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The Earth Dies Screaming
BD - After a mysterious gas
attack which kills off most of the Earth's population, a few
survivors gather at a country inn to figure out a plan for
survival. However, the gas attack is only the first step in an
alien invasion, in which groups of bullet proof killer robots
stalk the streets, able to kill anyone with the a mere touch of
their hands. The group's members find additional weaponry in a
nearby drill hall, but the robots continue their campaign of
terror, which only increases when their victims rise from the
dead as zombies, eager to kill anyone who might try to stop
them. Yet despite frictions within the group -- and the birth of
a baby, which further complicates matters -- most of the members
survive. Blu-ray Release date:
October 4th, 2016
Electra, My Love
BD - Revolutionary in form
as well as content, Electra, My Love is one of the great
Miklós Jancsó's finest works. Set amidst the open plains and
grasslands of Hungary, and shot in twelve long, beautiful,
intricately choreographed takes by cinematographer János Kende,
it is a provocative call to arms against any system that rules
without justice. Blu-ray Release
Date: September 26th, 2016
Night Creatures
BD - Despite the American
title of this movie (NIGHT CREATURES) and a subplot
concerning ghosts on horseback, this isn't really a horror
movie, nor does it act like one; it's more of a period crime
melodrama (the original title, CAPTAIN CLEGG, is much
more accurate). This may be one of the reasons that this remains
one of the more obscure Hammer thrillers, but those who choose
to seek it out may well enjoy it. The story is solid and
entertaining, and the performances are strong throughout,
particularly from Peter Cushing, Oliver Reed, and Michael Ripper
(who nearly steals the whole movie as the local undertaker).
Universal (part of the Hammer Horror 8 Film Collection)
Blu-ray Release Date: September
13th, 2016
The Sacrifice
BD - Sixtyish philosopher
Alexander (Erland Josephson) lives in a beautiful house on an
island off Sweden’s Baltic coast, with English wife Adelaide
(Susan Fleetwood), teenage daughter Julia (Valerie Maitesse) and
young son, known only as Gossen, or “Little Man” (Tommy
Kjellvqist). It’s Alexander’s birthday, and he’s visited by
eccentric bicycling postman Otto (Allan Erdawll) and smug doctor
Viktor (Sven Wollter), who is “carrying on” with Adelaide. Out
of the blue, a nuclear war is announced on TV - the telephones
and electricity are cut off, and the air is filled with the
deafening roar of passing jets. All looks bleak - but then
Alexander fervently prays, asking God to avert the impending
apocalypse, in return offering to turn his back on his home and
family, and take a vow of silence. Next morning, he wakes to
find that, somehow, the threat of annihilation has been lifted -
and now it’s up to him to keep his side of the bargain...
Artificial Eye Blu-ray Release
Date: October 3rd, 2016
The Brides of Dracula
BD - Hammer Films and
director Terence Fisher followed the excellent
Horror of Dracula with
this well-made, richly-colored sequel which suffers only from
the conspicuous lack of Dracula himself -- since Horror's
Christopher Lee had declined participation in further Dracula
sequels for the time being. In his stead, we have young, blond
Baron Meinster (David Peel) providing the requisite vampiric
threat. Though imprisoned in the family estate by his mother,
Meinster is released from his silver chains by an unsuspecting
French teacher (Yvonne Monlaur), through which he gains access
to a veritable smorgasbord of nubile wenches at a girls' school.
Fortunately, master vampire killer Dr. Van Helsing (Peter
Cushing) is on the case. Besides featuring some of the best
acting, photography and period detail of the Hammer Dracula
series, this is also one of the first to delve into the more
sexual aspects of vampirism, with implicit suggestions of
incest, sadomasochism and homosexuality. Universal (part of
the Hammer Horror 8 Film Collection)
Blu-ray Release Date: September 13th, 2016
The Curse of the Werewolf
BD - The life and times of a
lycanthrope down in sunny but sinister Spain, developing the
story from the mutant's conception (when a beggar rapes a
deaf-mute servant girl), through his early years when he causes
church fonts to bubble, to his final death at the hands of a
lynch mob incensed by his murders. Sex, naturally, is the
catalyst that sets Reed off on his homicidal binges. More
ambitious and complex than most Hammer films in its
investigation of the opposing forces that rule the life of the
monster (though still a drastic simplification of Guy Endore's
marvellous source novel. Universal (part of the Hammer Horror
8 Film Collection) Blu-ray Release
Date: September 13th, 2016
High Noon
BD - Former marshal Will
Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of
Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly),
when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been set
free and is coming to seek revenge on the marshal who turned him
in. When he starts recruiting deputies to fight Miller, Kane is
discouraged to find that the people of Hadleyville turn cowardly
when the time comes for a showdown, and he must face Miller and
his cronies alone. Olive Signature
Blu-ray Release Date: September 20th, 2016
Road House (1948)
BD - Jefty Robbins (Richard
Widmark) owns a road house near the Canadian Border which is
managed by his playboy buddy Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde) and
cashier Susie Smith (Celeste Holm). After a trip to Chicago,
Jefty brings back Lily Stevens (Ida Lupino), a chanteuse with
whom he is obviously smitten. At first Pete is loathe to hire
another one of Jefty’s girls but Lily proves her talent is worth
the paycheck. When Jefty goes on a hunting trip with some pals
and prepares to ask Lily to marry him, Pete and Lily share some
intimate time together and realize they are in love. The news
sends Jefty into a psychopathic tailspin. He devises a plan to
frame Pete and manically begins a game of endless torture and
brutality, making “the lovers suffer and suffer – until their
cup of bitterness runs over”. Blu-ray
Release Date: September 13th, 2016
Johnny Guitar
BD - Somewhat unique for the
western genre, this centers on two women conflicting in similar
male-dominated gunslinger-type roles. Joan Crawford, is a saloon
keeper fighting to keep her establishment alive against the
wishes of the local land baron and chief manipulator (Emma
Small) who remains her bitter enemy and who will seemingly stop
at nothing to have Vienna (Crawford) condemned and forced out of
town or better yet hanged for every unsolved misdemeanor in the
books. In steps the old lover Johnny (Hayden) and the machismo
sparks start to fly before the eventual catfight can ensue.
Powerful genre and gender bending make for a pure classic of the
screen. Olive Signature Blu-ray
Release Date: September 20th, 2016
Boyhood
BD - There has never been
another movie like Boyhood, from director Richard
Linklater. An event film of the utmost modesty, it was shot over
the course of twelve years in the director’s native Texas and
charts the physical and emotional changes experienced by a child
named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his divorced parents (Patricia
Arquette, who won an Oscar for her performance, and Ethan
Hawke), and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater). Alighting not
on milestones but on the small, in-between moments that make up
lives, Linklater fashions a flawlessly acted, often funny
portrait that flows effortlessly from one year to the next.
Allowing us to watch people age on film with documentary realism
while gripping us in a fictional narrative of exquisite
everydayness, Boyhood has a power that only the art of cinema
could harness. Criterion Blu-ray
Release date: October 11th, 2016
The Hills Have Eyes
BD - Horror master Wes
Craven achieved critical and commercial success with the likes
of Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street but for
many genre fans, the director s seminal 1977 effort The Hills
Have Eyes remains his masterpiece. Taking a detour whilst on
route to Los Angeles, the Carter family run into trouble when
their campervan breaks down in the middle of the desert.
Stranded, the family find themselves at the mercy of a group of
monstrous cannibals lurking in the surrounding hills. With their
lives under threat, the Carters are forced to fight back by any
means necessary. Blu-ray Release
Date: October 3rd and 11th, 2016
Short Cuts
BD - The work of two great
American artists merge in Short Cuts, maverick director
Robert Altman’s kaleidoscopic adaptation of the stories of
renowned author Raymond Carver. Epic in scale yet meticulously
observed, the film interweaves the stories of twenty-two
characters struggling to find solace and meaning in contemporary
Los Angeles. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Tim
Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Lemmon, and
Jennifer Jason Leigh—all giving fearless performances in one of
Altman’s most compassionate creations.
Blu-ray Release Date: October 18th, 2016
Fedora
BD - In Fedora, Billy Wilder
approaches Hollywood stardom in the same fashion as he did in
Sunset Boulevard--with
cynicism, regret, understanding, and awe. Fedora (Marthe Keller)
is film's most intriguing movie queen. Rumored to be well into
her sixties, the actress has remained a starlet for over four
decades--retaining youth and radiance despite her advancing
years. The mystery behind her numinous persona has never ceased
to captivate audiences. Even now, as she lives in seclusion on
the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, the public buzzes for her
to return to the screen. When producer Barry Detweiler (William
Holden) travels to Corfu, staking his faltering career on
Fedora's return, he discovers the actress's tragic secret.
Fedora's eternal loveliness may not be the result of defying her
age, but of concealing her youth. Masters of Cinema
Blu-ray Release Date: September
26th, 2016
Paths of Glory
BD - Stanley Kubrick’s
Paths of Glory is among the most powerful antiwar films ever
made. A fiery Kirk Douglas stars as a World War I French colonel
who goes head-to-head with the army’s ruthless top brass when
his men are accused of cowardice after being unable to carry out
an impossible mission. This haunting, exquisitely photographed
dissection of the military machine in all its absurdity and
capacity for dehumanization (a theme Kubrick would continue to
explore throughout his career) is assembled with its legendary
director’s customary precision, from its tense trench warfare
sequences to its gripping courtroom climax to its ravaging final
scene. Masters of Cinema Blu-ray
Release Date: September 19th, 2016
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
BD - This unorthodox dream
western by Robert Altman may be the most radically beautiful
film to come out of the New American Cinema. It stars Warren
Beatty and Julie Christie as two newcomers to the raw Pacific
Northwest mining town of Presbyterian Church, who join forces to
provide the miners with a superior kind of whorehouse
experience. The appearance of representatives of a powerful
mining company with interests of its own, however, threatens to
be the undoing of their plans. With its fascinating flawed
characters, evocative cinematography by the great Vilmos
Zsigmond, innovative overlapping dialogue, and haunting use of
Leonard Cohen songs, McCabe & Mrs. Miller brilliantly
deglamorized and revitalized the most American of genres.
Blu-ray Release Date: October 11th,
2016
Deadly Record - When pilot
Trevor Hamilton touches down at London Airport, his wife Jenny
is not there to meet him. Their marriage is on the point of
collapse, and when Jenny is found dead, Hamilton becomes Suspect
Number One. With the police searching for enough evidence to
arrest him, Hamilton desperately interviews everyone in Jenny's
social circle to find the real murderer!... DVD Release Date:
June 29th, 2015
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
- A mousy young haberdashery clerk named George McWhirter
Fotheringay (Roland Young, better known as Topper) gets picked
at random by some quarrelling gods in the starry sky and, as an
experiment, is given the capacity to perform miracles, without
offering him any explanation why. (He can do just about anything
in the physical world, but he can’t alter how people think and
feel.) Much of what ensues is pretty funny, and made all the
more appealing by a fine supporting cast that includes Ralph
Richardson as blustery Colonel Winstanley, Joan Gardner as the
hero’s coworker Ada (whom he can’t induce to fall in love with
him), and even George Sanders in a bit part as one of the
quarrelling gods... DVD Release Date: June 12th, 2005
Offbeat - Equipped with the
name and background of a former crook, an MI5 agent on
undercover assignment for Scotland Yard coolly carries out a
bank robbery to establish his criminal bona fides. His mission
is to infiltrate the world of the new breed of criminals whose
skilfully planned robberies outwit the Yard a mission fraught
with intrigue and danger! DVD Release Date: January 25th,
2016
Dead Lucky - Mike Billings
is a journalist working on 'exposures' of Mayfair gambling
parties, but so far with little success. When Mike manages to
infiltrate his first gambling party he's horrified to see his
girlfriend Jenny there in the company of notorious gambler Lucky
Lewis. When the party is raided by the police, Jenny leaves with
Lucky. Next morning Lucky is found dead and Jenny admits that
she went back to his flat for drinks... DVD Release Date:
November 16th, 2015
Wrong Number - A security
guard is murdered during a mail-van robbery and one of the van
crew overhears the killer's name: Angelo. Before the murderer
can phone his boss to confirm that the job has been successfully
accomplished, the elderly Miss Crystal mistakenly dials the same
number and hears a girl ask if it is Angelo speaking. The next
day, seeing the newspaper headlines, Miss Crystal realises she
may have a valuable clue but can she remember the incorrect
number she dialled? DVD Release Date: April 18th, 2016
The Long Dark Hall - Rex
Harrison's extramarital relationship with Patricia Wayne comes
to an end when Wayne is murdered. All evidence points to
Harrison; we know that he's innocent, but the detectives don't
have this advantage. With his faithful wife Lilli Palmer at his
side, Harrison goes on trial for his life. Anthony Dawson, the
genuine murderer, intends to confess after Harrison is hanged.
Thanks to a governmental quirk, Dawson's letter reaches the
authorities just a few steps ahead of the hangman. Anthony
Bushell, co-director of Long Dark Hall, is featured as
Harrison's defense attorney. The film was co-scripted by
Hollywood's Nunnally Johnson and based on a novel by Edgar
Lustgarden... DVD Release Date: September 12th, 2016
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