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A Woman Under the Influence
BD - John Cassavetes’
devastating drama details the emotional breakdown of a suburban
housewife and her family’s struggle to save her from herself.
Starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (in one of the greatest
and most harrowing screen performances of the 1970s) as a
married couple, deeply in love, yet unable to express their love
in terms that the other can understand, A Woman Under the
Influence is an uncompromising examination of mental illness and
an honest portrayal of domestic life. A benchmark film of the
American independent cinema—a heroic document from a true
maverick director. Blu-ray
Release Date: September 17th, 2012
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
BD - It seems that Count
Dracula (Bela Lugosi), in league with a beautiful but diabolical
lady scientist (Lenore Aubert), needs a "simple, pliable" brain
with which to reactivate Frankenstein's creature (Glenn
Strange). The "ideal" brain belongs to the hapless Lou Costello,
whom the lady doctor woos to gain his confidence and lure him to
the operating table. Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), better
known as the Wolf Man, arrives on the scene to warn Costello and
his pal Bud Abbott of Dracula's nefarious schemes. Throughout
the film, the timorous Costello witnesses the nocturnal rituals
of Dracula and the Monster, but can't convince the ever-doubting
Abbott--until the wild climax in Dracula's castle, where the
comedians are pursued by all three of the film's monstrosities.
As a bonus, the Invisible Man (voiced by an unbilled Vincent
Price) shows up for "all the excitement.
Blu-ray Release date: August 28th,
2012
Death Watch
BD - The story is part human
drama and part futuristic cautionary tale and focuses primarily
on two people: terminally ill Katherine (Romy Schneider,
The Most Important Thing: Love,
Ludwig) and Roddy
(Harvey Keitel, The Duellists,
Bad Lieutenant,
Reservoir Dogs), who,
after having a camera implanted into his brain, is hired by the
producer of the TV series Death Watch to film a
documentary of Katherine without her knowledge. Both deeply
moving and a fascinating look at society in decay, this is a
must-see film, and one made even more poignant knowing that star
Romy Schneider herself died tragically only two years later at
the age of 44. Blu-ray Release
date: August 28th, 2012
Headhunters
BD - A man living on both
sides of the law is caught in a dangerous game in this thriller
from Norwegian director Morten Tyldum. Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie)
makes his living as a corporate recruiter, finding talented
people who work for other companies and making them lucrative
offers to join the firm currently signing his paychecks. Roger's
work pays a handsome salary, but he suffers crushing insecurity
when it comes to his beautiful wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund),
and he constantly showers her with expensive gifts in hopes of
staying on her good side. Between Diana's expectations and the
expensive tastes of Roger's mistress Lotte (Julie Olgaard),
Roger needs cash, so he's taken on a high-paying second job --
stealing rare works of art. Roger is just good enough and smart
enough to know that he'll get caught eventually, and when he
learns of a man with an authentic Rubens, he hopes to make one
last score that will keep him well set for a long time. But
Roger soon learns there's a catch -- the man with the painting
is also someone he's supposed to recruit for a client, and he's
clearly a few steps ahead of Roger. Hodejegerne (aka
Headhunters) was an official selection at the 2011 Toronto
International Film Festival. Blu-ray
Release date: August 28th, 2012
Oedipus Rex
BD - Three years after
The Gospel According to Matthew,
Pier Paolo Pasolini resumed his series of classical adaptations
with a savage, highly personal take on Sophocles’ ancient Greek
tragedy Oedipus Rex [Edipo Re]. As his first
colour feature, Oedipus Rex makes brilliant use of wildly
alternating Moroccan landscapes to transpose collective myth
into a particular vision that is at once tender, sensual, and
wholly unsparing. The film is divided into three sections set in
different eras. The opening takes place in 1920s Italy, and
recounts a birth that echoes that of the director himself, the
product of a beautiful bourgeoise’s affair with a military
officer. The mid section depicts a time “outside of history” –
it is here that the myth of Oedipus (portrayed by Franco
Citti of
Accattone and Coppola’s
The Godfather), one of
patricide and incest, plays out opposite the young man’s
mother/lover (Silvana Mangano). An epilogue shot on the streets
of present-day Bologna finds Oedipus playing his flute for a
bustling citizenry. With its kinetic handheld camerawork and
strikingly primeval costumes, Pasolini’s film rattles its
art-genre framework in the enduring quest to exorcise repressive
emotional forces. Blu-ray
Release date: September 24th, 2012
The Turin Horse
BD - Raw, compelling and
emotionally devastating, Béla Tarr's final film is a daringly
original and searingly vivid work of artistically precise,
philosophically rigorous filmmaking that has left audiences the
world over gasping for breath. Taking its cue from Nietzsche s
famous confrontation on Via Carlo Alberto, The Turin Horse
depicts the aftermath of this seemingly innocuous but
destructively profound encounter. Following a man and his
daughter in their daily routine, a bizarre series of disturbing
events slowly begin to strip life of its very essence resulting
in a terrifying, all-consuming finale...
Blu-ray Release date: July 17th,
2012
Ro.Go.Pa.G.
BD - Conceived by the
legendary Italian producer Alfredo Bini, the multi-director
portmanteau film Let's Wash Our Brains: RoGoPaG [Laviamoci
il cervello: RoGoPaG] brought together four giants of
European cinema to contribute comic episodes reflective of the
swinging post-"boom" era. The resulting omnibus collectively
examines social anxieties around sex, nuclear war, religion,
urbanisation - and the promise of a modern cinema. Roberto
Rossellini's Illibatezza [Virginity] follows an
airline stewardess plagued by an obsessed American tourist whose
8mm camera enables the indulgence of a personal, and
solipsistic, vision of the Ideal. Jean-Luc Godard's Il nuovo
mondo [The New World] takes place in an
Italian-dubbed Paris beset by nuclear fallout, and wittily
chronicles the changes that take place in the lives - and
medicine cabinet - of a handsome young couple. Pier Paolo
Pasolini's scandalous La ricotta [Ricotta, as in
the curded cheese] presents the goings-on around a film shoot
devoted to the Crucifixion and presided over by none other than
Orson Welles (playing a kind of stand-in for Pasolini himself);
it is this episode that landed Pasolini with a suspended
four-month prison sentence. Lastly, Ugo Gregoretti's Il pollo
ruspante [Free-Range Chicken] depicts a middle-class
Milanese family flirting with the purchase of real-estate and
engaging catastrophically with an antagonistic consumerist
infrastructure. Blu-ray Release
date: August 27th, 2012
Child's Play
BD - A young teacher, Paul
Reis (Beau Bridges) arrives at an exclusive Catholic boy's
school that he had attended as young man. An outbreak of
cult-like violence and brutality among the students has Reis
perplexed. He suspects that one of the older professors in
responsible for inciting the mayhem. Joe Dobbs (Robert Preston)
is the easy-going, popular English instructor and Jerome Malley
(James Mason) is the widely disliked and feared Latin and Greek
teacher. Leon Prochnik adapted the evocative Robert Marasco play
for the screen. Directed by the great Sidney Lumet, the director
of
Dog Day Afternoon and
Network.
Blu-ray Release date: September
4th, 2012
Odd Man Out
BD - Director Carol Reed's
most ambitious and accomplished film, Odd Man Out stars
James Mason as Johnny McQueen, leader of an IRA gang forced into
taking on a bank raid in order to raise funds for the
organization. It's a tense time and it shows: the hold-up
doesn't exactly go as planned. Unable to cope with the demands
of the situation, McQueen kills a man and then falls from the
speeding getaway car. Badly wounded, he manages to scramble into
hiding and we are invited to follow his desperate progress as he
clings to life. Imaginatively photographed and sharply edited,
the action (especially the first half) moves at a brisk pace and
is perfectly complemented by some atmospheric music. The whole
cast deserves praise for its accomplished acting but special
mention must be made of James Mason's hypnotic portrayal.
Without question, his performance must go down as one of the
most sensitive ever produced by a British screen actor.
Blu-ray Release Date: June 18th,
2012
Puppet Master
BD - A quartet of psychics -
Yale anthropologist Alex (Paul Le Mat,
AMERICAN GRAFFITI),
palm reader Dana (Irene Miracle, INFERNO), psychometrist
Clarissa (Kathryn O'Reilly, JACK'S BACK), and mindreader Frank
(Matt Roe, CHILD'S PLAY 2) - are summoned to a Bodega Bay
hotel by horrific visions. They surmise that former associate
Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F. Skaggs, GHOST TOWN) has finally
tracked down the secret of Andre Toulon (William Hickey, THE
RUNESTONE) a puppeteer/alchemist who was the last carrier of
an ancient Egyptian secret for bestowing life onto inanimate
objects. The four arrive at the seaside hotel to find out that
Gallagher has committed suicide and requested of his young widow
Megan (Robin Frates, THE ARRIVAL) that he not be buried
until his "friends" have all assembled. Although she has made
sure that Gallagher is indeed dead, Dana still senses evil in
the hotel and takes measures to protect herself and the others,
but Alex is more concerned with fragile Megan, and Frank and
Clarissa plan to tear the place apart in the morning in search
of Tulon's secret; but will they all survive the night with
Tulon's deadly puppets - including the likes of Blade, The Leech
Woman, The Jester, Pinhead, and The Tunneler - stalking the
corridors? Barbara Crampton (CASTLE
FREAK) has a "special appearance" early on.
Blu-ray Release Date: August
20th, 2012
The Living Dead Girl
BD - An earth tremor causes
the spill of toxic waste being stored in a family crypt. This
awakens young Catherine Valmont (Françoise Blanchard) with an
insatiable bloodlust. Her childhood friend Helene (Marina Pierro
of Borowczyk's LOVE RITES and THREE IMMORAL WOMEN),
feeling guilty for not keeping her vow to follow her friend in
death, scours the village for suitable victims for her pitiable
friend. Meanwhile, an American photographer (Carina Barone)
finds out the girl she photographed walking through a field has
been dead nearly a year and, along with her boyfriend (Mike
Marshall), stumble upon Helene's activities. This alternately
elegant and grisly horror film was reportedly the inspiration
for Rob Zombie's song "Living Dead Girl." With the help
of France's now-prominent make-up effects artist Benoit LeStang,
Rollin ups the gore over the erotic content (as with GRAPES
OF DEATH) though his poetic sense remains, anchored by the
performances of Blanchard and Pierro with a genuinely tragic
ending. Blu-ray Release Date:
August 28th, 2012
From Hell It Came - This
uproariously bad monster mess is set on a remote tropical
island, where a native prince places a curse on the elders just
prior to his execution for breaking tribal law, promising to
return from the dead for revenge. He does, of course -- but he
can only manage to return from the grave as a giant walking
tree. (His obvious displeasure with having assumed this shape is
indicated by the tree-thing's permanently constipated
expression.) There is some indication given that his
resurrection has something to do with atomic testing taking
place on the island, but this is obviously incidental to the
real plot, which treats viewers to endless scenes of natives
running in horror from a shambling, ticked-off rubber stump. In
print, this sounds like broad comedy material, but the only
laughs to be found in this clunker are purely unintentional.
DVD Release Date: November 11th, 2009
Dying Room Only - Acres of
burning desert. A rundown diner. Hostile, close-mouthed locals.
And an upscale L.A. couple just passing through. It’s the
perfect setup for suspense. Eight-time Emmy Award winner Cloris
Leachman leads a stellar cast that includes Ross Martin, Ned
Beatty and Dabney Coleman in a smart, lean chiller scripted by
acclaimed sci-fi/fantasy writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend).
The story follows Jean Miller (Leachman), whose husband (Dabney
Coleman) disappears after they stop at the dusty crossroads
diner. No one – not even the sheriff (Dana Elcar) – will help
her. So Jean desperately begins her own investigation, one that
leads her straight into an ingenious web of mystery and murder.
DVD Release Date: April 22nd, 2010
Man on a Swing
BD - Man on a Swing
is loosely drawn from a true-life murder investigation. It is
based on a non-fiction book The Girl on the Volkswagen Floor
(1971) by journalist William Arthur Clark. Clark described an
unsolved murder of a girl that occurred in Dayton, Ohio where
psychic Bill Boshears led him and the police department on a
chase claiming to be able to solve the case. The case was never
solved. The film keeps general faith to the book, although
changes Clark’s reporter to a police chief and provides an
arrestee at the end, even if we cannot entirely be sure that
this is the right person. Today Bill Boshears is a well-known
radio host who runs a Cincinnati-based syndicated radio show Sci-Zone,
which deals with matters paranormal and conspiratorial.
Blu-ray Release date: September
4th, 2012
Faust
BD - Alexander Sokurov completes a cinematic
tetralogy of films, the previous three were based on historical
figures: Adolf Hitler (Moloch, 1999), Vladimir Lenin (Taurus,
2000), and Emperor Hirohito (The Sun, 2005), by delving
further into the nature of power with his own unique take on
Goethe’s Faust. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival 2011, Sokurov's FAUST is not adaptation in the
usual sense but rather a 'reading of what remains between the
lines'. Faust here is a thinker, a mouthpiece for ideas, a
transmitter of words, a schemer, a daydreamer. An anonymous man
driven by simple instincts: hunger, greed, lust. Sokurov asks us
to question how this literary character informs our
understanding of those previously studied abusers of power. How
an unhappy life can lead some to be seduced by monstrous
ideologies. Blu-ray Release
date: August 20th, 2012
Weekend
BD - This sensual,
remarkably observed, beautifully acted wonder is the breakout
feature from British writer-director-editor Andrew Haigh. Rarely
has a film been as honest about sexuality—in both depiction and
discussion—as this tale of a one-night stand that develops into
a weekend-long idyll for two very different young men (exciting
screen newcomers Tom Cullen and Chris New) in the English
Midlands. It’s an emotionally naked film that’s at once an
invaluable snapshot of the complexities of contemporary gay
living and a universally resonant portrait of a love affair.
Blu-ray Release date: August 21st,
2012
Elles
BD - Anne (Juliette Binoche) is a journalist who,
during her investigation into prostitution, encounters two young
girls who use their bodies as a way to make easy money.
Fascinated by them, she is drawn into their world, which stands
in marked contrast to her own bourgeois life. Juliette Binoche
gives a characteristically committed performance in Malgorzata
Szunowska s frank drama, whose camera never shies away from the
details of the girl s work, always capturing Anne s response to
it. Blu-ray Release date: August
20th, 2012
My Son, John
BD - Legendary director Leo
McCarey (An
Affair to Remember) took on this
controversial and infamous drama about a conservative religious
couple (Helen Hayes, Dean Jagger) that suspects their oldest son
to be a communist. The arrogant and intellectual young man
(Robert Walker), a worker in a federal agency, returns home from
a long absence spouting pro-communism doctrine and deriding the
beliefs of capitalism and religion. Things become very serious
when an FBI agent (Van Heflin) shows up to tell the horrified
parents that their son may be an enemy spy. Robert Walker (Stranger
on a Train) died at age 32 due to adverse
reaction to prescription drugs and before My Son John production
was finished. Leo McCarey received a 1953 Oscar nomination for
Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.
Blu-ray Release date: August 21st, 2012
Thinner
BD - The film opens in
Fairview, Connecticut, where attorney Billy Halleck (Robert John
Burke) is the toast of his law firm, having just won the
acquittal of mobster Richie Ginelli (Joe Mantegna, sporting a
chic beard). On the personal front, however, Billy is having far
less success in his war against weight. He's tipping the scales
at 300 pounds, and his habit of sneaking snacks is defeating his
latest diet. His wife, Heidi (Lucinda Jenny), and daughter,
Linda (Joy Lenz), despair of him ever losing the undesirable
mass, and they're seriously concerned about his health.
Blu-ray Release date: August 21st,
2012 |
