Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF September 2nd, 2019

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Ahoj! A NEW SILENT AUCTION for patrons HERE. Another loaded week of Blu-ray reviews in this newsletter by Second Run, Arrow, BFI, Kino, Shout! Factory, VCI, Cohen, Masters of Cinema, 101 Films, Acorn Media, Funimation... of films by Fred Zinnemann, Milos Forman, Lew Landers, Derek Jarman, David Cronenberg, Bertrand Blier, Karel Kachyna, Franco Rosso, Edward Dein, Sidney Hayers, Seth Holt, Michael Carreras, Roy Ward Baker etc. .Our Calendar has last week's updates of Blu-rays including by directors Victor Fleming, John Gilling, Anthony Mann, James Ivory, Brian De Palma, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, John Landis, Val Guest, Preston Sturges, Wes Anderson, Richard Franklin, Mick Garris, Danny Boyle, John Frankenheimer, David Lynch, Edgar Wright and more. We also have our Feature Blu-ray and 4K UHD posted for SEPTEMBER Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

Cinema of Japan, Discs of the Year for 2018, The TOP 100 DISCS, Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, HAGSPloitation, 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-ray and 4K UHD chosen for the Month of SEPTEMBER!

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ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): This week, Masters of Cinema's High Noon Blu-ray gets top spot. Fred Zinnemann's classic gets a 4K restoration and new commentaries, 1/2 hour of Neil Sinyard, 1 1/4 hour of Carl Foreman and a 100-page booklet. Must own. We reviewed two Czech New Wave Films this past week - both released on Blu-ray by Second Run. Milos Forman's A Blonde in Love and Karel Kachyna The Ear (Ucho) - from the transitional late 60s mark impressive, and timeless, cinema. Alan J. Pakula's Comes a Horseman arrives on a stacked BFI Blu-ray - a brilliant film, set as a western but heavy on themes of morality, greed, loyalty and love.  They both sport new commentaries and are deemed essential to world cinephile libraries. Kino brought Franco Rosso's 1980 Babylon to Blu-ray. A true British classic film now sees the light of day, with some important music. Thumbs Up. Cohen Media's Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray (respite the burned-in subtitles) brings an amusing French comedy to HD. Despite the bare-bones status, I really enjoyed Circus of Horrors - and over-the-top 60's UK horror on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory who also release two more Hammer Studio films to Blu-ray; Roy Ward Baker's Scars of Dracula with Christopher Lee and Michael Carreras' Blood from the Mummy's Tomb has voluptuous Valerie Leon. They both are rife with the usual charm although wouldn't be considered premium fare from the studio. I'm a sucker for entries like The Leech Woman - on new Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. It has the appeal of Coleen Gray and a new commentary. I was sold at the latter. David Cronenberg's Rabid gets a new Blu-ray package from 101 Films - it has 3 commentaries and a wonderful new documentary on the second Blu-ray. I enjoyed the comedy of Prison School - a fetishistic and satirical Japanese anime on Blu-ray from Funimation. Chernobyl is a very impressive five-part mini-series, although I questions the image quality of the Acorn Blu-ray release. I love the older serials and VCI have brought The Vanishing Shadow to Blu-ray - ray guns, robots and a 'vanishing belt' - Nu'ff said. Derek Jarman's The Garden is another contemplative works from the director - on Blu-ray from Kino. In the Aftermath is an unusual apocalypse film from the 80s, with a mixture of live-action and animation, and Arrow have brought it to Blu-ray.

 “Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them..” ― Christopher Lee

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Comes a Horseman BD - Set in the American West of the 1940s, director Alan J. Pakula's (All The President's Men, Sophie's Choice) Comes A Horseman centres on a pair of little-guy ranchers (Jane Fonda, James Caan) who join forces against the depredations of a ruthless land baron (Jason Robards) determined to expand his empire at any cost. Shot by the incomparable Gordon Willis, with music by the great Michael Small, and featuring an indelible Oscar®-nominated performance from long-time stuntman Richard Farnsworth. Blu-ray Release Date: September 16th, 2019

Prison School BD - A deliciously sadistic new dark comedy. Hachimitsu Academy, a prestigious, historically all-girls school, has finally become co-ed. Average teen, Kiyoshi, is one of five boys to enroll. What he doesn’t know is that the school is clandestinely ruled by an underground student council of ruthless, cruel, totally hot female students! And when the boys get caught peeping, they’re sent to the school’s prison, which is run by the brutally seductive warden, who also happens to be the VP of the Underground Student Council. After the boys are forced to endure manual labor, whips, and chains, they’ll be left wishing they were locked up with actual criminals! Blu-ray Release Date: October 8th, 2018

Scars of Dracula BD - At a remote castle a vampire bat dribbles fresh blood over mouldering remains, resurrecting the infamous Count Dracula (Christopher Lee). Terrified villagers set fire to the castle but later discover that a swarm of vengeful bats has killed the women and children that sought sanctuary in the local church. Dracula’s latest reign of terror has begun. Blu-ray Release date: September 10th, 2019

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb BD - Margaret (Valerie Leon) suffers a recurring nightmare in which she sees an ancient Egyptian queen, to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance, sealed up in a sarcophagus. The priests who entomb her first chop off her hand, before throwing it to jackals. They are then killed by a mysterious and powerful force that lacerates their throats. Margaret’s father, Professor Fuchs (Andrew Keir), gives her a ring that he discovered in the tomb of Queen Tera 20 years before – the ring was on the queen’s disembodied hand. At the moment Fuchs discovered the Queen’s perfectly preserved, still bleeding, body, Margaret’s mother died giving birth to her. When a certain celestial conjunction is complete, and three key artefacts are assembled by Tera’s corpse, the evil sorceress will be reborn. Blu-ray Release date: September 10th, 2019

Circus of Horrors BD - A deranged plastic surgeon (Anton Diffring) takes over a traveling circus, then transforms horribly disfigured young women into ravishing beauties and coerces them to perform in his three-ring extravaganza. But when the re-sculpted lovelies try to escape the clutches of the obsessed doctor, they begin to meet with sudden and horrific "accidents." Now the trapeze is swinging, the knives are flying, the wild animals are loose – and "The Grisliest Show on Earth" is about to begin. Blu-ray Release Date: September 10th, 2019

Chernobyl BD - Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson star in Chernobyl, the critically acclaimed five-part mini-series. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSR suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and as far as Scandinavia and Western Europe. Dramatising the true story of the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, Chernobyl shines a light on the brave men and women who fought an unprecedented war against an invisible enemy, and who suffered and sacrificed, saving millions of lives, often at the cost of their own. Blu-ray Release Date: July 29th, 2019

The Ear (Ucho) BD - One gets the impression from Karel Kachyña’s The Ear that life under the Communists’ boot in Czechoslovakia during the early 1970’s wasn’t all Pilsner Urquell and pretzels. Shot in black and white, Kachyña’s study of paranoia and desperation was understandably held from release by the Warsaw Pact immediately upon its completion in 1970, and has only been screened for audiences in the last decade or so. It’s worth the wait. Blu-ray Release Date: August 26th, 2019

In the Aftermath BD - In a radiation-soaked wasteland, two surviving soldiers, Frank and Goose, search for essential supplies amid the rubble. After a violent confrontation, Frank is haunted by visions of an angelic young girl holding a giant egg, herself a refugee from another world altogether. Could the egg be the key to saving both their worlds? A unique mash-up of 1980s B-movie nuclear paranoia and hauntingly lyrical animation, In The Aftermath is presented in a stunning new restoration that highlights Oshii's visionary genius and Colpaert's low-budget ingenuity. Blu-ray Release Date: August 4th, 2019

The Vanishing Shadow BD - VCI is pleased to present this classic cliffhanger from Universal Pictures, which has never had an official video release on any format, now available for the first time on Blu-ray and produced from the original studio film elements! A 12-episode Universal serial in which a son avenges the death of his father at the hands of corrupt politicians. He develops a wide variety of complex devices in his crusade . . . ray guns, robots and a 'vanishing belt.' Note: The serial features what is believed to be the first appearance of a hand held ray gun in film. Blu-ray Release Date: August 26th, 2019

High Noon BD - The myth and poetry of the old west come alive in Fred Zinnemann's classic western, High Noon (1952). One of the great treasures of the American cinema, the film stars the legendary Gary Cooper as lawman Will Kane, a marshal who stands alone to defend a town of cowardly citizens against a gang of killers out for revenge. Engaged in the fight of his lifetime, Kane stands to lose everything when the clock strikes noon his friends, his honor, and his Quaker bride, played by Grace Kelly in one of her first screen roles. Unfolding in real time, the tension builds as we race ever closer to the climactic duel from which the film takes its name. Masters of Cinema Blu-ray Release Date: September 16th, 2019

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs BD - Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Carole Laure star in a sweet and funny exploration of love and its shifting configurations. Doting spouse Depardieu attempts to alleviate wife Laure's depression, even if it means opening their marriage up to accommodate school teacher Dewaere—but as it turns out, her preferred bedmate is bullied schoolboy Riton Liebman. With Michel Serrault (La Cage aux Folles) as a concerned neighbor. In the U.S., the movie won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Picture and then the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, while back home Georges Delerue's score earned the composer his first César Award. Blu-ray Release Date: August 27th, 2019

Rabid BD - After undergoing radical emergency surgery, Rose (former adult film star Marilyn Chambers in her first leading role in a mainstream film) develops an insatiable desire for blood. She searches out victims to satisfy her incurable craving, infecting them with an unknown disease which in turn swiftly drives them insane... and makes them equally bloodthirsty. Blu-ray Release date: August 26th, 2019

The Leech Woman BD - Hoping to discover the secret to eternal youth, Dr. Paul Talbot (Phillip Terry) drags his long-suffering wife, June (Coleen Gray), to follow him to Africa. When captured by natives, they witness the shocking metamorphosis of one of the old women into a young girl. But this "magic" is short-lived ... and, as the Talbots soon learn, requires a male sacrifice! Blu-ray Release Date: August 27th, 2019

Babylon BD - Franco Rosso’s incendiary Babylon had its world premiere at Cannes in 1980 but went unreleased in the U.S. for “being too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension” (Vivien Goldman). Raw and smoldering, it follows a young reggae DJ (Brinsley Forde, frontman of landmark British group Aswad) in Thatcher-era Brixton as he pursues his musical ambitions, battling fiercely against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbors, police, and the National Front. Blu-ray Release Date: August 20th, 2019

The Garden BD - Director Derek Jarman takes the viewer for a walk around his own garden in rural England for this non-narrative film. Many of the scenes depict the Passion of Christ, but the sufferings are instead visited upon a gay couple. Jarman then assaults the senses with a series of images, including a campy version of the song "Think Pink" from Funny Face. Blu-ray Release Date: August 27th, 2019

A Blonde in Love BD - With sixteen women to each man, the odds are against Andula in her desperate search for love—that is, until a rakish piano player visits her small factory town and temporarily eases her longings. A tender and humorous look at Andula’s journey, from the first pangs of romance to its inevitable disappointments, Loves of a Blonde( Lásky jedné plavovlásky) immediately became a classic of the Czech New Wave and earned Milos Forman the first of his Academy Award nominations. Blu-ray Release Date: July 29th, 2019
 

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