Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF November 5th, 2017

Salibonani A great week with Blu-ray reviews of packages by Cinelicious Pics, Kino Lorber, Arrow Films, Media Target Distribution, Code Red, Olive Films, Vinegar Syndrome and others!. Our Calendar has updates of films-to-Blu-ray, including works by Jacques Rivette, Arthur Penn, George A. Romero, Toshio Matsumoto, John Cromwell, Cesare Ferrario, Roberto Bianchi Montero, Gene Wilder, John Brahm, Lucio Fulci and more. Barnes and Noble Sale We have another new listing page (Nature Run Amok) and our Feature Blu-ray and DVD is posted for NOVEMBER plus a new CONTEST with a OLIVE Blu-ray prize. Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

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)

LATEST ARTICLES: Movies From... the End of the World,  The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

DVDBeaver has their own store at Movie Zyng - check it out! Many have $1 shipping - even overseas!

Feature Blu-ray and DVD chosen for the Month of SEPTEMBER!

FOLLOW US on TWITTER! (where we post important reviews, contests - prizes, polls, calendar updates - plus much more...)

(Week of) November 5th, CONTEST  identify the still HERE to win a prize of a BRAND NEW OLIVE Blu-ray of Return of the Ape Man Best of luck!

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

Gary at 2ze dot com

Funeral Parade of Roses BD - A feverish collision of avant-garde aesthetics and grind-house shocks (not to mention a direct influence on Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange), Funeral Parade of Roses takes us on an electrifying journey into the nether-regions of the late-'60s Tokyo underworld. In Toshio Matsumoto's controversial debut feature, seemingly nothing is taboo: neither the incorporation of visual flourishes straight from the worlds of contemporary graphic-design, painting, comic-books, and animation; nor the unflinching depiction of nudity, sex, drug-use, and public-toilets. But of all the "transgressions" here on display, perhaps one in particular stands out the most: the film's groundbreaking and unapologetic portrayal of Japanese gay subculture. Blu-ray Release Date: November 14th, 2017

Cop-Out BD - Cop-Out is a distressingly "mod" remake of the 1941 French film Strangers in the House. Taking over the role originally played by Raimu, James Mason stars as a retired, scotch-swilling attorney residing in France. Mason disapproves of his daughter's (Geraldine Chaplin) friend Barney (Bobby Darin), but rises to another young man's defense in court when Jo (Paul Bertoya) is arrested for murdering him. The casting of Chaplin and Darin was meant to "reach" the youth market, but both are way too old for their characters. Cop-Out would have worked better (especially with audiences of the 1990s) without its trendy camerawork and wearisome generation-gap propaganda. Blu-ray Release date: November 28th, 2017

Night Ripper BD - The Monster of Florence (Italian: Il Mostro di Firenze) is the name commonly used by the media in Italy for a series of eight double murder cases that took place between 1968 and 1985 in the province of Florence, Italy. Prosecution offices carried on several investigations into the cases for many years. The courts reached the conclusion that the murders were not committed by a single person but by a group of at least four perpetrators, who became later known as "the picknick comarades", and were definitively convicted. The 1968 murder was found to be a case unrelated to the others, albeit that the gun, that probably originally belonged to small local criminality, might be the same involved in the actual Monster cases. Blu-ray Release date: June 5th, 2015

So Sweet So Dead BD - An unusually good script punctuates this tale about a depraved avenger of morality snuffing out licentious Italian housewives married to men of stature. The newly transferred police inspector finds small town life of little difference from the manic city in Roberto Montero's sex and breasts obsessed giallo thriller. The minimalist political pandering is a welcome change of pace -- supplanted by a storyline demonstrative of immorality; and it's brought to you by a director who dabbled in movies with sexual themes, and ended his career doing porn pictures. One helluva punch at the end, too. SO SWEET is so recommended. Blu-ray Release date: March 21st, 2017

Cease Fire BD - One of the most unusual 3-D movies ever made, Cease Fire! began as an idea by director Owen Crump, who in the 40s scripted military-themed short films for Warner Brothers and later on produced the documentary short One Who Came Back, about the air evacuation of wounded U.S. soldiers who fought in the Korean War. Crump approached producer Hal B. Wallis (Casablanca), an old friend from his Warner Brothers days with his concept for Cease Fire! Most 3-D movies of the era used the format to accentuate and exaggerate artifice. Cease Fire! is the rare production to employ the stereoscopic process to heighten reality, emphasizing the brutality of combat, the vastness of a cold, unfamiliar terrain and the isolation felt by a patrol of valiant fighting men. Part documentary, part drama and part cinéma vérité, Cease Fire! still remains a unique and remarkable achievement in filmmaking. Blu-ray Release date: November 21st, 2017

The Woman in Red BD - Gene Wilder's remake of this 1976 French comedy is a Hollywood version of what happens when Theodore (Wilder), an ordinary ad agency executive, is captivated by a gorgeous woman (Kelly Le Brock). The woman just happens to be standing on a grate when her skirt blows up over her waist (a scene first made famous by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch), and one glimpse is enough to change Theodore's whole life. Although he is married, he is willing to risk his happy relationship with his wife for a romp in the hay with the beautiful stranger. Blu-ray Release date: November 28th, 2017

Hangover Square BD - John Brahm, a baroque stylist of the 40s best known for The Locket and his remake of Hitchcock's The Lodger, directed this Victorian gothic (1944) about a high-strung and temperamental composer (Laird Cregar) who goes nuts when his mistress (Linda Darnell) betrays him. Bernard Herrmann, himself a high-strung and temperamental composer, contributed the score, and curiously Cregar is made up to look very much like him. Blu-ray Release date: November 21st, 2017

Voices from Beyond BD - If you think the dead rest in peace, prepare yourself for Voices from Beyond, a chilling ghost story with a modern twist. The unexpected death of wealthy, middle-aged Giorgio from an internal hemorrhage has cast suspicion on his scheming family, all of whom had reasons to commit murder. Rosy, the innocent daughter, is tormented by her father's spirit, who demands the revelation of his killer. Could it be Giorgio's wife, his mistress, his stepson or his stepmother? Or perhaps an even more fiendish mind is at work within the dark, deadly confines of their sprawling estate? Blu-ray Release date: October, 2013

The Miracle Worker BD - Based on William Gibson's Broadway play and retaining its acclaimed cast, Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker tells the true story of Helen Keller (Patty Duke), an Alabama girl struck blind and deaf as a baby after an elevated fever. Enter Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft), a partially-blind woman assigned the task of teaching Helen sign language. After first separating Helen from her over-protective parents (Victor Jory and Inga Swenson), Annie begins the arduous process of teaching the girl. Blu-ray Release date: October 31st, 2017

The Vampire's Ghost BD - In the African port town of Bakunda, the undead are restless. Webb Fallon (Abbott), having fallen under the curse of the vampire, is unable to find eternal peace. With an unquenchable thirst for blood, Fallon wanders the vast landscape in search of sustenance and the local missionary Father Gilchrist (Withers), along with friends Roy Hendrick (Gordon) and Julie Vance (Stewart) could very well be his next … victims! Blu-ray Release date: October 31st, 2017

S.O.S. Tidal Wave BD - Stalwart Republic contractee Ralph Byrd wades through a sea of stock footage in SOS-Tidal Wave. Byrd is cast as Jeff Shannon, a hotshot television commentator who goes after a corrupt political machine. When Shannon refuses to be dissuaded by bribes or threats, the villains promise dire consequences for his wife Laurel (Kay Sutton) and son Buddy (Mickey Kuhn) if he doesn't lay off. As a last-ditch measure, the head crook (Marc Lawrence) uses TV technology to scare away voters on election day by faking a devastating tidal wave which supposedly engulfs the city. Blu-ray Release date: October 31st, 2017

Blood Beat BD - Sarah and her boyfriend Ted have decided to spend Christmas with Ted’s mother at her home in rural Wisconsin. However, upon arriving, Sarah begins to feel a strange presence around her and soon after, a mysterious figure garbed in a Samurai outfit begins murdering the townsfolk, eventually setting his sights on Sarah, Ted, and his family… Blu-ray Release date: October 24th, 2017

Prime Evil / Lurkers BD - Nestled in a Manhattan monastery, evil is lurking. A group of devil worshipping monks are stalking the city, looking for victims to sacrifice to the dark lord in the hope of bringing satanic rule to the world! A stylishly photographed neo-gothic horror, Prime Evil packs in gore, nudity, and loads of 80s NYC locales. Lurkers starts when Cathy was a girl, she saw her deranged mother murder her father and only narrowly escaped with her life. Haunted by memories of her macabre childhood, her nightmares turn into a terrifying reality when she's lured back to her childhood home, only to be transformed into a 'lurker;' members of the vengeful dead who seek to terrorize those who wronged them. Findlay's suspenseful ghost story explores trauma and grief between moments of shocking violence. Blu-ray Release date: October 24th, 2017

Since You Went Away BD - Producer David O. Selznick waged war on the home front, with two offscreen marriages as the casualties, in Since You Went Away (1944), his sprawling canvas of American life during wartime. He set out to outdo the grandeur of his classic Gone with the Wind (1939), and though he didn't quite succeed in that, he created a memorable view of life among the wives and children left behind during World War II. He also created the first of his great obsessive epics, proving that sometimes the producer can be a film's auteur. Blu-ray Release date: November 21st, 2017

Celine and Julie Go Boating BD - Celine (Juliet Berto), a magician, and Julie (Dominique Labourier), a Librarian, meet in Montmartre and wind up sharing the same flat, bed, finance, clothes, identity and imagination. Soon, thanks to a magic sweet, they find themselves spectators, then participants, in a Henry James-inspired 'film-within-the-film' - a melodrama unfolding in a mysterious suburban house with the 'Phantom Ladies Over Paris' (Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier), a sinister man (Barbet Schroeder) and his child. The atmosphere, however, is more Lewis Carroll, with Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier as twin Alices. The four main actresses improvised their own dialogue in collaboration with Rivette and scriptwriter Eduardo de Gregorio. Blu-ray Release date: November 20th, 2017

Season of the Witch BD - As an escape from the increasing doldrums of her life, Joan becomes interested in witchcraft, which she learns a woman in her neighborhood practices. Unlike her boozy friend Shirley (Ann Muffly), Joan is not intrigued by witchcraft as another passing fad handed down to suburbia via the counterculture, but rather as a genuine religious experience, something into which she can invest her energy and emotions because both her husband and her daughter have become empty voids. It promises release, but also a sense of power and control over her life. Arrow's George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn Blu-ray Release date: October 23rd - November 14th, 2017

The Crazies BD - A plane carrying a biological weapon crashes near a small Pennsylvania town, unleashing a merciless virus that renders its victims insane and prone to violence. Desperate to cover up the situation, the government orders a quarantine of Evans City, calling in the army to enforce martial law and subdue the ever-growing number of Crazies. Arrow's George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn Blu-ray Release date: October 23rd - November 14th, 2017

There's Always Vanilla BD - "A productive kind of rudeness" is an indispensable trait in the face of inanity, George A. Romero surveying the whole countercultural megillah is a bracing steamroller. The model is not The Graduate but Vidor's The Crowd, the young couple's meet-cute is a collision of hangovers that races beyond peevish larkiness and into middle-class stagnation. The drifting smartass (Raymond Laine) ditches his band, takes his irritable father to the go-go joint, and learns that the old flame's child might be his son. Meanwhile, the starlet (Judith Ridley) feigns rapture over torrents of beer and fends off a lecherous director, just another day in the realm of TV commercials. Arrow's George A. Romero Between Night and Dawn Blu-ray Release date: October 23rd - November 14th, 2017

 Next 4 weeks on the Calendar