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Goodbye Emmanuelle
BD - Part of the Emmanuelle
series, this erotic film follows the adventures of Emmanuelle
(Sylvia Kristel) as she and her husband engage in a myriad of
extra-marital affairs. Their arrangement seems to work out fine,
until Emmanuelle's pursuit of a seemingly uninterested film
director sparks her husband's jealous.
Blu-ray Release Date: April 9th, 2019
The House of the Seven Gables
BD - This fine adaptation of
Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale about a cursed family opens
with a title card that reveals how the Pyncheon family stole,
cheated, lied, and murdered their way to wealth. But within the
hearts of the family's bloodline lay fear of the curse of
Matthew Maule, a man they crossed many years earlier. Jumping to
the year 1828, upstart judge Jaffrey Pyncheon (George Sanders)
is called to his family's beloved seven-gabled house where he is
told by his father (Gilbert Emery) and brother Clifford (Vincent
Price) that the home is to be sold in order to pay their debts.
A bitter, loathsome man who deeply believes in Maule's curse --
and the legend that gold is hidden in the house -- Jaffrey takes
the opportunity of his father's death to accuse the innocent
Clifford of murdering their patriarch.
Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019
The Giant Behemoth
BD - A perennial of the "Shock
Theatre" TV circuit of the 1950s, The British The Giant
Behemoth owes a great deal to the earlier American sci-fier
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. A Cornish fisherman is
found covered with what looks like radiation burns. Before he
dies, the fisherman utters the word "behemoth," citing a monster
alluded to in the Bible. It isn't long before England is
besieged by a dinosaur-like monstrosity, evidently the
by-product of atomic fallout. Only a high-powered torpedo stands
between the Giant Behemoth and the helpless British citizenry.
Blu-ray Release Date: January
22nd, 2019
Emmanuelle 2
BD - The first of many sequels
to the original, X-rated, soft-core pornographic drama
Emmanuelle (1974), this follow-up once again stars Sylvia
Kristel in the title role of the beautiful, sexually adventurous
model. Emmanuelle sails home from Thailand to Hong Kong and her
ambassador husband Jean (Umberto Orsini), with whom she has an
open marriage. She finds that Jean has invited a handsome
American named Christopher (Frederic Lagache) to stay with them,
and she tries to seduce the houseguest, who demurs, preferring
the company of Asian women. Blu-ray
Release Date: April 9th, 2019
Becky Sharp
BD - Now famous as the first
feature film produced in the three-strip Technicolor process,
Becky Sharp is also an enjoyable effort in its own right.
Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the film
stars Miriam Hopkins as Becky Sharp, a resourceful, totally
self-involved young lady who manages to survive any number of
setbacks and deprivations in the years following Napoleon's
defeat at Waterloo. In her efforts to advance herself, she
manages to link up with a number of not altogether attractive
gentlemen, including the Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke),
Joseph Sedley (Nigel Bruce), Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), and
George Osborne (G. P. Huntley Jr.)
Blu-ray Release Date: April 16th, 2019
Emmanuelle
BD - Her name evokes visions of
lush sensual discovery and the extremes of forbidden ecstasy!
She is Emmanuelle, and this classic and its two sequels changed
the look and feel of erotic cinema forever. Upon arriving in
Bangkok to join her diplomat husband, Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel)
meets Bee and Mario and embarks on a voyage of sexual discovery.
As she pursues the stunning Bee (Marika Green), Mario (Alain
Cuny) initiates her into sexual refinements that make her an
expert in the art of love. Kino Blu-ray
Release Date: April 9th, 2019
Rider on the Rain
BD - Adapted from a novel by
acclaimed mystery writer Sébastien Japrisot, this French/Italian
nailbiter stars Marlène Jobert as Mélancolie "Mellie" Mau, a
young woman stalked by on a rainy afternoon by a mysterious
stranger. The man eventually breaks in on Mellie while her
husband is gone and rapes her. She grabs a shotgun and kills her
assailant, dumping the body into the ocean. When the body is
recovered, American military officer Dobbs (Charles Bronson)
accuses Mellie of the murder -- and of stealing the U.S. Army
money that the rapist had been carrying with him -- and that's
only the beginning. The plot piles one twist upon another,
deliriously confounding the audience at every turn.
Blu-ray Release Date: April 9th,
2019
The Yakuza
BD - Former private eye Harry
Kilmer knows a lot about Japan - and the gangsters who keep an
iron grip on its gambling, prostitution and protection rackets.
He knows there's a right way to approach the brutal underworld.
And he knows there's one thing powerful mobsters respect:
greater power. Robert Mitchum is Kilmer in this haunting
East-meets-West-head-on thriller powered by a team of heavy
Hollywood hitters: writers Paul Schrader and Robert Towne
(Chinatown) and director Sydney Pollack.
Blu-ray Release Date: February
14th, 2017
Bend of the River
BD - Glyn McLyntock (James
Stewart) is escorting a wagon train to Portland, when he stops
to save Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy) from being lynched. The
new buddies help fight off a pack of marauding Indians as the
settlers bunk down for the evening, but their friendship
eventually turns to a bitter hatred fueled by the greed of the
crazed Gold Rush fever. Gambler Trey Wilson (Rock Hudson) is
choosing sides. Making new vows Glyn must face his notorious
past to join the familial settlement on the river's bend.
Kino Blu-ray Release Date: April
16th, 2019
Talk Radio
BD - Eric Bogosian stars in
writer-director Oliver Stone’s adaptation of his play, Talk
Radio (1988), as a venomous radio talk show host whose
reckless, relentless stream of abuse and sarcasm both titillates
and infuriates. Parading his own “honesty,” Bogosian’s shock
jock grows increasingly bitter, his outrageous cynicism both an
emblem of his self-loathing and a temptation to his more
disturbed listeners. Blu-ray
Release Date: February, 2019
Sister Street Fighter Collection
BD - After the massive
success of The Street Fighter, the Toei Company decided
to build a new karate series around a female lead, and cast a
young actress who had appeared in a cameo role alongside her
mentor Sonny Chiba. Still a teenager at the time, Etsuko Shihomi
exploded onscreen in her first leading role and created a new
character type: a tough fighter who was fierce, fearless,
good-hearted, and decidedly non-sexualised, a departure from
Toei's typical formula. Arrow Blu-ray
Release Date: March 4th, 2019
Night and the City
BD - Adapted from the lowlife
novel by Gerald Kersh, Night and the City is a baroque
masterpiece of corruption, paranoia and doom that ranks among
the true works of art in the film noir genre. Produced by
Twentieth Century Fox, yet employing American, British and
Continental personnel and filmed on the streets of London, it
was directed by Jules Dassin, under suspicion in Hollywood for
his political beliefs, who made it at great speed before he was
blacklisted. Wild Side Blu-ray
Release Date: March 27th, 2019
The Prisoner (1955)
BD - In an unnamed Eastern
European capital, an iron-willed Cardinal (Alec Guinness) is
arrested by state police on charges of treason. Tasked with
securing a confession from him by any means necessary is a
former comrade-in-arms from the anti-Nazi resistance (Jack
Hawkins). Knowing the Cardinal will never fold under physical
torture, the Interrogator instead sets out to destroy him
mentally, breaking his spirit rather than his body.
Blu-ray Release Date: March 11th,
2019
The Big Fix
BD - Director Jeremy Paul
Kagan’s adaptation of Roger L. Simon’s novel (with Simon
providing the screenplay), The Big Fix (1978) is a bittersweet
neo-noir starring Richard Dreyfuss as 1970s-era private eye
Moses Wine. Even as he mourns the loss of his activist idealism,
Moses is contacted by an old girlfriend, Lila Shea (Susan
Anspach), who needs help defending the reputation of a candidate
running for governor of California and smeared by association
with another 1960s radical, Howard Eppis (F. Murray Abraham).
Blu-ray Release Date: March, 2019
The Quiller Memorandum
BD - The thinking man's spy
thriller, in as much as Harold Pinter wrote the script. Although
the whole thing is ill-served by Michael Anderson's direction,
it remains perversely likeable precisely because it is rather
long-winded and enig-matic: it gets closer to the feel of Len
Deighton's novels far better than any of the three Harry Palmer
films. The acting, with George Segal versus neo-Nazi Max von
Sydow, is excellent, the Berlin locations so-so. Twilight
Time Blu-ray Release Date: March,
2019
The River's Edge (1957)
BD - Deep in the lonely New
Mexico desert, Ben Cameron (Anthony Quinn) and his wife Meg
(Debra Paget) struggle to build their small ranch. But the
arrival of the charming but deadly trickster Nardo Denning (Ray
Milland) could tear apart more than their homestead. With a gun
in his hand and a secret about Meg’s past in his heart, Denning
forces Ben to guide him safely to Mexico with his stolen
fortune. As they navigate the dangerous terrain, each man
struggles to gain the upper hand for survival – and for Meg – in
this tense and gripping Western.
Blu-ray Release Date: March, 2019
The Whole Town's Talking
BD - The legendary John Ford
directs a sparkling screenplay by Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin,
The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), starring Edward G. Robinson in
double roles as a mild-mannered clerk and a notorious gangster
who happen to look remarkably alike. Trouble, of course, ensues,
along with a delightful screwball romance featuring the
scrumptious Jean Arthur. Blu-ray
Release Date: March, 2019
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