Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF June 20th, 2011

Tuwa'y davan mo?  - From Caged Women to Eclipse neo-realism, Criterion Mike Leigh on Blu-ray to Michael Bay sci-fi. The doldrums of Summer bring us an eclectic mix.. The Blue Underground sale (see HERE) continues. Our calendar updates have Criterion's September releases with Olivier Assayas, Victor Sjöström, Claude Chabrol (2!), Robert Altman, and Lasse Hallström - plus other digital releases from Pedro Costa, Agnès Varda, Martin Scorsese, Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, and Jacques Tourneur - a great Criterion Blu-ray prize for this week's contest clip! Au Ag!

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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!)

June 20th CONTEST - identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win a Criterion Blu-ray of The Great Dictator!

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

Wake Wood BD - After veterinarian Patrick (Aidan Gillen, 12 ROUNDS) and his wife Louise (Eva Birthistle, THE CHILDREN) lose their daughter Alice (Ella Connolly) to a vicious dog attack, they move to the small Irish village of Wake Wood where he takes over the vet practice - taken over from well-to-do Arthur (Timothy Spall, GOTHIC) - and she takes over the local pharmacy. Louise has not gotten over her daughter's death and resents Patrick for trying to move on. She wants to return to the city. While Patrick is driving Louise to the train station, their car breaks down near Arthur's home. Blu-ray Release Date: July 5th, 2011

The Women in Cages Collection - Innocent Carol Jeffries (Jennifer Gan, Naked Angels) is framed by her drug-dealing boyfriend and ends up in a tough prison in the Philippines jungle in Women In Cages. She must face off against the sadistic warden, Alabama (Grier), who takes great pleasure in alternately seducing and torturing her prisoners. Also starring Judy Brown and Roberta Collins. Directed by Gerry De Leon (Mad Doctor Of Blood Island).
Inside the hellish women’s prison called The Big Bird Cage, inmates like Terry (Anitra Ford, The Price Is Right) struggles to survive. They get their chance to escape when scheming revolutionary Blossom (Pam Grier) engineers a prison break . . . from the outside in. Also starring Carol Speed (Abby). Directed by Jack Hill.
Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) joins a group of sexy, young female prisoners in their struggle against a sadistic warden in Big Doll House. This shockingly real film is perhaps one of the most influential of all women-in-prison films! Also starring Judy Brown, Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000) and Sid Haig (House Of 1,000 Corpses). Directed by Jack Hill (Spider Baby, Foxy Brown). DVD Release Date: June 21st, 2011

Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo's Runaway Melodramas - In the late 1940s and early 1950s, film critics, international festival-goers, and other studious viewers were swept up by the tide of Italian neorealism. Meanwhile, mainstream Italian audiences were indulging in a different kind of cinema experience: the sensational, extravagant melodramas of director Raffaello Matarazzo. Though turning to neo-realism for character types and settings, these haywire hits about splintered love affairs and broken homes, all starring mustachioed matinee idol Amedeo Nazzari and icon of feminine purity Yvonne Sanson, luxuriate in delirious plot twists and overheated religious symbolism. Four of them are collected here, chronicles of men and women on long and serpentine roads to redemption, each less restrained and more wildly fun than the last. DVD Release Date: June 21st, 2011

Skidoo - Otto Preminger (Anatomy of a Murder) directs this psychedelic-comedy classic starring Jackie Gleason as Tough Tony Banks, a retired gangster who reluctantly comes out of retirement to silence his old friend and squealer (Mickey Rooney). Tony’s suburban haven comes crashing down as his daughter (Alexandra Hay) takes up with a hippie (John Phillip Law) and his wife (Carol Channing) gives them permission to move into their house with their hippy friends. The all-star cast includes Batman villains (Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin), with Frankie Avalon, Peter Lawford, George Raft, Slim Pickens, Fred Clark, Richard Kiel, Harry Nilsson and Groucho Marx in his final role as the mob boss names God. Music and lyrics by Nilsson. DVD Release Date: July 19th, 2011

The Baby - Social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer, RABBIT RUN) has taken on the strange wellfare case of "Baby" (David Manzy, HERBIE RIDES AGAIN), the youngest son of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman, THE WINDOW). Although in his twenties, "Baby" wears diapers, sleeps in a crib, and does not walk or speak (other than infant sounds). His two older sisters Germaine (Marianna Hill, MESSIAH OF EVIL) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor, THE WAY WE WERE) are a little short of normal as well. After spending some time with Baby (too much according to her supervisor as well as Mrs. Wadsworth), Ann believes that Baby should be a normal young man but has been kept an infant by a sort of "sick love," but Ann's motives for wanting to gain custody of Baby may be equally disturbing. DVD Release Date: June 28th, 2011

Savage Streets - When Brenda (Linda Blair, CHAINED HEAT), leader of the high school girl gang The Satins, decides to teach Jake (Robert Dryer, THE BORROWER), leader of the druggie gang The Scars, a lesson for nearly running over her mute sister Heather (Linnea Quigley, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD), she steals the gang's convertible and trashes it. They retaliate by beating and raping Heather, who ends up in the hospital clinging to life. As if that weren't enough to rile Brenda, they kill pregnant Satin member Francine (Lisa Freeman, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH: THE FINAL CHAPTER). Brenda finds out that The Scars are responsible from guilt-ridden member Vinnie (Johnny Venocur, LORD OF ILLUSIONS) and arms herself with a crossbow, switchblade, and bear traps and goes after the gang one-by-one. DVD Release Date: June 20th, 2011

The Adjustment Bureau BD - On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris meets beautiful contemporary ballet... dancer Elise Sellas--a woman like none he's ever known. But just as he realizes he's falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart. David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself--the men of The Adjustment Bureau--who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path...or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her. Blu-ray Release Date: June 21st, 2011

Naked BD - The brilliant and controversial Naked, from director Mike Leigh, stars David Thewlis as Johnny, a charming and eloquent but relentlessly vicious drifter. Rejecting anyone who might care for him, the volcanic Johnny hurls himself around London on a nocturnal odyssey, colliding with a succession of other desperate and dispossessed people and scorching everyone in his path. With a virtuoso script and raw performances from Thewlis and costars Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharp, Leigh’s depiction of England’s underbelly is an amalgam of black comedy and doomsday prophecy that took the best director and best actor prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Blu-ray Release Date: July 12th, 2011

The Island BD - When you add up all the best things about The Island, you might just conclude that there's hope yet for Hollywood's most critically reviled hit-maker, Michael Bay. Recruited by Steven Spielberg to direct this lavish and often breathtaking sci-fi action thriller, Bay rises to the occasion with an ambitious production that is, by his standards (and compared to Bay's earlier hits like The Rock and Armageddon), surprisingly intelligent as it explores the repercussions of cloning in a sealed-off society where humans are cultivated for spare parts, surrogate parenthood, and full-body replacements for wealthy clientele. Paramount Blu-ray June 21st, 2011

Bloody Birthday - Ten years ago, Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy, HOSPITAL MASSACRE), Curtis (Billy Jacoby, SUPERSTITION), and Steven (Andy Freeman, BEYOND WITCH MOUNTAIN) were all born on the same night during an eclipse. As their joint tenth birthday approaches, the inseparable trio take up baseball bats, handguns, and bow and arrow to take out their parents, teachers, and friends. Only Joyce (Lori Lethan, THE PREY) and her little brother Timmy (K.C. Martel, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR) suspect that the three kids are psychopathic murderers and they are next on the list of the precocious trio's targets. DVD Release Date: June 28th, 2011

Eaters: Rise of the Dead - A terrorist called 'The Plague Spreader' has unleashed a virus on the world. First, it caused a wave of infertility and brought the birth rate down to zero. It killed the women, and then the men. Then it brought them back. Even the pope has committed suicide! Igor (Alex Lucchesi) and Alen (Guglielmo Favilla) are two survivors given shelter and food by by scientist Gyno (Claudio Marmugi) in exchange for bringing back zombie test subjects while scouring the countryside for other survivors. Among Gyno's test subjects is Alexis (Rosella Elmi), Alen's wife who is infected yet alive (possibly due to her unauthorized participation in a highly unethical and illegal fertility experiment). DVD Release Date: June 13th, 2011

 

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