Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF July 20th, 2015

Tiervâ! Still thriving is the Barnes + Noble Sale - 50% OFF all Criterions! (0nly 10 days left?)! We have reviews of Blu-rays from Criterion, BFI, Kino Lorber, Lionsgate, Shout! Factory of features directed by Roberto Rossellini, Jules Dassin, TV from Orson Welles, Dziga Vertov, Georges Franju, Mario Bava, Irwin Allen, Lech Majewski, Kevin Spacey and more. Our Release Calendar includes new films-to-Blu-ray, including October Criterions, by Masaki Kobayashi, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Ken Loach, Walerian Borowczyk, John Sturges, Sam Raimi, John Dahl, Pete Walker, Takeshi Kitano, David Gordon Green, Takashi Miike, Burt Kennedy, Ted Kotcheff, Phil Karlson. We have a CONTEST posted with a wonderful new Criterion Blu-ray prize! Enjoy!

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

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(Week of) July 20th CONTEST  identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win a Brand New Criterion Blu-ray of Hiroshima Mon Amour  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

Black Sabbath (AIP) BD - Vintage Bava in which Karloff introduces three adaptations from famous tales of the supernatural (and also stars in the last): The Drop of Water by Chekhov, The Telephone by Howard Snyder, and The Wurdalak by Tolstoy. Pictorially it's amazing, and even the script and dubbing are way above average. If only Amicus, who subsequently cornered the horror omnibus market, had taken heed they might have got some ideas as to what can be done with the format. Kino (AIP) Blu-ray Release Date: July 21st, 2015

Warsaw '44 BD - One of the biggest Polish production in recent years, watched by over 1.7 million cinema goers! Director Jan Komasa realized Miasto 44 with a flourish - a universal story about love, courage and sacrifice set during the Warsaw Uprising. Stefan (Jozef Pawlowski) and Ladybug (Sophia Wichłacz) meet and fall in love at first sight. But it is not given to them long to enjoy your relationship. August 1st, 1944, along with friends placed under the command of a charismatic Cobra (Tomasz Schuchardt). Stefan and Ladybug are brave and believe in the cause, as they journey past bloody trails of fire, and the face of horror and cruelty of war, in an apocalyptic setting their burning city. Blu-ray Release date: February, 2015

Albino Alligator BD - Actor Kevin Spacey made his directorial debut with this thriller. Dova (Matt Dillon), Milo (Gary Sinise), and Law (William Fichtner) are three small-time crooks on the run after a botched robbery of a New Orleans warehouse led to a car chase, causing the death of two cops. Needing a place to hide, with Milo seriously injured, they sneak into Dino's Last Chance Bar, a shot-and-a-beer joint located on a side street in a basement. Before long, the bar is surrounded by a squadron of Federal agents and SWAT officers. The three robbers are convinced that the cops are trying to flush them out, but it turns out that they aren't the only crooks in search of a cold beer at Dino's. Blu-ray Release date: July 21st, 2015

Reptilicus BD - Danish engineers drilling for minerals in Lapland find the tail of a prehistoric beast and send it to the distinguished Professor Martens in Copenhagen. The door of the refrigerated room in which the remains are stored is accidentally left ajar, and the rise in temperature enables the tail to grow new tissue. American Gen. Mark Grayson of the United Nations arrives in Copenhagen to maintain an alert on the creature, which continues to regenerate itself and grows to an enormous size. Though the general undertakes the mission reluctantly, he becomes attracted to the professor's daughters, Lise and Karen. One night, the monster escapes into the forest and begins to terrorize the countryside. Blu-ray Release Date: June 16th, 2015

Eyes Without a Face BD - Pierre Brasseur (Head Against the Wall) is Dr Génessier, a brilliant and obsessive plastic surgeon driven by the need to restore his daughter s disfigured face and push the boundaries of his field. Aided by his loyal assistant Alida Valli (Suspiria), who lures young women to his secluded chateau in pursuit of his dark quest. Eugen Schüfftan's (The Hustler) stunning cinematography lends the chateau an almost Cocteau-esque life of its own, and Edith Scob (Judex) is quite remarkable as the ravaged beauty. BFI Blu-ray Release Date: August 24th, 2015

Man With a Movie Camera BD - This kaleidoscopic city symphony-- conjoining Moscow, Kiev, Odessa into one metametropolis-- may be the most densely edited movie ever made. Vertov matches the rhythms of a single day to the cycle of life, and the mechanisms of moviemaking to the logic of industrial production.... The Man With the Movie Camera is at once a Whitmanesque documentary-portrait of the Soviet people, a reflexive essay on cinematic representation, and an ecstatic ode to human labor as a process of transformation. BFI Blu-ray Release Date: July 27th, 2015

Big House, U.S.A. BD - Broderick Crawford (All the King's Men), Ralph Meeker (Kiss Me Deadly), Charles Bronson (Death Wish), Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Wolf Man) and William Talman (The Hitch-Hiker) star in this tough and realistic crime drama about a gang of ruthless convicts who execute a successful prison break to secure a $200,000 loot hidden in Colorado s Royal Gorge National Park. This classic thriller was directed by Howard W. Koch (Badge 373) and written by John C. Higgens (He Walked by Night) with beautiful black-and-white cinematography by Gordon Avil (King Dinosaur). Blu-ray Release Date: August 4th, 2015

He Ran All the Way BD - Shortly before he was driven into exile by the Hollywood blacklist, the talented and neglected John Berry made this 1951 film, the last of John Garfield, who died of a heart attack at 39 (many believe because of pressures related to the blacklisting). It's a fitting and powerful testament to the actor's poignancy and power as a working-class punk. Here he plays a hoodlum fleeing a bungled robbery, falling for a young woman (Shelley Winters), and desperately holding her family hostage while oscillating wildly between mistrust and a desire to be part of this family circle. Enhanced by an effective script (Guy Endore and Hugh Butler adapted a Sam Ross novel), superb cinematography by James Wong Howe, and a keen sense of working-class manners, this is a highly affecting thriller that draws us relentlessly into its plangent moral tensions. Blu-ray Release Date: August 4th, 2015

Rossellini & Bergman Collection BD - In 1950, one of Italy's most celebrated filmmakers, Roberto Rossellini, and one of Hollywood's greatest screen stars, Ingrid Bergman, came together to make the classic Stromboli Land of God. On that production, they embarked not only on an extraordinary artistic collaboration but also on an affair which would send shockwaves throughout the film world. By 1954, their real-life relationship was crumbling, and films such as Journey to Italy appeared to echo reality. Blu-ray Release date: July 20th, 2015

Night and the City BD - Deep within the bowels of shadow-infested London, two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) struggles to live a life of ease and plenty. Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, Fabian stumbles upon a chance of a lifetime in the form of legendary wrestler Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko). But there is no easy money in this underworld of shifting alliances, bottomless graft, and sweaty, pummeled flesh and soon Fabian learns the horrible price of his overweening ambition. Night and the City is a crowning achievement of legendary director Jules Dassin and quintessential film noir. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: August 4th, 2015

War Arrow BD - War Arrow is another of Universal's efficiently produced A plus/B minus Technicolor westerns of the early 1950s. Maureen O'Hara and Jeff Chandler star as, respectively, army major Howell Brady and his former sweetheart Elaine Corwin. As Elaine awaits anxiously on the sidelines, Major Brady trains a group of Seminole Indians to aid the army in quelling an impending Kiowa uprising. Commanding officer Col. Meade, a man with a deep abiding hatred for all Indians, thinks that Brady is crazy to trust the Seminoles. Well, he might be, but it's best to wait until the climactic battle scene to decide whether or not Brady knows what he's doing. The ever-reliable Henry Brandon is a tower of strength as Maygro, the Seminole chief whose daughter Avis (Suzan Ball) falls in love with Brady. Blu-ray Release date: December 6th, 2013

Around the World With Orson Welles BD - In 1955, Orson Welles directed and hosted a mini series for British television. He leads us through a few famous places of Europe with his inimitable touch. In Paris he introduces us to famous artists such as Juliette Gréco or Jean Cocteau who lived in the Saint Germain Des Pres quarter. In London we meet the Chelsea Pensioners, in Spain we attend a Madrid Bullfight and visit the Basque country (Basque Country 1&2). Somewhere between a home movie and a cinematic essay, these short films have been described by French critics as the missing link in Welles' work. Blu-ray Release date: July, 2015

The Lost World BD - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story of an expedition to a remote plateau rumored to be the home of prehistoric beasts, already the basis of a 1925 sci-fi classic, is again brought to the screen in Irwin Allen's lesser version. Claude Rains stars as Professor Challenger, who leads a team of fellow scientists and adventurers deep into the Amazon jungle. The team must battle unforgiving jungle conditions before arriving at the isolated plateau that is their final destination. There they discover a strange group of prehistoric beasts and unexpectedly find themselves in a fight for survival. While the 1925 Harry Hoyt version is still considered noteworthy for its ground-breaking stop-motion effects, Allen relies on enlarged footage of modern-day animals dressed up as their prehistoric counterparts, a technique that has aged less gracefully. Blu-ray Release date: March 25th, 2015

The Mill and the Cross BD - Lech Majewski directed this visually striking examination of the nexus between art and politics in the 16th century. In 1564, the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel created one of his best-known and most controversial works, "The Procession to Calvary," in which Christ, carrying his cross, makes his way to his own crucifixion though a crowded landscape that features representations of hundreds of historic and contemporary figures. The painting was a biting commentary on political matters of the day as well as a satiric view of religion, and in The Mill & the Cross, Majewski re-creates the making of Bruegel's masterpiece, as the artist (played by Rutger Hauer) stages the images and explains their meanings while we learn more about the individuals depicted and the people who posed for the work, many of whom have their own stories to tell. Blu-ray Release date: March, 2015

Zone Troopers BD - This off-beat story combines elements of a science fiction adventure and World War II drama. A platoon of U.S. soldiers are surrounded by the enemy in Italy and are forced to fight their way back behind the lines to their troops. The platoon is populated by the usual characters: "Sarge" (Tim Thomerson) is not afraid of anything, Joey (Timothy Van Patten) has not totally left childhood behind him, and Dolan (Biff Manard) is an aggravating reporter out for a headline. When the soldiers encounter a spaceship on their way back to safety, the plot takes a 180 degree turn. Zone Troopers' novel premise is matched by the cast, who deliver good work throughout. Blu-ray Release date: July 28th, 2015

Red Planet Mars - An amazing cold-war artifact from 1952. Decoded messages reveal Mars to be the power base of an interplanetary religious revival, prompting the godless Russkies to shape up tout de suite. Harry Horner directed, from a dumbfounding script by Anthony Veiller and John L. Balderston, author of the 1920s stage version of Dracula. With Herbert Berghof, Andrea King, Marvin Miller, and, of course, Peter Graves. DVD Release Date: December 5th, 2006

Blood Cells - Produced in collaboration with Gucci of all companies, BLOOD CELLS is a striking low-key British drama about a man whose self-imposed exile has him living on the margins of the marginalized of British society. The degree of joylessness in Adam's existence seems overwrought until the viewer comes to realize that this self-exile is not just an escape from difficult emotions but a form of self-punishment which leads him to agreeing to easy money schemes with his girlfriend that are humiliating and leave him feeling empty (it also makes sense of the seemingly roundabout trajectory of his journey). Ward is excellent in what is mostly a one man show, with good support from performers who are naturalistic rather than showy in smaller roles. If the ending turn seems a bit abrupt, it is because Adam's depth of despair is such that it would seem just as natural for the film to end on an even darker note. DVD Release Date: August 17th, 2015

All American Bully - Every seven seconds in America a child is victimized by a bully, and the Internet is the new school playground. Three friends have a falling out at school after one of them is bullied, and their lives are slowly torn apart as the they fall deeper into a twisted web of hate, ignorance, and revenge - where it turns out no one is truly innocent - all leading to a disturbing and violent conclusion. DVD Release Date: June 23rd, 2015

Of Girls and Horses - Featuring a quartet of talented stars, this under-stated drama from prolific lesbian filmmaker Monika Treut deftly unfolds the coming-of-age of rebellious teen Alex (popular German TV star, Ceci Chuh). Sent away by her mother to a horse farm in the country, Alex keeps up her bad girl ways but is gradually enamored with the horses and with the resident lesbian riding instructor, Nina (the stunning Vanida Karun) who is taking a break from her partner Christine (the equally beautiful Ellen Grell). As Nina maintains her boundaries and tries to help Alex find purpose and maturity at this crucial moment in her life, the arrival of privileged young equestrian Kathy (Alissa Wilms) presents new challenges and opportunities for Alex as she grapples with her longing for love and connection. A beautiful drama. DVD Release Date: June 30th, 2015

Tiger Orange - Chet (Mark Strano, Out To Kill) and Todd (Frankie Valenti aka former adult star Johnny Hazzard) are estranged gay brothers who grew up in a small town in Central California to a homophobic, working class single father. While bad boy Todd ran off to Los Angeles and is now out and proud, Chet stayed at home (and mostly closeted) to run the family hardware store and care for their ailing father until the father s recent death. Broke and homeless, Todd returns to the brother he left behind. As long-simmering resentments boil to the surface and the pair confront their differences and similarities, Tiger Orange serves up a poignant depiction of family dynamics and small town life and the journeys we each must take. DVD Release Date: July 7th, 2015

Day of the Triffids (1963) - A spectacular meteorite shower produces an unusual side effect on all who witness it - they go blind! So most humans on earth go sightless overnight with only a handful to start civilization from crumbling. If this isn't enough for the plot - experimental triffids (plants) now go on the loose attacking and killing everything in their path. This is a great concept (from John Wyndham's book) and but rather ho-hum performances and less-worthy production values. But still a ton of sci-fi pulp appeal in this one. Japanese DVD Release Date: October 21st, 2009
 

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