Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF October 15th, 2018

Niltze!, Some very desirable releases this week with Blu-ray reviews of packages by Criterion, Kino Lorber, Olive Signature, Eureka of films directed by Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Don Siegel, Robert Siodmak, David Byrne, John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis, Alexander Tuschinski and others. Our Calendar has extensive updates of films-to-Blu-ray, including films by Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Don Siegel, Robert Siodmak, David Byrne, John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis, Alexander Tuschinski and more. We have our Feature Blu-ray is posted for OCTOBER Enjoy!!

Criterion Collection's Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema 39-film Blu-ray package in honor of the director’s 100th birthday is a review in-progress HERE, with currently 11 of the films covered.

LISTING PAGES:

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-rays chosen for the Month of OCTOBER!

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NOTE: If there are DVD or Blu-ray titles you'd like us to cover - please feel free to recommend!

Gary at 2ze dot com

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): Aside from our initial coverage of Ingmar Bergman's Cinema package, the big news this week is Criterion's Blu-ray package of Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons. This is one of THE most highly anticipated release of this year and beyond. It has lived up to its deserved masterpiece film status with a stellar, complete, Blu-ray package from Criterion sporting a gorgeous new 4K-restored transfer and stacked with relevant, insightful extras including two commentaries! Another significant release this week is Olive's Signature Blu-ray of Don Siegel's iconic 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers looking and sounding better than ever before with multiple extras including 2 commentaries. Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot gets a new Criterion 4K restoration to Blu-ray and it has plenty of supplements easily advancing upon the old MGM 1080P. Robert Siodmak's Noir Essential The Spiral Staircase gets a stellar new Blu-ray transfer from a 4K-restoration from Kino. It hasn't looked this good for 70-years and the package includes an excellent commentary. Darren McGavin will always be remembered for his TV role as occult-sleuthing journalist Carl Kolchak and the series started with pilots film, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler - both getting 4K-restorations on Blu-ray from Kino - and both have superlative commentaries from the great Tim Lucas. Too much nostalgia and Blu-ray value to ignore. David Byrne's True Stories where he celebrates a small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters. This wonderfully eccentric film gets a Blu-ray release from Criterion with an included CD of the soundtrack, an hour-long making of, deleted scenes and much more. Dan Curtis teams up with renowned sci-fi/horror writers Richard Matheson for 1975's Trilogy of Terror - three tales of horrific suspense in this highly rated and critically acclaimed made-for-television anthology - which is, also, on Blu-ray from Kino. The fun Hong Kong adventure City Hunter, with Jackie Chan and Joey Wang, gets a stacked Blu-ray package from Eureka out of the UK. Alexander Tuschinski's Woyzeck (2017) is the unusual package of the week with a silent short film in the German avant-garde style and it comes to Blu-ray with six bonus short films by the director. Night of the Creeps is a fun 80's horror where teenagers start to fight against alien brain parasites that turn their hosts into a killing zombies. On DVD Eric covered Mystery Road an investigatory TV series out of Australia.

"Be yourself. The world worships the original." - Ingrid Bergman

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True Stories BD - Music icon David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines to make his sole foray into feature-film directing, an ode to the extraordinariness of ordinary American life and a distillation of what was in his own idiosyncratic mind. The Talking Heads front man plays a visitor to Virgil, Texas, who introduces us to the citizens of the town during preparations for its Celebration of Specialness. As shot by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Texas becomes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of endless vistas, shopping malls, and prefab metal buildings. Blu-ray Release Date: November 20th, 2018

The Spiral Staircase BD - A young mute woman who is working in a New England mansion as a domestic is terrorized by a maniac who is killing off people with disabilities. After being warned of the danger to her personal safety she makes plans to leave the dark old house, but it is too late. The maniac is in the house, and she is his prey. Blu-ray Release Date: October 2nd, 2018

The Night Stalker BD - Supernatural phenomena, baffling murders and offbeat humor mark this second Night Stalker offering with a great cast and suspense so palpable, it'll feel like a presence right there in the room with you. Surfacing in Seattle, Kolchak (Darren McGavin) uncovers another maddening mystery: Every 21 years—for the past century—a serial killer commits a spree of murders, drains his victims' blood and then quietly disappears. But Kolchak is onto this monster and is about to discover a shocking underground lair... an army of rotting corpses... and the ageless madman behind it all. Blu-ray Release Date: October 2nd, 2018

The Night Strangler BD - An investigative journalist takes a stab at the supernatural. This unforgettable first entry in the Night Stalker series introduced the world to the quirky reporter with a penchant for the paranormal and became one of the top-rated TV movies of all time. Investigating a series of Las Vegas murders, Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) discovers that each victim has been bitten in the neck and drained of blood. Though Kolchak's outlandish theory about the murders gets him nowhere with the police, his initiative to apprehend the killer himself gets him into hot water... with a modern-day vampire. Blu-ray Release Date: October 2nd, 2018

City Hunter BD - Hired to track down Shizuko Imamura, the runaway daughter of a publishing tycoon, Ryo initially turns the job down... until he sees a picture of the missing woman! Ryo eventually finds her aboard a luxury cruise ship, but much to the annoyance of his exasperated assistant Carrie (Joey Wang), Ryo seems more interested in catching Shizuko s attention than returning her safely to her father. When terrorists hijack the ship, Ryo must put his romantic feelings aside and swing into action to dispatch the bad guys and save the day. Blu-ray Release Date: September 24th, 2018

Trilogy of Terror BD - Legendary producer/director Dan Curtis teams up with renowned sci-fi/horror writers Richard Matheson and William F. Nolan to present three tales of horrific suspense in this highly rated and critically acclaimed made-for-television anthology that also showcases the tremendous acting talent of Karen Black, who plays four distinct roles. Blu-ray Release Date: October 16th, 2018

Some Like it Hot BD - One of the most beloved films of all time, this sizzling masterpiece by Billy Wilder set a new standard for Hollywood comedy. After witnessing a mob hit, Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, in landmark performances) skip town by donning drag and joining an all-female band en route to Miami. The charm of the group’s singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe, at the height of her bombshell powers) leads them ever further into extravagant lies, as Joe assumes the persona of a millionaire to woo her and Jerry’s female alter ego winds up engaged to a tycoon. With a whip-smart script by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, and sparking chemistry among its finely tuned cast, Some Like It Hot is as deliriously funny and fresh today as it was when it first knocked audiences out six decades ago. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: November 13th, 2018

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) BD - There's something strange going on in Santa Mira. Children don't recognize their parents. Husbands have become estranged from their wives. Mass hysteria? Mass alienation more likely. Dr Kevin McCarthy discovers the secret: pod people are colonizing the earth, taking human form but dispensing with the soul. Shot in just 19 days, Siegel's economical adaptation of a Jack Finney story (script by Daniel Mainwaring of Out of the Past fame) is one of the most resonant sci-fi movies, and one of the simplest. Olive Signature Blu-ray Release Date: October 16th, 2012

The Magnificent Ambersons BD - Orson Welles' acclaimed drama follows two generations in a well-to-do Indianapolis family. Isabel Amberson receives a proposal from dashing Eugene (Joseph Cotten), but opts instead to marry boring Wilbur. Time passes, and Wilbur and Isabel's only son, George (Tim Holt), is loathed as a controlling figure in the town. When Wilbur dies, Eugene again proposes to Isabel, but George threatens the union. As George in turn courts the woman he wants to marry, a string of tragedies befalls the family. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: November 20th, 2018

Night of the Creeps BD - When an alien experiment goes awry, it crashes to Earth in 1959 and infects a young college student. 27 years later, his cryogenically-frozen body is thawed out by fraternity pledges, and the campus is quickly overrun by alien creatures - whose victims come back as zombies! Fred Dekker's supremely enjoyable throwback chiller deftly combines classic horror and sci-fi elements with delicious humour and loving in-jokes. Eureka Blu-ray Release Date: September 25th, 2018

Woyzeck (2017) BD - How much can a simple man endure before he loses his humanity? Georg Büchner's play, adapted as a silent short film by German avant-garde director Alexander Tuschinski. Blu-ray Release Date: October 1st, 2018

Mystery Road - Big landscapes and stunning scenery, this is the Australian outback, specifically Boulder Ridge. When two farmhands Marley, a local indigenous boy and Reese, a backpacker - go missing from a cattle station, indigenous detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pederson) is sent to this remote town to investigate. Loner Jay must work with smart, tough local cop Emma James (Judy Davis). He also has to deal with the arrival of his daughter Crystal, who's run away from her own trouble at home, and his ex-wife Mary who comes after her. As Jay and Emma investigate Marley and Reese's relationships and secrets they soon find themselves unpeeling the hidden layers of the town s dark history, becoming embroiled in a deep mystery that will send shockwaves through the community. DVD Release Date: October 8th, 2018
 

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