Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF March 26th, 2018

Tālofa! Another strong week with Noir, Ozploitation, Blaxploitation, Westerns (pasta and art), Horror, Korean thriller, Wuxia, via Blu-ray reviews of packages by Criterion, Arrow, Umbrella, Twilight Time, 88 Films, Artificial Eye, Vinegar Syndrome and others - directed by Sam Fuller, Michael Haneke, Jim Jarmusch, Sofia Coppola, Cheh Chang, Duccio Tessari, Roy Ward Baker, Colin Eggleston, Jamaa Fanaka, Jeffrey Bloom. Our Calendar has an update of films-to-Blu-ray, including works by Ridley Scott, John Carpenter, Allan Dwan, King Hu, Sergio Martino, Peter Yates, William A. Seiter, J. Lee Thompson, Ewald André Dupont, Michael Cimino, Herk Harvey, Joe Wright, Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Hirokazu Koreeda and we have our Feature Blu-ray is posted plus a massive CONTEST for the month of March with 3 amazing prizes. Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

50's + 60's SCIENCE-FICTION (on Blu-ray), 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)

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

Feature Blu-ray chosen for the Month of MARCH!

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Month of March CONTEST  details HERE to Win one of three, out-of-print, prizes; a sealed Criterion Blu-ray of "The Third Man", Criterion's AK Akira Kurosawa 25 disc collection, or the also out-of-print, Region 'B' Blu-ray set of Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection. 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

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): We can't deny Criterion's stunning Blu-ray of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man top spot this week. This classic finally gets a worthy digital package. Sam Fuller's Underworld U.S.A. is regarded by many his most bludgeoning take on corruption - a spectacularly pristine Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Cheh Chang's The One-Armed Swordsman is a masterwork igniting a genre and gets a Blu-ray treatment from 88 Films in the UK. Luminescent and damaged Nell - played by the one and only Marilyn Monroe - in the enticing Noir Don't Bother to Knock on Region FREE Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Happy End is more of Haneke’s uniquely stark and unsympathetic style - a desperate film of imbalance starring Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant on Blu-ray from Artificial Eye. Sofia Coppola's debut film The Virgin Suicides gets a Blu-ray release from Criterion looking markedly different from past DVDs... a 4K digital restoration approved by the director is stacked with new interviews. How about two stunning spaghetti westerns on one Blu-ray? Arrow gives us Duccio Tessari's A Pistol for Ringo & The Return of Ringo - strangely very different in themes and in execution - the two films make for a super double-feature. The psychological thriller, Long Weekend is a mainstay of the Ozploitation genre and gets a superior, Region FREE, Blu-ray release from Umbrella out of Australia. Staying in the genre but not as quite the level is, Dark Age, a down-under creature-feature with David Gulpilil and a giant crocodile - 'nuff for ya?  There is plenty to like about Sung-bo Shim's thriller Sea Fog from South Korea on Blu-ray now from 88 Films. Blaxploitation gets a double feature from Vinegar Syndrome - a Blu-ray with both 1975's Welcome Home Brother Charles (yes, the one where he chocks a guy with his schlong) and the following year's Emma Mae - both helmed by Jamaa Fanaka. VC Andrews’ massively read novel Flowers in the Attic gets an 80's film release with Victoria Tennant, Louise Fletcher and Kristy Swanson - now on Blu-ray from Arrow (UK). On DVD, Eric reviewed Requiem - a new fantasy-thriller TV series out of the UK. Hmmm...

'If My Film Makes One More Person Miserable, I’ve Done My Job' - Woody Allen

Have a weak filled with irrelevant errors!

Welcome Home Brother Charles / Emma Mae BD - Before directing the legendary PENITENTIARY trilogy, Jamaa Fanaka helmed these two offbeat genre films, which helped catapult him to recognition as one of the most important black filmmakers working in 70s independent cinema. In Fanaka’s debut feature, WELCOME HOME BROTHER CHARLES, a young black man is sent to prison, after being brutalized by a corrupt racist cop. Upon release, he takes deadly revenge against the cops, lawyers, and thugs who got him busted, using a most unusual weapon… Fanaka’s second feature, EMMA MAE, tells the story of a naive young woman who moves from the Deep South to Watts. Initially finding herself at odds with her surroundings, Emma eventually gains acceptance from a local drug addict and dealer. But when he’s arrested and jailed, she plans a daring bank robbery to bail him out… Blu-ray Release Date: March 27th, 2018

Happy End BD - Master auteur Michael Haneke returns with a biting satire on bourgeois family values set in the shadow of the European refugee crisis. Featuring a cast of top acting talent, including Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz and Toby Jones, it’s a piercing dark comedy on the blind preoccupations of middle-class angst. When her mother falls ill under mysterious circumstances, young Eve (Fantine Harduin) is sent to live with her estranged father’s relatives in Calais. The Laurent family – wealthy, neurotic and self-obsessed – own a lucrative construction company and live in a sprawling mansion house, waited on by servants. But trouble is brewing, as a series of intergenerational back-stabbings threaten to tear the family apart. Blu-ray Release Date: March 26th, 2018

Sea Fog BD - A fishing boat captain named Kang (Kim Yoon-Seok) is facing serious financial distress. He is offered a highly dangerous job: to pick up a group of illegal Chinese immigrants and bring them back to Korea. Kang and his desperate crew, including a young man named Dong-sik (K-Pop star Yu-Chun Park), accept the challenge. Nothing goes as planned. Shim Sung-Bo is known as screenwriter behind such films as MEMORIES OF MURDER. With his directorial debut, he teams up with long-time collaborator Bong Joon-Ho to create an exceptional character-driven thriller. Blu-ray Release Date: March 26th, 2018

Underworld U.S.A. BD - Sam Fuller's harsh, obsessional 1960 crime drama is narrated in the style of a comic book gone berserk. Cliff Robertson is the neurotic hero, bent on avenging his father's death by infiltrating and destroying a crime syndicate that operates under the redolent name “National Projects.” Corruption is all-pervasive in this vision of America, and Fuller disturbingly suggests that only a madman can make a difference. One image from Underworld—of a heavy striking straight at the camera—prompted Jean-Luc Godard to describe Fuller's films as “cinema-fist.” There is no more apt phrase. Blu-ray Release Date: March, 2018

The One-Armed Swordsman BD - From the venerable Shaw Brothers studio comes One-Armed Swordsman, the 1967 wuxia film that changed the face of Hong Kong cinema forever! Directed by legendary filmmaker Chang Cheh with action choreography by Lau Ka Leung and Tong Gai, this internationally successful film launched the career of Jimmy Wang Yu, who portrays the iconic title character. When the Golden Sword School finds itself under siege, it is up to a faithful disciple (Guk Fung) to put his life on the line to protect both his master and his fellow students. Tragically, the brave hero is killed in the process, but before he dies, he passes on his precious Broken Sword and convinces Master Qi Rufeng (Ting Fung) to accept his son Fang Gang as his own. Blu-ray Release Date: March 26th, 2018

A Pistol for Ringo & The Return of Ringo Two Films by Duccio Tessari BD - In A Pistol For Ringo, the eponymous hero, played by Giuliano Gemma (Day of Anger, Tenebrae), infiltrates a ranch of Mexican bandits to save a beautiful hostage (Nieves Navarro, Death Walks on High Heels). In The Return Of Ringo, the gunslinger, now a veteran of war, disguises himself as a Mexican in order to take revenge on outlaws who have stolen his property and taken his wife. The Return of Ringo (Italian: Il ritorno di Ringo) is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Duccio Tessari. Like its predecessor, the film stars Giuliano Gemma and features a score composed by Ennio Morricone. After fighting for the Union Army in the American Civil War, Ringo returns home to find that his property has been taken over by a family of Mexican bandits. His fiancée is about to marry the Mexican gangster behind all this. He decides to go undercover disguised as a Mexican. While there he discovers he has a daughter. Blu-ray Release Date: March 26th - April 24th, 2018

Flowers in the Attic BD - After a tragic accident leaves them fatherless, four children return to their mother’s mysterious family mansion hoping for an inheritance. But when they are imprisoned and abandoned by their evil grandmother, the children must survive a nightmare of brutal cruelty, forbidden passion and a final shocking discovery that will shatter their innocence forever. Kristy Swanson, Victoria Tennant, Jeb Stuart Adams and Academy Award® winner Louise Fletcher star in this haunting suspense thriller based on the novel that launched the extraordinary career of V.C. Andrews and won her a devoted following of more than 85 million readers worldwide. Blu-ray Release Date: March 12th, 2018

Don't Bother to Knock BD - Pilot Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) encounters the beautiful Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe) while staying at a hotel in New York City. Jed pursues Nell, initially thinking she's a woman of means, but comes to learn that she is actually a babysitter when her child charge, Bunny Jones (Donna Corcoran), interrupts a conversation between the two. Soon Jed becomes worried about Nell's mental stability when it appears the woman is physically threatening Bunny... Blu-ray Release Date: March, 2018

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? Umbrella Blu-ray Release Date: January 20th, 2015

Dark Age BD - A classic tale of terror from the golden age of Aussie exploitation, Dark Age features outback stalwart John Jarratt as Northern Territory wildlife ranger Steve Harris, a stoic survivor charged with conserving the ever diminishing crocodile population from encroaching hunters, hell-bent on destruction of the species. Faced with formidable opposition from gung-ho hunter John Besser (Max Phipps), Steve is joined by girlfriend Cathy (Nikki Coghill, The Time Guardian) and sets out to relocate a giant crocodile to a breeding ground sanctuary, well out of harm's way. Aided by expert tracker Oondabund (Burnam Burnam) and Adjaral (David Gulpilil) the intrepid foursome risk life and limb in a terrifying journey that will test their nerves and transform the tranquil Territory waters into a raging red torrent of death. Blu-ray Release Date: November, 2016

The Virgin Suicides BD - With this debut feature, Sofia Coppola announced her singular vision, exploring the aesthetics of femininity while illuminating the interior lives of young women. An adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s popular first novel, The Virgin Suicides conjures the ineffable melancholy of teenage longing and ennui in its story of the suicides of the five Lisbon sisters, stifled by the rules of their overprotective religious parents—as told through the collective memory of a group of men who were boys at the time and still yearn to understand what happened. Evoking its 1970s suburban setting through ethereal cinematography by Ed Lachman and an atmospheric score by Air, the film secured a place for its director in the landscape of American independent cinema and has become a coming-of-age touchstone. Blu-ray Release Date: April 24th, 2018

Dead Man BD - With Dead Man, his first period piece, Jim Jarmusch imagined the nineteenth-century American West as an existential wasteland, delivering a surreal reckoning with the ravages of industrialization, the country’s legacy of violence and prejudice, and the natural cycle of life and death. Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) has hardly arrived in the godforsaken outpost of Machine before he’s caught in the middle of a fatal lovers’ quarrel. Wounded and on the lam, Blake falls under the watch of the outcast Nobody (Gary Farmer), who guides his companion on a spiritual journey, teaching him to dispense poetic justice along the way. Featuring austerely beautiful black-and-white photography by Robby Müller and a live-wire score by Neil Young, Dead Man is a profound and unique revision of the western genre. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: April 24th, 2018

Requiem - What if you discovered that your parents had lied to you? That almost everything they'd said about their own history, and yours, was untrue? In 1994, a toddler disappeared from a small Welsh village, never to be seen again. 23 years later, in London, the mother of rising cello star Matilda Gray commits suicide, without apparent reason. Among her possessions, Matilda discovers tantalising evidence, linking her mother to the Welsh girl's disappearance all those years ago, sending her grief-stricken to Wales. Determined to find out who she really is, Matilda unravels her own identity and exposes long buried secrets that a remote community are trying desperately to forget. One secret is more bizarre, terrifying and dangerous than anything she could have imagined one that has been waiting many years for Matilda to return. DVD Release Date: March 19th, 2018

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