Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF August 20th, 2018

Jeeka, ma chi uula!, An important Summer week with Blu-ray reviews of packages by Criterion, Arrow, 101 Films, Kino, BFI of films directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, Carol Reed. Gregory La Cava, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jean Cocteau, Olivier Assayas, Paul Verhoeven and others. Our Calendar has a massive update of films-to-Blu-ray, including works by Robert Siodmak, William A. Wellman, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, William Friedkin, John Woo, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, David Attenborough, Lewis Milestone, George Cukor, Joe D'Amato, Stefano Sollima, Carl Reiner, Ron Howard, Alan Arkin, and we have our Feature Blu-ray is posted for AUGUST Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

BLAXPLOITATION, OZPloitation, 'WOMEN IN PRISON' CINEMA, CREATURE-FEATURES (on Blu-ray!), PRE-CODE FILMs (on Blu-ray!), SILENT ERA FILMs (on Blu-ray!), HAMMER Studios (on Blu-ray!) 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) and our LATEST ARTICLES: Movies From... the End of the World,  The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

Feature Blu-rays chosen for the Month of AUGUST!

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev coming to Criterion Blu-ray will be a highlight of the year for many. The package has two versions and extensive supplements including the select-scene commentary. For fans a must-own. Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey is a brilliantly funny examination on class and the social unrest of its time. It has been saved from Public Domain DVD Purgatory by Criterion and their Blu-ray is a keepsake. Arrow's Blu-ray two-disc set of Mohsen Makhmalbaf: The Poetic Trilogy is such great news and we can only hope its a coming Blu-ray trend with works by Forough Farrokhzad, some early Kiarostami (Where is the Friend's Home?), Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi making it to this format. BFI's Blu-ray transfer of Jean Cocteau's fantasy masterpiece La Belle et la Bete has some macro-blocking issues that we wrestled with. Criterion have also brought the early film of Olivier Assayas, Cold Water, to Blu-ray and it's a pleasure to finally see it in this film-like format. Carol Reed's Trapeze remains a highly interesting film, despite far from his best, and the new Kino Blu-ray sports a valuable Kat Ellinger commentary. 101 Films have given us a stacked new Blu-ray edition of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book. Great stuff for fans of the director. Apprentice to Murder has a great title and interesting premise. It stars Donald Sutherland and has made it to Blu-ray from Arrow in the UK. I suggest keeping your expectations modest. . DVDs for sure next  week - I have a bunch from Eric to post!

'I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.' - Joan Crawford

Have an loitering week!

Apprentice to Murder BD - In early twentieth-century Pennsylvania Dutch Country, young Billy Kelly (Chad Lowe) falls in with a charismatic powwower or folk magic healer, Dr John Reese (Donald Sutherland), shunned by the rest of the community for his non-conformist beliefs. Together, they investigate the mysterious sickness that is blighting the area, which Reese believes to be the work of a sinister local hermit. But as the plague spreads and the wide-eyed Billy falls ever deeper under Reeses spell, are they doing Gods work or the Devils bidding? Also starring Mia Sara and featuring a powerhouse performance by Donald Sutherland reunited here with Don't Look Now screenwriter Allan Scott Apprentice to Murder is a chilling and unforgettable tale of the macabre that blurs the lines between conventional notions of good and evil. Blu-ray Release Date: August 20th, 2018

Black Book BD - September 1944. Rachel Stein (van Houten), a Dutch-Jewish woman in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, joins fellow refugees in their attempt to reach Allied territory by boat after her safehouse is destroyed by a bomb. The voyage ends in disaster when the escape is discovered by a Nazi patrol, with Rachel the sole survivor as her fellow refugees, including her own family, are ruthlessly killed. Set on revenge, Rachel joins the Resistance, adopting the identity of Ellis de Vries to mask her heritage, and infiltrating the German Security Service by seducing senior officer Müntze (Koch). As the war enters its final stages and the fight for survival intensifies, Rachel becomes entangled in a deadly web of deceit and betrayal. 101 Films Blu-ray Release Date: August 20th, 2018

Trapeze BD - Former circus aerialist Burt Lancaster was the logical choice to star in the Technicolor drama Trapeze. Lancaster plays a crippled acrobat, disabled after attempting to perform a dangerous triple mid-air somersault. Tony Curtis co-stars as an aspiring aerialist who coerces Lancaster into teaching him the tricks of the trade. The friendship between Lancaster and Curtis is threatened by the arrival of beautiful, ambitious circus tumbler Gina Lollobridgida (it's a toss-up as to which of the three stars looks best in spangled tights). Surprisingly, Lancaster's former circus partner Nick Cravat is nowhere to be found in the film; we are, however, treated to the harmonica virtuosity of Johnny Puleo. Trapeze is highlighted by its truly breathtaking stunt sequences, performed by the cream of the European big-top circuit. Kino Blu-ray Release Date: September 25th, 2018

Cold Water BD - An acclaimed early work by Olivier Assayas, the long-unavailable, deeply felt coming-of-age drama Cold Water can at last be seen in the United States. Drawing from his own youthful experiences, Assayas revisits the outskirts of Paris in the early 1970s, telling the story of teenage lovers Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) and Christine (Virginie Ledoyen), whose rebellions against family and society threaten to tear them apart. The visceral realism of the movie’s narrative and the near experimentalism of its camera work come together effortlessly thanks in part to a rock soundtrack that vividly evokes the period. Cold Water, whose centerpiece is one of the most memorable party sequences ever committed to film, is a heartbreaking immersion in the emotional tumult of being young. Blu-ray Release Date: September 10th-11th, 2018

My Man Godfrey BD - William Powell and Carole Lombard star in an outrageous screwball send-up of Depression-era America. Carole Lombard and William Powell dazzle in this definitive screwball comedy, directed by Gregory La Cava - a potent cocktail of romantic repartee and Depression-era social critique. Irene (Lombard), an eccentric Manhattan socialite, wins a society-ball scavenger hunt after finding one of the "items" on the list, a "lost man" (Powell), at a dump. She gives the man she believes to be a down-and-out drifter work as the family butler and soon falls head over heels in love. Her attempts to both woo Godfrey and indoctrinate him in the dysfunctional ways of the household make for an unbeatable series of madcap hijinks. La Cava's deft film was the first to garner Oscar nominations in all four acting categories and it is one of Hollywood's greatest commentaries on class and the social unrest of its time. Blu-ray Release Date: September 17th-18th, 2018

Andrei Rublev BD - Tracing the life of a renowned icon painter, the second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky vividly conjures the murky world of medieval Russia. This dreamlike and remarkably tactile film follows Andrei Rublev as he passes through a series of poetically linked scenes—snow falls inside an unfinished church, naked pagans stream through a thicket during a torchlit ritual, a boy oversees the clearing away of muddy earth for the forging of a gigantic bell—gradually emerging as a man struggling mightily to preserve his creative and religious integrity. Appearing here in the director’s preferred 185-minute cut as well as the version that was originally suppressed by Soviet authorities, the masterwork Andrei Rublev is one of Tarkovsky’s most revered films, an arresting meditation on art, faith, and endurance. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: September 25th, 2018

La Belle et la Bete BD - Josette Day is luminous yet feisty as Beauty, and Jean Marais gives one of his best performances as the Beast, at once brutal and gentle, rapacious and vulnerable, shamed and repelled by his own bloodlust. Cinematography, lighting, costume and set designs combine to make La Belle et la Bete a thrilling piece of cinema. BFI Blu-ray Release Date: August 6th, 2018

Mohsen Makhmalbaf: The Poetic Trilogy BD - One of the preeminent figures of Iranian cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf has written and directed an impressive array of acclaimed films, winning accolades at international film festivals and the admiration of world cinema audiences. This collection presents three of Makhmalbaf s most lyrical films which the director has termed his Poetic Trilogy. Gabbeh tells of an elderly couple who stop by a stream to wash a vividly woven traditional Persian rug (Gabbeh). A beautiful woman, depicted in in the rugs elaborate design, suddenly appears and tells a heart-rending story of love and loss. A film imbued with the ideas of Sufism, The Silence tells of Khorshid, a young blind boy from Tajikistan who earns rent money for his family by tuning rare instruments but becomes enraptured by the sonorous music he hears on his way to work each day. The Gardener is an imaginative documentary which follows Makhmalbaf, and his son Maysam, to Israel to investigate the Bahá'í Faith, a religion with 7 million followers, which originated in Iran 170 years ago. Blu-ray Release Date: August 27th, 2018
 

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