DVDBeaver Newsletter - May 14th, 2007
Sekoh! - Another whopping newsletter with 18 new reviews this week - 4 comparisons, 2 new Masters of Cinema DVDs and one Criterion - plus strong westerns, noirs, Melville to The Quays, Tex Avery to the Maysles Brothers (I defy you to say we aren't 'eclectic' ;) - plus some very healthy calendar updates.
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Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.
CAREFUL: Initial reports of Cinema Epoch film transfers, Big Road & Queen of Sports, Crossroads & Daybreak, Song at Midnight, Springtime in a Small Town and Street Angel/Twin Sisters are very sub-standard. An example can be found HERE!
LATEST Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!):
NOTEWORTHY:
ENTICING: When we find what specific titles will be represented on Kino's Avant-Garde 2 - we will publish. Stay tuned!
A YEAR FOR MR. MELVILLE: Sterling year for the director on DVD and Masters of Cinema are joining-in with Le Silence de la Mer. Great news!
MORE INGMAR BERGMAN!: Tartan (UK) are publishing two more in June - digitally unreleased (to our knowledge) - The Devil's Eye and Sawdust and Tinsel.
LOTS OF GOOD TITLES - Keep attuned for The Stewart Granger Collection - there are many interesting titles here.
ASIAN CINEMA UNEARTHED: A few more titles coming up - The Taste of Tea, Lady Kung Fu and My Young Auntie. Ohhh and A World Without Thieves.
VINTAGE WESTERN: Sooner rather than later are mid-range entries Gun the Man Down, Fort Courageous and Fury at Furnace Creek.
SODABURGER and CLOONEY AGAIN?: is this another remake? - Hey I admitted I liked 'their' Solaris so I'll give The Good German a spin. Review forthcoming. Cheers Marshall for the heads-up!
'BOUT TIME - I thought Coppola's The Rainmaker was underrated (it did have Teresa Wright!), and although perhaps over-rated - The Verdict - was still an excellent film. I look forward to updated editions of both courtroom dramas. The former really needs a new DVD presence.
INFINITUM: Along with De Palma's Scarface (bare, Platinum, Anniversary, Deluxe alligator skin etc.), Verhoeven
's Robocop - this time the Lenticular Edition - will continue to probe the heights (or depths) of DVD re-editions. NOTE: The term lenticular often refers to a printed image that shows depth or motion as the viewing angle changes.
Gun the Man Down (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1956) 20th Century Fox
Fort Courageous (Lesley Selander, 1965) 20th Century Fox
Fury at Furnace Creek (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1948) 20th Century Fox
Avant-Garde 2 (Films by Brakhage, Markopoulos, Mitry, Vogel, Broughton, Isou, Maas, Menken, Watson, Webber, Leni, Peterson, Kirsanof) Kino Video
The Good German (Steven Soderbergh, 2007) Warner Home Video
A World Without Thieves (Xiaogang Feng, 2004) Genius Products
The Devil's Eye (Ingmar Bergman, 1960) R2 UK - Tartan
Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman, 1953) R2 UK - Tartan
Le Silence de la Mer (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1949) - R2 UK Eureka - Masters of Cinema
The Rainmaker - Special Edition (Francis Ford Coppola, 1997) Paramount Home Video
Blue Planet (IMAX) (Ben Burtt, 1990) [HD DVD] Imax
Blue Planet (IMAX) (Ben Burtt, 1990) [Blu-ray] Imax
The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2003) VIZ Pictures
Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh, 1996) Warner
Lady Kung Fu ( Feng Huang, 1972) Weinstein Company
My Young Auntie (Chia-Liang Liu, 1981) Weinstein Company
The Verdict (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (Sidney Lumet, 1982) 20th Century Fox
Robocop - Lenticular Edition (Paul Verhoeven, 1987) MGM
From Russia With Love - remastered (Terence Young,1964) MGM
The Stewart Granger Collection - Adam and Evelyne, Blanche Fury, Caesar And Cleopatra, Captain Boycott, Fanny By Gaslight, Lamp Still Burns, Love Story, Madonna of The Seven Moons, Magic Bow, Waterloo Road, Woman Hater and Caravan - R2 UK ITV DVD
Becket (Peter Glenville, 1964) MPI Home Video
RECOMMENDATIONS: I won't bore you with too many selections (we had many other reviewers this week so there are a few I haven't seen), but I was smitten with Hell Drivers. Must be the Brit in me. I saw the merit in How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman. The Maysles Bros. films (Salesman and Grey Gardens) are must-own in some digital form. So Proudly We Hail! is also a great film folks, and I personally enjoyed Becket very much. That's it but less enthusiastically I endorse the Stewart western Broken Arrow, and the compilation of cartoons in Tex Avery's Droopy - The Complete Theatrical Collection.
New Reviews:
Hell Drivers (SE) - Energetic and violent
trucking thriller marked by the raw, angry edge of the best of blacklist victim
Endfield's Hollywood work, and by his appreciation (shared, oddly enough, by
fellow exile Joseph Losey) of the markedly out-of-the-mainstream talent of
Stanley Baker. Playing an ex-con hired as one of a team of drivers forced to
drive at dangerous speeds in rattletrap lorries over rugged roads to meet the
daily quota of loads to be delivered (a touch of
The Wages of Fear here), Baker further
becomes involved in a deadly duel with a sadistic rival (McGoohan) on his way to
smashing the haulage company's racket. Baker and Endfield eventually formed
their own production company for
Zulu. DVD Release Date: March 19th,
2007
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman - I can't
say whether this 1971 feature is the best film by Brazilian master Nelson
Pereira dos Santos, the father of Cinema Novo, but it's the first one I saw, and
it left the strongest impression. It describes the complex interactions between
a French adventurer and a Tupinamba Indian tribe and charts a brilliantly comic
and highly ironic ethnographic analysis of both; almost the entire cast is
naked, and the overall message is that probably the only way the Frenchman can
truly be absorbed by the tribe is nutritively. A must-see. DVD Release Date:
May 8th, 2007
Grey Gardens - Grey Gardens is an
intimate documentary portrait of two eccentric and reclusive women (cousins to
the Bouvier family). Edith Beale and her daughter Edie are familiarly know as
"Big" Edie and "Little" Edie. They live together in their quite dilapidated,
garbage-ridden, 28-room house in and amongst a very wealthy area of East
Hampton. Like their other documentaries, the Maysles Brothers (and their
editors- who are often given directing credits) present an absolutely
mesmerizing piece of work here. The Masters of Cinema DVD Release Date was
April 30th, 2007
Broken Arrow - Retired army captain Tom
Jeffords (James Stewart) aids a deadly wounded Apache boy back to life and thus
comes face to face with the more human side of the Apaches. As the war between
the white man and the Apaches now is running on its tenth year, Jeffords
believes that he can make peace by creating a dialogue between the two sides,
thus learns the speak Apache and goes to meet their leader, Cochise (Jeff
Chandler). The Fox DVD Release Date is May 22nd, 2007
Tex Avery's Droopy - The Complete
Theatrical Collection - Droopy, a detective basset hound, lulls the bad guys
into a false sense of security by acting slow and dumb when in actual fact he is
a genius. The shrewd Droopy always outwits his enemies! Droopy Dog was a low-key
animated movie character created by Tex Avery at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1943.
Among the many cartoon characters Avery created are Daffy Duck, Droopy, Screwy
Squirrel and Chilly Willy. Tex Avery is also credited with creating the basic
personality of Bugs Bunny. He was the one who coined the phrase "What's up,
Doc?" DVD Release Date: May 15th, 2007
Unconquered - Cecil B. DeMille's noted
fondness for the good old-fashioned life and for the good old-fashioned way of
making movies out of good old-fashioned stuff has never been manifested in a
franker nor more disarming way than it is in his latest lavish picture,
"Unconquered," which hit the Rivoli yesterday. For here is adventure drama of
the sort that we got in silent films—except that it's done in Technicolor—and
dialogue such as that we used to read. Here is unblushing employment of the
oldest dime-novel clichés. And it will probably reward its producer with a tub
full of good old-fashioned gold. DVD Release Date: May 22nd, 2007
Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
- This two-disc set, in custom packaging, collects 13 of the Quay Brothers'
short films, spanning 24 years, in brand new restored and re-mastered editions
(six of them with new Quay commentaries), plus a collection of 'footnotes'
including interviews, alternative versions, unrealized pilot projects and more.
An accompanying illustrated color booklet features an encyclopedic guide to the
Quays' universe, plus the original illustrated treatment for their best-known
film Street of Crocodiles. DVD Release Date: April 24th, 2007
So Proudly We Hail! - Brimming with all the
patriotic rhetoric typical of war flicks of the time, So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
was nevertheless something of a change of pace for audiences as it followed the
adventures and hardships of a troupe of military nurses through some of the
darkest hours of the war in the Pacific. Told in flashback as the women arrive
home, it takes them from December 1941, with their Hawaii-bound ship diverted to Bataan after the attack on Pearl Harbor, through Corregidor and finally back to
the U.S. about a year later. DVD Release Date: May 22nd, 2007
The Fountain - Only a truly gifted director
can make a movie as flamboyantly bad as The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky's
trippy, swooning triptych about a millennium-spanning quest for the secret of
immortality. Originally planned as an expensive CGI epic to star Brad Pitt and
Cate Blanchett, the film was scuttled several years ago when Pitt, perhaps
belatedly recognizing its toxic pretentiousness, abruptly bailed just weeks
before principal photography. Aronofsky persisted, though, in the time-honored
tradition of filmmakers obsessed with foolhardy, grandiose dream projects,
retooling the script slightly and scaling the budget down to a level
commensurate with his second-string replacement cast, Hugh Jackman and Rachel
Weisz. The result, I must say, doesn't look terribly compromised — at the very
least, it's plenty ponderous enough to confirm one's reluctant suspicion that
some visions are better left unrealized. DVD Release Date: May 15th, 2007
Salesman - A landmark American documentary,
Salesman captures in vivid detail the bygone era of the door-to-door salesman.
While laboring to sell a gold-embossed version of the Good Book, Paul Brennan
and his colleagues target the beleaguered masses—then face the demands of quotas
and the frustrations of life on the road. Following Brennan on his daily rounds,
the Maysles discover a real-life Willy Loman, walking the line from hype to
despair. In a society saturated with reality TV, soundbite analysis, and slickly
produced docu-tainment, Salesman stands tall as one of the first
non-fiction films to show the lives of ordinary people indepth, without
judgement or narration. The Masters of Cinema DVD Release Date was April
30th, 2007
Hammer Film Noir Vol. 4 - "Terror
Street" (1953) - our story has our hero Dan Duryea as the prime suspect
in the murder of his British wife who has been shot ... in this post war film
noir Duryea has only 36 hours to discover in his desperation who is the real
killer and why. Second on the double bill is a Lippert Picture release "Wings
of Danger" (1952) the second film noir is a first timer on DVD, and the
intrigue is nerve-wracking just the way we would want it ... is our leading man
Zachary Scott having bouts with blackouts and what part does the lovely Kay
Kendall play in this twist and turn film noir story ... is Scott's friend Robert
Beatty strong armed into the smuggling game, has he turned up missing ... this
overlooked noir is loaded with suspense and drama, watch Zach Scott take on this
web of smugglers only to find more mystery to this puzzle. DVD Release Date:
December 26, 2006
Hammer Film Noir Vol. 5 - The
Glass Tomb (aka: Glass Cage) (1955) - our story has "The Starving Man:"
with the longest fast undertaken by Sapolio who will go food less for 70 days
... can he do it, or will he be found dead inside his glass cage ... several
murders as the police investigate and our hero John Ireland side steps a
poisoning and kidnapping ... the lovely Honor Blackman appears in the midst of
drama and intrigue within the carnival world ... discover whose behind all of
this and why. Second on the double bill is "Paid to Kill"
(aka: Five Days) (1954) ther story is another thriller - when Dane Clark hires
his best friend to kill him for the insurance money ... why you ask?, so his
wife can be provided for as his business has gone down the tubes ... is the wife
on the up and up, or is she behind an alternative plot to kill her husband.
DVD Release Date: December 26, 2006
Becket - Set in 12th century England and
based on the historical record, "Becket" involves not only questions of
honor and loyalty but also a savage split between best friends, one of whom
happens to be England's king, over the conflicting rights of church and state.
Not exactly an MTV-friendly subject, but there you have it. DVD Release Date:
May 15th, 2007
Army of Shadows - Jean-Pierre Melville’s
masterpiece about the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation went
unreleased in the United States for thirty-seven years, before its triumphant
theatrical debut in 2006. Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is
Melville’s most personal film, featuring Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse,
Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground
fighters who must grapple with their own brand of honor in their battle against
Hitler's regime. The Criterion DVD Release Date is May 15th, 2007
Mysterious Object at Noon - This
masterpiece from new Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul blends fiction and
non-fiction into a new form of cinema previously forged by Hou Hsiao-hsien and
Abbas Kiarostami. For his low-budget, 85-minute, black-and-white film,
Weerasethakul traveled all over Thailand, inviting people to continue the
storyline he has begun about a teacher, her student, and a mysterious boy who
has suddenly appeared and has magic powers. Whenever eager storytellers are not
crowded in the frame tossing out ideas faster than any Hollywood pitch meeting,
Weerasethakul's camera simply follows the day-to-day events of the region --
from fishmongers selling their wares to children playing with a dog.
Britannia Hospital - Whilst it may lack the
iconic vitality of
'If….' (1968) or the cinematic daring of 'O
Lucky Man!' (1973), Lindsay Anderson’s 'Britannia Hospital' (1982) should
nonetheless be regarded as highly as its well-received predecessors in the 'Mick
Travis' trilogy. However, from its première at Cannes – which witnessed a
walk-out by British critics – to the present day, opinion has generally been
slanted against this sideswipe at Thatcherite Britain. Does this opinion fail to
notice the powerful moral questions that lie beneath 'Britannia Hospital''s
caustic exterior? Or does it choose to ignore them?
Because I Said So - "The rules of romantic
comedy dictate a few wrong choices on the way to the right one, an alternation
of giggles, tears and hugs, and ''Because I Said So'' plays cautiously by
the rules. Directed by Michael Lehmann from a script credited to Karen Leigh
Hopkins and Jessie Nelson, it is a mild exercise in deliberate mediocrity, with
chuckles and heartwarming moments distributed as carefully as nuts in a
factory-made brownie. DVD Release Date: 8 May 2007
Manito - The film has been compared to
Mean Streets and has the same driving energy as the 1974 picture. But some
of Scorsese's characters wanted to be criminals--you could see that again in
GoodFellas. The Morales family has had all the crime it wants, thanks to the
father, and wants only to pay the bills, have a party, and see Manito succeed.
Where do the actors come from, who can walk into their first picture and act
with such effortless effect? Franky G. has had three roles since he finished
Manito, in big pictures like The Italian Job, and we'll hear more of him. Leo
Minaya and Jessica Morales have not worked before or since, but what freshness
and truth they bring to their performances. DVD Release Date: March 1st 2007
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of May 14th, 2007
Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) Criterion
The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky 6-disc -(El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando Y) R2 - UK Tartan
Becket (Peter Glenville, 1964) MPI Home Video
Fiorile (Taviani bros., 1993) R2-UK Arrow Films
The Fountain (Widescreen Edition) (Darren Aronofsky, 2006) Warner
Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait (Barbet Schroeder, 1974) R2 UK MoC Eureka Entertainment Ltd
Little Children (Todd Field, 2006) R2 UK Entertainment in Video
Man in the Vault (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1956) R2 UK Paramount Home Entertainment
Pan's Labyrinth (Two-Disc Special Edition) (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) New Line Home Video
Pier Paolo Pasolini Vol.2 (Hawks And Sparrows, Oedipus Rex and Pigsty) Tartan Video
Tex Avery's Droopy - The Complete Theatrical Collection - Warner Home Video
Vengeance Is Mine (Shohei Imamura, 1979) Criterion
Week of May 21st, 2007
The Adventures of Marco Polo (Archie Mayo, 1938) MGM
Ball of Fire (Howard Hawks, 1941) MGM
Black Kiss (Macoto Tezuka, 2004) R2 UK Terra Entertainment
Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950) 20th Century Fox
Can-Can (Walter Lang , 1960) 20th Century Fox
Casanova Brown (Sam Wood, 1944) MGM
The Cowboys: Deluxe Edition (Mark Rydell, 1972) Warner Home Video
Diary of a Lost Girl (Georg Wilhelm Pabst,1929) R2 UK Eureka Masters of Cinema
Encore (Harold French, 1951) - R2 UK - Network
Fort Courageous (Lesley Selander, 1965) 20th Century Fox
From Russia With Love - remastered (Terence Young,1964) MGM
Fury at Furnace Creek (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1948) 20th Century Fox
The Good German (Steven Soderbergh, 2007) Warner Home Video
Gun the Man Down (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1956) 20th Century Fox
Hell & High Water (Samuel Fuller, 1954) 20th Century Fox
The Hills Run Red (Carlo Lizzani, 1966) MGM
The House By The River - 2-disc (Fritz Lang, 1950) - R2 FR Wild Side Vidéo
The Italian (Andrei Kravchuk, 2005) Sony Pictures
The John Wayne Film Collection (Without Reservations / Allegheny Uprising / Tycoon / Reunion in France / Big Jim McCain / Trouble Along the Way)
Katharine Hepburn Collection - On Golden Pond/African Queen/Iron Petticoat/Clive James Interview - R2 UK - ITV DVD
Letters from Iwo Jima (Two-Disc Special Edition) (Clint Eastwood, 2007) Warner
Letters from Iwo Jima (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] (Clint Eastwood, 2007) Warner
Letters from Iwo Jima / Flags of Our Fathers (Five-Disc Commemorative Edition) Warner Home Video
Little Red Flowers (Yuan Zhang, 2006) R2 UK Eureka Entertainment Ltd
No Man of Her Own (Wesley Ruggles, 1932) Universal Studios
On the Riviera (Walter Lang, 1951) 20th Century Fox
Prince of the City (Two-Disc Special Edition) (Sidney Lumet, 1981) Warner Home Video
A Prize of Arms (Cliff Owen, 1962) R2 UK - Odeon Entertainment
Quartet (Ken Annakin, 1948) R2 UK Network
Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel, 2005) Zeitgeist Films
The Return of Sabata (Gianfranco Parolini, 1971) MGM
Rio Bravo: Ultimate Collector's Edition (Howard Hawks, 1959) Warner Home Video
Roots (Four-Disc Collector's Edition) - Warner Home Video
Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954) Criterion
Sabata (Gianfranco Parolini, 1969) MGM
Scarface (Universal Cinema Classics) (Howard Hawks, 1932) Universal Studios
So Proudly We Hail! (Universal Cinema Classics) (Mark Sandrich , 1943) Universal Studios
Steelyard Blues (Alan Myerson, 1973) Warner Home Video
Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard , 1978) Warner Home Video
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) Criterion
Tomorrow at Ten (Lance Comfort, 1964) R2 UK - Odeon Entertainment Ltd
Trio (Ken Annakin, 1950) R2 UK Network
True Grit - Special Collector's Edition (Henry Hathaway, 1969) Paramount Home Video
The Ultimate Matrix Collection [HD DVD] (5-disc) - Warner Home Video
Unconquered (Cecil B. De Mille, 1947) Universal Studios
The Wedding Night (King Vidor, 1935) MGM
White Feather (Robert D. Webb, 1955) 20th Century Fox
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (John Badham, 1981) Warner Home Video
OUR CURRENT 'A" STORES:
- best of vintage TV!SOME REGION FREE DVD PLAYERS TO CONSIDER
SOME OF THE BEST JAPANESE CINEMA ON REGION 1 DVD
54 DVDs TO CONSIDER WHILE SHOPPING AT AMAZON FRANCE (PAL)
SOME OF THE BEST OF 'FRENCH LANGUAGE' CINEMA ON DVD (NTSC)
'BEST OF WORLD CINEMA' on UK (PAL) DVD
BEST OF ITALIAN CINEMA
(on NTSC DVD)
SEE OUR ESSENTIAL CRITERION STORE
- Best of the Best!
SEE OUR ESSENTIAL FILM-NOIR STORE!
Have a great week!,
Cheers,
Gary
P.S. DVD of the Year - 2006 still remains a popular place to peruse.
P.P.S. - Amazon UK sales (all from our TOP 100 LIST!): The Naked Island (Kaneto Shindô, 1960) 45% OFF!, Naruse Box Set Volume One 30% OFF!, Three Colours Blue [Kieslowski, 1993] 38% OFF!, Chungking Express [Wong, 1995] 35% OFF!, Metropolis [Lang, 1927] 45% OFF!, Stalker [Tarkovsky, 1979] 67% OFF!, Last Year At Marienbad [1961] 53% OFF!
STILL: Max Ophuls' DVDs of Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), The Reckless Moment (1949), Le Plaisir (1952) and Madame De... are now 65% OFF! HERE
Brighton Rock [1947] 56% OFF!, The Heart Of The Matter [1953] 63% OFF!, Belle de Jour - 40th Anniversary [1967] 70% OFF!, Europa Europa [1992] 70% OFF!, Vera Drake [2004] 70% OFF!, L'Enfer (2005) 70% OFF!, Détective (1985) 70% OFF!, L'Appartement [1995] 67% OFF!, The Tree of Wooden Clogs [1978] 60% OFF!, Pepi, Luci, Bom [1981] 67% OFF!, The Man Without A Past [2003] 70% OFF!, Goodbye Lenin! [2002] 73% OFF!, A Matter Of Life And Death [1946] 75% OFF!, Wuthering Heights [1939] 66% OFF!, The Deadly Affair [1966] 58% OFF!, The Battle Of The River Plate (Digitally Remastered Edition) [1956] 62% OFF!, The Way Ahead [1944] 60% OFF!, Blithe Spirit [1945] 60% OFF!, The Red Shoes - Plus Documentary [1948] 69% OFF!, Tiger Bay [1959] 66% OFF!, City Lights [1931] 57% OFF!, The Black Windmill [1974] 69% OFF!, The Blue Lamp [1950] 46% OFF!