Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK OF August 3rd, 2009

This Week's Highlights

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

HUGE Blu-ray Blowout sale at Amazon HERE

• UP TO 50% OFF SALE ON CRITERIONs AT AMAZON: El Norte [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The 400 Blows [Blu-ray] (50% OFF!), The Last Emperor [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The Man Who Fell to Earth [Blu-ray] (50% OFF!), Ace in the Hole (41% OFF!), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (40% OFF!), Last Year at Marienbad [Blu-ray] (35% OFF!), Wages of Fear [Blu-ray] (40% OFF!), The Seventh Seal [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!), The Third Man [Blu-ray] (50% OFF!), Chungking Express [Blu-ray] (50% OFF!), The Last Metro [Blu-ray] (50% OFF!), Bottle Rocket [Blu-ray] (37% OFF!)

• $14.99 Blu-ray SALE - 96 titles to choose HERE

• Amazon UK Blu-ray SUMMER SALE HERE

• Use Amazon code SONYPIC5 for $5 off Dr. Strangelove on Blu-ray

• Use Amazon code GHOSTBLU for $5 off Ghostbusters on Blu-ray

• Blu-rays from only £8.98 at Amazon UK HERE

• 36% OFF CRITERION FAVORITES HERE

• WORLD CINEMA SALE STILL ON - UP To 70% OFF HERE

• SALES: US Blu-ray up to 53% OFF        UK Blu-ray 2 for 3 SALE       Amazon France Blu-ray SALE (BUY 1 get 1 FREE!)

LATEST ADDITIONS to the Calendar: (PRE-ORDER & save!):

The Fugitive: Season Three Vol 1 – Paramount

Antichrist [Blu-ray] (Lars von Trier, 2009) R'B' UK Artificial Eye

Donkey X [Blu-ray] (Jose Pozo, 2007) - Phase 4 Films

Wolf / Dracula / Frankenstein Trilogy [Blu-ray] - Sony Pictures

How To Be A Woman (Classic Educational Shorts Volume 2) (1948-1982) – Kino

American Violet [Blu-ray] (Tim Disney, 2008) Image Entertainment

Braveheart [Blu-ray] (Mel Gibson, 1995) Paramount

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - Music Experience in 3-Dimensional Sound Reality [Blu-ray] - Surround Records

Marlene (Maximillian Schell, 1984) – Kino

Dances with Wolves [Blu-ray] (Kevin Costner, 1990) Warner Home Video

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown [Blu-ray] (Frank H. Woodward, 2008) - Cinevolve Studios

Ulysses - This lush adaptation of Homer's grand epic "The Odyssey" stars KIRK DOUGLAS as the hero Ulysses. After victory in the Trojan War, Ulysses embarks on a ten-year journey back to his kingdom. But before he can reunite with his beloved wife (SILVANA MANGANO), he must defeat the brutal Cyclops, escape the spell of Circe who turns his crew into swine, and outwit the Sirens who lure sailors to their death. Peril is everywhere – even at home, where the arrogant Antinous (ANTHONY QUINN) plots to steal Ulysses' wife before he can complete his final quest in this powerful tale of heroism. DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2009

London to Brighton - Kelly, a desperate prostitute, is bullied by her pimp into finding an underage girl for a sadistic mobster. She discovers Joanne, an 11-year-old runaway, who naively complies. But when the pedophile turns violent, Kelly intervenes and everything goes horribly wrong. Directed by Paul Andrew Williams. DVD Release Date: August 10th, 2009

Dollhouse - Season One BR - It’s been some five years since Joss Whedon has had a series on network television. First there was the popular and critical success, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I and others with far more impressive cred’s continue to consider as one of the best drama series on television – ever. Joss’s spin-off, Angel, ran successfully for some five seasons, but got into trouble once someone got the not very bright idea to make Cordelia a god of sorts. Then there was the short-lived space western, Firefly, which Fox placed ignominiously in the attic in mid-sentence. Joss replied with his feature film, Serenity. Fast forward to February 2009, after hesitations and memos on the part of the network and other interested parties, Dollhouse aired its second attempt at an approved pilot. Immersed in controversy about its alleged misogynist theme, the series did not find its mission or its proper voice until Episode 6 (Man in the Street). It strikes me as – how shall I say it? – bad faith to imagine that, of all people, Joss Whedon would suddenly have an anti-feminist meltdown. Blu-ray Release date: July 28th, 2009

The Beast BR - The Beast is, like most television miniseries, engineered to be watchable without being compelling. It's like a McDonald's milkshake (are they still called milkshakes or are they back to shakes?)--you're in the mood for a milkshake, so you figure it can't be too bad and order one... only to finish it and discover you should have waited for a real one. The Beast is never real--it's incredible how many opportunities the movie misses, mostly out of laziness, but also out of disinterest. It's a TV miniseries about a giant squid, which is--according to wikipedia--a real thing. So I guess it's a little real, anyway. Blu-ray Release date: August 4th, 2009

Kagemusha BR - In his late color masterpiece Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior), director Akira Kurosawa returned to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his celebrated career—the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a soaring historical epic that is also a somber meditation on the nature of power. Blu-ray Release Date: August 18th, 2009

Playtime BR - Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in the age of technology reached their creative apex with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a bafflingly modernist Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion. Blu-ray Release Date: August 18th, 2009

Thunder Bay - This picture may be a minor credit for both Stewart and director Anthony Mann, but even a minor film from these artists is well worth watching. Stewart and Mann had just made three outstanding westerns together - two of them produced by Aaron Rosenberg, who also produced this one. Thunder Bay was described by many at the time (including Stewart) as a modern western with boats and oil standing in for horses and guns. DVD Release Date: January 26th, 2009

Passe ton Bac d'abord - Maurice Pialat examines the seemingly dead-end future of a number of young French teenagers living in a northern mining town, in his social-realist drama PASSE TON BAC D'ABORD. A group of friends, coming to the end of their school years, fill their days with sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Some lapse into debauchery, others enter into loveless marriages. A few even stay the course and get their diplomas, only to find their prospects are not much improved. Pialat's vision may appear grim, but his portrait of suburban youth is haunting in its authenticity. Following on from his 1970s cycle of turbulant dramas--notably L'enfance nue (1967)--the film is a very worthy addition to any Pialat-fan's collection. DVD Release Date: August 24th, 2009

Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble - Maurice Pialat's powerful romantic drama examines the final period of a long and ultimately unhappy affair. Jean (Jean Yanne) is an unpleasant, domineering man. Though he still lives with his wife, their marriage has been over for a long time. For six years, Jean has had an affair with the much-younger Catherine (Marlene Jobert). The dynamic of their relationship is moving it toward disintegration also, but Catherine resists it. Scenes of alternating recriminations and reconciliations unveil the anatomy of their breakup. DVD Release Date: August 24th, 2009

Donkey X BR - Follow Don Quijote, his "squire", Sancho Panza (Don Quijote's best friend and the wealthiest man in town), Sancho's donkey, Rucio (who wants to be a horse) and a real horse, Don Quijote's faithful steed, Rocinante (who hates leaving his stable) on their adventure to duel the "Knight of the Moon" where, if Don Quijote wins the duel the true identity of Dulcinea will be revealed. Blu-ray Release date: August 11th, 2009

Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 2 - Crazy situations, fast and sophisticated dialogue, and conflict arising from the roles of men and women in modern society? these are the essential elements of the Screwball Comedy. The Legendary Irene Dunne plays a small-town author whose racy bestsellers, written under a pseudonym, bring her notoriety when a New Yorker (Melvyn Douglas) discovers her secret, in Theodora Goes Wild. In Together Again, Dunne plays the mayor's widow who falls for a sculptor (Charles Boyer) as he works on a statue of her late husband. Beautiful Loretta Young plays a feminist writer forced to pretend she's married to Ray Milland (whom she loathes) in The Doctor Takes a Wife. In A Night to Remember, Loretta Young and her mystery writer husband (Brian Aherne) take an apartment in Greenwich Village and almost immediately find themselves in the middle of a genuine murder case. DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2009

Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 1 - The Screwball Comedy was virtually invented at Columbia Studios, during the height of the depression. Following the huge success of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934). Columbia would make more of these madcap romantic comedies than any other studio. Typical "Screwballs" features marital mix-ups and plenty of opportunities to poke fun at the wealthy, while allowing audiences to dwell in the luxury of the upper-class. Jean Arthur stars as a down-on-her-luck cook who charms a millionaire (Herbert Marshall) into playing along as her husband so they can get work in If You Could Only Cook, then as a girl who finds herself legally-wedded to two men (Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas) in Too Many Husbands. Another screen legend, Rosalind Russell, shines as the "other" sister who's pretty, young sister (Janet Blair) brings a host of eccentrics through their Greenwich Village apartment in the original film version of My Sister Eileen. Russell then battles her patient's (Lee Bowman) impulses while suppressing her own as a button-down psychiatrist in She Wouldn't Say Yes. DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2009

The Window - As elegant in its storytelling as in its story, Carlos Sorin's The Window is a tale of age and mortality that firmly resists the cute tag reflexively assigned to movies with old people, and mines a rich, deep vein of melancholy and humor. Sorin has constructed a reflective poem, one that's never solemn, always insightful and sometimes hilarious. DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2009

The Ninth Gate BR - With a devilish core akin to Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski returns with "The Ninth Gate" where an unscrupulous rare-book dealer named Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) travels to Europe in search of two copies of "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows" - hinted as Lucifer's very own penned verses. His client, Frank Langella, wants him to find the only true copy - comparing it to the one in his possession. Sexual distractions arise in the form of Lena Olin's garter-belted, and snake-tattooed, butt and mystic Emmanuelle Seigner's (yes, Roman's real wife) eyes. The ambiguous conclusion is less than satisfying but the suspenseful build with creepy Euro-haunts keeps us intrigued. Polanski hints at greatness but although he doesn't achieve - the ride is, somehow, worth it. The Ninth Gate has moments of the director's uncanny stealth and as a whole it's better than most critics will admit. Blu-ray Release date: August 11th, 2009

Bad Boy Bubby BR - An incredibly unique and eccentric film, BAD BOY BUBBY inspired some controversy upon its release, with some judging its themes so dark as to be unethical. But this verdict belies the compassion and empathy latent in the treatment, which expands the piece to encompass both disillusionment with society, as well as hope for humanity. The film noir style presents a gritty, raw view of a corrupt world, presented through honest, innocent eyes. Blu-ray Release date: August 3rd, 2009

North Face BR - Journey to a heart-stopping landscape of danger and relive 48 white-knuckle hours that would go down in history. This is the incredible story behind the first ever attempted scaling of the North Face of the infamous Eiger mountain. Summer 1936. Bearing the expectations of a nation and their Fuhrer, two climbers set out to be the first to conquer the last great problem . But soon their ascent becomes a race for survival threatened by injury and extreme storms. Suddenly, it becomes a pulse-pounding race against both time and the awesome forces of nature. Blu-ray Release date: April 27th, 2009

King Kong (76') BR - Common wisdom contends that Dino De Laurentiis' big-budget remake of Merian C. Cooper's classic 1933 film, King Kong, is a bad movie. And, viewed from a certain perspective, perhaps it is, but it's also a lot of fun. Certainly, this version of Kong doesn't have more than an echo of the original's magic associated with it. The same level of painstaking craftsmanship isn't apparent here -- instead of using stop-motion technology, we have Rick Baker in a monkey suit. But the 1976 rendition has a fresh, breezy feel to it. The screenplay, by Lorenzo Semple Jr. (Three Days of the Condor), is relentlessly tongue-in- cheek, and there's an air of self-aware campiness pervading the project. Blu-ray Release date: June 17th, 2009