Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF May 30th, 2011

Magandang umaga po!  - Kubrick (2), Carpenter, George Lucas, Dario Argento, Tinto Brass, The Coens, John Frankenheimer and more on Blu-ray with Tarkovsky, a classic Spaghetti Western, Vincente Minnelli (2) on DVD are a few of the selections this week. Our calendar updates have upcoming Blu-ray releases of René Clément, Bernardo Bertolucci, Anh Hung Tran, Ôshima, Skolimowski, Coppola and we have June's Feature DVD and Blu-ray plus A BIG Blue Underground Blu-ray sale (see HERE) another new Criterion Blu-ray prize for this week's contest clip! Au Ag!

FOLLOW US on TWITTER! (where we post important reviews, contests - prizes, calendar updates - plus much more...)

Feature DVD and Blu-ray chosen for June 2011 HERE

Leonard has reviewed the new Oppo BDP-95 Universal audiophile Blu-ray player HERE!

TOOLBAR 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 etailors, Forums (Criterion, Home Theater, AVS, Rotten Tomatoes, Film Noir), IMDb, DVDBasen, Beaver links, Blu-ray information, Cinephile Blogs/Journals (Rosenbaum, Kehr, Acquarello etc.). What do you think? FOR MORE INFORMATION / AVAILABLE HERE *** (We can adjust this to suit popular opinion - on-the-fly - no re-install required!)

May 30 CONTEST - identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win a Sealed NEW Criterion Blu-ray of Les Diaboliques

If there are DVD titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!

Gary at 2ze dot com

The Cat o' Nine Tails BD - Franciscus and Arno are engaging leads (with more chemistry than Franciscus and Spaak but it might be argued that she is supposed to be icy rather than wooden) and the mystery fairly diverting (although it is predicated on the notion of chromosomal imbalance causing psychosis) and amusing (including a Hitchcockian comic car chase and some other humorous bits). While Enrico Menczer's cinematography is not as visually striking (although the Techniscope compositions are nicely composed) as Argento's work with other cinematographers, the murders are striking and Ennio Morricone's main theme "Lullaby in Blue" is a nice compliment to his work on the previous Argento film. Blu-ray Release date: May 31st, 2011

The Stunt Man BD - It defied all odds to become the most unexpected and acclaimed cult hit of the 80s, and it remains one of the most slyly subversive and thrillingly original action/comedy/drama motion pictures of all time. The legendary Peter O'Toole in his iconic Oscar® nominated performance stars as director Eli Cross, a deliciously megalomaniacal madman commanding a film-set circus where a paranoid young veteran (Steve Railsback) finds himself maybe replacing a dead stunt man, possibly falling for the beautiful leading lady (Barbara Hershey), and discovering that love, death and the mayhem of moviemaking can definitely be the wildest illusions of all. Blu-ray Release date: June 7th, 2011

True Grit (2010) BD - Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross's father has been shot in cold blood by the coward Tom Chaney, and she is determined to... bring him to justice. Enlisting the help of a trigger-happy, drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, she sets out with him -- over his objections -- to hunt down Chaney. Her father's blood demands that she pursue the criminal into Indian territory and find him before a Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf catches him and brings him back to Texas for the murder of another man. Blu-ray Release date: June 7th, 2011

Faccia a faccia - Outspoken New England school teacher Fletcher (Gian Maria Volante, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) is forced into retirement by poor health and moves out west to Texas. An act of kindness to captured outlaw Beauregard aka Soloman Bennet (Thomas Milian, DJANGO KILL!) gets Fletcher taken hostage by the wounded man. Rather than letting him die, Fletcher nurses him back to health in his gang's mountain hideout. Charlie Siringo (William Berger, FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON) - whose credentials include several wanted posters - tracks down Bennett and proposes that they get his gang back together, but Bennet suspects the other man of being a Pinkerton detective. DVD Release Date: June 20th, 2011

Biutiful BD - Biutiful is a love story between a father and his children. This is the journey of Uxbal, a conflicted man who struggles... to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona. His livelihood is earned out of bounds, his sacrifices for his children know no bounds. Like life itself, this is a circular tale that ends where it begins. As fate encircles him and thresholds are crossed, a dim, redemptive road brightens, illuminating the inheritances bestowed from father to child, and the paternal guiding hand that navigates life's corridors, whether bright, bad - or biutiful. Blu-ray Release date: May 31st, 2011

Grand Prix BD - Formula I drivers compete to be the best in this slam-you-into-the-driver’s seat tale of speed, spectacle and intertwined personal lives. John Frankenheimer (who 32 years later would again stomp the pedal to the metal for the car chases of Ronin) directs this winner of 3 Academy Awards,* crafting split-screen images to capture the overlapping drama and orchestrating you-are-there POV camerawork to intensify the hard-driving thrills. Nearly 30 top drivers take part in the excitement. Buckle up to race with the best. Blu-ray Release date: May 24th, 2011

Big Jake BD - Everyone seems to think that Jacob McCandles is six-feet under ("I thought you was dead" is a running line throughout), so some bad men kidnap his grandson. They want a piece of the family fortune and will kill to get it. Patrick Wayne, the Duke's own son, plays one of Big Jake's kids, and together they start out after the boy's abductors. Richard Boone makes a worthy adversary to Jake's larger than life figure, and the final confrontation between the two contains some great gritted-teeth dialogue. Maureen O'Hara is barely in the feature, sharing the same fate as Bobby Vinton as the boy's father. He seems to be onscreen just to get shot. Blu-ray Release date: May 31st, 2011

Dead Hooker in a Trunk - This future Troma Films pick-up is the deliberately provocative directorial debut feature of twins Jen and Sylvia Soska. After a hazy night of partying Badass (Sylvia Soska) and her rocker pal Junkie (actress/stunt performer Rikki Gagne, DARK MOON RISING) reluctantly drive Badass' sister Geek (Jen Soska) over to a church to pick up her youth group pal Goodie Two Shoes (C.J. Wallis). When the quartet discover the body of a hooker (Tasha Moth) in the trunk of their car ("with drug... and stuff"), Badass and Junkie are uncertain if they had anything to do with the murder so they decide to get rid of the body. DVD Release Date: May 23rd, 2011

Salon Kitty BD - Captain Wallenberg (Helmut Berger, CONVERSATION PIECE) is assigned the task of training twenty German women for employment in the brothel of Madam Kitty (Ingrid Thulin, WILD STRAWBERRIES). Unbeknown to her, Wallenberg has had her club fitted with listening devices to keep tabs on the loyalties of Nazi soldiers (but Wallenberg also uses it for some blackmail on the side). One of the girls, Margheritia (Teresa Ann Savoy, CALIGULA) falls for Hans (Bekim Fehmiu, THE EXECUTIONER), a soldier who plans to defect. Blu-ray Release Date: May 9th, 2011

Mirror - Mirror (Russian title 'Zerkalo') from 1975, is Tarkovsky's fourth of seven feature films. It has relevancy being numerically "central" in his oeuvre also marking itself as, by the director's own account, 'My most openly autobiographical, daring, and self-revealing film'. Infused with dense, personal references from memory and an inaccessible use of time, space and performances, this is considered the director most artistically bold work being steeped in layered constructions. In examining his entire body of work this tends to be a catalyst of his vision of transcendency. Tarkovsky Collection DVD Release Date: May 23rd, 2011

Barry Lyndon BD - How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century English nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) the answer is: any way he can! His climb to wealth and privilege is the enthralling focus of this sumptuous Stanley Kubrick version of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel. For this ravishing, slyly satiric winner of 4 Academy Awards, Kubrick found inspiration in the works of the era’s painters. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era’s designs and pioneering lenses were developed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. The result is a cutting-edge movie bringing a historical period to vivid screen life like no other film before or since. Blu-ray Release date: May 31st, 2011

American Graffiti BD - From director George Lucas (Star Wars) and producer Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) American Graffiti is a classic coming-of-age story set against the 1960s backdrop of hot rods drive-ins and rock n’ roll. Starring Ron Howard Richard Dreyfuss Harrison Ford Cindy Williams Mackenzie Phillips and Suzanne Somers in their breakout roles this nostalgic look back follows a group of teenagers as they cruise the streets on their last summer night before college. Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director American Graffiti features the howling sounds of Wolfman Jack and an unforgettable soundtrack with songs by Buddy Holly Chuck Berry The Beach Boys and Bill Haley & His Comets. Blu-ray Release date: May 31st, 2011

Two Weeks in Another Town - In 1952, star Kirk Douglas, director Vincente Minnelli, producer John Houseman and screenwriter Charles Schnee teamed for what many consider the greatest drama ever made about Hollywood: The Bad and the Beautiful. Ten years later, they took another powerful insider’s look at the movie business, this time adapting a book by Irwin Shaw. Douglas portrays has-been screen idol Jack Andrus. Just out of a sanitarium, Jack grabs at a small role in a movie shot in Rome by a director (Edward G. Robinson) whose career is also on the skids. When the director falls ill, Jack takes over, realizing this is his last shot at personal and professional redemption. Trenchant, confrontational, intensified by Minnelli’s genius for color, Two Weeks in Another Town captures the passion of creative people facing the abyss. DVD Release Date: January 18th, 2011

The Cobweb - Step inside “the Castle,” a large private psychiatric facility. Here, Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) devotes night and day to his profession while neglecting his pining, voluptuous wife (Gloria Grahame). A colleague (Charles Boyer) with a fondness for booze and a pretty face seeks to comfort the wife. Now add Lauren Bacall, Lillian Gish, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg, Oscar Levant and subplots of love, life and derangement and you have the entanglements of The Cobweb. Some critics gleefully skewered the film’s labored storyline about patient involvement in the choice of library draperies, but pay no heed. With its top cast and Vincente Minnelli’s command of color and melodrama, this film is popcorn for fans of soaps. DVD Release Date: January 18th, 2011

A Man Called Horse BD - A Man Called Horse is a rare piece of historical drama directed by Elliot Silverstein. Minor flaws in the style and storyline do not mar its documentary-like feel. The film's crew went to great lengths to reference every detail of Sioux life and culture, which was validated by Clyde Dollar, a Sioux historian-archaeologist. The outcome is impressive. Meshed with the storyline of the film is an ambitious attempt at anthropological reporting. We view an organized system of beliefs, traditions, and customs characteristic of daily life amongst the Sioux. We are challenged to respond with the British aristocrat to their unusual rituals as well. This fascinating film deserves many viewings to fully absorb its many insights. Blu-ray Release Date: May 31st, 2011

The Frankenstein Syndrome - Dr. Elizabeth Barnes (Tiffany Sheppis, NIGHTMARE MAN) is recruited by the mysterious Prometheus Project, funded by cancer-striken Walton (Ed Lauter, LEAVING LAS VEGAS), in order to do illegal but beneficial stem-cell development research towards developing a stem-cell serum. Little does she know that the embryonic cells are being extracted on-site from illegals, runaways, and addicts living in the basement of the 300-room top-secret research site. Elizabeth immediately clashes with head of research Victoria Travelle (Patti Tindall, THE GRAVES) when she criticizes her methods and suggests a more radical experimental path. DVD Release Date: July 5th, 2011

Prince of Darkness - When the guardian priest of a derelict Los Angeles church dies before his meeting with the local bishop, Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance, HALLOWEEN) comes across a diary and a key that lead to the discovery of an eons-old cannister in the church's basement. Horrified by the revelations in the diary and an ancient, previously-unknown scripture, he appeals to physicist Howard Birack (Victor Wong, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) to investigate the canister. He assembles a team of physicists and top graduate students who arrive at the church under the watchful eyes of the sinister street people (lead by rocker Alice Cooper). DVD Release Date: October 7th, 2003

Who Can Kill a Child? - Biologist Tom (Lewis Fiander, DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE) and his pregnant wife Evelyn (Prunella Ransome, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD) arrive in Spain for a planned holiday on the remote island of Almanzora. Unbeknownst to them, a few bodies have washed up on the mainland and the causes of death are unnatural. The couple rent a boat and sail to the mainland, only to discover the village deserted except for the children. Assuming that the adults must be on the other side of the island for some religious ceremony, they make themselves at home in the local inn. It is only when Tom sees a little girl (Marian Salgado) thrashing a helpless old man with his own cane, that he and Evelyn realize that there is something more sinister afoot. DVD Release Date: June 26th, 2007

A Clockwork Orange BD - Everything about A Clockwork Orange from the casting to the near-future set designs suggest that Stanley Kubrick was at the height of his creative power during this time. If, in fact, you are aware of the initial reaction to the film, Kubrick's mastery of his craft may have been too effective. He wound up voluntarily withdrawing the film from circulation in the UK in 1974 after the movie was blamed on a copycat murder and he and his wife received death threats. It was not re-released in England until after his death in 2000. 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Release Date: May 31st, 2011
 

 Next 4 weeks on the Calendar