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Kes
BD - Named one of the ten best British films of
the century by the British Film Institute, Ken Loach’s Kes,
is cinema’s quintessential portrait of working-class Northern
England. Billy (an astonishingly naturalistic David Bradley) is
a fifteen-year-old miner’s son whose close bond with a wild
kestrel provides him with a spiritual escape from his dead-end
life. Kes brought to the big screen the sociopolitical
engagement Loach had established in his work for the BBC, and
pushed the British “angry young man” film of the sixties into a
new realm of authenticity, using real locations and
nonprofessional actors. Loach’s poignant coming-of-age drama
remains the now legendary director’s most beloved and
influential film. Masters of Cinema
Blu-ray Release Date: November 7th, 2016
Dekalog and Other TV Works
BD - This masterwork by
Krzysztof Kieślowski is one of the twentieth century’s greatest
achievements in visual storytelling. Originally made for Polish
television, Dekalog focuses on the residents of a housing
complex in late-Communist Poland, whose lives become subtly
intertwined as they face emotional dilemmas that are at once
deeply personal and universally human. Its ten hour-long films,
drawing from the Ten Commandments for thematic inspiration and
an overarching structure, grapple deftly with complex moral and
existential questions concerning life, death, love, hate, truth,
and the passage of time. Shot by nine different
cinematographers, with stirring music by Zbigniew Preisner and
compelling performances from established and unknown actors
alike, Dekalog arrestingly explores the unknowable forces
that shape our lives. Dekalog is merely the highlight of
a box set that compiles virtually all of Kielowski's television
work, starting with his first professional short fiction film
and continuing with four feature-length pieces that are in every
way as probing and incisive as his better-known cinema films.
Arrow Blu-ray Release date: October
31st, 2016
Eye of the Needle
BD - Based on Ken Follett's
best-seller, Eye of the Needle (1981) is a moody thriller
set during the waning days of World War II and focusing on a
ruthless Nazi spy (Donald Sutherland) operating covertly in
England. Discovering vital information about the upcoming D-Day
invasion, he plots a return to Germany, only to be stranded on
an island off the coast of Scotland; there, his icy resolve is
disturbed by an unexpected relationship with a woman (Kate
Nelligan) living in isolation with her bitter disabled husband
(Christopher Cazenove). Directed by Richard Marquand (Return
of the Jedi), and featuring a superlative score by the
legendary Miklós Rózsa. Blu-ray
Release date: September, 2016
The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend
BD - Fast-moving and witty
spoof of Western conventions from one of Hollywood's finest
writer/directors of comedy. Grable is the crackshot chanteuse
hiding from the law as a schoolmarm (after accidentally shooting
a judge in the rear when two-timed by her lover Romero) and
getting involved in the numerous shootouts between the local
townsmen. It relies a little too much on zany slapstick, but the
dialogue is sharp and the Technicolor photography by Harry
Jackson adds a pleasant gloss. Blu-ray
Release date: November 1st, 2016
Remo Williams the Adventure Begins
BD - Born on the pages of
Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s The Destroyer series of
men’s adventure novels, Remo Williams was placed in the capable
hands of Bond director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger,
The Man with the Golden Gun) for his big-screen outing.
Fred Ward (Tremors)
plays the trainee assassin, with Academy Award-winner Joel Grey
(Cabaret)
occupying the role of Chiun. With its classic set-piece atop the
Statue of Liberty, much-loved score by Craig Safan and a healthy
sense of its own silliness, Remo Williams: The Adventure
Begins… offers up a cracking slice of mid-eighties action.
Twilight Time Blu-ray Release date: September, 2016
I Wake Up Screaming
BD - In this tense film noir
thriller, Victor Mature (Cry
of the City) plays Frankie Christopher, a
sports promoter who's in the hot seat, relentlessly grilled by a
ruthless detective after the murder of a fashion model he made
famous. Weighing even more heavily against him is the fact that
he's in love with the dead girl's sister (Betty Grable, Pin
Up Girl). But Frankie's not the only suspect in this taut
expose of New York's cafe society. The police detective also
obsessively pursues Frankie's partner, a gossip columnist, and
hotel night clerk. Filled with plot twists and turns, I Wake
Up Screaming will have you guessing until its surprising
ending. Blu-ray Release date:
November 1st, 2016
Body Double
BD - De Palma actually has
the gall to combine the plots from both
Vertigo and
Rear Window in one big
voyeur-fest and pull it off with a certain sly efficiency.
Struggling actor Wasson is fired from his role as a punk vampire
because of claustrophobia. While flat-sitting for a friend, he
spends his hours glued to the telescope watching an interesting
lady opposite. But who is the scarred Indian, coming at her with
a power drill? And why is he so obviously wearing a mask?
Unblinking tosh of this order needs to be put on the protected
list. Indicator Blu-ray Release
date: October 24th, 2016
Christine
BD - She was born in Detroit
on an automobile assembly line. But she is no ordinary
automobile. Deep within her chassis lives an unholy presence.
She is a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named CHRISTINE,
whose unique standard equipment includes an evil, indestructible
vengeance that will destroy anyone in her way. She seduces
17-year-old Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) who becomes consumed
with passion for her sleek rounded chrome-laden body. She
demands his complete and unquestioned devotion and when
outsiders seek to interfere, they become the victims of
Christine's horrifying wrath. John Carpenter brings Stephen
King's best selling novel to life in this chilling thriller.
Indicator Blu-ray Release date:
October 24th, 2016
The Return of Dracula
BD - Little known,
apparently (since Carlos Clarens and Les Daniels both ignore it
in their key books on the horror genre), but a surprisingly
'deep' piece of schlock, ignoring most of the drive-in
requirements of the time and building up a flat, grey, joyless
picture of vampire Lederer searching for 'love' in Middle
America - and thus the regeneration which only the New World can
give his dying 'culture'. Mucho cheapo, and probably for
devotees only, but they ought to find it quietly remarkable.
Blu-ray Release date: October 18th,
2016
Special Effects
BD - rom the writer &
director of
It's Alive, Larry
Cohen's Special Effects casts a satirical eye on
Hollywood, viewed through the prism of the thriller film genre.
When the fresh-faced Oklahoma country boy Keefe (Brad Rijn,
Smithereens) comes looking for his wife Mary Jean (Zoe Lund,
Ms .45), a wannabe
actress, he soon discovers the seamy side of Tinsel Town when
Mary Jean is found dead and he's the prime suspect.
Blu-ray Release date: October 18th,
2016
Vampire Ecstasy
BD - Dripping with gothic
atmosphere, Vampire Ecstasy (1973) is Sarno's mesmerizing
foray into the horror genre. When a trio of beautiful young
women journey to their ancestral home to claim an inheritance,
they fall prey to a coven of witches intent to reincarnate their
deceased vampire leader. Blu-ray
Release date: October 25th, 2016
Sin You Sinners
BD - In the hypnotic noir,
Sin You Sinners (1963), a medallion forged in a voodoo
ritual sustains an exotic dancer's youth and beauty. When her
jealous daughter and employer hatch plots to steal the amulet
for themselves, it sets off a chain of events ending in murder.
Sin You Sinners is the earliest available film by Joseph W.
Sarno. Blu-ray Release date:
October 25th, 2016
One-Eyed Jacks
BD - This is a western like
no other, combining the mythological scope of that most American
of genres with the searing naturalism of a performance by Marlon
Brando—all suffused with Freudian overtones and masculine
anxiety. In his only directing stint, Brando captures rugged
coastal and desert landscapes in gorgeous widescreen,
Technicolor images, and elicits from his fellow actors
(including Karl Malden and Pina Pellicer) nuanced depictions of
conflicted characters. Though the production was overwhelmed by
its director’s perfectionism and plagued by setbacks and studio
reediting, One-Eyed Jacks stands as one of Brando’s great
achievements, thanks above all to his tortured turn as Rio, a
bank robber bent on revenge against his former partner in crime.
Brooding and romantic, Rio is the last and perhaps the most
tender of the iconic outsiders that the great actor imbued with
such intensity throughout his career.
Blu-ray Release date: November 22nd, 2016
Villa Rides
BD - Buzz Kulik's (Riot)
sprawling historical adventure set against the backdrop of the
Mexican Revolution stars Yul Brynner (The
Magnificent Seven) as the Mexican renegade
Pancho Villa and Robert Mitchum (The
Night of the Hunter) as Lee Arnold, an
American fortune hunter for hire. Villa Rides! features a
supporting cast that includes Charles Bronson (Death
Wish) as Villa s right hand man, Rodolfo
Fierro; Herbert Lom (A Shot in the Dark) as the imperious
General Victoriano Huerta; Alexander Knox (The
Longest Day) as President Francisco Madero;
Fernando Rey (The
French Connection) as the dutiful soldier
Fuentes; and Grazia Buccella (After the Fox) as Fina, the woman
who would share the love of both Villa and Arnold. Villa Rides!
is written for the screen by the legendary Robert Towne
Blu-ray Release date: October 18th,
2016
On Dangerous Ground
BD - Robert Ryan plays Jim
Wilson, a tough police detective embittered by years of dealing
with low-life urban scum, in Nicholas Ray's moving film noir.
After severely beating several suspects, Jim is assigned to a
case far from the city to find the killer of a young girl.
Joining the manhunt, in snow-covered terrain, Wilson finds
himself paired with the victim's father, Walter Brent (Ward
Bond), who plans to shoot the killer himself. When the two men
come upon a cabin occupied by Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), a blind
woman who is also the killer's sister, Wilson's life is changed
forever. Mary, a generous and loving person who has cared for
her mentally ill brother Danny (Sumner Williams) since the death
of their parents, convinces Wilson to protect Danny from Brent.
Wilson also promises to get help for Danny if he surrenders to
him. Inspired by Mary's courage and recognizing Brent's rage as
the mirror image of his own, Wilson gains the insight to free
himself from his own blindness. Blu-ray
Release date: October 11th, 2016
Strategic Air Command
BD - Two things keep
Strategic Air Command (1955) aloft. The first is Jimmy
Stewart's conviction and authenticity in a role he not only
believed in, but lived. The second is spectacular aerial
photography. Thanks to these two elements, the film is kept, if
just barely, from seeming a live-action United States Air Force
recruitment poster in VistaVision. Stewart doesn't just play a
demobilized WWII veteran walking away from St. Louis Cardinals
baseball stardom to heed the call of Cold War patriotic duty (a
la Red Sox legend Ted Williams!).
Blu-ray Release date: October 18th, 2016
Aloys
BD - Aloys Adorn is a middle-aged private
detective who lives and works with his father. He experiences
life from a safe distance, through a video camera he keeps
recording 24 hours a day, and the massive collection of
surveillance tapes he organises and obsessively watches at home.
But when his father dies, Aloys is left on his own and his
sheltered existence begins to fall apart. After a night of heavy
drinking, Aloys wakes up on a public bus to find that his camera
and precious observation tapes have been stolen. Soon after, a
mysterious woman calls to blackmail him. She offers to return
the tapes if Aloys will try an obscure Japanese invention called
telephone walking with her, using his imagination as their only
connection. Blu-ray Release
date: October 24th, 2016
Snowpiercer
BD - In the mood for
allegory? Have a look at Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer,”
which proceeds from a fantastical premise rich with real-world
relevance. After a human-engineered planetary catastrophe
(trying to arrest the planet’s warming, we accidentally froze it
solid), the remaining people are stuck on a train that never
stops moving. A few thousand survivors live in railway cars,
sorted into a rigid and ruthlessly enforced social order. In the
back are huddled masses fed on gelatinous, insect-based black
protein bars and kept in line by a combination of propaganda and
brute force. Toward the front, the more fortunate enjoy access
to schools, nightclubs, fresh food and the reassurance that they
deserve everything they have. An unseen, quasi-mythical
entrepreneur is in charge, and a group of rebels have decided to
challenge his power and the extreme inequality he represents.
Blu-ray Release date: September
10th, 2014
The Squid and the Whale
BD - With excruciating
honesty, The Squid and the Whale chronicles the
experiences of two young brothers growing up in 1980s Park
Slope, Brooklyn, as they navigate the jagged contours of the
divorce of their parents, both writers. The acclaimed third
feature by Noah Baumbach marked a critical development for the
filmmaker as he turned toward an increasingly personal style—a
move that garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best
original screenplay. Shot in Super 16 mm and featuring a quartet
of nuanced, understated performances from Jeff Daniels, Laura
Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and Owen Kline, this comic and poignant
drama, peppered with autobiographical elements, deftly captures
the heartache and confusion of a fracturing family.
Blu-ray Release date: November 22nd
+ December 5th, 2016
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
BD - Unfolding in a series
of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was
inspired by the beloved director’s own nighttime visions, along
with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous
journey through the master’s imagination, tales of childlike
wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles
on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of
the war dead; a power plant meltdown smothers a seaside
landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on
the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured
tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese),
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its
maker’s artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal
lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.
Blu-ray Release date: November 15th
+ 21st, 2016
Punch-Drunk Love
BD - Chaos lurks in every
corner of this giddily off-kilter foray into romantic comedy by
Paul Thomas Anderson. Struggling to cope with his erratic
temper, novelty-toilet-plunger salesman Barry Egan (Adam
Sandler, demonstrating remarkable versatility in his first
dramatic role) spends his days collecting frequent-flyer-mile
coupons and dodging the insults of his seven sisters. The
promise of a new life emerges when Barry inadvertently attracts
the affection of a mysterious woman named Lena (Emily Watson),
but their budding relationship is threatened when he falls prey
to the swindling operator of a phone sex line and her deranged
boss (played with maniacal brio by Philip Seymour Hoffman).
Fueled by the careening momentum of a baroque-futurist score by
Jon Brion, the Cannes-award-winning Punch-Drunk Love
channels the spirit of classic Hollywood and the whimsy of
Jacques Tati into an idiosyncratic ode to the delirium of new
romance. Blu-ray Release date:
November 15th + 21st, 2016
Dallas Buyers Club
BD - In mid-1980s Texas,
electrician Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is stunned to
learn that he has AIDS. Though told that he has just 30 days
left to live, Woodroof refuses to give in to despair. He seeks
out alternative therapies and smuggles unapproved drugs into the
U.S. from wherever he can find them. Woodroof joins forces with
a fellow AIDS patient (Jared Leto) and begins selling the
treatments to the growing number of people who can't wait for
the medical establishment to save them.
Blu-ray Release date: February 6th,
2015
The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast
BD - Now, for the first time
ever, Arrow Video is proud to present fourteen of the Godfather
of Gore's most essential films (including nine Blu-ray world
debuts), collected together at last and packed full of
eye-popping bonus content. So put your feet up, pour yourself a
glass of good ol moonshine, and prepare yourself for a feast H.G.
Lewis style! Blu-ray Release
Date: October 24-25th, 2016 |
