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HERE!DVDBeaver Newsletter - October 13th, 2006
Buna ziua! - 24 new reviews this week (2 new Criterion DVDs, 3 comparisons, 3 multi-film boxsets, Noir, musicals, World Cinema etc.). Bertolucci, Huston, Rosi, Campion, Angelopoulos, Visconti, Hawks and more... and some new Calendar listings and deals...
Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this world-renowned distribution company with Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films, an expansive collectors’ box set featuring fifty classic films on DVD. FILMS LISTED HERE AVAILABLE HERE
For less than $600 you get 46 existing, or upcoming, Criterion DVDs at
less than $12 per DVD, plus 4 new discs (3 films) - :
Marcel Carné's Le Jour se lève (1939) aka
Daybreak
Alf Sjöberg's Fröken Julie (1951) aka Miss Julie
and
Kon Ichikawa's Nobi
(1959) aka Fires on the Plain
plus THREE DOCUMENTARIES by Saul J. Turell
plus The hardcover book (selling alone for $65).
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.
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!
NEW Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!)
The Kremlin Letter (John Huston, 1970) Tcfhe
La Grande Illusion - Special Edition (Jean Renoir, 1937) R2 UK Optimum Home Entertainment
Loving Annabelle (Katherine Brooks, 2006) Wolfe Video
Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969) Paramount Home Video
Un Coeur en Hiver (A Heart in Winter) (Claude Sautet, 1993) Koch Lorber Films
John Wayne Western 3-pack (The Big Stampede / Ride Him Cowboy / Haunted Gold) - Warner
John Wayne Western 3-pack (The Telegraph Trail / Somewhere in Sonora / The Man from Monterey) - Warner Home Video
Rodgers and Hammerstein Box Set Collection (The Sound of Music, South Pacific , The King and I , Oklahoma! , Carousel , State Fair) 20th Century Fox
Most Beautiful Wife (Damiano Damiani, 1970) No Shame
A Shot in the Dark (Charles Lamont, 1935) Alpha Video
La Commune (Peter Watkins, 2001) First Run Features
Body Heat (Deluxe Edition) (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981) Warner Home Video
Total Recall - Special Edition (Paul Verhoeven, 1990) Lions Gate
The Last Voyage (Andrew L. Stone, 1960) Warner Home Video
BACK - Marlon Brando Collection (5-disc) Mutiny on the Bounty Two-Disc Special Edition (1962), Julius Caesar (1953), The Formula (1980), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) - Warner
Essential Art House - 50 Years of Janus Films (50 DVDs) - Janus
R. W. Paul - The Complete Surviving Films 1895-1908 - R2 UK - BFI
Coffret Michael Powell (Oh... Rosalinda!! 1955, A Matter of Life and Death 1946) Warner Fr R2
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger - Coffret 4X2 DVD (Red Shoes, Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, 49th Parallel) - Warner Fr R2
RECOMMENDATIONS: I'll try not to list too much this week - but top of the list is obvious - The Humphrey Bogart - The Signature Collection, Vol. 2 with The Maltese Falcon Three-Disc Special Edition / Across the Pacific / Action in the North Atlantic / All Through the Night and Passage to Marseille. On top of that both Criterion's - Hands Over The City and Sweetie are great films on complete DVDs. Bertolucci's La Luna is a wonderful curiosity.
NOIR LIBRARY: Outside of the Bogie set - The Great Flamarion and Forgotten Noir Vol. 2 should be welcome to your Noir collection.
GUILTY PLEASURE OF THE WEEK: - an easy choice - Icons of Horror Collection - Boris Karloff
PASS: I haven't seen it, but reviewer Eddie Feng sure seems to dislike Tom Cruise - he says stay away from Mission Impossible III.
YOU MISSED IT: Selling now for excessive dollars the out-of-print Ball of Fire is a grand film. Keep your eyes peeled for a reasonable copy somewhere.
New Reviews:
The Maltese Falcon - Huston's first film
displays the hallmarks that were to distinguish
his later work: the mocking attitude toward
human greed; the cavalier insolence with which
plot details are treated almost as asides; the
delight in bizarre characterisations, here
ranging from the amiably snarling Sam Spade
('When you're slapped, you'll take it and like
it') who opened a whole new romantic career for
Bogart, to Lorre's petulant, gardenia-scented
Joel Cairo, Cook's waspishly effete gunsel, and
Greenstreet's monstrously jocular Fat Man ('By
gad, sir, you are a character'). DVD Release
Date: October 3rd, 2006
All Through the Night - An excellent Warner
Brothers actioner from 1942--completely
inconsequential, but so what? It uses nearly
every member of the Warner stock company as
goodhearted gangster Humphrey Bogart leads his
boys (Frank McHugh, Jackie Gleason, Phil
Silvers) against a band of Nazi spies (Judith
Anderson, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre). The
director, Vincent Sherman, never amounted to
much, but he does a bang-up job here--a fine
example of what studio support could do. DVD
Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
Across the Pacific - Slow to begin, this
accelerates into a fine, noir-ish thriller, set
on the eve of Pearl Harbour and pitting Bogart
against Jap spies plotting to destroy the Panama
Canal with aerial torpedoes. Featuring the same
irresistible mixture of darkness, double-cross
and quirky humour as The Maltese Falcon, it
again boasts - in addition to some superbly
laconic intimations of violence - the inimitable Greenstreet, at his silkiest as a turncoat given
to justifying his treachery by discoursing on
the arts of judo and the haiku. But the real
delight is the wisecracking relationship between
Bogart and Astor, who pull a brilliant switch on
their earlier romantic partnership. DVD
Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
Action in the North Atlantic - Tough, pacy
tribute to the American Merchant Marine, with a
convoy en route to Russian waters being attacked
on all sides by Nazi submarines and aircraft.
The rather fine special effects of explosions
and fires tend to overshadow characterization
(the crew of the main ship are the usual mix of
ethnic stereotypes), while the blatantly
propagandist nature of the film means that the
enemy are portrayed as vicious, inhuman, smiling
sadists. But the performances are strong, and
there is considerable curiosity value. DVD
Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
Passage to Marseille - Something of a follow-up
to Casablanca, but without that movie's deft and
evocative script. Bogart plays Jean Matrac, a
journalist converted, by a confrontation at sea
with Greenstreet's elegant fascism (shades of
Huston's Across the Pacific), from bitterness
against a France that has wronged him to
self-destructive patriotism with the Free
French. DVD Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
Mission Impossible III - I liked the first two
Mission: Impossible movies, so I was willing to
give the third entry a chance despite my
misgivings about Tom Cruise the person. However, J.J. Abrams was unable to contribute anything
new to the material. MI3 is a re-hash of its
predecessors in the worst possible way. The
visual scheme has the same silver metallic sheen
as the first movie without Brian DePalma’s sense
of style or elegance. Abrams used slow motion
very poorly, making me yearn for the
breath-taking poetry of John Woo’s choreography.
DVD Release Date: 30 October 2006
The Cruel Sea - A sterling, old-fashioned war
film of the type too readily devalued these
days. Jack Hawkins gives perhaps his most
notable performance as the captain of a Royal
Navy corvette, suggesting as much life above as
below that stiff upper lip, while Eric Ambler's
adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat's book gives
the minnows their due as the enlisted men face
storms and German U-boats with more courage than
experience. Best of all, Frend's documentary
style puts us smack in the middle of the
Atlantic - the cruel sea indeed. DVD Release
Date: October 17th, 2006
Icons of Horror Collection - Boris Karloff -
Boris Karloff was to the Horror Movie what Fred
Astaire was to the Musical: the epitome of class
and style. No matter how grisly the
circumstances, he'd rise above them with talent,
poise and even charm. And here, for the first
time on DVD, are four of his finest chillers
from his peak years in the 1930s and 1940s, all
demonstrating his amazing range. In The Black
Room, he plays twin brothers -- one good, one
evil, naturally -- in a small country where
beautiful women seem to turn up missing. The Man
They Could Not Hang and Before I Hang present
him in his classic "Mad Doctor" persona as
forward-thinking scientists who run afoul of the
law and become crazed killers. And in The Boogie
Man Will Get You, he sends up that image in a
delightful farce that also stars Peter Lorre (M)
and Larry Parks (The Jolson Story). DVD
Release Date: October 17, 2006
When the Sea Rises - Irène wins over audiences
with her off-beat costuming, funny lines and
bizarre approach. Moreau is fascinating, a
heavy-set woman who is extremely charming in the
role. Although married, Irène meets Dries (Wim
Willert), a virile-looking man with whom she
gradually moves toward a relationship. Willert,
a most compelling actor, adds considerably to
the chemistry. DVD Release Date: October 17,
2006
Hands Over The City - Rod Steiger is ferocious
as a scheming land developer in Francesco Rosi's
Hands over the City, a blistering work of social
realism and the winner of the 1963 Venice Film
Festival Golden Lion. This expose of the
politically driven real-estate speculation that
has devastated Naples's civilian landscape moves
breathlessly from a cataclysmic building
collapse to the backroom negotiations of civic
leaders vying for power in a city council
election, laying bare the inner workings of
corruption with passion and outrage.
DVD Release Date: October 24th, 2006
Sophie Scholl - Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days
is yet another German cinematic soul search.
After WWII, the Germans were basically forced to
say, “We’re sorry for being the bad guys” over
and over again. The Germans essentially weren’t
allowed to mourn for their losses (since their
soldiers died for the “wrong” cause), and the
Allies decided that there weren’t any “good”
Germans between 1930 and 1945. Still, the
remarkable story of Sophie Scholl and The White
Rose began to surface, and at least two movies
were made about Scholl and her brief life.
Sophie Scholl is the first of these biopics to
be based on recently released documents that
were locked away by the East-German government.
DVD Release Date: 14 November 2006
Sweetie - Though she went on to create a string
of brilliant films, Jane Campion will always be
remembered for her stunning debut feature,
Sweetie, which focuses on the hazardous
relationship between the buttoned-down,
superstitious Kay and her rampaging,
devil-may-care sister, "Sweetie"--and by
extension, their entire family's profoundly
rotten roots. A feast of colorful photography
and captivating, idiosyncratic characters,
Sweetie heralded the emergence of this gifted
director as well as the breakthrough of
Australian cinema, which would take
international film by storm in the nineties.
DVD Release Date: October 24th, 2006
La Luna - is as aesthetically bold as
any film Bertolucci has made, with
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and an
original score by Ennio Morricone. As cinema, it
is lush and appropriately operatic, and its
evocative visual images often border on the
outright exotic. It's debatable whether or not
they correspond to the emotional landscapes of
the characters or simply exist independently,
but they certainly deepen the already portentous
narrative, showering its urgency with a certain
sad indifference -- the indifference of gaudy
spectacle. The performances by Jill Clayburgh
and Matthew Barry as mother and son,
respectively, are nothing if not intense, and
while both actors often hit wrong and
contradictory notes, the film succeeds at
illustrating the almost spiritual depth of the
intimacy between a mother and her son
(established with immense grace by the opening
scene), so that when it does become sexual, it
is indeed more Oedipal than incestuous -- that
is to say, Bertolucci's willingness to shock
here is legitimized, at least, by his
representation of The Human Condition as
Bertolucci sees it. That the film is finally so
devoid of insight is the real shocker.
A Walk In The Sun - The film moves around Tore,
a 43 year old sports journalist who's depressed
after his girlfriend's left him. He decides to
take a vacation to Cyprus where most of his
fellow travelers are middle aged and retired
people. It doesn't bother Tore too much as he's
mostly drinking heavily to forget. The guide is
Norwegian and her name's Marion. Tore asks her
to go to hell as he wants to be alone, and then
goes to swim nude in the sea. He's picked up by
the police but released and put to medical care
in a quiet hospital/asylum where he's only
allowed to drink mineral water, eat regularly
and take long walks.
Damsel in Distress - When Fred & Ginger went splitsville after Shall We Dance, Astaire
decided that he didn’t really need a dame, an
idea that tends to work better in theory than
practice. Instead of searching for Ginger II, he
chose to make his next film, Damsel in Distress,
with a leading lady who couldn’t dance,
twenty-year-old Joan Fontaine, as Lady Alyce
Marshmorton. Damsel in Distress, which features
a Gershwin score, a script by P. G. Wodehouse,
and inspired support work from George Burns and
Gracie Allen, is sumptuous moviemaking, and the
film is always firing on at least eight of its
sixteen cylinders, but it lacks the
dance/romance combo that made the great Astaire/Rogers
films the classics they are.
Down in the Valley -(COMPARISON) In writer-director
Jacobsen's delineation of a warped range rider,
we're mesmerized by how far his crafty
anti-hero's pretenses can take us and remain
plausible. Harlan's insistence on his good
intentions to Wade, who is brought to ordering
him off his property and away from his
daughter... at gunpoint... is a gem of
logic-denial and character audacity. He's a man
who has fabricated a belief in his ability to
convince an adversary of his fine qualities.
Eternity and a Day -
(COMPARISON) Eternity And A Day follows
the final days of Alexandre (Bruno Ganz), a
celebrated Greek author as he prepares to leave
his seaside home for what he feels is the last
time. While preparing to depart, he finds a
letter from his long-dead wife, Anna (Isabelle
Renauld), who wrote about a memorable summer day
they spent over thirty years ago. From that
point, Alexandre embarks on a metaphysical
journey through his past and present with the
help of a young street urchin boy that crosses
his path. Realizing that after spending his
entire life chasing after the words of poems and
novels, Alexandre wants one final chance to
capture the lost precious moments of the true
happiness that he know realizes, even if only
for one day.
Rocco and His Brothers -
(COMPARISON) The last gasp of the
neo-realist spirit in Visconti's work, Rocco
chronicles at length the misfortunes that befall
an Italian peasant family when they move to The
Big City. There's a grey conviction about much
of the scene-setting and the location shooting,
but the film gathers interest as it escalates
into melodrama; the tragic climax is pure opera.
Delon is unconvincing as the saintly Rocco, but
Renato Salvatori makes the thuggish elder
brother who falls in with a gay boxing promoter
his best part ever.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Lorelei and Dorothy
are just "Two Little Girls from Little Rock",
lounge singers on a transatlantic cruise,
working their way to Paris, and enjoying the
company of any eligible men they might meet
along the way, even though "Diamonds are a
Girl's Best Friend." Based on the Broadway
musical based on the novel.
Things To Come - A global war begins in 1940.
This war drags out over many decades until most
of the people still alive (mostly those born
after the war started) do not even know who
started it or why. Nothing is being manufactured
at all any more and society has broken down into
primitive localized communities.
Threads - This chilling film tells the story of
a nuclear strike on Britain. Through the eyes of
two Sheffield families we witness the immediate
after effects of the attack - the shock, grief,
radiation sickness, hypothermia and starvation.
In the months that follow, hideous injuries
remain untreated. Looters are shot on sight,
food supplies run out and many die in the
intense cold of the nuclear winter. Thirteen
years on reveals a depopulated Britain living
below subsistence level - a devastated economy
where money has no value, crops fail through
lack of pesticides, no fuel and machinery, and a
brutalized post war generation grows up stunted
mentally, physically and emotionally
Ball of Fire - Marvellous performance
from Stanwyck, all snap, crackle and pop as the
brassy nightclub entertainer Sugarpuss O'Shea
who seeks refuge with seven crusty old
professors (plus Cooper) to escape unwelcome
attentions from a gangster, and whose vocabulary
(not to mention charms) excite delighted
wonderment in the professors since they have
just reached 'Slang' in the encyclopedia they
are compiling. Rather surprisingly, Hawks
slightly muffs the sequence in which the
gangster and his aides get their comeuppance;
otherwise his handling of the sparkling
Brackett-Wilder script and its subversions of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is pure joy.
Forgotten Noir Vol. 2 - Volume 2 of
VCI's Forgotten Film Noir series includes
Loan Shark and
Arson, Inc. Short take: I think
these two films are appropriate for being listed
as Film Noir although Arson, Inc. is probably on
the outside edge. Both support a shadowy
atmosphere with crime the main plot element, and
some hints of thriller-dom mood. Loan Shark
seems to be highly rated, but I think I enjoyed
Arson, Inc. a bit more not being a huge Raft
fan. Both films share the 'under-cover' aspect
by the protagonist. They both hold together
adequately and its great to have them available
digitally to add to the ever-growing Noir
library. DVD Release Date: September 26th,
2006
The Great Flamarion - “The Great
Flamarion,” released by humble Republic studios
in 1945, is a brilliant study of low-life sexual
politics, directed by the great Anthony Mann. It
stars Erich Von Stroheim, then sixty, in the
title role of a dedicated master marksman,
reduced to headlining a novelty act in a
succession of cheap theatres. His assistants are
Connie and Al Wallace, (played by two much
underrated actors, Mary Beth Hughes and Dan
Duryea) whose marriage clearly hit the skids in
the middle of the first night. While Al nurses
his bitterness and frustration in a string of
bars, Connie chases after power in the only way
she knows how: seducing guys, and the more
reluctant the guys are, the better she likes it.
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
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
Week of October 23rd, 2006
Body Heat (Deluxe Edition) (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981) Warner Home Video
La Commune (Peter Watkins, 2001) First Run Features
The Francois Truffaut Collection - 6 Disc Box Set (Exclusive to Amazon.co.uk) R2 - UK Cinema Club
The Ultimate Hammer Collection 20 disc (She, The Nanny, Dracula Prince of Darkness, The Plague of the Zombies, Rasputin the Mad Monk, The Reptile, The Witches, One Million Years B.C., The Viking Queen, Frankenstein Created Woman, Quatermass and the Pit, The Vengeance of She, The Devil Rides Out, Prehistoric Women, Scars of Dracula, The Horror Frankenstein, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Straight on Till Morning, Fear in the Night, Demons of the Mind, To The Devil A Daughter) R2 UK Optimum Home Entertainment
Hands Over the City (Francesco Rosi, 1963) Criterion Collection
Hangmen Also Die (Collector's Edition, 2 DVDs) Fritz Lang - R2 Germany - EMS
Essential Art House - 50 Years of Janus Films (50 DVDs) - Janus
The Last Voyage (Andrew L. Stone, 1960) Warner Home Video
Rediscover Jacques Feyder (1925) - 3-disc - Homevision
Regular Lovers - R2 UK Artificial Eye
The Complete Buster Keaton Short Films - R2 - UK - Eureka MoC
A Shot in the Dark (Charles Lamont,
1935) Alpha Video
Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989) Criterion
Collection
Total Recall - Special Edition (Paul Verhoeven, 1990) Lions Gate
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER SAVINGS
Criterion's October lineup
Sólo con tu pareja
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Have a great weekend!,
Gary