DVDBeaver Newsletter - September 1st, 2006
Nah-mah-stay! - 12 new reviews this week (4 of which are new Criterion DVDs and 4 of which are significant comparisons). A few of the films covered include works directed by Victor Erice, Jacques Tati, Terry Gilliam, Stanley Donen, Fritz Lang, Norman Jewison, Woody Allen and more. Plus some calendar updates and alternations and this month's feature DVD (is it September already?). One of our more complete newsletters...
Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.
DISAPPEARING ACT - It seems that all three newly posted Signature Collections (P. Newman, G. Cooper and M. Brando) have disappeared from amazon.com. ?!? We just called Amazon customer service and they said that these sets are 'Out of Production'. ? Hopefully they will return soon.
BAD PACKAGING: The finally shipped VCI Hammer Noirs 3-pack - a very think case with one DVD holder and 3 discs stacked on top of one another - if I had known this I would have bought the individual boxes for a little more money... The set contains - Bad Blonde (1953) Man Bait (1952) A Stolen Face (1952) - Blackout (1954) Gambler and the Lady (1952) - Heat Wave (1954). Reviews will be forthcoming...
FEATURE DVD FOR SEPTEMBER: An expected and obvious choice for this months Feature DVD...
NEW Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!) (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1970) Warner Home Video (Jack Smight, 1969) Warner Home Video
The Ingmar Bergman Collection (30 Films!)
- 1. After the Rehearsal, 2. All These Women, 3. Autumn Sonata, 4. Cries and Whispers, 5. Crisis, 6. Dreams, 7. Farodokument 79, 8. From The Life of the Marionettes, 9. A Lesson in Love, 10. The Magician, 11. Music in Darkness, 12. Persona, 13. Port of Call, 14. Prison, 15. The Rite, 16. Saraband, 17. Scenes From a Marriage, 18. The Seventh Seal, 19. The Silence, 20. Smiles of a Summer Night, 21. Summer Interlude, 22. Summer With Monika, 23. Three Strange Loves, 24. Through a Glass Darkly, 25. Torment, 26. To Joy, 27. The Virgin Spring, 28. Waiting Women, 29. Wild Strawberries, 30. Winter Light) - R2 UK Tartan (Widescreen Edition) (2006) Walt Disney VideoIcons of Horror: Boris Karloff
The Black Room (1935), The Man They Could Not Hang (1939), Before I Hang (1940), The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) - Sony PicturesThe Tarzan Collection Starring Johnny Weissmuller, Vol. 2
(Tarzan Triumphs / Tarzan's Desert Mystery / Tarzan and the Amazons / and the Leopard Woman / and the Huntress / and the Mermaids) Warner Home VideoColumbo: Complete Sixth & Seventh Seasons
(3-discs) Universal Studios (The Stan Lee Collector's Edition) (Brett Ratner, 2006) 20th Century FoxJan Svankmajer: The Ossuary & Other Tales
- Kino Video (Robert Douglas, 1964) 20th Century Fox (Robert Rossen, 1949) Sony Pictures (Nicholas Ray, 1957) 20th Century Fox (David Jacobson, 2005) Velocity / Thinkfilm (1925) - 3-disc - Homevision - R2 UK Artificial EyeAlfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Two
(5-disc) - Universal Studios (My Friend Irma / My Friend Irma Goes West / The Caddy / Scared Stiff) - Paramount Home VideoPreston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection
(Christmas in July, The Great McGinty, Hail the Conquering Hero, Great Moment, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, Palm Beach Story) - Universal Studios (King Vidor, 1949) Warner - Come, Come, Come Upwards (1989), Sopyonje (1993), Taebaek Mountains (1994), Festival (1996), Chunhyang (2000) - Taeheung Movies
UPCOMING:
Coming September 19th from Universal
(tentative)The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection
(Tarantula, The Mole People, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters, Monster On The Campus; 3-disc set)Coming Dec 5th from Warner:
Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 1
- Baby Face, Red-Headed Woman, Waterloo Bridge - Warner
and on September 18th
from Fox UK:
The Hustler (Cinema Reserve Collection with Newman
commentary) - R2 UK - Twentieth Century Fox
STRATEGIES: The best way to take full advantage of Amazon is to use PRE-ORDERs - lock in at the discount price by ORDERING - if perchance you decide against the purchase you have until the release date to cancel - at no charge.
AND if you will purchase more than 35 DVDs (or anything) in a 365 day period (and live in the Continental US) it makes excellent financial sense to subscribe to Amazon Prime! You will get Free 2-day shipping on your purchases!
RECOMMENDATIONS: Again, I'll preface that these selections are only my taste - certainly subject to your head scratching, verbal abuse and, at times, disbelief. BUT anyway...
Playtime should be at the top of the list for all cinema fans - this film will continue to be discussed decades from now and Criterion have given us one of their most dramatic improvements in the new REISSUE release. For those who have not seen Victor Erice's masterpiece - The Spirit of the Beehive - is an absolute must and the Criterion package is a triumph of completeness. Criterion (again) have give us the only available 16X9 NTSC transfer of Terry Gilliam's Brazil - a fun film that also speaks volumes. I'll continue to champion what I consider to be Allen's best film of the past decade (and perhaps of all time) - Match Point. Even without being a poker buff, one could still get great enjoyment from Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid. - superb performances all round. Those keen on Donen's Charade will surely enjoy Arabesque as well. Some left field, but genuinely good, selection include - Pretty Poison, Let's Scare Jessica To Death, and Jigoku. Ohh and I remain a strong fan and have all available sets including the latest - The Simpsons Season Eight.
New Reviews:
The Spirit of the Beehive (NEW
Criterion compared to Optimum) - Víctor Erice’s
spellbinding
The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu
de la colmena) is widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In
a small Castilian village in 1940, in the wake of the country's devastating
civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and
becomes possessed by the memory of it. DVD Release Date: September 19th, 2006
The Beat That My Heart Skipped - In tune
with the theme of the film, ”The
Beat That My Heart Skipped” is more a variation of James
Toback’s 1978 “Fingers”, than a reversion or remake. While characters,
situations and plot elements are shared, mood and tone are different, similar to
the same melody being played in two different variations and styles.
The Simpsons Season Eight - Matt Groening
generated such a massive cult following with his landmark series “The Simpsons”
(1989) that the popular TV show recently began its eighteenth season and, as of
a couple years ago, became the longest running comedy series in television
history. While it’s difficult to overestimate the series’ obvious fame, I think
many fans fail to acknowledge the show’s cultural significance over the past
sixteen years. DVD Release Date: Aug. 15, 2006
Playtime (NEW
Criterion REISSUE compared) - 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. DVD
Release Date: September 5th, 2006
Brazil (NEW Criterion Single Disc REISSUE compared) -
Pitting the imagination of common man Sam Lowry (the brilliantly befuddled
Jonathan Pryce) against the oppressive storm troopers of the Ministry of
Information, Terry Gilliam's
Brazil has come to be regarded as an
anti-totalitarianism cautionary tale equal to the works of George Orwell, Aldous
Huxley, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. DVD Release Date: September 5th, 2006
Hangmen Also Die - Lang's marvellously dark adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's
fictionalized take on the assassination of notorious Nazi leader and Czech
'protector' Reinhard Heydrich by the resistance movement, killed in Prague in
1942. Donlevy plays the assassin hiding in the city as the Gestapo promise
retribution. There's plenty of tense Langian suspense and the story fits his
noir disposition perfectly. Brecht was apparently none too pleased with the
result, feeling his contribution had been undermined, but the film manages to
pull off the tough double of making an anti-Nazi political statement and being
thrilling entertainment as well. The lackluster Orbit Media PAL DVD release
came out in February of this year.
Pretty Poison - A one-off minor masterpiece from debut director Black, Pretty
Poison stars Perkins as the factory worker and part-time arsonist, who gets more
then he bargained for when he teams up with impressionable teenager Weld. Giving
new meanings to the phrase quiet waters run deep, Perkins with his psychological
problems is no match for Weld's murderous intent. While Perkins initially
manages to teach her a trick or two, the roles are soon reversed. Impressively
dark comedy, especially noteworthy for Perkins' performance. Black's direction
manages to get the most out of the tight script, by regarding his characters
with a mixture of horror and fascination. DVD Release Date: August 29th, 2006
Match Point - Match Point is sexy, mysterious, building, eventful and
essentially quite unforgettable. The performances are basically one dimensional
- aside from the moral slippage of the protagonist - conveniently ready Crime
and Punishment in the beginning of the film. Scarlett Johansson has never looked
better (as good as any female has a right to look) and her character generously
gives to Rhys Meyers - an extremely important cog in the brilliant evolution of
this story. Obvious comparisons are made to Allen's
Crimes and Misdemeanors -
the sterility of murder and the cold blanket of its cumulative effect. For me
this is a favorite film of the past few years and one I should have added to
this article had I seen it first. Nothing short of perfection and we should be
enormously grateful to have Allen as a working filmmaker. Don't miss out on this
masterpiece. The Dreamworks DVD came out in April of this year.
Let's Scare Jessica To Death - John D Hancock's under-rated thriller stars Zohra
Lampert as mentally fragile hippy who, with husband Barton Heyman and friend
Kevin O'Connor, moves from New York to an isolated Connecticut farmhouse to
rehabilitate. But they may not be the only residents as Jessica starts hearing
voices and seeing spectral images... DVD Release Date: August 29th, 2006
Arabesque - Stanley Donen's follow-up to
Charade is not quite the tour de force
the earlier film was, but even with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren standing in
for Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, it's a slick and satisfying entertainment.
Watch for the unforgettable Eisensteinian moment when Donen cuts from Loren's
mouth to a steam shovel. DVD Release Date: May 8th, 2006
The Cincinnati Kid - Norman Jewison, perhaps the best of the more unrecognized
directors, replaces Sam Peckinpah, supposedly because Peckinpah tried to sneak
in a nude scene with Sharon Tate into a US cut that was only proposed for the
European edition. Fired Peckinpah disappears with Tate and the project stalls.
Destined for greatness we have Ring Lardner and Terry Southern's script, taken
from Richard Jessup's novel dealing with 2 poker-icons, the aged master and the
fresh up-and-commer, meeting for THE big game in '30s New Orleans.
Jigoku - Shocking, outrageous, and poetic,
Jigoku (Hell, a.k.a. The Sinners of
Hell) is the most innovative creation from Nobuo Nakagawa, the father of the
Japanese horror film. After a young theology student flees a hit-and-run
accident, he is plagued by both his own guilt-ridden conscience and a
mysterious, diabolical doppelganger. But all possible escape routes lead
straight to hell— literally. In the gloriously gory final third of the film,
Nakagawa offers up his vision of the underworld in a tour de force of torture
and degradation. A striking departure from traditional Japanese ghost stories,
Jigoku, with its truly eye-popping (and -gouging) imagery, created aftershocks
that are still reverberating in contemporary world horror cinema. DVD Release
Date: September 19th, 2006
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of September 4th, 2006
All the King's Men (Robert Rossen, 1949) Sony Pictures
Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973) Criterion Collection
Blade Runner - The Director's Cut (Ridley Scott ,1982) Warner Home Video
Brazil Single - disc (Terry Gilliam, 1985) Criterion Collection
Brazil Three - disc (Terry Gilliam, 1985) Criterion Collection
The Bela Lugosi Box Set: 15 Frightful Films - The Midnight Girl (1925), White Zombie (1932), The Death Kiss (1932), The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934), The Return Of Chandu (1934), Chandu On The Magic Island (1935), The Dark Eyes Of London (The Human Monster) (1939), The Devil Bat (1941), The Corpse Vanishes (1942), Bowery At Midnight (1942), The Ape Man (1943), Scared To Death (1947), Glen Or Glenda? (1953), Bride Of The Monster (1955), Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) - Passport
Godzilla - Gojira Deluxe Collector's Edition (2 DVD set) - Godzilla (1954 Japanese Edition-English subtitles) Sony Wonder
House of the Damned (1963) (Maury Dexter, 1963) 20th Century Fox
Jesse James (Henry King ,1939) 20th Century Fox
Night Train to Paris (Robert Douglas, 1964) 20th Century Fox
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) Criterion Collection
Pretty Poison (Noel Black, 1968) 20th Century Fox
The Quiet Duel (Akira Kurosawa, 1949) Brentwood Home Video
The Return of Frank James (Fritz Lang , 1940) 20th Century Fox
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Criterion Collection
The True Story of Jesse James (Nicholas Ray, 1957) 20th Century Fox
Week of September 11th, 2006
Death Mr Lazerescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) Wellspring Media, Inc
Film Noir - The Dark Side of Hollywood (Sudden Fear / The Long Night / Hangmen Also Die / Railroaded / Behind Locked Doors) Kino Video
Great Yokai War (Takashi Miike, 2005) Tokyo Shock
I Am a Sex Addict (Caveh Zahedi, 2005) Wellspring
International Cinema Collection (A Very Long Engagement / Day for Night / The Damned / Gloomy Sunday / Death in Venice) Warner Home Video
Jan Svankmajer: The Ossuary & Other Tales - Kino Video
Laurel and Hardy Collection, Vol. 2 - Disk 1: A-Haunting We Will Go (1942) Disk 2: The Dancing Masters (1943) Disk 3: Bullfighters (1945) - 20th Century Fox
Teen Terror Collection - (Teenage Doll, Teenage Monster, Teenagers from Outer Space) - Image Entertainment
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER SAVINGS
Criterion's October lineup
Sólo con tu pareja
FASTER? - No patience for the Beaver homepage? - try the streamlined http://www.dvdbeaver-lite.com/ (a text version with all the same intrepid info!)
DON'T FORGET: Craving the stuff you can't seem to get anywhere else? Beavers TOP YesAsia picks are listed HERE
PRE-ORDERS and discounts (30% off or more)
Seduced & Abandoned, Seven Samurai - 3-disc, Amarcord 2-disc, Brazil 3-disc, Brazil 1-disc, and Playtime. Plus October's lineup - Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón, 1991), Clean, Shaven (Lodge H. Kerrigan, 1994), Hands Over the City (Francesco Rosi, 1963), Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989)
For those headed back to school soon - remember these may be the happiest years of your life - enjoy while you can!
Gary