DVDBeaver Newsletter - April 20th, 2009
dia duit! - 14 new reviews this past week. Criterions, THE TV sci-fi series, THE spaghetti western and some other very recommendable titles! There is a healthy sale of Criterions and some new Calendar Updates, a contest and more....
NOTE: If there are DVD titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!
SALE ON SOME CRITERIONs at AMAZON (Blu, Pre-order and others): - El Norte [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The 400 Blows [Blu-ray] (45% OFF!), The Last Emperor [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The Man Who Fell to Earth [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), Ace in the Hole (37% OFF!), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (35% OFF!), Last Year at Marienbad [Blu-ray] (32% OFF!), Wages of Fear [Blu-ray] (32% OFF!), The Seventh Seal [Blu-ray] (32% OFF!), Drunken Angel (32% OFF!), Alexander Korda's Private Lives (25% OFF!), The Third Man [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), Chungking Express [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The Last Metro [Blu-ray] (32% OFF!), Bottle Rocket [Blu-ray] (35% OFF!), Empire of Passion (27% OFF!)
Momitsu BDP-899 - Region FREE Blu-ray Player - advertised as the World's first truly region free Blu-ray and DVD player. See the Beaver scoop on this new product.
ARTIFICIAL EYE SALE STILL ON - UP To 70% OFF HERESALES: US Blu-ray up to 48% OFF UK Blu-ray 2 for 3 SALE Amazon France Blu-ray SALE (BUY 1 get 1 FREE!)
APRIL 20th CONTEST - identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win brand new sealed 4-disc Batman Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray - Best of luck all!
NEW BUTTONS ADDED! (you spoke - we listened) - THE 'DVDBeaver Toolbar'! Give it a test drive! I've created a very simple toolbar for Film-Fans/DVD-o-philes/cinephiles. It embeds effortlessly within Internet Explorer 5.0+ (Windows Vista/XP/2000) and Firefox 1.0.1+ (Windows, Mac, Linux). It offers quick links to Searching both the Net (via Google) and DVDBeaver directly, Amazons, Asian e-tailors, Forums (Criterion, Home Theater, AVS, Rotten Tomatoes, Film Noir), IMdb, DVDBasen, Beaver links, Cinephile Blogs/Journals (Rosenbaum, Kehr, Acquarello etc.). What do you think? FOR MORE INFORMATION / DOWNLOAD SEE HERE *** (We can adjust this to suit popular opinion - on-the-fly - no re-install required!)
BIG THANKS!: DVDBeaver would not exist without the support of many patrons - those who generously donate, and especially those who use our Amazon, CD Japan and YesAsia links. That's it. When you go to Amazon - PLEASE use one of our links to get there (they are on every page - top and bottom - and we have 5000 webpages). It costs you absolutely nothing and we get a small commission on items you purchase. This helps pay our bills - in fact it's the only thing that pays our bills.
STRATEGIES: The best way to take full advantage of Amazon is to use PRE-ORDERs - lock in at the discount price by ORDERING - if perchance you decide against the purchase you have until the release date to cancel - at no charge.
AND if you will purchase more than 35 DVDs (or anything) in a 365 day period (and live in the Continental US) it makes excellent financial sense to subscribe to Amazon Prime! You will get Free 2-day shipping on your purchases!
BLU-RAY STORE HIGH DEFINITION DVD STORE ALL OUR Blu-Ray REVIEWS
Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.
July Criterions - LATEST Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER and save!):
For All Mankind (Al Reinert, 1989) - Criterion Collection
For All Mankind [Blu-ray] (Al Reinert, 1989) - Criterion Collection
The Human Condition - 4-disc (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959) - Criterion Collection
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) - Criterion Collection
Repulsion [Blu-ray] (Roman Polanski, 1965) - Criterion Collection
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) - Criterion Collection
NEW REVIEWS:
ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): I don't know that I have only one 'best of the week' recommendation as I saw so much... but I'd definitely lean to the Criterion DVD of Oshima's Empire of Passion in the top three along with Pasta pardners' The Good, the Bad and the Ugly BR and nostalgic/iconic Star Trek: The Original Series Season One BR rounding out the Trifecta. Of course, this leaves out Science is Fiction - which probably has a more narrow range of appeal and while not for everyone I was very glad I invested the time to see it. Good films? - Heck - The Reader BR, Frost / Nixon BR, Elegy BR, and Sin City BR are all entertaining cinema in their own spheres. I'm also keen on The Hairdresser's Husband after Eric's review. Maybe Derby too.
New Reviews:
Point of No Return BR
- The
government employs two teachers: the one who breathes new purpose for living
(namely, killing, and all the supportive technologies that attend thereto) and
the other who teaches her to do it with style. In both movies, the first teacher
– both named "Bob" - (Tcheky Karyo and Gabriel Byrne) fall reluctantly in love
with their creations. The second teacher remains more in the background, more
elusive. Blu-ray Release date: April 7th, 2009
The Hairdresser's Husband - Jean Rochefort plays Antoine, an older man with a
fetish for getting his hair cut due to a pubescent crush he had on a hairdresser
as a child. As an adult, he becomes infatuated with gorgeous hairdresser
Mathilde (Anna Galiena). Although Antoine’s father has drilled into him that
“women are like crosswords; the harder to get, the sweeter they are,” Mathilde
does not require much pursuing to get her to wed Antoine. Severin DVD Release
Date: April 28, 2009
Derby - Robert Kaylor intended to shoot a simple documentary on roller derby but
then found his focus in 23 year old Dayton Tire and Rubber employee Mike Snell
who aspires to become the next roller derby sensation. Kaylor follows Snell -
who wants to quit his job and train for the roller derby on the west coast even
though his income supports his wife, child, brother, and parents - and his
mentor Charley O'Connell whose material success inspires Snell. Snell's wife is
supportive (it almost seems like she would rather he busy himself with the
roller derby than allegedly fool around with a local go-go dancer). Although the
outfits look corny and the fans outright bizarre, Kaylor's DERBY makes the sport
look downright brutal (especially when the camera takes to the track itself)
with some painful collisions, clotheslines, some pro hockey-level scuffles, as
well as talk of drinks spiked with acid or glass frozen into ice cubs. DVD
Release Date: February 17th, 2009
Running Hot - Eric Stoltz plays Danny, a young man convicted and sentenced to
death for the murder of his father (actually committed by his sister). A
stripper Charlene aka Lucky 13 (Monica Carrico) falls in love with him from afar
and writes to him in prison. When Danny makes a daring escape and shows up on
her door, the two tragic lovers take to the road on the run from a relentless
cop Trent (Stuart Margolin) who of course will stop at nothing to recapture
Danny. DVD Release Date: February 24th, 2009
Star Trek: The Original Series Season One BR
- When Star Trek debuted on NBC in
1966, it was not an immediate hit; ratings were low and advertising revenue was
lackluster. Even prior to the end of the first season of Star Trek, there were
already calls in the network for the cancellation of the series due to its low
Nielsen ratings. Bay area Creature Feature host John Stanley in his memoir I Was
a TV Horror Host relates how Desilu head Lucille Ball at that time
"single-handedly kept Star Trek from being dumped from the NBC-TV lineup."
Blu-ray Release date: April 28th, 2009
Reindeer Games BR
- There's a scene not far into the movie where Rudy (Affleck)
and Ashley (Theron) are getting acquainted at a roadside café. Rudy has just
finished a five-year stretch for auto theft. Ashley has been a pen pal to Rudy's
cellmate, Nick (James Frain) for long enough for Rudy to fall in love with her.
When Nick falls victim in a knife fight, Rudy decides to take his place once
outside and connect with the girl of both their dreams.
Blu-ray Release date:
April 7th, 2009
Frost / Nixon BR
- Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" is a somewhat fictionalized version
of the famous 1977 interviews, all the more effective in taking the point of
view of the outsider, the "lightweight" celebrity interviewer, then in his own
exile in Australia. Precisely because David Frost (Michael Sheen) was at a low
ebb professionally and had gambled all his money on the interviews, his POV
enhances and deepens the shadows around Nixon (Frank Langella). This story could
not have been told from Nixon's POV because we would not have cared about Frost.
Blu-ray Release date: April 21st, 2009
Final Destination BR
- Young Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) is all geared up to join
some forty other classmates for his high school sponsored holiday in Paris. Wow!
Problem is that Alex has visions, waking dreams, premonitions of disaster that
become all the more intense just after boarding the plane. Next thing you know
he's Charles Grodin in Midnight Run, hysterically screaming that the plane is
headed for a fall. A fight breaks out with his chronic nemesis, Carter Horton
(Kerr Smith) and both kids are escorted off the plane along with a few of their
buddies and a teacher or two. Blu-ray Release date: April 7th, 2009
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly BR
- Arguable one of the best Westerns ever made,
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” is Leone’s first masterpiece. Having invented
the spaghetti-western a few years prior by virtually copying Akira Kurosawa’s
“Yojimbo” frame by frame as “A Fistful of Dollars” to such a degree that Toho
sued him, Leone used the spaghetti-western as a form to attack the, in Leone’s
opinion, dominating morality of American Puritanism. Blu-ray Release Date: April
15th, 2009
Elegy BR
- While Elegy contains its share of universal themes, this is first and
foremost the story of a man and how he copes with encountering late in life
something that is new and terrifying for him. His voiceover informs us from the
beginning that things aren't going to end happily but, even forewarned, it is
compelling to watch how the narrative unfolds. Coixet has given us a rich
character study with as much depth as breadth. This is an offering for mature
viewers thrown out amidst a sea of summer flotsam. The title, Elegy, is perfect
for the material. There is much tragedy and truth in what the makers of this
movie have brought to the screen. Blu-ray Release Date: March 16th, 2009
The Reader BR
- The Reader tells the journey of Michael Berg (David Kross) who
leaves home in his way, as teenage boys will do, engaged in a secret love affair
– in his case, with a much older woman. The woman, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet),
is working class, unlike Michael, and lives alone in a very circumscribed life.
Hanna appears to be psychologically damaged. Needy and strong by turns, she
takes pains to keep Michael at a distance. She also takes a curious and
extraordinary pleasure in Michael's reading to her from the books he studies in
school. Their affair lasts little more than a summer when she suddenly leaves
town and Michael without a word. Blu-ray Release Date: April 28th 2009
Empire of Passion - With an arresting mix of eroticism and horror, Oshima
plunges the viewer into a nightmarish tale of guilt and retribution in Empire of
Passion (Ai no borei). Set in a Japanese village at the end of the nineteenth
century, the film details the emotional and physical downfall of a married woman
and her younger lover following their decision to murder her husband and dump
his body in a well. Empire of Passion was Oshima’s only true kaidan (Japanese
ghost story), and the film, a savage, unrelenting experience, earned him the
best director award at the Cannes Film Festival. DVD Release Date: April 28th,
2009
Sin City BR
- A few strands of melodrama have been pulled from Frank Miller's
graphic novels and plaited together-just about-into a coherent comic-strip film.
Miller himself co-directs, in collaboration with Robert Rodriguez (plus a little
help from Quentin Tarantino), and there is certainly no letup, or pulled
punches, in the heightening of style. The movie is in monochrome, splashed with
occasional color, and the sheer force of overkill-the ear-crunching sound level,
the disturbingly joyful violence-turns a sequence of horrific events into a
stream of unfeeling comedy. Blu-ray Release date: April 21st, 2009
Science is Fiction - Jean Painlevé was a film director, critic, theorist, and
animator, yet his interests and studies also extended to mathematics, medicine,
and zoology. Amazingly, all these disparate strands came together in a
groundbreaking, decades-spanning artistic career. Operating under the credo:
Science is fiction, Painlevé forged his own unique cinematic path, creating
countless short films for both the viewing public and the scientific community.
Moreover, he was also one of the first filmmakers to take his camera underwater.
Surreal, otherworldly documents of marine life, these films transformed sea
horses, octopi, and mollusks into delicate dancers in their own floating
ballets. This anthology features twenty-three of Painlevé's shorts in their
original form, as well as Yo La Tengo's ninety-minute original score The Sounds
of Science, written in 2001 to accompany eight of the director's films. DVD
Release Date: April 21st, 2009
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of April 20th, 2009
(Mark Freiburger, 2007) Starz / Anchor BayUne femme mariée: Suite de fragments d'un film tourné en 1964 (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) R2 UK Masters of Cinema
Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008) Universal
Studios
Frost/Nixon [
La Gueule ouverte (Maurice Pialat, 1974) R2 UK Masters of Cinema
Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé - Criterion
Sin City [Blu-ray] (Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, 2005) Dimension
The Wages of Fear [Blu-ray] (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953) Criterion
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)
Fox Searchlight
The Wrestler [Blu-ray]
(Darren Aronofsky, 2008) Fox Searchlight
X-Men [Blu-ray]
(Bryan Singer, 2000) 20th Century Fox
X2: X-Men United [Blu-ray]
(Bryan Singer, 2003) 20th Century Fox
X-Men 3: The Last Stand [Blu-ray]
(Brett Ratner, 2006) 20th Century Fox
X-Men: Trilogy [Blu-ray] 20th Century Fox
Week of April 27th, 2009
Alain Resnais: A Decade in Film
(4-disc) - Kino VideoArabian Nights (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974) R'B' Bfi Video
Arabian Nights [Blu-ray] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974) R'B' Bfi Video
Bad Jim (Clyde Ware, 1990) R2 UK Optimum
Barbara Frietchie (Lambert Hillyer, 1924) Televista
Barquero (Gordon Douglas, 1970) R2 UK Optimum
The Canterbury Tales (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1972) R'B' Bfi Video
The Canterbury Tales [Blu-ray] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1972) R'B' Bfi Video
The Da Vinci Code [Blu-ray] (Ron Howard , 2006) Sony Pictures
The Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971) R 'B' Bfi Video
The Decameron [Blu-ray] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971) R 'B' Bfi Video
Empire of Passion (Nagisa Oshima, 1978) - Criterion
Fast Company [Blu-ray] (David Cronenberg, 1979) Blue Underground
Gardens In Autumn (Otar Iosseliani, 2006) R2 UK Artificial Eye
The Glory Guys (Arnold Laven, 1965) R2 UK Optimum
The Gunfight at Dodge City (Joseph M. Newman, 1959) R2 UK Optimum
The Hit (Stephen Frears, 1984) Criterion
In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa
Oshima, 1976) Criterion
In the Realm of the Senses [Blu-ray]
(Nagisa Oshima, 1976) Criterion
JCVD [Blu-ray] (Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008) Peace Arch Home Entertainment
The King and Four Queens (Raoul Walsh, 1956) R2 UK Optimum
The Palm d'Or Collection (Four Months Three Weeks And Two Days, Underground and L'enfant) - R2 UK Artificial Eye
The Reader [Blu-ray] (Stephen Daldry, 2008) Weinstein
Sometimes a Great Notion (Paul Newman, 1971) R2 UK Optimum
Spring and Port Wine (Peter Hammond, 1970) R2 UK Optimum
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] - Paramount
What Doesn't Kill You (Brian Goodman, 2008) Sony Pictures
[Blu-ray] (Brian Goodman, 2008) Sony Pictures"Our
life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." -
Henry David Thoreau
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine, the sun shine innnn...
Gary