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Red Desert
BD - Michelangelo
Antonioni’s 1960s panoramas of contemporary alienation were
decade-defining artistic events, and Red Desert, his first color
film, is perhaps his most epochal. This provocative look at the
spiritual desolation of the technological age—about a
disaffected woman, brilliantly portrayed by Antonioni muse
Monica Vitti, wandering through a bleak industrial landscape
beset by power plants and environmental toxins, and tentatively
flirting with her husband’s coworker, played by Richard
Harris—continues to keep viewers spellbound. With one startling,
painterly composition after another—of abandoned fishing
cottages, electrical towers, looming docked ships—Red Desert
creates a nearly apocalyptic image of its time, and confirms
Antonioni as cinema’s pre-eminent poet of the modern age.
Blu-ray Release Date: June 22nd,
2010
Close-up
BD - Internationally revered
Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has created some of the most
inventive and transcendent cinema of the past thirty years, and
Close-up is his most radical, brilliant work. This
fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life
event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently
impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the
basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies,
identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real
people from the case play themselves. With its universal themes
and fascinating narrative knots, Close-up has resonated with
viewers around the world. Blu-ray
Release Date: June 22nd, 2010
Blind Date - Antonio
Bonafacio's BLIND DATE (onscreen title: APPOINTMENT IN BLACK) is
contrived but fairly diverting plot-wise although it suffers
from attractive but uninteresting characters (voiced by a
familiar dubbing cast) going through the thriller and erotic
motions (the sex scenes are fairly monotonous and seem like they
were shot to target the American erotic thriller market). Most
of the characters are rotten, John rails against a woman being
in charge of the police investigation but she and her female
partner are depicted as being completely oblivious with no
interest in pursuing the loose ends of the case even though they
have their suspicions. There is a surprising instance of
dismemberment gore and a sting-in-the-tale ending dulled by some
laughable optical effects. DVD Release Date: March 30th, 2010
Experiment in Terror - The
film boasts one of the most memorable opening scenes of any
thriller: Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), an attractive single
woman living in the suburbs of San Francisco, drives home from
her job as a bank teller. After getting out of her Ford Fairlane
convertible, she becomes aware of another person waiting for her
in the dark of the garage; she hears a heavy asthmatic wheeze in
his voice. The man grabs her from behind and, disturbingly,
tells her, "I know a good deal about you, almost everything
there is to know," and to prove it he recites her measurements.
DVD Release Date: June 10th, 2003
Kiss Me Deadly - Kiss Me
Deadly (1955), Robert Aldrich's hard-edged, stylistically
innovative adaptation of the Mickey Spillane novel, features
what may be the most violent and unsympathetic private eye in
the history of cinema. As Mike Hammer, Ralph Meeker is like a
bull in a china shop, lurching haphazardly from one deadly
encounter to the next, often employing the same brutal tactics
of the criminals he's pursuing. But as the plot of Kiss Me
Deadly unfolds, Hammer goes from being just a cheap hood who
specializes in divorce cases to serving as an unwitting
accomplice in the retrieval of a mysterious box that holds "the
great whatsit." DVD Release Date: June 19th, 2001
Highway Dragnet - Roger
Corman's co-penned (the first appearance of his name in credits)
Noir-esque thriller. It's an engaging mid 50's crime drama of
the low budget variety. Conte as an Korean War Marine on the lam
after a love-hate first chance meeting with bar girl and
ex-model Terry Smith (Mary Beth Hughes) in a Vegas casino. He
beds her and departs early the next morning but later she is
found dead. He evades the police and thumbs a ride with female
fashion photog (Joan Bennett) and her lithe young model (Wanda
Hendrix) - hence the Highway Dragnet begins. The film's climax
ventures to an atmospheric flooded house on the ocean. Romance
and a surprise killer and lurking in the shallows...
The Party's Over
BD - Enigmatic young Melina
(Louise Sorel) has fallen in with a group of Chelsea beatniks,
catching the attention of the gang's defiant leader Moise
(Oliver Reed), but inviting scorn and jealousy from the group's
other members including Moise's lover Libby (Ann Lynn). But wild
and drunken partying has terrible consequences, and when
Melina's fiancee Carson (Clifford David) begins investigating,
the shocking truth is revealed. The Party's Over, written by
Marc Behm (Help!) and with music by John Barry (best-known for
his Bond soundtracks), was directed by Guy Hamilton, the
director behind the most famous early Bond films including
Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die.
Blu-ray Release date: May 17th,
2010
Kreola - Kreola (Demetra
Hampton, VALENTINA) arrives in Santa Domingo to join her
photographer husband Andy (Theo Losito). Although Andy is
initially jealous of Marco (Marco Carbonaro), who is in town
looking for his missing girlfriend who did not return from Santa
Domingo with her coworkers after a girls getaway. When Kreola
and Andy site the missing girl Iris (Christina Rinaldi) in the
company of their gruff, dominating sea captain Leon (John
Armstead), Andy suggests Kreola distract him so that Marco has a
chance of getting Iris back. Kreola scoffs at this but
eventually does fall under Leon's spell. Andy's writer friend Jo
Ann (Cinzea Monreale, THE BEYOND) blames the island atmosphere
for the tendency for puritanical Westerners to reject their
inhibitions. DVD Release Date: March 30th, 2010
Bordertown - An ambitious
Mexican-American gets mixed up with his boss's neurotic wife in
this fast-paced and entertaining drama. Oscar, Golden Globe and
Emmy-winner Bette Davis ("All About Eve"), Margaret Lindsay
("Please Don't Eat the Daises") and Oscar-winner Paul Muni
("Scarface") do an excellent job in bringing their complex
characters to life. DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2009
Pleasure Girls
BD - When Sally (Francesca
Annis) moves to London to pursue a modelling career, she moves
in with Angela (Anneke Wills, Doctor Who) and Dee (future Hammer
girl Suzanna Leigh) and discovers the world of the carefree
bachelor girl in Swinging London. Over one weekend - filled with
parties, blossoming friendships, and romantic encounters with
Keith (Ian McShane) and Nikko (Klaus Kinski) - the vivacious
girls learn about life's pleasures and pains.
Blu-ray Release date: May 17th,
2010
Al Capone - During the era
of Prohibition, gangsters gained enormous power by controlling
the illicit drink. The most infamous was a thug from Brooklyn
who murdered his way to the top and was, for a time, one of the
most powerful men in the United States. In this unusually
accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone (Rod Steiger)
comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard
of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is
followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He
becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves
inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end. DVD
Release Date: March 23rd, 2009
Bikini Girls on Ice -
There's somewhat of a TEXAS CHAINSAW influence with the gas
station and nearby creepy house setting with lots of running in
between. The suspense is non-existent as is the gore for the
most part (rather than an unseen presence, we see the killer
swinging his tools at offscreen victims) and there never is any
explanation as to why he packs his victims (female and male) in
ice. There is little nudity although the killer does collect the
female victims' bikinis after killing them. The biggest problem
with the film isn't the approach really, its just nothing
special in a "going through the motions" sort of way. DVD
Release Date: July 5th, 2010
Happy Together
BD - There are plenty of
interesting aspects to this epileptic fresco. There's the
passionate treatment of gay sex and romance by a straight
director, featuring two of the hottest stars of Hong Kong cinema
(Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung, both of whom have worked with
Wong before). There's the charged and ambiguous friendship
between Lai (Leung) and Chang (Chang Chen, the 14-year-old hero
of Edward Yang's 1991 film A Brighter Summer Day, who's since
become a big pop star in Taiwan). There's an oblique but pungent
response to the end of colonial rule in Hong Kong, a sense that
the characters aren't sure where or who they are as they
approach the uncertainty of millennial crossover with fretful
wanderlust. Blu-ray Release
Date: June 8th, 2010
TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection
- Under the "TCM Spotlight'' label we get four, new to
(non-burned) DVD, Chan titles via Monogram - three with Sidney
Toler and the first with Roland Winters. All of the surviving
Fox Chan titles (four are no longer believed to exist) are
already out on video. MGM, which owns the earlier Monogram
titles with Toland, released six of them a few years back in the
"Charlie Chan Chanthology'' set. DVD Release Date: June 8th,
2010
Castle on the Hudson - John
Garfield finds himself typecast by Warner Brothers once again in
Castle on the Hudson (1940), a remarkably faithful remake of the
Spencer Tracy vehicle 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932). In
Tracy's old role, Garfield stars as Tommy Gordon, a jewel thief
serving a 25-year-minimum sentence but expecting his political
pals on the outside to help spring him from prison. Pat O'Brien
plays the reform-minded yet kind-hearted warden who helps Tommy
see the error of his ways, and Ann Sheridan (in the role
previously played by Bette Davis) is the faithful
girl-he-left-behind. DVD Release Date: May 5th, 2009
The Beast of the City -
Despite the fact that this opens with a message from Hoover
(Herbert, not J. Edgar) urging us to glorify policemen rather
than gangsters, this 1932 talkie is said to be better than
average, as a police chief (Walter Huston) sets out to battle
organized crime. Adapted by John Lee Mahin from a W.R. Burnett
story, it was directed by Charles Brabin (The Mask of Fu
Manchu), and certainly its cast is exceptional: Jean Harlow,
Wallace Ford, Jean Hersholt, Tully Marshall, and 11-year-old
Mickey Rooney. DVD Release Date: March 23rd, 2009
City of the Living Dead
BD - Gore effects are
accomplished but the zombies are not as effectively realized as
their ZOMBI 2 or THE BEYOND counterparts but still have an
unsettling quality even if they do look like they were
splattered in oil paint and the sometimes dead-eyed, sometimes
staring and smiling, always lit from below visage of Father
Thomas is as creepy as the appearance of The Tall Man in the
aforementioned PHANTASM. Viewers who picked this one up for the
gore may want to give it another look and absorb the technical
and artistic craftsmanship that went into creating the film's
irrational nightmare world. Blue Underground
Blu-ray Release Date: May 25th,
2010
The Jean Renoir Collector's Edition
- Via restorations from StudioCanal Lionsgate has assembled a
formidable package of Jean Renoir films (5 features and 2
shorts) in a convenient boxset which includes La Fille de l'eau
(1925), Nana (1926), Sur un air de Charleston (1927),
La Petite marchande d'allumettes (1928), La Marseillaise (1938),
Le
Testament du Docteur Cordelier (1959), and Le Caporal épinglé
(1962). Also included is the documentary, Jean Renoir: An Auteur
to Remember made in 2007 and hosted by Martin Scorsese. DVD
Release Date: April 24, 2007
Ratatouille
BD - In terms of pacing,
Ratatouille is somewhere in between, but in terms of density of
color and texture, it clearly shows what the environment at Pixar can do for a fellow. There isn't a single frame of
Ratatouille with dead air, anywhere. Co-directing credit is
shared with Jan Pinkava, whose claim to fame so far is the Oscar
winning short, Geri's Game. And, have I mentioned "subtle" as
another important Pixar trademark: Remy is one small rat, but do
our humble directors compensate by having him yell and contort
beyond his ken. Remy's little shrug when Linguini asks him if
he's the cook is worth the price of admission.
Blu-ray Release Date: November 6th,
2007
The Bigamist - In an era
when Hollywood was dominated by well-entrenched males, Ida
Lupino carved a niche for herself as a successful director,
becoming only the second woman to be admitted to the director’s
guild. Confident of her own capabilities as an actress, Ida
stubbornly refused to play any hand-me-down roles - an act, that
led to many suspensions. Never one to be done in by
circumstances, Ida turned to direction when roles began to dry
up. The Bigamist is a classic example of Ida’s talents both in
front of a movie camera and behind it as well. DVD Release
Date: December 21st, 2004
The Hard Way - Biting,
observant, set against a glittery show-biz backdrop, The Hard
Way has earned its reputation as one of Hollywood's great
melodramas. Among the film's many fine performances, two stand
out. Jack Carson, typically cast in comic roles, is powerfully
affecting as a song-and-dance man whose kind heart is no match
for Helen's ruthless wiles. And Ida Lupino is pitch-perfect as
Helen, etching an indelible portrait of twisted ambition that
won her the 1943 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best
Actress. DVD Release Date: July 6th, 2009
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