Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF July 17th, 2017

Mwapoleni mukwaii! Another loaded Summer week with Blu-ray reviews of packages by Indicator, Arrow, Second Run, Masters of Cinema, Network, Studio Canal, Artificial Eye, Palisades Tartan, Touchstone of films by Federico Fellini, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Arthur Penn, Sydney Pollack, Karel Zeman, M. Night Shyamalan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Katell Quillévéré, John Krish, Kim Ji-woon and others films!. Our Calendar has NEW updates of films-to-Blu-ray by John Carpenter, Ernst Lubitsch, Ridley Scott, George Romero, Arthur Penn, (Norman Z. McLeod, Stanley Kramer, Kelly Reichardt, Frank Capra, Peter Yates, Joel Schumacher, , Hal Roach, Richard Fleischer, Lucio Fulc and more. We have another new listings page and check-out a few incredible sale items below. Our Feature Blu-ray and DVD is posted for JULY and a CONTEST with another BRAND NEW ARROW Blu-ray prize. Enjoy!!

Mildred Pierce [Blu-ray] (Michael Curtiz, 1945) Criterion 50% OFF (BEAVER REVIEW)  and many more HERE...

LISTING PAGES:

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)

LATEST ARTICLE: The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

DVDBeaver has their own store at Movie Zyng - check it out! Many have $1 shipping - even overseas!

Feature Blu-ray and DVD chosen for the Month of JULY!

FOLLOW US on TWITTER! (where we post important reviews, contests - prizes, polls, calendar updates - plus much more...)

(Week of) July 17th CONTEST  identify the clip HERE to win a prize of a BRAND NEW ARROW Blu-ray of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse Best of luck!

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

Unearthly Stranger BD - Unearthly Stranger is one of these British alien invasion films and has gained a minor reputation. The film opens on a particularly good atmosphere of paranoid tension (all shot in black-and-white as the most paranoid thrillers of this era and many of the abovementioned works were) with John Neville urgently recording a message into a tape machine and running through the streets of London. John Krish directs in striking contrasts between sweating faces and the background, or of John Neville outlined against a spiral staircase. This presages well for the film. Blu-ray Release date: November 3rd, 2013

Pulse BD - Award-winning filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa delivered one of the finest entries in the "J-Horror" cycle of films with this moody and spiritually terrifying film that delivers existential dread along with its frights. Setting his story in the burgeoning internet and social media scene in Japan, Kurosawa's dark and apocalyptic film foretells how technology will only serve to isolate us as it grows more important to our lives. Blu-ray Release Date: July 10th-11th, 2017

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen BD - Still regarded as the finest film adaptation of Gottfried August Bürger's outlandish tales of Baron Munchausen (made famous in his 1786 book), Zeman's wildly inventive and outrageously fun take on the incredible adventures of the bragging Baron come to life in a film celebrating the courage and imagination of dreamers and poets. With its mind-bending melding of live-action, animation and extraordinary matte work, Zeman has crafted a timeless work that continues to astonish. Blu-ray Release Date: July 24th, 2017

Westfront 1918 + Kameradschaft BD - Georg Wilhelm Pabst (Pandora’s Box, Diary of a Lost Girl) made a flawless transition from silent to sound filmmaking with, Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft, a pair of strongly anti-war titles (Pabst himself was a prisoner of war for the duration of WWI) that combined elements of Expressionism and New Objectivity to stunning effect. Blu-ray Release date: July 24th, 2017

A Tale of Two Sisters BD - Following the death of their mother, the two sisters Su-mi and Su-yeon have spend some time recovering at a mental hospital, and are now returning home to their father, and their new “mother”. Already on their first night at home, strange things start to happening: footsteps, doors opening by themselves, and it soon is obvious, that the sisters isn’t what their stepmother had hoped for and she isn’t what the sisters want. Is it ghosts? Is it the stepmother who is playing tricks on them? Or is it something else? Blu-ray Release Date: March 29th, 2005

Deadlier Than the Male BD - When insurance underwriter Hugh Drummond learns of the deaths of top oil executives at the hands a pair of beautiful but brutal female assassins he is convinced that it is the work of an international crime syndicate. His investigations uncover that the syndicate is after a big oil concession, and to get it they must commit regicide... Blu-ray Release date: June 8th, 2015

Castle Keep BD - Sydney Pollack brought together an expert ensemble cast in Castle Keep (1969), an eccentric World War II film based on William Eastlake's novel. Burt Lancaster plays a one-eyed American Army major leading a small company of GIs in France near the end of the war. Hoping to catch a little R-and-R, the weary squad occupies an ancient castle in the Ardennes Forest owned by an impotent nobleman who urges Lancaster to father an heir for him. The major's men humorously find their own pleasures and distractions in Castle Keep Blu-ray Release date: July 24th, 2017

The 5,0000 Fingers of Dr. T. BD - Young Bart Collins, lulled to sleep by the monotony of his piano lessons, dreams of a castle ruled by his piano teacher the eccentric Dr. Terwilliker. Dr. T is determined to prove that his Happy Fingers Method of teaching piano is the best method in the world. Having banished all other musical instruments to the dungeon, Dr. T lures 500 reluctant little boys to perform in a colossal concert on the grandest grand piano ever built. In his effort to escape, Bart comes in contact with some of the strangest characters imaginable. Siamese twins on roller skates, a human drum and the most memorable villain since the Grinch. Indicator Blu-ray Release date: July 24th, 2017

Mickey One BD - Considered ahead of its time — and perhaps it still is — this unusual drama, inspired by the French New Wave, brought Warren Beatty and producer-director Arthur Penn together for the first time — two years before their landmark Bonnie and Clyde. Beatty stars as a Detroit night club comic who incurs the wrath of The Mob (he doesn’t know why) and flees to Chicago to start life anew — but still living in fear. But the plot is secondary to the look and sound of this film (a favorite of Martin Scorsese), which boasts a score by Eddie Sauter and stunning photography by Academy Award®-winner Ghislain Cloquet (1980, Best Cinematography, Tess). Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield, Franchot Tone and Jeff Corey co-star in this one-of-a-kind motion picture. Blu-ray Release Date: July 24th, 2017

La Strada BD - There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La Strada, the film that launched them both to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampanò (Anthony Quinn,) a brutal strongman in a traveling circus. When Zampanò encounters an old rival in highwire artist the Fool (Richard Basehart), his fury is provoked to its breaking point. With La Strada, Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of Italian neorealism for a poetic fable of love and cruelty, evoking brilliant performances and winning the hearts of audiences and critics worldwide. Blu-ray Release Date: June 19th, 2017

Heal the Living BD - Startling and unflinching, this is a film that documents tiny kindnesses amongst the visceral and technical in a way that demonstrates an almost perfect simultaneity of compassion and craft such that it nearly defies description. Strong performances from its cast turn a seemingly slight set of events into something that is gripping. Blu-ray Release date: July 3rd, 2017

Unbreakable BD - The pure joy of this film is just that: discovery. So often we see movies with not one original idea (Men of Honor, anyone?), but Unbreakable is a movie with originality to spare. It's a story about lost opportunities, tragic sacrifices, second chances and the power of fantasy. All that AND you simply never know where the next scene will take you. In a Hollywood system filled with predictable and ponderous screenplays, Unbreakable shines quite brightly indeed. Blu-ray Release Date: April 1st, 2008

A Woman, A Part - An exhausted, workaholic actress, Anna Baskin, 44, abruptly extricates herself from a successful but mind-numbing TV role, returning to her past life in New York to reinvent herself. But despite the desire for transformation, she cannot find herself outside of her career. When an upsetting personal betrayal unexpectedly leads to the role of her life, she must confront the reality of her past relationships in order to clear a path forward. The intimate story of Anna and her friends Isaac and Kate become magnified by the film's surrounding themes: gentrification, addiction, autoimmune disease, burnout, sexism in the film industry and 21st century marketing of the self. DVD Release Date: July 11th, 2017

Lake Alice - While meeting his girlfriend Sarah's family for the first time, Ryan Emerson must prove his intentions and win the approval of her father, Gregg, while he masks jealousy for Sarah's ex-fling Tyler. As the Thomas family settles in, things start to happen around the cabin: strange footprints by the window, noises from outside, and a bitter animosity from the locals, including law enforcement. As a blizzard descends on Lake Alice, so does the evil from behind the camera, as the Thomas family is hunted down one by one. The family struggles to stay alive as their numbers slowly dwindle. DVD Release Date: July 18th, 2017

Loaded - The Complete Series - Loaded follows four life-long friends and business partners, Josh, Leon, Ewan and Watto, as they try to navigate their lives after having just sold their start-up for $300m. The series is abut male friendship, ambition, greed, and what happens when you've got £14.5m in the bank but the cash machine has a £300 daily limit. DVD Release Date: July 10th, 2017

Innocent Thing - Joon-ki (Jang Hyuk) was once a former rugby athlete and is currently a popular physical education teacher at an all-girls' high school. His pregnant wife Seo-yeon (Sunwoo Sun) is due to give birth to their first child imminently. Although he's used to playful advances from pubescent students, things take a dangerous turn when Young-eun (Jo Bo-ah) falls hard for her teacher and daringly confesses her feelings for him. Amid growing rumors, he is soon consumed with guilt and attempts to end the relationship. However Young-eun's pure crush slowly turns to obsession. She starts to regard everyone related with Joon-ki as obstacles, and the farther he keeps her away, the bolder her obsession and madness grows. DVD Release Date: April 10th, 2012

Happy End - Happy End is about Choi Bora (Jeon Do-yeon), a successful career woman who becomes involved with her ex-lover, Kim Il-beom (Joo Jin-mo). Bora's home life is a snore: she's mother to an infant child and her husband, Seo Min-ki (Choi Min-sik) has lost his job, leaving Bora as the family's sole breadwinner. It's unclear if Bora is with Il-beom just for the sex or for the passion, both of which Min-ki seems incapable of giving. But it seems the jobless Min-ki hasn't been just wandering around parks and reading romance novels as first thought; he knows something is going on, and he's collecting evidence. DVD Release Date: April 30th, 2002

Obsessed - A war hero falls into a forbidden but irresistible love affair risking everything that he has accomplished so far which can only end in tragedy. From his commander father-in-law to a beautiful wife, decorated war hero Colonel Kim Jin-pyong is the subject of envy and jealousy, and about to be promoted to general. But in truth, his affection for his ambitious wife had subsided a long ago, and he suffers from post-traumatic disorder after Vietnam War. DVD Release Date: January 19th, 2006

Searching For the Elephant - Freelance photographer Hyun-woo, plastic surgeon Min-suk and financial specialist Jin-hyuk seem to have it all, living as affluent thirty-something young urban professionals in Seoul, but in reality the three childhood friends each struggles schizophrenia, sex addiction and infidelity. As the amount of secrets they keep from each other pile up, the tension in their friendship and questions of loyalty push their sanities to the brink, leading to a shocking finale when they learn that growing pains are not just distant memories of their youth. DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2012

Be With Me (aka "Ghost") - Seo-hee, Nam-hee and Lan. These three girls happen to read their tarot cards. Tarot cards tell them once-in-a-life-time opportunities will be coming to each of them simply by holding tarot cards and chanting magic spells. And the magic spells are nothing but their own names! Once their names are said, very special events begin to unfold. DVD Release Date: October 6th, 2012

Deadly Pickup - Breezy isn't your ordinary hitch-hiker: she's sexy, fun... and a cold-blooded killer. As deadly as a viper, Breezy murders her victims with a poisonous ring. As she preys on highway pickups, Breezy moves from town to town, finally settling briefly as a boarder in the house of a young couple who have no idea what kind of sexual wolf they've just let in the door. Carter Cruise, Kia Noir, and the voluptuous Sarah Hunter star in this sizzling hot erotic thriller. DVD Release Date: July 26th, 2016

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