DVDBeaver Newsletter - November 17th, 2006
Bom dia! - A stupendous week of viewing in the land of Film/DVD passion - a perfect time to be a cinema fan - we have 15 new reviews this week - 4 comparisons, an essential Criterion, films by Tarr, Melville, Hong Sang Soo, Hawks, a contest, some Criterion news, a lot of new Calendar listings... and more. wow...
UPCOMING CRITERIONS (Feb 2007):
Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist - Box Set Turell, Oscar Micheaux, Kenneth Macpherson, Zoltan Korda, Thornton Freeland, Pen Tennyson, Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand Saul J. UK/USA ---- 369
NEW STORES (many more to come)
SEE OUR ESSENTIAL CRITERION STORE! - Best of the Best!
SEE OUR ESSENTIAL FILM-NOIR STORE! - 20 new listings added!
CONTEST:
DVDBeaver in conjunction with Zeitgeist Film will be giving away three (3) DVDs of Marc Rothemund's intense cinematic soul search Sophie Scholl (REVIEWED HERE by David McCoy). To be eligible you need only be subscribed to this free weekly newsletter HERE. Winners will be announced here on the homepage and contacted through email within the next week.
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!):
Glamour Girls (Love Me Tonight / The Blue Angel / Pandora and the Flying Dutchman / The Good Fairy / Lured) - Kino Video
Blood & Sand (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941) - 20th Century Fox
The Clock (Vincente Minnelli, 1945) Warner Home Video
Miracle in the Rain (Rudolph Maté, 1956) Warner Home Video
A Summer Place (Delmer Daves, 1959) Warner Home Video
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962) Warner Home Video
Performance (Donald Cammell, 1970) Warner Home Video
Caprice (Frank Tashlin, 1967) 20th Century Fox
Little Murders (Alan Arkin , 1971) 20th Century Fox
Road Show (Hal Roach , 1941) Alpha Video
Atomic Age Classics 5: C Is for Communist - Alpha Video
Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005) IFC
The Wicker Man 2-disc SE (Robin Hardy, 1973) Anchor Bay
The Wicker Man (Widescreen Unrated/Rated Edition) (Neil LaBute, 2006) - Warner Home Video
The Black Dahlia (Brian De Palma , 2006) Universal Studios
A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) Warner Home Video
Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan, 1998) Warner Home Video
Lady in the Water (M. Night Shyamalan, 2006) Warner
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006) (3-disc) Hbo Home Video
The Illusionist (Neil Burger , 2006) 20th Century Fox
Border Radio (Allison Anders, Dean Lent, Kurt Voss 1987) - Criterion Collection
Monsters And Madmen (4 DVD Box Set) - (The Haunted Strangler, Corridors of Blood, The Atomic Submarine and First Man into Space) - Criterion Collection
Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1970) - Criterion Collection
Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa , 1963) - - Criterion Collection
Yojimbo & Sanjuro: Two Films By Akira Kurosawa - Criterion Collection
Yojimbo (REISSUE) (Akira Kurosawa , 1961) - Criterion Collection
RECOMMEND: Three films to DVD this week that I consider ESSENTIAL - Pandora's Box, Sátántangó, and Army in the Shadows (L'Armee Des Ombres). And not far behind are some eclectic choices - A Heart in Winter, Forbidden Planet, and Woman on the Beach. Per-Olaf and Adam Lemke seem high on Regular Lovers. For straight value - you can't beat - The Rock Hudson Screen Legends Collection and The Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection. Taken in context Death of a President is entertainment. Anyway enjoy!
New Reviews:
Army in the Shadows (L'Armee
Des Ombres) - A personal project
for over 25 years and drawing on his own
experience of fighting for the Résistance, the
film shares the existential themes of his
gangster epics
Le Samouraï and
Le Cercle rouge
and shows Melville's mastery of suspense. DVD
Release Date: November 27th, 2006
A Fish Called Wanda - A perfectly
old-fashioned romantic comedy, big on caper,
generous on Ealing, and heavy on the twisted
stereotypes. Cleese scripts and stars as London
barrister Archie Leach, hired to defend a gem
thief, and earning a much-vaunted 'sex symbol'
tag with the affections of gangster's moll Wanda
Gershwitz (Curtis). DVD Release Date:
November 21st, 2006
Forbidden Planet - Classic '50s sci-fi,
surprisingly but effectively based on The
Tempest, with Nielsen's US spaceship coming
across a remote planet, deserted except for
Pidgeon's world-wearied Dr Morbius (read
Prospero), his daughter (Miranda) and their
robot Robby (Ariel). Something, it transpires,
has destroyed the planet's other inhabitants,
and now, as Bard and Freud merge, a monster
mind-thing Caliban begins to pick on the
spaceship's crew. An ingenious script, excellent
special effects and photography, and superior
acting (with the exception of Francis), make it
an endearing winner. DVD Release Date:
November 14th, 2006
Regular Lovers - Shot in lustrous black
and white, Regular Lovers is a melancholy
meditation upon both the events of May 1968 in
Paris and a doomed love affair. Writer-director
Philippe Garrel's son Louis (star of
Bertolucci's The Dreamers) plays 20-year-old
poet and student protester François, who falls
for the beautiful sculptor Lilie (impressive
newcomer Clotilde Hesme) during the numbed
aftermath of the revolution. DVD Release
Date: October 23rd, 2006
An Inconvenient Truth - After he failed
to become President of the United States of
America in the 2000 elections due to a variety
of reasons, Al Gore seemed to disappear. When he
began teaching classes at Columbia University, a
few pictures of him surfaced, revealing that the
man had become bearded and...well, corpulent.
Clearly, Gore was searching for a sense of
direction in his life. DVD Release Date:
November 21st, 2006
Woman on the Beach - One of the most
eclectic directors in Korea, for the last ten
years Hong Sang Soo has been redefining the idea
of arthouse. Ever since his 1996 debut The Day a
Pig Fell Into the Well, Hong has brilliantly
explored the hypocrisy and everyday life of the
planet's most mysterious creatures: men.
Following 2005's introspective Tale of Cinema,
Hong's latest film Woman on the Beach may be his
most accessible to date. Starring Ko Hyun Jung
(Spring Days), Kim Seung Woo (Hotelier), and Kim
Tae Woo (Woman is the Future of Man), Woman on
the Beach is more than a road movie or a romance
drama, it's a Hong Sang Soo film. DVD Release
Date: November 6th, 2006
Pandora's Box - One of the masters of
early German cinema, G. W. Pabst had an innate
talent for discovering actresses (including
Greta Garbo). And perhaps none of his female
stars shone brighter than Kansas native and
onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose
legendary persona was defined by Pabst's lurid,
controversial melodrama Pandora's Box.
Sensationally modern, the film follows the
downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet
innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity
has a devastating effect on everyone she comes
in contact with. Daring and stylish, Pandora's
Box is one of silent cinema's great masterworks
and a testament to Brooks's dazzling
individuality... DVD Release Date: November
28th, 2006
Sátántangó - While Sátántangó, due to it
being in black and white, Hungarian and running
7 hours, on paper may sound like the ultimate
joke about art-house cinema, it is nothing less
than a mesmerizing life changing cinematic
experience. DVD Release Date: November 13th,
2006
A Heart in Winter - Intimacy and
expression of affection are not capable in
everyone. Claude Sautet shows us a prime example
in "Un Coeur en Hiver". Wonderful performances
by all involved. Two people who are "in love"
but only to the degree that one can transmit
that emotion. A detailed study of individuals
caught in circumstances of fate and persona who
cannot connect by overcoming a inbred hurdle.
One which exists, demands to be recognized and
dealt with. DVD Release Date: November 7th,
2006
The Green Mile - In a world where evil
is done and justice is required, it is difficult
to preserve the dignity of even a condemned
prisoner. Yet, time after time, in scene after
scene, these men model how truly humane people
should behave themselves, both in their gentle
respect and in their justice. DVD Release
Date: November 14th, 2006
The Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection
- This three-disc set shines with five films
starring the ever-suave Cary Grant. Newspaper
publisher Porter Madison II (Grant) falls for a
lookalike impersonating the "Thirty Day
Princess" (1934), unaware that she's not
royal...and not available! Grant plays a Paris
beauty shop doctor more than pleased with the
results of his work on Genevieve Tobin, in "Kiss
and Make Up" (1934). Blinded in a chemical
accident, pilot Grant causes aviatrix Myrna
Loy's heart to take flight, in "Wings in the
Dark" (1935. Can copper Danny (Grant) and
manicurist Eve (Joan Bennett) stop bickering
long enough to nab jewel thieves together? Find
out, in "Big Brown Eyes" (1936). And Grant and
Bennett play ace reporters, in love but
resolutely staying single, in "Wedding Present"
(1936). DVD Release Date: November 14th, 2006
Behind the Rising Sun - The film is told
in flashback from 1943, in the middle of WW2, as
respected elitist Japanese newspaper publisher
Reo Seki (J. Carrol Naish) receives the ashes of
his dead soon Taro (Tom Neal) and blames himself
for the tragedy that has come to his family. The
flashback begins in 1936 when Reo welcomes back
from America his beloved son Taro, who graduated
as an engineer from Cornell and is filled with
love for America; he wishes to work in Tokyo for
the great American engineer O'Hara (Don
Douglas), but his father disapproves becomes of
the nationalist fervor sweeping Japan and the
hatred of foreigners as evidenced by the Chinese
slaughtered in the street.
The Big Sky - Hawks's adventure movie,
featuring Douglas and Martin as Kentucky
frontiersmen on an expedition up the Missouri
river to deliver a shipment of furs to Blackfoot
Indians, is flawed but has a pleasing Saturday
matinee feel to it that makes it great fun to
watch. Along the way, the pair have to negotiate
hostile Indian territory, but the action
sequences are tempered with some nicely judged,
knowing comedy that suggests the film isn't
taking itself too seriously, while Douglas's
romance with Sioux princess Threatt (which later
spilled over off screen) adds an extra dimension
to proceedings.
Rock Hudson Screen Legends Collection -
"Has Anybody Seen My Gal" - In this charming
musical comedy, Rock Hudson plays a faithful
soda jerk who finds his attentions to the lovely
Millicent (Piper Laurie) turned down after her
family gains a large sum of money. "A Very
Special Favor" - The war of the sexes heats up
when a sleek businessman (Rock Hudson) attempts
to seduce an attractive psychiatrist (Leslie
Caron) who seems immune to his charms. "The
Golden Blade" - Follow Rock Hudson on an epic
adventure as a brave warrior who uses the
magical Sword of Damascus to save his people and
claim the heart of a princess (Piper Laurie).
"The Last Sunset" - Journey to the Wild West
with a haunted sheriff (Rock Hudson) as he joins
an outlaw (Kirk Douglas) in a treacherous cattle
drive and finds his heart captive to the wanted
man's former lover. "The Spiral Road" - When an
opportunistic physician (Rock Hudson) travels to
the jungles of Java, a shocking meeting with a
black magic witch doctor forces him to
re-evaluate his selfish past... DVD Release
Date: November 14th, 2006
Death of a President - The film's deeper
intentions are far more urgent, and elevate it
into the company of such landmark works of
historical argument as Peter Watkins's The War
Game, Costa-Gavras's Z and, closer to home,
Michel Brault's Les Ordres. Every thinking
person should see Death of a President. DVD
Release Date: October 30th, 2006
Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of November 20th, 2006
Abbott & Costello in Hollywood / Lost in a Harem (S. Sylvan Simon, 1945) Warner Home Video
Claude Chabrol's Tales of Deceit (Betty / The Color of Lies / Cop Au Vin / L'Enfer / Inspecteur Lavardin) Kino Video
The Double Life of Veronique 2-disc (Krzysztof Kieslowski,1991) Criterion Collection
Ernst Lubisch Collection - Anna Boleyn (1920), Die Austernprinzessin aka My Lady Margarine (1919), aka The Wildcat, Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1920), Sumurun aka One Arabian Night (1920) - 6 DVD - R2 Germany - Transit Classics
A Fish Called Wanda (Deluxe Edition) (Charles Crichton, 1988) MGM
Glamour Girls (Love Me Tonight / The Blue Angel / Pandora and the Flying Dutchman / The Good Fairy / Lured) - Kino Video
Hana yori mo naho (Hirokazu Koreeda , 2006) With Eng SUBS - Shochiku Home Video
Laurel & Hardy - (Air Raid Wardens / Nothing but Trouble) - Warner Home Video
Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947) 20th Century Fox
O Henry's Full House (Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, 1952) 20th Century Fox
Pandora's Box (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1929) Criterion Collection
Perry Mason: Season 1, Volume 2 (5-disc) - Paramount Home Video
Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection (Christmas in July, The Great McGinty, Hail the Conquering Hero, Great Moment, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, Palm Beach Story) - Universal Studios
Week of November 27th, 2006
12:01 (Jack Sholder, 1993) Image Entertainment
L'Armee des Ombres (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) - R2 UK BFI
Edi (Piotr Trzaskalski , 2002) Facets
George Reeves Double Feature (Thunder in the Pines & Jungle Goddess) VCI
Hammer Film Noir - Vol. 4 (Terror
Street, Wings of Danger) VCI
Hammer Film Noir - Vol. 5 (The Glass
Tomb, Paid to Kill) VCI
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) - R2 UK BFI
Marlene Dietrich: Movie Collection - 18-disc - (Angel, Blonde Venus, Desire, Destry Rides Again, The Devil Is A Woman, Dishonored, The Flames Of New Orleans, Follow The Boys, A Foreign Affair, Golden Earrings, Morocco, Pittsburgh, The Scarlet Empress, Seven Sinners, Shanghai Express, The Song Of Songs, The Spoilers, Touch Of Evil) - R2 UK Universal Pictures Video
Otomo (Frieder Schlaich, 1999) Facets
Presagio (Luis Alcoriza , 1975) Facets
Sara (Maciej Slesicki, 1997) Facets
School of Senses (András Sólyom, 1996) Bunyik Entertainment
Superman - The 1948 & 1950 Theatrical Serials Collection - Warner Home Video
Things to Come (Special Edition) (William Cameron Menzies, 1936) Liberation Ent
Time to Leave (Francois Ozon, 2005) Strand Releasing
Border Radio (Allison Anders, Dean Lent, Kurt Voss 1987) - Criterion Collection
The Double Life of Veronique 2-disc (Krzysztof Kieslowski,1991) Criterion Collection
Monsters And Madmen (4 DVD Box Set) - (The Haunted Strangler, Corridors of Blood, The Atomic Submarine and First Man into Space) - Criterion Collection
Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1970) - Criterion Collection
Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa , 1963) - - Criterion Collection
Yojimbo & Sanjuro: Two Films By Akira Kurosawa - Criterion Collection
Yojimbo (REISSUE) (Akira Kurosawa , 1961) - Criterion Collection
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DON'T FORGET: Craving the stuff you can't seem to get anywhere else? Beavers TOP YesAsia picks are listed HERE
Huddle together,
Gary
P.S. SOME DEALS FROM UK:
Marlene Dietrich (6-disc - Screen Goddess Collection)
- The Lady Is Willing (Dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1942), Shanghai Express (Dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1932), Foreign Affair (Dir. Billy Wilder, 1948), Destry Rides Again (Dir. George Marshall, 1939), Blonde Venus (Dir. Josef von Sternberg), Devil Is A Woman (Dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1935) - R2 UK Universal is 60% OFF HERE ! - 58% off!The Cook Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1989)
- 69% off!The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1)
- 38% off! - 65% off! 60% off! - 55% off! - 28% off!The Almodovar Collection (Vol.2)
- 38% off! - 60% off! 60% off! 60% off!Last Year At Marienbad (1961) -
55% off! - 69% off!Sherlock Holmes - The Definitive Collection
- 54% offSherlock Holmes - The Complete Collection
(Jeremy Brett) - 60% off!