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The Man From London - The
film is about desire, man’s indestructible longing for a life of
freedom and happiness, about illusions never to be realised –
about things that give all of us energy to continue living, to
go to sleep and get up day after day... Maloin’s story is ours –
all of those who doubt and are able to question our humdrum
existence. DVD Release Date: April 6th, 2009
Enemy at the Gates
BR
- Perhaps you will remember Director Jean-Jacques Annaud from
two of his earlier and more successful movies: Quest for Fire
and The Name of the Rose. Annaud is fond of darkness and
monstrosity, and the actor that has most represented the
director to this end for Annaud has been Ron Perlman. Perlman
has no fewer than 165 separate acting listings in the IMDB – the
second of which was as Amoukar (I didn't remember this guy had a
name) in the relatively mute Quest for Fire of 1981. In 1986 he
was the memorable and hideous Salvatore in The Name of the Rose.
The following year he would be the obvious choice for Vincent in
the TV series Beauty and the Beast which, by the way, brought
Linda Hamilton to everyone's attention.
Blu-ray
Release date: May 19th, 2009
There's Something About Mary
BR
- We first meet the title character (Cameron Diaz) in a
flashback told by the man who has been pining for her since the
night of his high school prom when he got his testicles caught
in his zipper. It’s the sort of event that would stick in
anyone’s mind forever, but for Ted (Ben Stiller) it was just one
highlight in an otherwise pretty dim career – in respect to
women anyhow. It's now a dozen years later and Ted is convinced
by his best friend, Dom (Chris Elliott), to hire a private
detective, the deliciously slimy Healy (Matt Dillon), to check
out Mary's current status in faraway Miami. We are not surprised
when Healy decides to set things up for himself as the suitor
and try to put Ted off the track.
Blu-ray
Release date: May 19th, 2009
The Flowers and the Angry Waves
- Early 20th century Tokyo is brought to life with Suzuki's
trademark editing and extraordinary camerawork in this
swashbuckling historical action yarn. Kikuju, a Yakuza, elopes
with his master's betrothed, with an assassin from his old gang
in hot pursuit. Stirring B-movie fare from this veteran Japanese
director. DVD Release Date: March 26th, 2007
Grease
BR
- The movie was faithful to the time the play celebrated: the
fifties, which may be why Travolta was such an obvious choice,
having made his mark on TV in the mid 1970s as 50s throwback,
Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter - a "Fonzie" clone, to
be sure, but Travolta made the role his own. The movie afforded
some iconic resurrections of its own: Sid Caesar as Coach
Calhoun, Eve Arden as Principal McGee, Joan Blondell as the
Waitress, Edd Byrnes as Vince Fontaine, and Frankie Avalon as
the Teen Angel himself.
Blu-ray
Release date: May 5th, 2009
Field of Dreams
BR
- The director, Phil Alden Robinson, and the writer, W.P.
Kinsella, are dealing with stuff that's close to the heart (it
can't be a coincidence that the author and the hero have the
same last name). They love baseball, and they think it stands
for an earlier, simpler time when professional sports were still
games and not industries. There is a speech in this movie about
baseball that is so simple and true that it is heartbreaking.
And the whole attitude toward the players reflects that
attitude. Why do they come back from the great beyond and play
in this cornfield? Not to make any kind of vast,
earth-shattering statement, but simply to hit a few and field a
few, and remind us of a good and innocent time.
Blu-ray
Release Date: May 26th, 2009
The Graduate
BR
- This comedy is wonderfully crafted by director Nichols who
presents a half-dozen hilarious scenes, including Hoffman
escaping badgering advice by submerging himself in the family
pool in scuba gear and Bancroft's sudden shift from respectable
matron to predatory tease, hiking her skirts lasciviously and
purring promises of smoldering sex which almost put Hoffman into
a comatose state. Nichols was to declare: "I think Benjamin and
Elaine will end up exactly like their parents; that's what I was
trying to say in the last scene." Yet the well-to-do younger
audiences of the day interpreted this sequence of blatant
heroics as a wonderful act of defiance by two young people whose
destinies were being manipulated by their parents.
Blu-ray
Release Date: June 2nd, 2009
The Man With the Golden Gun
BR
- The Man With the Golden Gun was Guy Hamilton's fourth
and final 007 movie. He directed two with Sean Connery:
Goldfinger in 1964 and Diamonds Are Forever in 1971,
and two with Roger Moore, the first, Live and Let Die, came out
in 1973 the year before The Man With the Golden Gun. By this
time, the formula was pretty clear - beautiful girls, exotic
locations, neat stunts, some fisticuffs and a little science
fantasy – the plots are secondary, sometimes they even seem to
get in the way. The Man With the Golden Gun is a subset
of the latter variety where even the girls are underused (though
I admit I'm rather fond of how Maud Adams' character finally
works out.)
Blu-ray
Release date: May 12th, 2009
L'Innocente - Visconti's
last film (he died during the editing phase), L'INNOCENTE
is as opulent as THE LEOPARD (a film it draws comparison
to due to the period setting) with ravishing production values
(all of the Visconti regulars are behind the camera from
Pasqualino de Santis as cinematographer, production designer
Marco Garbuglia, costume designer Piero Tosi, editor Ruggero
Mastroianni, and composer Franco Mannino along with his long
time screenwriting collaborators Suso Cecchi D'Amico and Enrico
Medioli) and its attention not only to period detail but to the
hypocritical social conventions of the day. The result is not a
complete success (there are times when the languid pacing drags
and this study of Italian masculinity and moral hypocrisy really
feels more like a lavish soap opera than cinematic melodrama)
but it is difficult to dismiss the last work of a director like
Visconti. DVD Release Date: March 10, 2009
The Key - After the high
budget SALON KITTY and the Penthouse fiasco CALIGULA,
Brass took creative control over the imaginative 16mm-shot
ACTION before while mounting a couple aborted larger projects
before setting the standard for all of his future output with
THE KEY; although THE KEY more so than the subsequent
productions (with perhaps the exception of SENSO '45/BLACK
ANGEL) successfully skirts the line between arthouse and
softcore erotica thanks to the lead performances, a score by
Ennio Morricone, and a sense of humor that is organic with the
melodramatic aspects of the story. Produced by Giovanni
Bertolucci (on a budget lower than those he raised for his
Visconti pictures), THE KEY has convincing period
production values and Brass conveys his Venice with an intimate
knowledge without skirting on lovely picturesque imagery of the
city. DVD Release Date: August 31, 2004
The Most Dangerous Game -
“One of the best and most literate movies from the great days of
horror,” The Most Dangerous Game stars Leslie Banks as a big
game hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic prey—his
houseguests, played by Fay Wray and Joel McCrea. Before making
history with 1933’s King Kong, filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and
Ernest B. Schoedsack wowed audiences with their chilling
adaptation of this Richard Connell short story. Legend DVD
Release Date: July 1st, 2008
Il Grido - A cinematic
“cry” from one of the most revered of all auteurs, Italian
maestro Michelangelo Antonioni (L’avventura, La notte, Il
deserto rosso) depicts a world of heartbreaking alienation, with
characters riven by trauma, cast against the stunning backdrop
of northern Italy’s Po Valley – where the director spent his
childhood. DVD Release Date: May 25th, 2009
My Winnipeg - If you love
movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should
experience the work of Guy Maddin. If you have never heard of
him, I am not surprised. Now you have. A new Maddin movie
doesn't play in every multiplex, city or state. If you hear of
one opening, seize the day. Or search where obscure films can be
found. You will be plunged into the mind of a man who thinks in
the images of old silent films, disreputable documentaries,
movies that never were, from eras beyond comprehension. His
imagination frees the lurid possibilities of the banal. He
rewrites history; when that fails, he creates it. DVD Release
Date: October 28th, 2008
This Gun For Hire - This is
the film that made Alan Ladd a star. Although director Tuttle
had originally intended to cast Preston in the lead role, he
later decided to hunt for an unknown. When Tuttle was introduced
to Ladd, the director was convinced that the 28-year-old blond
could make the cold-blooded killer Phillip Raven a sympathetic
character. Contracted at $300 per week, Ladd underwent screen
tests, and even had his hair dyed black in keeping with his
character's name. DVD Release Date: February 12th, 2007
Junebug
BR
- Director Phil Morrison has an impeccable eye for detail. His
characters are crafted and speak with a kind of rich attention
to detail that very few filmmakers are able to pull off, and
everything from the paintings that adorn the walls to the way
that characters move around the house, has a genuine poetic
truthfulness to it. A particular standout in a cast of stellar
performances is Amy Adams as the young mom-to-be, who is equally
embarrassed of and embraces her small-town naiveté. Her
performance is subtle piece of mannerist acting that achieves
moments of greatness that seem perfectly in-tune with Angus
MacLachlan’s witty script. With an original soundtrack by Yo La
Tengo and an appearance by Will Oldham, this is a movie of
irresistible appeal, and marks Phil Morrison as a director to
watch out for.
Blu-ray
Release Date: June 22nd, 2009
Torso - After a leisurely
first act peppered with both atmospheric stalk-and-slash
setpieces and some quintessential seventies moments (like the
memorably-scored pot orgy, some skinny-dipping and nude
sunbathing), the film takes a sudden suspenseful turn with a
particularly nail-biting final act. Although the identity of the
killer was rumored to have been withheld from the cast, its
pretty obvious who are the red herrings and who's the killer (as
such, the police procedural element is obligatory and dropped
relatively early). Fortunately, plot is not a necessity in this
late giallo which - along with the following year's BLACK
CHRISTMAS - prefigures the slasher trends of the late
seventies and early eighties.
Licence to Kill
BR
- Licence To Kill was Timothy Dalton's second, and last
movie as 007. Until Pierce Brosnan signed on for Goldeneye,
it resulted in the largest gap (5 years) between Bond films
until Casino Royale. I realize there is a tendency for
some of these movies to blur into one another (there's an
understatement!), but Licence To Kill has to be one of
the strangest and most uneven of all the Bond films in the Eon
canon.
Blu-ray
Release date: May 12, 2009
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