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HERE!DVDBeaver Newsletter - October 6th, 2006
Zdravstvuite! - 17 new reviews this week (4 of which are multi-film boxsets!). Noir, Horror, Sci-fi, plus Wenders, Altman, Coppola, Godard, Beatty, some new Calendar listings and more...
FEATURE DVDs OF THE MONTH (OCTOBER)! - Four essentials from the great Max Ophuls - Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), The Reckless Moment (1949), Le Plaisir (1952) and Madame De... (1953) are released by Second Sight Films (UK) in wonderful transfers with relevant supplements. They deserve recognition. PURCHASE HERE
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Check out Beaver's ESSENTIAL FILM NOIR STORE - many more (with more listing) coming soon...
Sale on many RKO
Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.
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NEW Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!)
The Weeping Meadow (Theo Angelopoulos, 2004) New Yorker
The Cruel Sea (Charles Frend, 1953) Anchor Bay
They All Laughed (Peter Bogdanovich, 1981) Warner Home Video
The Other (Robert Mulligan, 1972) 20th Century Fox
The Dam Busters (Michael Anderson, 1954) Anchor Bay
Woman on the Beach (Sang-soo Hong, 2006) R3 - NTSC - Bitwin
WWII Three-pack - Objective, Burma!/Never So Few/Go for Broke - Warner
49 Up (Michael Apted, 2006) First Run Features
Laurel & Hardy - (Air Raid Wardens / Nothing but Trouble) - Warner Home Video
Oldboy (Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition) (Chan-wook Park, 2004) Tartan Video
1900 - Special Collector's Edition (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1977) Paramount Home Video
The Premiere Frank Capra Collection - 6 disc - (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It Happened One Night, You Can't Take It with You, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, American Madness and Frank Capra's American Dream) Sony Picture
RECOMMENDATIONS: I usually watch a lot of films for DVDBeaver but I doubt anyone viewed as much cinema as I did this past 7 days. Perhaps I should try to be more discerning but I have many recommendations this newsletter. I'll tone down the superlatives and just say that I was thrilled with my viewings of the boxset collections - Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection, The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection, and Motion Picture Masterpieces. Incredible value in those DVD collection sets. Forced to choose one film favorite of that 15 - The Return of Dr. X was pure pleasure.
Noir enthusiasts may wish to jump on The Window, Follow Me Quietly and Forgotten Noir Vol. 3.
As far as classic cinema goes I REALLY enjoyed - Objective, Burma. Two similar works crossed my mind as I watched - Anthony Mann's Men in War and Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (the latter steals from it in some respects). Great high level propaganda. Makes me want to seek more WWII cinema.
I can't see how Godard fans could miss out on Hail Mary.
Beatty's Reds has been awaited for a long time.
Modern stuff?: A Prairie Home Companion was warm and charming... and occasionally cynical. Land of Plenty has Wenders deft signature all over it. 36 Quai des Orfèvres is a less than subtle crime drama with excellent performances. The Complete Dossier has incredible value - Apocalypse Now needs no introduction.
Guilty Pleasure of the Week: A Dan Curtis 70's gem, tarred with the same brush as Kolchak: The Night Stalker - The Norliss Tapes gave me some of that nostalgic enjoyment back again.
New Reviews:
Reds - In the annals of Hollywood history, Warren Beatty is a member of industry royalty. Blessed with charm, good looks, and talent, Beatty was a big box-office draw during the 1960s and 1970s who was also famous for dating many celebrities before marrying Annette Bening after 1991’s Bugsy. At the height of his influence, Beatty persuaded his friends at Paramount to finance Reds, a biopic about John Reed and Louise Bryant. Reed and Bryant were American journalists who supported the global Communist movement; they even spent some time in Russia, which gave Reed the experiences and materials that he needed to write Ten Days That Shook the World.
Hail Mary - Before “Hail Mary” ever reached theaters in 1985, the film had already generated enough controversy to earn Godard a stern reprimand from Pope John Paul 2, as well as a pie in the face at the Cannes Film Festival (which one upset Godard more, I have no idea.) Godard was accused of making a film that sullied the reputation of the Virgin Mary and offended Christians throughout the world. As is usual in such cases, the most vigorous protesters had not bothered with the formality of actually seeing the movie.
Motion Picture Masterpieces - 5 classics
available for the first time on DVD - David
Copperfield (1935), Marie Antoinette (1938),
Pride and Prejudice (1940), A Tale of Two Cities
(1935) and Treasure Island (1934).
Seeing Freddie Bartholomew, Norma Shearer,
Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Greer Garson,
Laurence Olivier, Maureen O'Sullivan, Ronald
Colman, Basil Rathbone, Wallace Beery and Jackie
Cooper either in their primes or early in their
careers makes this collection all the more
desirable. DVD Release Date: October 10th,
2006
The Window - In Ian McEwan's telling
comment, 'low-budget films, enforce good
behavior'; the best of RKO's post-war thrillers
and social dramas thrived on this notion.
Tetzlaff's tense movie - from a story by
Woolrich - marks a variation on the boy who
cried wolf (once too often). Here the boy is an
over-imaginative kid whose working-class parents
are driven to distraction by his stories. But
one night he witnesses a murder. No one believes
him, but the killers get to hear of it and
decide to kill him. The chase and the climax are
brilliantly handled against suitably authentic
New York backgrounds. DVD Release Date:
October 1st, 2006
A Prairie Home Companion - Altman's film
is a celebrity performed cinema version of
Garrison Keillor's radio show - A Prairie Home
Companion. Occasionally narrated by Kevin Kline
who plays a security guard named Guy Noir -
another nostalgic throw-back as an ex-private
investigator temporarily out of work due to the
deficiency of both missing heiresses and
tycoon's lying in the solarium with lipstick
stains on their smoking jackets. Two kind of
quasi main plots - a new owner (Tommy Lee Jones)
has purchased the Fitzgerald theater (that the
show broadcasts from) and is going to tear it
down while an angel (Virginia Madsen) stalks the
theater to take one of the performers and
converse with a few others. Other than that we
have a wonderful plot less narrative of
rapid-fire dialogue, hints of sub-stories and
character placements. DVD Release Date:
October 10th, 2006
36 Quai des Orfèvres - Director Olivier
Marchal has roots in law enforcement but I
sincerely hope the muddled extremes examined in
the plot between power hungry cops and
unconscionable criminals is pure fiction.
Totally dissimilar to Henri-Georges Clouzot's
1947 classic called simply Quai des orfevres, 36
(as it became marketed as) still gives a very
entertaining ride based, in great part, to
Daniel Auteuil's commanding performance. He
resembles Robert DeNiro in this film to quite a
strong degree and is the fair cop essentially
foiled by the letter of the law turning against
him. The Tartan DVD Release Date: September
18th, 2006
Follow Me Quietly -
Follow Me Quietly
(1949) has a script partly by Anthony Mann, and
the film is in the tradition of Mann's He Walked
by Night (1948). Both films are
semi-documentaries, focusing on the hunt for a
lone serial killer. Both films have the regular
police as their protagonists. Both films have
somewhat similar police work. In both, the
police finally get a clue to the killer's
identity. This clue is followed up by much
legwork. This allows the police to get closer
and closer to the killer, progressing through
inquiries at various institutions, and finally
track him to where he lives. At the finale, the
killer escapes the police net at his home, and
winds up in a police chase through a Los Angeles
industrial location.
Forgotten Noir Vol. 3 -
Shoot To Kill sees gangster Dixie
Logan framed by crooked DA Lawrence Dale. His
wife secures a job as Dale's assistant, the
better to find the proof of the DA's dishonesty.
She gets help from Reporter Mitchell, who falls
in love with her. In
Street of Shadows, Luigi (Cesar
Romero), owner of night club, falls in love with
the attractive Barbara (Kay Kendall). But a
corpse of his former friend is found, and one of
Barbara's gloves is the only clue. Is it a
Murder? Scotland yard gets involved and the plot
thickens... great British Noir in the vein of
the Hammer thriller/murder films of this period.
DVD Release Date: September 26th, 2006
Yellow Submarine - Inspired by
Beatlemania, this was the first feature-length
animated movie made in Britain for 14 years, and
it seemed determined to give a break to all
those valiant animators who had been sweating to
produce under-budgeted shorts throughout the
'60s. Which is doubtless why there's such a wide
disparity of graphic styles from sequence to
sequence. Some of them, though, still look
terrific: director George Dunning's own
contribution is the 'Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds' fantasia, with swirling, colour-washed
couples counterpointing the song in a totally
unexpected way. Speculation: maybe the banality
of the over-long 'Love Conquers All' finale has
less to do with John Lennon than with Erich
(Love Story) Segal, who had a hand in the
script.
The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection -
The Mole People (1956), Tarantula (1955),
The
Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), The Monolith
Monsters (1957) and Monsters on Campus (1958).
This package is a real cracker - at a great
price (under $20.00). I'd love e to see a 'Jack
Arnold Boxset' one day - loaded with extras and
commentaries. If these titles appeal to you then
we can vouch that this DVD collection is fun,
nostalgic cinema that we strongly recommend.
DVD Release Date: September 19, 2006
Land of Plenty - Land of Plenty isn't
for everyone, but patient viewers will be
rewarded with a poignant look at life in America
today. The screenplay by director Wim Wenders
and Michael Meredith, from an original story by
Wenders and Scott Derrickson, concerns Lana
(Michelle Williams), a young woman returning to
live in the U.S. after years abroad. While
working as a missionary, Lana tries to locate
her only living relative, an uncle named Paul
(John Diehl), but once she finds him, he wants
nothing to do with her. Paul is a Vietnam
veteran living in fear of outsiders attacking
America; he travels in a van throughout the day
and night spying on people who look suspicious
to him. Finally, Paul allows Lana into his life
when a sudden and unexpected killing of an Arab
man forces them together in order to figure out
the mystery behind the murder. DVD Release
Date: October 10th, 2006
Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection -
Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Mask of Fu
Manchu (1932), Mad Love (1935) The Devil Doll
(1936), Doctor X (1932) and The Return of Doctor
X (1939). was in absolute nirvana watching these
films and then listening to the commentaries.
Although I enjoyed The Boris Karloff Collection
and the Inner Sanctum Mysteries I think this
package is far superior. With talent like Lionel
Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, Tod Browning, Boris
Karloff, Myrna Loy, Peter Lorre, Maureen
O'Sullivan, Fay Wray, Michael Curtiz, Vincent
Sherman and Humphrey Bogart - you know you are
in for a big treat viewing these (I watched all
in one day!) Great stuff that we strongly
recommend! DVD Release Date: October 10th,
2006
The Norliss Tapes - Another Dan Curtis
niche gem in the mold of Kolchak The Night
Stalker - which had a similar pilot-film (The
Night Strangler / The Night Stalker) before
evolving into the cult TV series. The Norliss
Tapes fell short of that never being picked up
for broadcast . A newspaper publisher listens to
the personal tapes of investigative reporter
David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), who has disappeared
during an investigation. The tapes tell the
story of that investigation, involving a recent
widow (Angie Dickenson) whose late husband has
been seen working in his private studio. As
Norliss and the widow investigate, they unravel
a plot involving Voodoo and the walking dead.
DVD Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
The Education of Shelby Knox - In the
conservative Christian community of Lubbock, TX,
school policy (in accordance with a state law
passed by Governor George W. Bush) mandates that
teachers’ adhere to an abstinence-only program
of sex education in the public schools. The
program has produced the predictable results:
the teen pregnancy rate in Lubbock is among the
highest in the state, and STD rates have
skyrocketed since the policy was implemented.
DVD Release Date: September 26th, 2006
Save The Last Dance - Save the Last
Dance follows a whole bunch of other films,
plays, novels, etc. that has mined similar
territory, and it suffers as a result of its
derivative nature. The problem does not lie with
the execution of the material but with the
immense weight of cultural history that the film
must bear. It plays as a hip-hop version of
Romeo and Juliet, but it fails to find a
convincing balance to the love story at its
center. Ultimately, the movie comes up short,
leaving every issue that it tries to discuss
feeling half-baked. DVD Release Date:
September 26th, 2006
Apocalypse Now - Apocalypse Now is one
of the great films. Photography, score, acting
and direction are without flaw. Coppola never
scaled such heights subsequently. It seems the
sheer effort to produce such a work extinguished
much of his creative spark. Stravinsky
frightened himself with the awesome force of his
Sacre Du Printemps, and changed directions
after, never to match this achievement; Richard
Strauss fled into Neo-romanticism after writing
the disturbing Elektra and Salome, unable to
equal their innovation and power. But these
seminal works (Le Sacre, Salome, Elektra,
Apocalypse Now) remain as peaks of Art. Like the
great classics of literature, each viewing of
this film reveals deeper levels of meaning. It's
stupid to even apply an arbitrary rating to this
work. It cannot be rated. DVD Release Date:
August 15, 2006
Objective, Burma - This 1944 war film is
a very pure, almost abstract statement of Raoul
Walsh's themes and style, with Errol Flynn as
the leader of an American platoon sent on a
jungle mission against the Japanese. The
problem, essentially, is to travel from point A
to point B; the enemy remains all but unseen,
and the journey becomes a test of endurance and
personal drive. The film is long (142 minutes),
claustrophobic, and intense, yet it works with
elegance and rigor, like a philosophical problem
stated and solved.
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of October 7th, 2006
Eric Rohmer's Tales Of The Four Seasons (Four Discs - Autumn Tale (1998), A Summer's Tale (1996), A Tale of Winter (1992), A Tale of Springtime (1990) ) R2 UK Artificial Eye
Holiday Inn - Special Edition (Mark Sandrich, 1942) Universal Studios
Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection - The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) , Mark of the Vampire (1935), Mad Love (1935), The Devil Doll (1936), Doctor X (1932), The Return of Doctor X (1939) - Warner Home Video
Knights Of The Teutonic Order (Aleksander Ford, 1960) R2 UK Second Run
The Maltese Falcon (Three-Disc Special Edition) (John Huston, 1941) Warner Home Video
Motion Picture Masterpieces (5 disc) - Marie Antoinette (1939), David Copperfield (1935), Pride and Prejudice (1940), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Treasure Island (1934) Warner Home Video
A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 2006) New Line Home Video
Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964) R4 PAL AV Channel
Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) (Warren Beatty, 1981) Paramount Home Video
Week of October 16th, 2006
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Two (5-disc) - Universal Studios
Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol 2 - Carefree, Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle - Warner
Amazon.com Exclusive Astaire & Rogers Partial Ultimate Collector's Edition - Note: This edition is designed for customers who already purchased Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1. It contains all the content of Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collection except the actual DVDs of Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, and The Barkleys of Broadway. However, the Thinpak cases for those discs are included in this set. - Warner Home Video
Clean, Shaven (Lodge H. Kerrigan, 1994) Criterion Collection
Colonel Redl (István Szabó , 1985) R2 UK Ind DVD Ltd
The Cruel Sea (Charles Frend, 1953) Anchor Bay
The Dam Busters (Michael Anderson, 1954) Anchor Bay
Deadfall (Bryan Forbes, 1968) 20th Century Fox
Icons 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 Pictures
The Magus (Guy Green, 1968) 20th Century Fox
Norman McLaren: Masters Edition - 7-disc - Homevision
The Other (Robert Mulligan, 1972) 20th Century Fox
Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) 20th Century
Fox
Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón,
1991) Criterion Collection
They All Laughed (Peter Bogdanovich, 1981) Warner Home Video
When the Sea Rises (Yolande Moreau, 2004) New Yorker Video
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER SAVINGS
Criterion's October lineup
Sólo con tu pareja
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Enjoy the upcoming weekend!
Gary