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Matinee - Step back
into a time of outrageous movie-theater gimmicks and
larger-than-life B-screen stars in this charming homage to the
great sci-fi and horror flicks of the 1950s and 1960s. John
Goodman is at his uproarious best as the William Castle-inspired
movie promoter Lawrence Woolsey, who brings his unique brand of
flashy showmanship to the unsuspecting residents of Key West,
Florida. It's 1962, and fifteen-year-old fan Gene Loomis (Simon
Fenton) can't wait for the arrival of Woolsey, who is in town to
promote his latest offering of atomic power gone berserk, MANT!.
DVD Release Date: May 4th, 2010
Magic
BD - Based on a novel by
William Goldman (of The Princess Bride and Marathon
Man fame), Magic is indeed a frightening film. It is
not, however, the shocks that make it memorable. What makes this
film special is the thought that has been put into it and the
conviction of its performances. Boasting a sadness and a nasty
sense of horror, Magic avoids the campyness that is
usually associated with movies about living dolls. Instead,
Magic takes the serious approach, using Fats, the sentient
ventriloquist dummy, as a means of exploring the effects of a
split personality, and the damage it can cause when left
untreated. Blu-ray Release date:
October 12th, 2010
The Naked and the Dead - Long before he won Pulitzer Prizes for
such Koch Medialy acclaimed literary works as Armies of the
Night (1969) and The Executioner's Song (1980), Norman Mailer
spent two years serving in the Philippines as a rifleman for the
Marines during World War II. His tough, gritty experiences there
were later transformed into his first novel, The Naked and the
Dead (1948), generally considered to be one of the finest
American novels ever written about World War II. RKO Pictures
took on the enormous task of bringing the prestigious book to
the big screen in 1958 and with an expert craftsman like Raoul
Walsh (Objective, Burma! (1945), Battle Cry, 1955) at the helm
things looked promising. The real challenge, however, was how to
remain true to Mailer's artistic vision and literary masterwork.
DVD Release Date: 2010
Douglas Sirk: Filmmaker Collection - Recognized today as one of
the most distinctive and influential directors of the 1950's,
Douglas Sirk was rarely praised and often overlooked by critics
during his years in Hollywood. His penchant for melodramatic
storylines were accented by a baroque visual style, emotional
intensity and lush production values. With a chameleon-like
ability to adapt to any genre, Sirk's versatility is represented
in this unique collection by a melodrama (The Tarnished Angels
[1957]); a western (Taza, Son of Cochise [1954]), a mystery
thriller (Thunder on the Hill, [1951]) and a costume adventure
(Captain Lightfoot [1955]). Featuring stars such as Rock Hudson,
Claudette Colbert, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Barbara Rush
and Ann Blyth, Douglas Sirk: The Filmmaker Collection showcases
the style and scope one of Hollywood's most acclaimed directors.
DVD Release Date: September 30th, 2010
Day of the Dead
BD - The final installment in Romero's
Living
Dead trilogy somehow failed to replicate the impact of Night of
the Living Dead (1968) or Dawn of the Dead (1978), although not
through any fault of its own. Some months after their emergence,
the zombies are everywhere in the ascendant. A depleting
scientific research team conducts experiments on captured
zombies in a cavernous Florida bunker under increasingly
despotic military protection. There's no radio contact with the
outside world, and the pressure is taking its toll: the soldiers
are impatient for results that Dr Logan's social conditioning
tests just aren't going to meet. Tense rather than terrifying,
and with a strong black comic undercurrent, it rests on the
mordant observation that zombies or no zombies, chances are the
living will tear each other apart. A fitting conclusion to a
remarkably astute series, a landmark in the horror genre. DVD
Release Date: September 20th, 2010
The Plague (Writer and Director's Cut) - The feature debut of
Hal Masonberg, THE PLAGUE seems from its synopsis like any other
"killer kids" movie (and that was what it was pitched as by the
producers) but Masonberg's cut is thoughtful and suggestive (the
catatonic-yet-receptive state is also a wonderful metaphor for
the way in which we shield children from more overt adult things
while believing that children are deaf to things they should not
be able to comprehend).
The Exorcist
BD - Controversial and popular from the moment it
opened, The Exorcist marks its historic
Blu-ray premiere in a
2-Disc Edition featuring Stunning Hi-Def Presentations of the
Original 1973 Theatrical Version and the 2000 Extended
Director's Cut. The frightening and realistic tale of an
innocent girl inhabited by a terrifying entity, her mother's
frantic resolve to save her and two priests--one doubt-ridden,
the other a rock of faith--joined in battling ultimate evil
always leaves viewers breathless. This greatest supernatural
thriller of all time astonishes and unsettles like no other
movie. Blu-ray Release Date: October 5th, 2010
Sister Street Fighter I + II
BD - Martial arts expert Kaoru Lee
(Karen Lee in the dubbed version) is the sister of a missing
undercover cop who was trying to bring down a brutal drug lord.
Pressed into service by the cops, Tina travels to Hong Kong to
find her brother, but things take a terrible turn and she is
left with the task of finding her brother and taking down a huge
drug lord on her own! Blu-ray Release Date: January 8th, 2008
Night of the Werewolf / Vengeance of the Zombies
BD - Filmed in
the real castles of Spain, Night of the Werewolf is one of Naschy's most impressive films, a sumptuous Gothic feast that
pits Naschy's werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky, against the Blood
Countess herself, Elizabeth Bathory. Filled with werewolf
transformations, seductive vampire women, bloody stakes and
piercing silver daggers, the film has garnered praise for its
fantastical inventiveness and use of macabre imagery.
Blu-ray
Release Date: January 8th, 2008
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
BD - Burl Ives narrates and
sings Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - an iconic 60's Christmas
tale about uniqueness, conformity and acceptance. Rudolph and
his electric proboscis team-up with show-stealing Hermey (a
wannabe Dentist) and larger-than-life, protective Yukon
Cornelius. They battle the 'Abominable snowman' (called a
'Bumble' by our friend Yukon) in a search for a place to live
without rejection... but instead we, the audience, find some
real spirit and meaning in Holiday season. 'Magnificent' is an
understatement. Blu-ray Release Date: October 12th, 2010
Samurai Vendetta - Tange Tenzen and Nakayama Yasubeiare
honorable samurai living in an era of corrupt officials and
treacherous clans. But after finding themselves in opposing
clans and ensnared in a love triangle, only bloodshed can ensue!
An epic tale of slashing swords, cutting betrayal, and bloody
revenge, Samurai Vendetta is justly hailed as one of the best
samurai films ever made! DVD Release Date: October 12th, 2010
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
BD - Sparkling, risqué and
delightful, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? is a bright, knowing
satire of Madison Avenue, television and the cult of the movie
star! Tony Randall plays Rockwell P. Hunter, an adman trying to
claw his way to the top. Jayne Mansfield plays Rita Marlowe, an
overly glamorous movie star. Amid a flurry of wonderful sight
gags, parodies of television commercials and shows, the creative
process and success, they become a delightful duo as the glamour
queen who needs a nerd to make her boyfriend jealous and a nerd
who needs something to propel him one more rung up the corporate
ladder of his stalled career. Blu-ray Release Date: October
25th, 2010
Sex and Lucia
BD - The plot essentially revolves around the
females who have interacted in one (fortunate in one sense,
unfortunate in another) man's life... an unrevealed daughter,
passionate lovers, an unforgettable one-night-stand. Drifting
back and forward in a non-linear timeframe, you may have
confusion in regards to the events transpiring, but you always
have the sense that all will be revealed and woven together in
the conclusion. Julio Medem's "Sex and Lucia" is a fantastic
ride of ecstasy, love, juxtaposition and coincidence.
Blu-ray
Release Date: October 12th, 2010
Y tu mamá también
BD -"Y Tu Mama Tambien" is described on its
Web site as a "teen drama," which is like describing "Moulin
Rouge" as a musical. The description is technically true but
sidesteps all of the reasons to see the movie. Yes, it's about
two teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman
that involves sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two
Mexicos. And it is about the fragility of life and the finality
of death. Beneath the carefree road movie that the movie is
happy to advertise is a more serious level--and below that, a
dead serious level. Blu-ray Release Date: July 26th, 2010
Kamikaze Girls
BD - A frenetic, candy-colored odyssey through
the netherworlds of Japanese popular culture, Kamikaze Girls
opens with a dazzlingly inventive sequence in which the heroine,
a frilly-dressed "Lolita" played by Kyôko Fukada, introduces
herself. Through a blistering montage sequence—replete with
freeze-frames, fourth-wall asides, sudden splashes of animation,
and a decorous flashback to 18th-century France—Fukada reveals
the following information: She was conceived the night her
father, a failed yakuza wannabe, met her mother, who was
projectile-vomiting outside a nightclub; she adores the
carefree, decadent rococo style of 18th-century Versailles and
dresses accordingly; and she's woefully out of place in a
backwater village where the residents all shop for bargain
fashions at a Costco-like behemoth department store.
Blu-ray
Release Date: February 8th, 2010
Make Way For Tomorrow
BD - Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow
is one of the great unsung Hollywood masterpieces, an enormously
moving Depression-era depiction of the frustrations of family,
aging, and the generation gap. Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi
headline a cast of incomparable character actors, starring as an
elderly couple who must move in with their grown children after
the bank takes their home, yet end up separated and subject to
their offspring’s selfish whims. An inspiration for Ozu’s
Tokyo
Story, Make Way for Tomorrow is among American cinema’s purest
tearjerkers, all the way to its unflinching ending, which McCarey refused to change despite studio pressure.
Blu-ray
Release Date: October 25th, 2010
Violent Saturday - A number of otherwise insignificant
small-town stories erupt into drama when a gang of hoodlums
decides to rob the local bank. A father looking for pride in his
son's eyes, a timid clerk who is a peeping tom by night, a man
striving to re-win his wife's love, an Amish farmer faced with
viciousness, and a proper older woman turned thief, all find
themselves entangled with the bank robbers as a peaceful weekend
turns violent.
High Sierra - Widely acknowledged as one of the gangster
pictures that paved the way for the style and moral complexities
of film noir, High Sierra (1941) is the story of Roy "Mad Dog"
Earle, a crook sprung from prison to perform a crucial heist.
Saddled with inexperienced accomplices (played by character
actors Alan Curtis and Arthur Kennedy, a Tony Award winner for
his role in the original Death of a Salesman) and a dime-a-dance
girl who falls for him (Ida Lupino, who would later become a
noted director), Earle awaits instructions at a mountain cabin,
planning to go straight after this last robbery. DVD Release
Date: November 4th, 2003
To Have and Have Not - Help the Free French? Not world-weary
gunrunner Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart). But he changes his
mind when a sultry siren-in-distress named Marie asks, "Anybody
got a match?" That red-hot match is Bogart and 19-year-old
first-time film actress Lauren Bacall. Full of intrigue and racy
banter (including Bacall's legendary whistling instructions),
this thriller excites further interest for what it has and has
not. Cannily directed by Howard Hawks and smartly written by
William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, it doesn't have much
similarity to the Ernest Hemingway novel that inspired it. And
it strongly resembles Casablanca: French resistance fighters, a
piano-playing bluesman (Hoagy Carmichael) and a Martinique bar
much like Rick's Cafe Americaine. But first and foremost, it
showcases Bogart and Bacall, carrying on with a passion that
smolders from the tips of their cigarettes clear through to
their souls. DVD Release Date: November 4th, 2003
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