Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF February 27th, 2017

God dag! A steady week with Blu-ray reviews of packages by Criterion, Arrow, Eureka, Twilight Time, Kino Lorber, Olive Films, Mr. Bongo of films by John Ford, Woody Allen, Hal Ashby, Gus Van Sant, Henry Hathaway. Henry King, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Maurice Pialat and more. Our Calendar has a updates including films directed by Dario Argento, Donald Cammell, Francis Ford Coppola, Kinji Fukasaku, Blake Edwards, Edwin L. Marin, Richard Benjamin, David Seltzer, Baran bo Odar and more. Feature Blu-ray and DVD is posted for MARCH. We have a new article posted and a CONTEST with a BRAND NEW Criterion Blu-ray prize. Enjoy!!

NEW ARTICLE: The Movies from The End of the World - Identifying the Sub-Genres of Apocalypse Films!

DVDBeaver has their own store at Movie Zyng - check it out! Many have $1 shipping - even overseas!

Feature Blu-ray and DVD chosen for the Month of MARCH!

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

(Week of) February 27th CONTEST  identify the clip HERE to win a prize of a BRAND NEW Criterion Blu-ray of Mildred Pierce Best of luck!

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

Finding Forrester BD - Playing William Forrester, a literary legend and fictional Scottish-American variant of J. D. Salinger, Mr. Connery is more of a stern, cranky boss than the empathetic mush pot Mr. Williams would have made him. The star's hawklike eyes glaring under Mephistophelean brows cast look so imperious they threaten to turn into lightning bolts. Had anyone else played the role, this dubious character would probably have come off as clinically insane. But such is Mr. Connery's skill at projecting manly authority that he fosters the illusion that Forrester is actually a repository of some truth and wisdom. Blu-ray Release date: February 27th, 2017

My Darling Clementine BD - The most famous and sublime treatment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is by any measure one of the most classically perfect Westerns ever made. Henry Fonda plays a hard, serious Wyatt Earp leading a cattle drive west with his brothers when a stopover in the wild town of Tombstone ends in the murder of his youngest brother. Wyatt takes up the badge he had turned down earlier and tames the wide-open town with his brothers (Ward Bond and Tim Holt), all the while waiting for the wild Clantons (led by Walter Brennan's ruthless Old Man Clanton) to make a mistake. Victor Mature delivers perhaps his finest performance as the tubercular gambler Doc Holliday, an alcoholic Eastern doctor escaping civilization in the Wild West. Ford takes great liberties with history, bending the story to fit his ideal of the West, a balance of social law and pioneer spirit. Arrow Blu-ray Release Date: February 27th, 2017

Interiors BD - When Eve (Geraldine Page), an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur (E.G. Marshall), the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughters are laid bare. Twisted by jealousy, insecurity and resentment, Renata (Diane Keaton), a successful writer; Flyn (Kristin Griffith), a woman crippled by indecision; and Joey (Marybeth Hurt), a budding actress; struggle to communicate for the sake of their shattered mother. But when their father unexpectedly falls for another woman (Maureen Stapleton), his decision to remarry sets in motion a terrible twist of fate... Twilight Time's Blu-ray Release date: February, 2017

Police BD - This strange crime-cum-romance story starts out with the ordinary work-a-day life of Mangin, an apparently straight-and-narrow cop (Gerard Depardieu), and then segues into a love story after he meets Noria, a beautiful Arab woman (Sophie Marceau) who has just been arrested during a drug raid. Mangin grills her, but his buddy, a lawyer of dubious ethics named Lambert (Richard Anconina), gets the woman released. Enamored almost from the beginning, Mangin begins to pursue Noria and soon finds himself faced with making the ethical decision to arrest her -- or not. Blu-ray Release Date: February 2017

Kiss of Death BD - Richard Widmark, then a radio actor, made his film debut, stealing every frame as the terrifying, grinning, snickering killer Tommy Udo. Udo, with his animal ferocity and vicious joie de vivre, is clearly a spiritual nephew of Scarface's Tony Camonte, but Widmark himself is to be credited with many of the inspired details of his performance. Twilight Time Blu-ray Release Date: February, 2017

Memories of Underdevelopment BD - Even though director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea was a staunch and devoted supporter of the revolution, Memories of Underdevelopment offers a raw and uncompromising analysis of the newly formed system of government. Through a moving blend of narrative fiction, still photography and rare documentary footage, Alea catalogues the intricacies of the early days of the Castro regime; producing a stirring and enigmatic work that feeds off the culture of the very subject it is studying: Cuba. Blu-ray Release date: February 17th, 2017

Panther Girl of the Kongo BD - The jaw-dropping, eye-popping, edge-of-your-seat exploits of the fearless Panther Girl are brought vividly to life in the Republic Pictures serial Panther Girl of the Kongo starring Phyllis Coates (Perils of the Jungle) as Jean Evans, the Panther Girl of the title; Myron Healey (The Unearthly) as big game hunter Larry Sanders; and Arthur Space (The Red House) as the maddest of the mad scientists, Dr. Morgan. Blu-ray Release date: February 21st, 2017

David and Bathsheba BD - For this woman, he broke God s own Commandment! Screen legend, Gregory Peck (Yellow Sky, Night People) stars in this gripping retelling of the beloved Old Testament story. King David (Peck) has killed Goliath, prevailed in countless battles, but cannot vanquish his illicit love for the beautiful Bathsheba (Susan Hayward, Rawhide, I Want to Live). David sends her husband, Uriah (Kieron Moore, Arabesque), into a hopeless battle, setting into motion his own downward spiral. Neglecting kingdom and faith, he incurs the wrath of God, the destruction of his country and the ill will of his people, who expect Bathsheba to pay the ultimate price for adultery. This gorgeously shot, rapturously acted and deeply moving tale of love, obsession, tragedy, loss and redemption is as beautiful as it is timeless. Blu-ray Release date: January 10th, 2017

Being There BD - 'Being There' is based on Jerzy Kosinski's short comic novel about a simpleton, Chance (Peter Sellers), raised in isolation whose only education came from watching TV. When he's forced out of the house where he worked as a gardener by the death of the wealthy recluse who raised him from infancy, he's fortuitously struck by a limousine carrying Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), the wife of a wealthy industrialist. He's mistaken, because of his well-tailored suits, for a man of means and taken to dinner with her husband, Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas). There, as Chauncy Gardner, his blank affect is taken for seriousness and his literal pronouncements about gardening for metaphoric economic predictions. Soon he's meeting the president (Jack Warden) of the United States and becoming a star on TV--where he's a natural... Criterion Blu-ray Release date: March 21st, 2017

Tharlo - High in the desolate, windswept mountains of Tibet lives a shepherd named Tharlo. He tends his sheep and rides his motorcycle, passing his days in familiar and traditional routines far from the city lights. But when Tharlo travels to the city for an ID card photo and meets Yangtso, a modern young hairdresser, his monastic life will forever change. Leading Tibetan auteur Pema Tseden first wrote Tharlo's story as a novella. In adapting his spare and poignant short story for the screen, Tseden is at the height of his directorial powers, using just 84 meticulously composed shots to channel Tharlo s world into gorgeous vistas of black-and-white. DVD Release Date: February 14th, 2017

The Woman Accused - Screen legend Cary Grant stars with Nancy Carroll in The Woman Accused, a gripping tale of love and jealousy that leads to murder! Socialite Glenda O'Brien (Carroll) gets caught in a murderous misfortune with her ex-lover who wants her back after he finds out she’s engaged to an attorney (Grant). After she mistakenly pays him a visit, he is found dead and now she is considered a prime suspect. Plans to tie the knot continue in full swing while on a cruise ship but things go amiss when her story is brought to surface. DVD Release Date: September 28th, 2016

A Dispatch From Reuter's - In 19th century England, journalist Paul Julius Reuter (Edward G. Robinson) and his partner, Max Wagner (Eddie Albert), utilize messenger pigeons to connect telegraph stations across Europe. As time passes and technology outdates his system, Reuter invents a wire system that transmits news stories directly to newspapers. But when a rival business creates a faster telegraph system, Reuter must transmit high-profile news to stay on top of the industry, in this biopic based on true events. DVD Release Date: July 12th, 2016

Departure - An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realization that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other. DEPARTURE is an intimate story that begins at dawn on the first day and ends at night on the sixth, charting the end of a summer, the end of a childhood and the end of an otherwise nuclear, middleclass family. DVD Release Date: March 7th, 2017

The Forest for the Trees - With high hopes, mousy Melanie dumps her boyfriend and leaves home to start her teaching career, armed with alternative methods and bright-eyed optimism. Soon enough, though, storm clouds begin to form: she's consistently tortured by rebellious students and rejected by her colleagues. There's no comfort in her personal life, either, as the loneliness of the big city begins to take its toll. Eager for some kind of companionship aside from the creepy Thorsten, the only co-worker her age, Melanie orchestrates a "chance meeting" with her attractive neighbor and begins to insinuate herself into her neighbor's life. Just like at work, her efforts at a social life fail spectacularly, and Melanie slowly dissolves into desperation and a final, unexpected act. DVD Release Date: February 21st, 2017

Akron - A sensitive and unique film that puts a progressive, Midwestern spin on a classic family drama. Benny and Christopher, college freshmen, meet playing football and begin a relationship. They fall in love supported by their family and friends. As their love for each other grows, a past tragic event involving their mothers comes to light. This revelation tests their own love and Benny s close-knit family. DVD Release Date: February 7th, 2017

Retake - A San Francisco street hustler Adam receives a very strange proposition from handsome older man Jonathan role-playing as his younger lover Brandon on a road trip to the Grand Canyon at double his nightly rate plus a thousand dollars with cash payment upfront. Versed in the art of becoming someone else for each of his partners, Adam takes Jonathan up on the offer but cannot help but push back and add his own touches to take controlling Jonathan out of his comfort zone. He soon comes to realize, however, that Jonathan is not just living out a fantasy but attempting to re-live a real past relationship that ended tragically. As Adam lets himself be molded into Brandon's image and poses to recreate a series of Polaroids documenting the original trip, he is torn between pulling Jonathan away from his morbid obsession and sacrificing his own identify for the chance at a relationship. DVD Release Date: January 10th, 2017
 

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