Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF June 3rd, 2019

Podcast interview with Gary Tooze of DVDBeaver HERE.

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Om swastyastu! A decent week of reviewed Blu-rays by Studio Canal, Kino, Shout! Factory, Warner, Twilight Time, Sony, Koch Media, Flicker Alley, Arrow,... of films directed by David Lynch, Joseph Losey, Ridley Scott, Edward Dmytryk, Franklin J. Schaffner, Paul Verhoeven, Joel Schumacher, Paul Leni, John Farrow, Roy Del Ruth and others. Our Calendar has new updates of films-to-Blu-ray by directors Alfred Hitchcock, Marcel Carné, Jacques Becker, King Vidor, Francis Ford Coppola, Billy Wilder, André De Toth, William Beaudine, Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., Stuart Rosenberg, Jack Smight, Oliver Stone, John Woo, Jafar Panahi and more. We also have our Feature Blu-ray and 4K UHD posted for JUNE Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

Cinema of Japan, Discs of the Year for 2018, The TOP 100 DISCS, Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, HAGSPloitation, BLAXPloitation, OZPloitation, 'WOMEN IN PRISON' CINEMA, CREATURE-FEATURES (on Blu-ray!), PRE-CODE FILMs (on Blu-ray!), SILENT ERA FILMs (on Blu-ray!), HAMMER Studios (on Blu-ray!) The 100 BEST Neo-Noirs (on Blu-ray!), The GREATEST 100 Westerns (on Blu-ray!), Giallo on Blu-ray!, ESSENTIAL NOIR on Blu-ray!, Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.FR (France), Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.DE (Germany) and our LATEST ARTICLES: Movies From... the End of the World,  The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

Feature Blu-ray and 4K UHD chosen for the Month of JUNE!

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NOTE: If there are DVD or Blu-ray titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!

Gary at 2ze dot com

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made and is totally deserved of having the 'Final Cut' reach 4K UHD where it looks, by far, it's best for home theatre consumption. We've fully compared it with extra screen captures for Patrons. Paul Leni's inspirational The Man Who Laughs is on Blu-ray from Flicker Alley and the baroque horror/romance is a must-see in 1080P. I think David Lynch's The Straight Story is absolutely wonderful - and finally a reasonable Blu-ray option other then the out-of-print and pricey Japanese edition. John Farrow's The Big Clock on Blu-ray from Arrow has the essential noir thriller offered with an Adrian Martin commentary and other extras - a must-own. Joseph Losey's Boom is an odd-duck enigma - a bomb at the box office that still can't diminish the star power of Taylor and Burton that maintains a unique level of delightfulness - on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. One of my personal more 're-watchable' films Franklin J. Schaffner's The Boys From Brazil has an amazing concept with the over-the-top performances from Peck and Olivier finally gets a dual-layered Blu-ray release from Koch in Germany. The Alligator People is always fun and Shout! Factory adds to the value with a new commentary to match the stellar image on their Blu-ray. Appreciation for Paul Verhoeven's brand of eroticism in Hollow Man has grown and we re-visited the Blu-ray hoping it will come to 4K one day. Top-tier western, Edward Dmytryk's Warlock, has Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn - nu'ff said on improved Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Easy to enjoy the talent of Cate Blanchett in the riveting bio-thriller, Veronica Guerin now on Blu-ray from Kino. They Might Be Giants has a wealthy, retired judge (George C. Scott), convinced he is Sherlock Holmes treated by a female doctor (Joanne Woodward) who happens to be named Watson. The Blu-ray offers a commentary.

"Life is a secret lease from God and we should not allow ourselves to be bruised. Family life is our strength and success.." Joseph Losey

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The Straight Story BD - David Lynch offers an uncharacteristically straightforward and warmly sentimental approach to his material in this film, based on a true story, about an elderly man's journey to reconcile with his brother. Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is an ailing widower in his early 70's who lives in Laurens, Iowa with his daughter, Rose (Sissy Spacek), who is mildly retarded and has a speech defect. Alvin doesn't trust doctors, despite suffering from emphysema and a bad hip. Alvin learns that his brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) has suffered a stroke and may not have long to live. Alvin and Lyle haven't spoken in 10 years, which Alvin says is mainly a matter of pride and alcohol; Alvin wants to clear his slate with his brother before it's too late. Blu-ray Release Date: January 11th, 2018

Blade Runner 4K UHD - Visually spectacular, intensely action-packed and powerfully prophetic since its debut, Blade Runner dazzles in Ridley Scott's definitive Final Cut, including extended scenes and special effects. In a signature role as 21st-century detective Rick Deckard, Harrison Ford bring his masculine-yet-vulnerable presence to this stylish noir thriller. In a future of high-tech possibility soured by urban and social decay, Deckard hunts for fugitive, murderous replicants - and is drawn to a mystery woman whose secrets may undermine his soul. 4K UHD Release Date: September 5th, 2017

Warlock BD - A remarkable adult Western directed by Edward Dmytryk, starring Henry Fonda as a murderous gunslinger hired to rid a frontier town of a gang of troublemakers. Meanwhile, a onetime black hat, played by Richard Widmark, takes on the more formal job of sheriff, and finds himself dealing with both the cowboy gang and the gunslinger. Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone co-star, backed by a villainous crew of superlative character actors. Shot by the great Joe MacDonald (My Darling Clementine), and featuring a score from Leigh Harline. Blu-ray Release Date: May, 2019

The Boys From Brazil BD - This film of Ira Levin's novel The Boys from Brazil wastes no time in establishing the fact that several seemingly unrelated men have been mysteriously murdered. Elderly Jewish Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), brought into the case when the clues seem to point to a neo-fascist plot, traces the trail of evidence to Paraguay. Here he finds an unregenerate Auschwitz doctor, patterned on Joseph Mengele and played by -- of all people -- Gregory Peck. Lieberman discovers that the murdered men had all fathered sons who were identical -- the results of a cloning experiment, designed to create a race of incipient Hitlers. Blu-ray Release Date: November 8th, 2018

The Man Who Laughs BD - Masterfully directed by Paul Leni, The Man Who Laughs marks Leni's penultimate work. Having grown up in Germany during the era of Expressionism, Leni embraces haunting characters, twisted sets, harsh angles, and deep shadows. Heralded as one of the best American silents emulating German Expressionism, The Man Who Laughs presents Leni at his creative directorial peak. Originally released silent, the film was enough of a hit for Universal in 1928 that the studio released it with a synched musical score using the Movietone sound-on-film process. Blu-ray Release Date: June 4th, 2019

The Big Clock BD - Excellent noir thriller in which crime-journalist Milland, innocently involved with a girl subsequently murdered by his megalomaniac boss Laughton, is then commissioned by Laughton to find the culprit. When he himself becomes the framed suspect, the trap seems closed... With strong performances (especially Laughton as the gross, sexually insecure tycoon, confident in his ability to control the law through his wealth and status), the film also delights through Farrow's evocative direction: the newspaper conglomerate's enormous clock indicating not only the race against time but also the inhumanly inflexible world in which the action takes place; the phallic ornament with which the impotent murderer kills his mocking mistress; and John Seitz's marvellous high contrast photography, portraying a world of isolation in which nothing is as it seems. Arrow Blu-ray Release Date: May 14th, 2019

Boom BD - Cinema icons (and twice-married couple) Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton light up the screen in what acclaimed playwright Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire) described as the best film adaptation of his work he’d ever seen. Sissy Goforth (Taylor), the world’s richest woman, has retired to her lavish island estate to dictate her memoirs. Her reclusive lifestyle is thrown into upheaval when roguish poet Chris Flanders (Burton) washes up on her beach. With the mysterious habit of calling upon a lady one step before the undertaker, Flanders has become known as "The Angel Of Death", but an undaunted Goforth opts to tempt fate when she chooses to take Flanders as her next and last lover. Blu-ray Release Date: May 28th, 2019

The Alligator People BD - Newly married nurse Joyce Webster (Beverly Garland) doesn't know what to think when her husband, Paul (Richard Crane), disappears during a train ride. She hires private investigators and eventually tracks him to an old bayou plantation, where the owner (Frieda Inescort) insists she's never heard of Paul. Joyce sticks around anyway and soon learns that local doctor Mark Sinclair (George Macready) has been using a life-altering alligator serum on the town's residents, and that Paul is among them. Shout! Factory Blu-ray Release date: May 28th, 2019

Hollow Man BD - Sebastian Caine heads a top-secret research project to unlock the secret of invisibility. When the formula works successfully on animals, an ecstatic Caine recklessly disobeys orders and experiments on himself. Unfortunately, the dangerous gamble goes terribly wrong when the procedure cannot be reversed. Caine and his chief lieutenants Linda McKay and Matt Kensington, frantically attempt to counteract the effect. But the invisible Caine, fueled by latent megalomaniac tendencies, quickly becomes intoxicated with his newfound power. The laboratory becomes a house divided as the scientists realize their suddenly omnipotent leader perceives them as a threat to his very existence. Blu-ray Release date: October 16th, 2007

They Might Be Giants BD - George C. Scott stars as Justin Playfair, a retired, widowed judge who labors under the delusion that he's Sherlock Holmes. Feigning concern, Playfair's greedy brother Blevins (Lester Rawlins) hires psychologist Dr. Mildred Watson (Joanne Woodward) to certify that Justin is insane--and in so doing gain control of the judge's millions. Instead, Dr. Watson is drawn into Playfair's dream world, accompanying the judge on his quest to find the elusive (and imaginary) Professor Moriarty. Reality rears its head when a group of vicious blackmailers, to whom Blevins is deeply in debt, attempt to assassinate brother Justin. Blu-ray Release Date: June 11th, 2019

Veronica Guerin BD - Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher take on the real-life story of an assassinated Irish journalist in the dramatic thriller Veronica Guerin. Cate Blanchett appears as the title character, a relentless crime reporter for The Sunday Independent during the early '90s. Guerin's violent murder in 1996 led to a revision of Ireland's laws and the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau. The movie picks up with her pursuit of the underground drug trade in Dublin, which she suspects is led by mobster Martin "The General" Cahill (Gerry O'Brien). Blu-ray Release Date: June 4th, 2019
 

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar