Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF July 1st, 2013
  This Week's Highlights
Boosuu ötin! - A solid week with a Criterion, Bava (2), Shunji Iwai, John Schlesinger, Mel Brooks, Jean-Luc Godard (2) all on Blu-ray We have new Calendar Listings on Blu-ray including Joseph L. Mankiewicz, John Carpenter, Billy Wilder, Satyajit Ray, Mario Bava, Olivier Assayas, Norman Z. McLeod, Alan Clarke, Stanley Donen, Mike Figgis, Hal Needham, Carl Reiner and more! We've chosen our FEATURE Blu-ray and DVD of the MONTH for July and we've posted a new CONTEST Enjoy!

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FEATURE Blu-ray and DVD of the MONTH selected for JULY!
 

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Today's DVD & Blu-rays (Amazon)

Blu-rays Under $10 (Amazon)

Blu-rays Under £6 (Amazon UK)

Blu-rays Under £10 (Amazon UK)

Movies & TVs (Amazon Canada)

LATEST ADDITIONS TO THE RELEASE CALENDAR:

The Vincent Price Collection [Blu-ray] (The Fall of House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, Witchfinder General, The Abominable Dr. Phibes) - Shout! Factory

A Letter to Three Wives - 65th Anniversary [Blu-ray] (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949) 20th Century Fox

Halloween  - 35th Anniversary [Blu-ray] (John Carpenter, 1978) Fox/Anchor Bay

Stalag 17 [Blu-ray] (Billy Wilder, 1953) Paramount

The Audrey Hepburn Collection [Blu-ray] R0 UK Paramount

Nayak: The Hero [Blu-ray] (Satyajit Ray, 1966) RB UK Artificial Eye

Flat Top [Blu-ray] (Lesley Selander, 1952) Olive Films

5 Dolls for an August Moon [Blu-ray] (Mario Bava, 1970) Kino

The Devil Bat [Blu-ray] (Jean Yarborough, 1940) Kino

Cavalcade [Blu-ray] (Frank Lloyd, 1933) 20th Century Fox

Stories We Tell [Blu-ray] (Sarah Polley, 2012) RB UK Curzon Film World

Something in the Air [Blu-ray] (Olivier Assayas, 2012) RB UK Artificial Eye

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye [Blu-ray] (Gordon Douglas, 1950) Olive Films

Knock on Wood [Blu-ray] (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1954) Olive Films

My Favorite Spy [Blu-ray] (Norman Z. McLeod, 1951) Olive Films

From Up on Poppy Hill [Blu-ray] (Goro Miyazaki, 2011) RB UK Studio Canal

Blockade, Landscape, Revue: 3 films by Sergei Loznitsa - R2 UK New Wave Films

Scum (Alan Clarke, 1979) [Blu-ray] RB UK Odeon Entertainment

The Car [Blu-ray] (Elliot Silverstein, 1977) RB UK Arrow

Off Limits [Blu-ray] (George Marshall, 1953) Olive Films

Street Trash - Special Meltdown Edition [Blu-ray] (James Muro, 1987) Synapse Films

Come as You Are [Blu-ray] (Geoffrey Enthoven, 2011) RB UK Eureka

Charade 50th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray] (Stanley Donen, 1963) Universal

Internal Affairs [Blu-ray] (Mike Figgis, 1990) Paramount

Only the Valiant [Blu-ray] (Gordon Douglas, 1951) Olive Films

On the Double [Blu-ray] (Melville Shavelson, 1961) Olive Films

Popeye Cartoon Collection: Volume 1 (Max Fleischer Era) - VCI

Popeye Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 (Famous Studios Era) - VCI

Smokey and the Bandit [Blu-ray] (Hal Needham, 1977) Universal

The Jerk [Blu-ray] (Carl Reiner, 1979) Universal

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (Stromboli, Europe ’51, Journey to Italy) [Blu-ray] - Criterion Collection

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (Stromboli, Europe ’51, Journey to Italy) - Criterion Collection

La Cage aux Folles [Blu-ray] (Edouard Molinaro, 1978) - Criterion Collection

La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978) - Criterion Collection

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold [Blu-ray] (Martin Ritt, 1965) - Criterion Collection

Autumn Sonata [Blu-ray] (Ingmar Bergman, 1978) - Criterion Collection

Autumn Sonata (Ingmar Bergman, 1978) - Criterion Collection

Slacker [Blu-ray] (Richard Linklater, 1991) - Criterion Collection

The Haunting [Blu-ray] (Robert Wise, 1963) TCM
 

 

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): I hadn't seen The Producers in a long while and it would probably be my best viewing of this week. The new Blu-ray certainly perks up the colors and the film is remains a lot of fun. Schlesinger's Billy Liar gets a great 50th Anniversary Blu-ray edition from Studio Canal filled with some good extras. While I am still a fan of Iwai's Love Letters - I wasn't overwhelmed by the 1080P image. Bava's Kidnapped (''Rabid Dogs'') goes HD and is a substantial improvement. I OD'ed a little on Godard but it's encouraging to see two of his film reach Blu-ray status, via Olive Films; Keep Your Right Up and Comment ça va? - both definitely look improved over SD despite meager production values. Criterion transfer of Babette's Feast to Blu-ray is in the correct aspect ratio and has a number of worthwhile supplements. Kino's rendering of Bava's Black Sabbath is decidedly green and bare-bones - making the Arrow Films the definitive Blu-ray. Castle Freak has some bona-fide positives for fans of its genre including scream-queen Barbara Crampton. Gregory covered the French Masterworks: Russian Émigrés in Paris 1923-1928 collection on DVD from Flicker Alley - a very appealing set for Silent Era fans. Eric covered the lauded black comedy Diablo, an intriguing Chinese drama via Second Run entitled Here, Then, a French political thriller State Affairs and a schlocky, low budget horror Reel Evil. Have a very relaxing week!

  THIS WEEK's REVIEWS / COMPARISONS
 

Black Sabbath BD - A beautiful woman is terrorized by call from an ex-lover who has escaped from prison for the pleasure of killing her...a family becomes a feeding ground when their father returns home wounded after ridding the countryside of a hideous vampire...a nurse is haunted by reproaches from the Beyond after stealing a ring from the finger of a dead medium! Join Boris Karloff as he hosts (and stars in) this trilogy of terror tales! Blu-ray Release Date: July 16th, 2013

Diablo - Marcos, a depressed former boxer who's fallen from glory, thinks his life is about to take a turn for the better - until his cousin Huguito, the black sheep of the family, shows up at his door. Whenever Huguito appears, trouble soon follows as Marcos is about to learn in this hyperviolent black comedy inspired by genre cinema. DVD Release Date: June 4th, 2013

French Masterworks: Russian Émigrés in Paris 1923-1928 - The five exciting features in this collection, each restored to excellent condition by the Cinematheque Francaise, are all U.S. home video premieres, accompanied by outstanding new music scores by Timothy Brock, Robert Israel, Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Three of the films showcase the multi-faceted talents of Ivan Mosjoukine, who left a starring career in Russia for even greater glory in France. He wrote and directed The Burning Crucible (Le Brasier ardent, 1923) in which he also plays eleven parts. Of this film Jean Renoir said I was ecstatic ... I decided to abandon my trade, ceramics, to try to make films. Mosjoukine also collaborated on the script and plays the title role in Alexandre Volkoff's lavish Kean (1924), dramatizing the later life of Edmund Kean, the greatest Shakespearian of the early 19th century. In The Late Mathias Pascal (Feu Mathias Pascal, 1926)-a nearly three-hour super-production based upon a Pirandello Novel and brilliantly directed by Marcel L Herbier Mosjoukine inhabits the dual lives of the eponymous main character. To see him in action is to be mesmerized; he combines the theatrical skill of John Barrymore with the élan of Valentino or John Gilbert. DVD Release Date: May 14th, 2013

Here, Then - A meditative observation of a handful of aimless Chinese youths linked together by sex, HERE, THEN is simultaneously hypnotic and frustrating. It doesn't tell a story so much as express a sense of existential inertia as characters and the shifting focus of the camera are carried along by nothing but the listless movement from one place to another (with the movement only seemingly motivated by a desire to remove oneself from the current situation, a rape being the most extreme example despite the camera's detached observation of it) and one bed to another. The scenes involving one character's father suggest that it's not a generational thing as he seems to be concerned with his son's studies and tells his wife on the phone to make sure he buckles down while he himself is distracted by the sight of his younger mistress walking around in circles in the shoes he has just purchased for her. Ironic accompaniment is offered in the form of a recurring pop song, the "love game" lyrics of which suggest a degree of agency entirely absent among the film's characters. DVD Release Date: June 24th, 2013

Reel Evil - Struggling filmmakers - Kennedy, Cory and James - finally catch the break they were looking for when they are hired to shoot a 'behind-the-scenes' documentary for a major studio production. But their dream job quickly turns into a nightmare when they explore the legendary, haunted location and find something far worse than anything Hollywood could create. Terror becomes reality for the filmmakers as they uncover the malevolent secrets of the hospital, and the sinister doctor who once ran it. Trapped inside the hospital with no apparent way out, our crew is tormented by the evil, unspeakable fear. DVD Release Date: June 3rd, 2013

Kidnapped BD - For Master Of The Macabre Mario Bava (Black Sunday), ''Rabid Dogs'' was to be the most startling film of his entire career: After a botched payroll heist, a trio of vicious criminals take hostages in a desperate getaway that explodes with cruelty, degradation and shocking violence. But when the film's financier was killed during the last stages of production, his entire estate - including the sole unfinished work print of ''Rabid Dogs'' was seized and impounded by an Italian court. Mario Bava's final masterpiece - and one of the most intense EuroCrime thrillers of all time - would remain locked away for nearly 23 years. In 1997 Alfredo Leone and Mario's son (and longtime assistant) Lamberto Bava finished the film, adorning it with the title ''Kidnapped'', and features new footage added, overseen by Leone and Lamberto Bava in order to complete the film. Blu-ray Release Date: July 16th, 2013

Love Letters BD - Director Shunji Iwai achieved massive commercial success with Love Letter, an achingly sentimental and poetic film about love both lost and found. TV drama queen Miho Nakayama stars as Hiroko Watanabe, a young woman who has not yet recovered from the loss of her fiance Itsuki Fujii two years earlier. While visiting Itsuki's mother, she discovers his old yearbook, and finding out that the school has been demolished, she writes a short, simple letter to Itsuki and sends it to the school's former address. She doesn't intend for the letter to reach anyone, and instead hopes that the act of writing it will help ease her own pain. But surprisingly, she gets a response! The recipient is another person named Itsuki Fujii, a female who actually went to the same school as Hiroko's fiancé. The two women continue to correspond, and the memories they share with one another bring Hiroko ever closer to finding closure. But will she ever recover enough to meet this other Itsuki Fujii? Co-starring popular Japanese actor Etsushi Toyokawa, Love Letter is a heartfelt and utterly affecting motion picture that fully demonstrates Shunji Iwai's masterful ability to bring intimate human emotions to the screen. Set against the picturesque backdrop of rural Hokkaido, Love Letter is a stunningly beautiful and even magical motion picture. Blu-ray Release Date: March 26th, 2013

Billy Liar BD - Tom Courtenay gives a flawlessly nuanced performance as Billy Fisher, the underachieving undertaker’s assistant whose constant daydreams and truth-deficient stories earn him the nickname “Billy Liar.” Julie Christie is the handbag-swinging charmer whose free spirit just might inspire Billy to finally move out of his parents’ house. Deftly veering from gritty realism to flamboyant fantasy, Billy Liar is a dazzling and uproarious classic. Blu-ray Release Date: May 6th, 2013

The Producers BD - Winner of the 1969 Academy Award and WGA for best screenplay, Mel Brook’s “The Producers” is one of the most insanely funny films ever made. Anarchic, rebellious and hysterically in any way possible, it tells the story of perhaps the most greedy and self-centred producer ever, Max Bialystock, who has no morals and who will sell out on everything, and his grey sidekick, Leo Bloom, and how one of the most stupid schemes for making a quick buck turned into the biggest failure (read: success) in history. Blu-ray Release Date: July 2nd, 2013

Castle Freak BD - Stuart Gordon takes you on a pulse-pounding rollercoaster ride in CASTLE FREAK... one of the most macabre thrillers you ll ever experience. John Reilly (Jeffrey Combs RE-ANIMATOR), Susan (Barbara Crampton FROM BEYOND) and their daughter come face to face with terror when they travel to Italy to move into a castle they have inherited. They soon discover it is haunted by a relentlessly blood-thirsty creature. When mutilated bodies start turning up, John must uncover the Reilly family s dark secret to save his wife and child from the sadistic being.... Blu-ray Release Date: July 15th, 2013

Babette's Feast BD - At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning BABETTE'S FEAST is a deeply beloved cinematic treasure. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, this is the layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. BABETTE'S FEAST combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne. Blu-ray Release date: July 23rd, 2013

Comment ça va? BD - Directed by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt, Weekend) - combining video and film, Comment Ca Va? is a fascinating dialectic on the dissemination and processing of information, both literary and visual. Two workers of a communist newspaper strike out to make a film and video about the newspaper and the printing plant. One of the workers, Odette (Anne-Marie Mieville), has strange ideas about content and form and how the film should be made. Comment ca va? is a formally brilliant work about the transmission of ideas by the major media. Jean-Luc Godard co-wrote the screenplay with Anne-Marie Mieville (Ici Et Ailleurs). Blu-ray Release date: June 25th, 2013

State Affairs - State Affairs is a suspenseful, action-packed French political thriller in which three main characters cross paths: a corrupt politician, his henchman, and a hard-boiled female cop. A plane explodes above the Gulf of Guinea. An escort girl is murdered in a Parisian park. Thousands of miles separate these two events, and yet Nora believes there's a connection between them, much to her superiors chagrin. As Nora investigates, getting dangerously close to the powers that be, the murders and betrayals accumulate, and signs point to a state affair at the heart of it all. DVD Release Date: June 17th, 2013

Keep Your Right Up BD - Directed by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard (Alphaville, Breathless) - with a tip of the hat to Jerry Lewis, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and (for good measure) Dostoyevsky, Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, edited and starred in this mind-boggling comedy. The rambling plot involves a hapless filmmaker (Godard) and his attempt to meet a deadline for delivering a film. From there the movie branches out into an abstract, episodic structure. Blu-ray Release Date: June 25th, 2013
 

 Next 4 weeks on the Calendar

July 1st, 2013

 

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica, 2010) Kino

The Curtis Harrington Short Film Collection [Blu-ray] - Flicker Alley

Grave of the Fireflies [Blu-ray] (Isao Takahata, 1988) RB UK Studio Canal (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Kentucky Fried Movie [Blu-ray] (John Landis, 1977) Shout! Factory

Kiki's Delivery Service [Blu-ray] (Hayao Miyazaki, 1989) RB UK Studio Canal

Neighbouring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012) R2 UK Artificial Eye

The Producers (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] (Mel Brooks, 1968) Shout! Factory (BEAVER REVIEW)

Tower Block [Blu-ray] (James Nunn, Ronnie Thompson, 2012) Shout! Factory

The Trouble with Harry [Blu-ray] (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955) Universal Studios

 

 

July 8th, 2013

 

Blood and Sand [Blu-ray] (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941) 20th Century Fox

Boy [Blu-ray] (Taika Waititi, 2010) Kino

Broken [Blu-ray] (Rufus Norris, 2012) RB UK StudioCanal

The Brood [Blu-ray] (David Cronenberg, 1979) RB UK Second Sight

Charade 50th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray] (Stanley Donen, 1963) Universal

Cohen and Tate [Blu-ray] (Eric Red, 1988) Shout! Factory

A Field in England [Blu-ray] (Ben Wheatley, 2013) RB UK Channel 4

Gattaca [Blu-ray] (Andrew Niccol, 1997) Image Entertainment (BEAVER REVIEW)

Hands Of The Ripper [Blu-ray] (Peter Sasdy, 1971) Synapse Films

The Jerk [Blu-ray] (Carl Reiner, 1979) Universal

The Life of Oharu [Blu-ray] (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
 The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952) Criterion Collection

Me and You [Blu-ray] (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2012) RB UK Artificial Eye

One. Two. One (Mania Akbari, 2011) R2 UK Second Run

Shell [Blu-ray] (Scott Graham, 2012) RB UK Verve Pictures

Shun Li and the Poet (Andrea Segre, 2011) Film Movement

Smokey and the Bandit [Blu-ray] (Hal Needham, 1977) Universal

Speaking Parts [Blu-ray] (Atom Egoyan, 1989) RB UK Artificial Eye

Spring Breakers [Blu-ray] (Harmony Korine, 2013) Lionsgate

Street Trash - Special Meltdown Edition [Blu-ray] (James Muro, 1987) Synapse Films

 

 

July 15th, 2013

 

Black Sabbath [Blu-ray] (Mario Bava, 1963) Kino (BEAVER REVIEW)

Castle Freak [Blu-ray] (Stuart Gordon, ) 88 Films (BEAVER REVIEW)

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan [Blu-ray] (Hugh Hudson, 1984) Warner Bros

Heavy Traffic [Blu-ray] (Ralph Bakshi, 1973) Shout! Factory

The Complete Humphrey Jennings volume 3: A Diary for Timothy [Blu-ray] - RB UK BFI

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter [Blu-ray] - Shout! Factory

Kidnapped aka Rabid Dogs [Blu-ray] (Mario Bava, 1974) Kino Lorber (BEAVER REVIEW)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie [Blu-ray] (John Cassavetes, 1976) RB UK BFI (BEAVER REVIEW)

Life After Death Project (Paul Davids, 2013) Indieblitz

Lord of the Flies [Blu-ray] (Peter Brook, 1963) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)

Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook, 1963) Criterion Collection

Manhunt of Mystery Island (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1945) Cheezy

Runaway Train [Blu-ray] (Andrey Konchalovskiy, 1985) RB UK Arrow

 

July 22nd, 2013

 

The Adjuster [Blu-ray] (Atom Egoyan, 1991) RB UK Artificial Eye

Babette’s Feast [Blu-ray] (Gabriel Axel, 1987) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)

Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987) Criterion Collection

Beware of Mr. Baker [Blu-ray] (Jay Bulger, 2012) RB UK Curzon

The Birth of a Nation [Blu-ray] (D.W. Griffith, 1915) RB UK Masters of Cinema

The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) R2 UK Masters of Cinema

The Car [Blu-ray] (Elliot Silverstein, 1977) RB UK Arrow

Graceland [Blu-ray] (Ron Morales, 2012) Image Entertainment

Harlow [Blu-ray] (Gordon Douglas, 1965) Olive Films

The Ice Storm [Blu-ray] (Ang Lee, 1997) Criterion Collection (BEAVER REVIEW)
 In the House [Blu-ray] (François Ozon, 2012) RB UK Momentum Pictures

The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes - Shout! Factory

Kiss of the Damned [Blu-ray] (Xan Cassavetes, 2012) Magnolia

Kiss of the Damned -alt cover [Blu-ray] (Xan Cassavetes, 2012) Magnolia

Once Is Not Enough [Blu-ray] (Guy Green, 1975) Olive Films

Pieta [Blu-ray] (Ki-duk Kim, 2012) Image Entertainment

Post Tenebras Lux [Blu-ray] (Carlos Reygadas, 2012) RB UK Drakes Avenue

The Silence [Blu-ray] (Baran bo Odar, 2010) Music Box Films

Summer and Smoke [Blu-ray] (Peter Glenville, 1961) Olive Films

Tower of Evil [Blu-ray] (Jim O'Connolly, 1972) Scorpion

WUSA [Blu-ray] (Stuart Rosenberg, 1970) Olive Films
   
     
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