Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF June 24th, 2019

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Dobrý! Impressive Blu-rays reviewed this week by Kino, Shout! Factory, Masters of Cinema, Arrow, Second Run, Warner Archive, Second Sight Films, Paramount... of films directed by Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, Robert Wise, Jean-Luc Godard, Elia Kazan, Lilly and Lana Wachowski, Pavel Jurácek, Catherine Breillat, Edgar G. Ulmer, Lew Landers, Lambert Hillyer, Arthur Lubin, Guy Green  and others. Our Calendar has new updates of films-to-Blu-ray by directors Bill Forsyth, Ernst Lubitsch, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Charles Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, John Waters, Ritwik Ghatak, Marco Bellocchio, Roy Ward Baker, David Mamet, Alan Parker, Ida Lupino, Peter Collinson, Franco Zeffirelli 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): I was absolutely thrilled with Shout! Factory's Universal Horror Volume 1 Blu-ray set with The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray and Black Friday and 6 commentaries for the 4 films! The 1080P transfers look wonderful - rich black levels and lush texture. Films to indulge in the rest of your life. Our highest recommendation! Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island made an indelible impact on my in 4K UHD - a huge advancement over the already competent Blu-ray - the UHD does wonders for the film effectiveness. Pavel Jurácek's Case for a Rookie Hangman - on new Region FREE 4K-restored Blu-ray from Second Run - a brilliantly layered film evoking the surrealism of Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus" with stunning, Tarkovsky-esque, cinematography by Jan Kalis, wrapped in a child-like dream of political bureaucracy and governmental suppression. We want more! Warner Archive's A Patch of Blue with stellar performances from Elizabeth Hartman, Shelley Winters and Sidney Poitier plus a director commentary give this Blu-ray lasting value. Don't miss this film. Elia Kazan's first film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn gets a Blu-ray release from The Masters of Cinema in the UK - a masterwork of warmth, family, survival, street-smart children and romance. It's a beautiful film experience. Sensitive filmmaking at it most grand. The Matrix is considered the most thought-provoking action-science-fiction films of all time and deservedly gets a stellar 4K UHD transfer from Warner - even the included Blu-ray has a new transfer. In a word: Wow. Arrow have done it again, Robert Wise directing Michael Crichton's moody, paranoiac The Andromeda Strain gets the definitive Blu-ray edition with an improved a/v transfer and it's stacked with extras. Great cover too boot! Like First Name Carmen and Detective, Jean-Luc Godard's Helas Pour Moi looks outstanding on Blu-ray from Kino. There are brilliantly layered subthemes imbedded in the images. Catherine Breillat's Romance is one of the most controversial films of modern cinema, blurring the lines between art and pornography, and it gets a Blu-ray release from Second Sight Films ikn the UK. Surprising William Friedkin directs the comedy-heist caper The Brink's Job with an ensemble cast including Peter Falk, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle, Paul Sorvino, Gena Rowlands and more... now on Blu-ray from Kino!

"I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.." Elia Kazan

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Shutter Island 4K UHD - Martin Scorsese puts Leonardo DiCaprio through the wringer again in Shutter Island, a gothic adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel. Leo's character, a Federal Marshal named Teddy Daniels, is first seen vomiting and jittery aboard a ferry; he and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) are being taken across the water to investigate an escape from a prison for the criminally insane, located on a forbidding rock called Shutter Island. From the first, Scorsese treats the place as though it were Skull Island in King Kong, worthy of ominous music cues and portentous camera angles. This might not be an easy assignment for the sweaty, anxious Daniels, who is haunted by his memories of German concentration camps and the loss of his wife (Michelle Williams, appearing in ghostly hallucinations). 4K UHD Release Date: October 8th, 2018

A Patch of Blue BD - Selina D'Arcey is blind, yet she sees the world anew through the eyes of kindly Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier). An awkward Cinderella raised by a bigoted, abusive mother, Selina is white. She does not know that the man helping her learn to dial a pay phone or find the restroom is black. Elizabeth Hartman's luminous screen debut as Selina earned her a Golden Globe® Award as Most Promising Newcomer. On the veteran side as Selina's blowsy, bitter mother, Shelley Winters won her second Oscar. As directed by Guy Green (Oscar®-winning cinematographer for Great Expectations, 1947), the performances are timeless in A Patch of Blue. So is this fine film's heart-soaring impact. Blu-ray Release Date: May 28th, 2019

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn BD - Set among Brooklyn tenements circa 1912, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a portrait of the Nolans, an Irish-American family living in financially challenging circumstances, often made worse by father Johnny's drinking and employment problems. But matriarch Katie keeps the family together during all of the obstacles, caring for son Neeley and daughter Francie, as well as Katie's outspoken, oft-married sister Sissy. But just as Francie's gift for writing opens up new avenues, more tragic developments test the family's resolve. Blu-ray Release Date: July 22nd, 2019

Helas Pour Moi BD - Jean-Luc Godard's Hélas Pour Moi (1993) is a provocative film about faith and desire starring Gérard Depardieu. Inspired by the Greek myth of Alcmene and Amphitryon, it investigates the story of a god inhabiting the body of a man to experience the pleasures of the flesh. The incident is told through the eyes of a publisher, Abraham Klimt (Bernard Verley), who is interviewing the inhabitants of a Swiss village regarding the strange story of Rachel (Laurence Masliah) and Simon Donnadieu (Depardieu). One summer Simon leaves on a business trip, but soon after a doppelgänger arrives in the village purporting to be Simon. He appears to be a god in human form, and he pursues Rachel in a series of philosophical seductions that explore divine and physical ecstasy. Blu-ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019

The Andromeda Strain BD - government satellite crashes outside a small town in New Mexico and within minutes, every inhabitant of the town is dead, except for a crying baby and an elderly derelict. The satellite and the two survivors are sent to Wildfire, a top-secret underground laboratory equipped with a nuclear self-destruct mechanism to prevent the spread of infection in case of an outbreak. Realising that the satellite brought back a lethal organism from another world, a team of government scientists race against the clock to understand the extraterrestrial virus codenamed Andromeda before it can wipe out all life on the planet. Aided by innovative visual effects by Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running) and an unforgettable avant-garde electronic music score by Gil Melle (The Sentinel), Wise s suspense classic still haunts to this day, and is presented here in a stunning, exclusive new restoration from the original negative. Arrow Blu-ray Release date: June 3rd, 2019

The Matrix 4K UHD - What if virtual reality wasn't just for fun, but was being used to imprison you? That's the dilemma that faces mild-mannered computer jockey Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix. It's the year 1999, and Anderson (hacker alias: Neo) works in a cubicle, manning a computer and doing a little hacking on the side. It's through this latter activity that Thomas makes the acquaintance of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who has some interesting news for Mr. Anderson -- none of what's going on around him is real. The year is actually closer to 2199, and it seems Thomas, like most people, is a victim of The Matrix, a massive artificial intelligence system that has tapped into people's minds and created the illusion of a real world, while using their brains and bodies for energy, tossing them away like spent batteries when they're through. 4K UHD Release Date: May 22nd, 2018

Universal Horror Volume 1 BD - Horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi created some of the most memorable characters in cinematic history. Their unforgettable performances as Dracula and Frankenstein's monster terrified a generation of moviegoers and when these two legendary actors came together for a series of films in the 1930s, audiences could not get enough. This collection includes The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray and Black Friday. Blu-ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019

Case for a Rookie Hangman BD - A free-form and darkly surreal adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Pavel Juráek's film also channels Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka to create one of Czecholsovak cinema's most unique and deeply disturbing works. A man becomes lost on a country road and finds himself in an alternative, nightmare world that mirrors (then) modern-day Czechoslovakia. Needless to say the film was not warmly received by the authorities, and like his earlier surrealist masterwork Josef Kilián (1963), was promptly 'banned forever'. Blu-ray Release Date: June 24th, 2019

The Brink's Job BD - The robbery nobody thought could happen by the guys nobody thought could pull it off! The year is 1950, the take is $2.7 million, and the movie is The Brink’s Job, a high-spirited comedy caper which explores the lives of the men who pulled one of the most famous heists in history. Legendary filmmaker William Friedkin directs this gritty yet whimsical tale of a gang of smalltime hoods who hit the bigtime jackpot. Blu-ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019

Romance BD - On her continuous journey to explore human sexuality, Breillat in "Romance X" (Romance, 1999), explores the relationship of love and sex with an almost clinical distance: Sterile in her mise-en-scene of, yet always natural and uninhibited, sexuality. Thus, while openly pornographic, it never becomes vulgar or offensive. Blu-ray Release Date: July 15th, 2019
 

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