Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF April 15th, 2013
  This Week's Highlights
Sahil ch'oolex! - Not a stacked week - we have Criterion, Masters of Cinema, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, George Romero, Masaki Kobayashi and Yuzo Kawashima this week plus on the Calendar; Shout! Factory, and more, releases with Satyajit Ray, Hal Hartley, Atom Egoyan, Don Siegel, Burt Kennedy, John Sturges and more on Blu-ray!

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FEATURE Blu-ray and DVD of the MONTH selected for April!!
 

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Today's DVD & Blu-rays (Amazon)

Blu-rays Under $10 (Amazon)

Blu-rays Under £6 (Amazon UK)

Blu-rays Under £10 (Amazon UK)

Movies & TVs (Amazon Canada)

LATEST ADDITIONS TO THE RELEASE CALENDAR:

Charulata [Blu-ray] (Satyajit Ray, 1964) RB UK Artificial Eye

Lore [Blu-ray] (Cate Shortland, 2012) RB UK Artificial Eye

Paul [Blu-ray] (Greg Mottola, 2011) Universal Studios

Simple Men [Blu-ray] (Hal Hartley, 1992) RB UK Artificial Eye

No [Blu-ray] (Pablo Larraín, 2012) Sony Pictures Classics

The English Teacher [Blu-ray] (Craig Zisk, 2013) Cinedigm

Broken (Rufus Norris, 2012) Film Movement

Next of Kin [Blu-ray] (Atom Egoyan, 1984) RB UK Artificial Eye

Family Viewing [Blu-ray] (Atom Egoyan, 1988) RB UK Artificial Eye

Michael H - Profession: Director (Yves Montmayeur, 2013) R2 UK Artificial Eye

Neighbouring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012) R2 UK Artificial Eye

A Late Quartet [Blu-ray] (Yaron Zilberman, 2012) RB UK Curzon

Rooster Cogburn [Blu-ray] (Stuart Millar, 1975) Region FREE UK Universal

Two Mules for Sister Sara [Blu-ray] (Don Siegel, 1969) Region FREE UK Universal

The War Wagon [Blu-ray] (Burt Kennedy, 1967) Region FREE UK Universal

Joe Kidd [Blu-ray] (John Sturges, 1972) Region FREE UK Universal

Home (Muzaffer Özdemir, 2011) R2 UK Verve Pictures

Shell [Blu-ray] (Scott Graham, 2012) RB UK Verve Pictures

Pieta [Blu-ray] (Ki-duk Kim, 2012) Image Entertainment

Graceland [Blu-ray] (Ron Morales, 2012) Image Entertainment

Into the White [Blu-ray] (Petter Næss, 2012) Magnolia

The Fog (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1980) Shout! Factory

Peggy Sue Got Married [Blu-ray] (Francis Ford Coppola, 1986) Image Entertainment

Beautiful Creatures [Blu-ray] (Richard Lagravenese, 2013) Warner

The Incredible Melting Man [Blu-ray] (William Sachs, 1977) Shout! Factory

Creature From the Black Lagoon [Blu-ray] (Jack Arnold, 1954) Universal Studios (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Invisible Man [Blu-ray] (James Whale, 1933) Universal Studios (BEAVER REVIEW)

Phantom of the Opera [Blu-ray] (Arthur Lubin, 1943) Universal Studios (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Mummy [Blu-ray] (Karl Freund, 1932) Universal Studios (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Time Tunnel [Blu-ray] RB UK Revelation Films Ltd

A Hijacking [Blu-ray] (Tobias Lindholm, 2012) RB UK Arrow

Eyes of the Spider / Serpent's Path (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) - R2 UK Third Window Films

The Brides of Dracula [Blu-ray] (Terence Fisher, 1960) RB UK Final Cut Entertainment

The Evil of Frankenstein [Blu-ray] (Freddie Francis, 1964) RB UK Final Cut Entertainment

Knightriders [Blu-ray] (George A. Romero, 1981) Shout! Factory

House On Straw Hill [Blu-ray] (James Kenelm Clarke. 1976) Severin Films

Gattaca [Blu-ray] (Andrew Niccol, 1997) Image Entertainment (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Kentucky Fried Movie [Blu-ray] (John Landis, 1977) Shout! Factory

Warm Bodies [Blu-ray] (Jonathan Levine, 2013) Summit Entertainment

The Shadow [Blu-ray] (Russell Mulcahy, 1994) Universal Studios (BEAVER REVIEW)
 

 

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): Masters of Cinema's Bakumatsu taiyô-den (A Sun-Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era) deserves its description by many as "...the best Japanese film comedy" - a surprising and thoroughly enjoyable experience on Blu-ray. Keeping with Japanese cinema Criterion's Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System represent some important and powerful dramas -a great DVD set. And although I didn't review it (Eric Coetnas did) Polish Cinema Classics Volume II has Wajda, Zanussi and Wojciech Marczewski - it sounds like an amazing package. Back to Blu-ray, McLintock! is a lot of fun and the colors are eye-popping vibrant in 1080P. I seem to be the lone voice that found some appeal in Gangster Squad - the homage attempts had me forgive the weaknesses. Thale, with mythical Norwegian wood nymphs, is short but intriguing and looks brilliant on Blu-ray. George A. Romero's Knightriders is unique from the master director of horror. It involves the conflicts of a medieval re-enactment troupe who joust on motorbikes. I liked it. Hey, have a super week!

  THIS WEEK's REVIEWS / COMPARISONS
 

Polish Cinema Classics Volume II - A second volume of our acclaimed series. Second Run DVD proudly presents three celebrated works of Polish Cinema, now fully restored and released for the first time ever in the UK. Andrzej Wajda PROMISED LAND (Ziemia obiecana, 1974); Voted the best film in the history of Polish cinema in the monthly Polish magazine FILM, Wajda's Oscar-nominated epic Promised Land is a wry, incisive, shocking and elegantly realised Dickensian tale of greed, human cruelty, exploitation and betrayal. Krzysztof Zanussi - ILLUMINATION (Iluminacja, 1973) Zanussi's philosophical/scientific exploration of man's place in the world. Illumination serves as an idiosyncratic, engaging, and insightful fusion of science and art, precision and creativity, intellect and emotion. Wojciech Marczewski - ESCAPE FROM 'LIBERTY' CINEMA (Ucieczka z kina 'Wolnosc', 1990) Marczewski's engaging anti-communist satire (with shades of Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. and Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo) is a darkly comic, complex, allusive and deeply-felt examination of the nature and effects of censorship, directed by one of Poland's leading intellectual - and much censored - filmmakers. DVD Release Date: March 25th, 2013

McLintock! BD - John Wayne's most popular film of the 60s is a broad, boisterous comedy-western loosely based on William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Wayne in his two-fisted best stars as a George Washington Mclintock, a middle-aged cattle baron (John Wayne) who has his hands full with his estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara) - she walked out on him 2 years ago without a word and has returned to get a divorce in order to move back to the east with their daughter, Becky (Stefanie Powers). Verbal fireworks explode, slapstick pratfalls bloom, and the Wayne-O'Hara "reconciliation" culminates with the biggest mud-hole brawl this side of the Mississippi. Patrick Wayne, Yvonne De Carlo, Chill Wills, Strother Martin and Jerry Van Dyke are among the dazzling supporting cast in this wild, raucous and hilarious western. Blu-ray Release date: March 26th, 2013

Thale BD - Two crime-scene cleaners discover a mythical, tailed female creature in a concealed cellar. She never utters a word, unable to tell her story, but the pieces of the puzzle soon come together: she's been held captive for decades for reasons soon to surface… Fun fact: THALE is based on a mythical character in Nordic folklore called the "huldra". According to the myth, a huldra is a beautiful creature with female attributes living deep in the woods. It is said that it seduces men that works in the woods by humming a beautiful song, and they never return to their village. You can recognize a huldra by its cow tail. Blu-ray Release date: April 23rd, 2013

Gangster Squad BD - Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and - if he has his way - every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It's enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop - except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen's world apart. Blu-ray Release date: April 23rd, 2013

Bakumatsu taiyô-den BD - The story is taken from rakugo (a traditional form of “sit-down” comedic narration), and focuses on the craftily versatile character of Saheiji (played by the great comedian, Frankie Sakai), a man-about-town who gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. The ever-resourceful Saheiji makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for his troubles. The women of the establishment start falling for this skilled player, but as with many Kawashima heroes, Saheiji is more intent on escape—from everything, it seems. Many Nikkatsu performers, including Ishihara Yûjirô, postwar Japan’s most popular male star, appear in the film. Blu-ray Release date: April 22nd, 2013

Knightriders BD - Made after the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero's Knightriders is both clearly the work of the same director (there are lots of familiar faces from his other films) and a marked change of tone. There's still plenty of action, but it takes the form of jousting by people wearing full medieval armour... while riding motorbikes. Ed Harris, soon to become a major star, is the leader of a troupe of travelling entertainers trying to live their lives according to the ideals of King Arthur - no easy feat in Reagan's America, where the outside world and its financial realities constantly encroach on their dreams. With a memorably eccentric cast of characters (including make-up effects genius Tom Savini in a major role, and a cameo from novelist Stephen King) and a complex, nuanced script, Knightriders is Romero's warmest and most personal film to date. Blu-ray Release date: April 22nd, 2013

Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System - Following years of a certain radioactive rubber beast’s domination of the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating dives into that fiendish deep end was the short-lived one from Shochiku, a studio better known for its elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens—including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. Shochiku’s outrageous and oozy horror period shows a studio leaping into the unknown, even if only for one brief, bloody moment. DVD Release Date: April 16th, 2013
 

 Next 4 weeks on the Calendar

April 15th, 2013

 

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (Thierry Binisti , 2011) Film Movement

Captured [Blu-ray] (John Krish, 1959) RB UK BFI

Django Unchained [Blu-ray] (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) Weinstein (BEAVER REVIEW)

Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System (The Thick-Walled Room, I Will Buy You, Black River and The Inheritance) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

Empire of Silver [Blu-ray] (Christina Yao, 2009) NeoClassics Films

Girl$: Live Action Movie [Blu-ray] (Kenneth Bi, 2010) Funimation

The Indestructible Man (Jack Pollexfen, 1956) Bayview

Jacob: Unrated Director's Cut [Blu-ray] (Larry Wade Carrell, 2011) Kino Lorber

Jackie Chan: Police Story / Police Story [Blu-ray] - Shout! Factory

A Monster in Paris [Blu-ray] (Bibo Bergeron, 2011) Shout! Factory

Our Daily Bread [Blu-ray] (King Vidor, 1934) Inception

Repo Man [Blu-ray] (Alex Cox, 1984) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984) Criterion

Vulgaria [Blu-ray] (Ho-Cheung Pang, 2012) RB UK Third Window Films

You're Human Like the Rest of Them [Blu-ray] (B.S. Johnson, 1967) RB UK BFI

 

April 22nd, 2012

 

Bakumatsu taiyô - den [Yûzô Kawashima, A Sun - Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era] RB UK Masters of Cinema

Bakumatsu taiyô - den  [Blu-ray] [Yûzô Kawashima, A Sun - Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era] RB UK Masters of Cinema (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Blood on Satan's Claw [Blu-ray] (Piers Haggard, 1971) RB UK Odeon Entertainment

Champion [Blu-ray] (Mark Robson, 1949) Olive Films

The City That Never Sleeps [Blu-ray] (John H. Auer, 1953) Olive Films

Copacabana [Blu-ray] (Alfred E. Green, 1947) Olive Films

The Fighting Seabees [Blu-ray] (Edward Ludwig, 1944) Olive Films

Flirt [Blu-ray] (Hal Hartley, 1995) Olive Films

Gangster Squad [Blu-ray] (Sean Penn, 2012) Warner Home Video (BEAVER REVIEW)

Grapes of Death [Blu-ray] (Jean Rollin, 1978) Redemption

The Impossible [Blu-ray] (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012) Summit Ent.

Jurassic Park 3D [Blu-ray] (Steven Spielberg, 1993) Universal

Knightriders [Blu-ray] (George Romero, 1972) RB UK Arrow Films (BEAVER REVIEW)

Last Summer Won't Happen (Tom Hurwitz, 1968) Icarus Films

Masterpiece Classic: Mr. Selfridge [Blu-ray] (2013) PBS

Meanwhile [Blu-ray] (Hal Hartley, 2011) Olive Films

Night of the Hunted [Blu-ray] (Jean Rollin, 1980) Redemption

La notte [Blu-ray] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961) RB UK Masters of Cinema

Pierre Etaix [Blu-ray] (The Suitor, Yoyo, As Long as You’ve Got Your Health, Le grand amour, Land of Milk and Honey) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

Pierre Etaix (The Suitor, Yoyo, As Long as You’ve Got Your Health, Le grand amour, Land of Milk and Honey) Criterion

The Red Pony [Blu-ray] (Lewis Milestone, 1949) Olive Films

Richard III [Blu-ray] (Laurence Olivier, 1955) Criterion (BEAVER REVIEW)

Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955) Criterion

Sante Fe Stampede [Blu-ray] (George Sherman, 1938) Olive Films

Thale [Blu-ray] (Aleksander Nordaas, 2012) Xlrator (BEAVER REVIEW)

Wake of the Red Witch [Blu-ray] (Edward Ludwig, 1948) Olive Films

War of the Wildcats [Blu-ray] (Albert S. Rogell, 1943) Olive Films

 

April 29th, 2013

 

Au hasard Balthazar [Blu-ray] (Robert Bresson, 1966) R2 UK Artificial Eye

Black Sabbath [Blu-ray] (Mario Bava, 1963) RB UK Arrow Video

Broken City [Blu-ray] (Allen Hughes, 2013) 20th Century Fox

Cloak and Dagger [Blu-ray] (Fritz Lang, 1946) Olive Films

The Complete (EXISTING) Films of SADAO YAMANAKA - R2 UK Masters of Cinema

The Enforcer [Blu-ray] (Bretaigne Windust, 1951) Olive Films

Funny Girl [Blu-ray] (William Wyler, 1968) Sony

Hoodlum Empire [Blu-ray] (Joseph Kane, 1952) Olive Films

Life of Pi - Limited Edition Steelbook (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + UV Copy) (Ang Lee, 2012) RB UK 20th Century Fox

Lifeforce [Blu-ray] (Tobe Hooper, 1985) - Shout! Factory

The Lonely Trail [Blu-ray] (Joseph Kane, 1936) Olive Films

The Men [Blu-ray] (Fred Zinnemann, 1950) Olive Films

The Miracle of the Bells [Blu-ray] (Irving Pichel, 1948) Olive Films

Mouchette [Blu-ray] (Robert Bresson, 1967) RB UK Artificial Eye

Night of the Scarecrow [Blu-ray] (Jeff Burr, 1995) Olive Films

Night Tide: Remastered Edition [Blu-ray] (Curtis Harrington, 1961) Kino

Ozu Collection - The Gangster Films - Walk Cheerfully (1930), That Night's Wife (1930), Dragnet Girl (1933) and A Straightforward Boy (1929) - R2 UK BFI

Pals of the Saddle [Blu-ray] (George Sherman, 1938) Olive Films

Parked [Blu-ray] (Darragh Byrne, 2010) Olive Films

The Revisionaries (Scott Thurman, 2012) Kino Lorber

Silver Linings Playbook [Blu-ray] (David O. Russell, 2012) Weinstein

Three Faces West [Blu-ray] (Bernard Vorhaus, 1940) Olive Films

The Unbelievable Truth [Blu-ray] (Hal Hartley, 1989) Olive Films

The Vampire Lovers [Blu-ray] (Roy Ward Baker, 1970) Shout! Factory

 

 

May 6th, 2013

 

Band of Outsiders [Blu-ray] (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) Criterion Collection

Barrymore [Blu-ray] (Erik Canuel, 2011) Image Entertainment

Billy Liar - 50th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray] (John Schlesinger, 1963) RB UK Studiocanal

The Great Escape [Blu-ray] (John Sturges, 1963) MGM

The Grifters [Blu-ray] (Stephen Frears, 1990) MiraMax

Heaven [Blu-ray] (Tom Tykwer, 2002) MiraMax

In the Name of the Father [Blu-ray] (Jim Sheridan, 1993) Universal

Jack Reacher [Blu-ray] (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012) Paramount

Jesus Christ Superstar [Blu-ray] (Norman Jewison, 1973) Universal Studios

The Verdict [Blu-ray] (Sidney Lumet, 1982) 20th Century Fox
     
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