dream of
Jeannie) stars in this hypnotic, swiftly paced blend of
horror and sci-fi from Richard Matheson (Duel,
Dying Room Only), the popular and prolific writer
who also penned the novel
I Am Legend and several notable
The Twilight Zone scripts. DVD Release Date:
January 25th, 2010
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