DVDBeaver Newsletter - November 19th, 2007

Talofa! - We keep chugging along with 22 new reviews this newsletter covering some of the work of Leconte, Vertov, Kazuo, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Kurosawa and even Señor Spielberg-o ... Criterion, hi-def stuff, Japanese anime, upcoming Criterion listings, a new contest, sales, 33 calendar updates, recommendations... the days are good - Ohh yeah.

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Exciting releases this week:

SALE: Save up to 50% on DVD Boxed Sets including - Alfred Hitchcock - The Masterpiece Collection (52% OFF!), The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (53% OFF!), Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection (53% OFF!) and many more HERE!

February 2008 Criterions and Eclipse announced (FULL DETAILS HERE):

Pierrot Le Fou - Special Edition Double-Disc, Walker (Alex Cox), The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci) - Director-Approved Special Edition Four-Disc Set.

Eclipse Series #8: Lubitsch Musicals - The Love Parade (1929), Monte Carlo (1930), The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) and One Hour With You (1932)

CONTEST ACTIVITY:

and you must be subscribed to our Free Weekly Newsletter and email the answer to contest@DVDBeaver.com

LAST WEEK ONLY 8 people guessed and only 4 got it correct: Winner identifying the clip from the week from Nov 12th (it was a favorite film of mine - Julio Medem's Lovers of the Arctic Circle) was Kim S. of Warwick (wins a sealed Warner DVD 5-disc boxset of Burt Lancaster Signature Collection) Congrats Kim!
NOTE: WINNERS ANNOUNCED in Leonard's Dae Jang Geum review HERE! TEN Hollywood caps - how'd you do?

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Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.

LATEST Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!) So much sounds interesting - TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 is a huge must-own in my book. I'll be keen to view He Was a Quiet Man, The Lawless, Danny Boyle's Sunshine, what's up with stuff like Killing Machine / Shogun's Ninja making it to Blu-ray?, I know so little about Star Wars I probably won't get the humor in Family Guy - Blue Harvest, Ultra-pretty Julie Delpy directing?:2 Days in Paris, Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, Orange Winter, and I'll steer clear of the Harry Potter stuff. . . . . The rest:

New Reviews:.

From what I reviewed I gained new respect for Les Diaboliques after the Arrow Films commentary - ditto for Criterion's Drunken Angel. Black Sun REALLY blew me away. And I also loved Monsieur Hire.

Thanks to Stan I'll be picking up the German DVD of The Man With the Movie Camera and the AE of Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train. Really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice as well as Happy Feet through attrition. Luiz has me keen on The Youth of Kamiya Etsuko. If you are at all keen on exploring this genre then Legends of the Poisonous Seductress #1: Female Demon Ohyaku is recommended. I enjoyed the quasi-noir Chase a Crooked Shadow. On hi-def - if you want some fun try Tremors. Plus I can't deny the appeal of Live and Free or Die Hard BR and Close Encounters of the Third Kind BR.

Monsieur Hire : A superb thriller containing the ugliest portrait of French provincialism since Henri-Georges Clouzot's LE CORBEAU, Patrice Leconte's MONSIEUR HIRE is set in a Parisian suburb in which conformity reigns supreme. Based on the Georges Simenon novel that also inspired Julien Duvivier's PANIQUE, MONSIEUR HIRE is a penetrating psychological portrait of a love-starved outsider who, by the film's end, arouses the audience's protective instincts. When a young girl is murdered, a dogged police investigator (Wilms) immediately suspects Hire (Blanc), a loner distrusted and hated by his neighbors. Tormented by children who play vicious pranks on him, Hire is hounded mercilessly by the detective. DVD Release Date: November 20th, 2007

Live and Free or Die Hard BR - The pleasant surprise is that Live Free ticks along like that Timex, with a reassuring rhythm. Wiseman, best known for his virtually incoherent direction of the Underworld films, proves he can in fact assemble an action sequence. And Willis does exactly what we want—looking frustrated for the first half and then going after the bad guys like the wrath of God. Brainless? Sure. Entertaining? Yup. Blu-ray DVD Released: November 20th, 2007

The Man With the Movie Camera - This kaleidoscopic city symphony-- conjoining Moscow, Kiev, Odessa into one metametropolis-- may be the most densely edited movie ever made. Vertov matches the rhythms of a single day to the cycle of life, and the mechanisms of moviemaking to the logic of industrial production.... The Man With the Movie Camera is at once a Whitmanesque documentary-portrait of the Soviet people, a reflexive essay on cinematic representation, and an ecstatic ode to human labor as a process of transformation. Stan Czarnecki has compared three European DVD versions of this masterpiece (thanks).

The Youth of Kamiya Etsuko - The late great Kuroki Kazuo's The Youth of Kamiyo Etsuko presents a stirring conclusion to four decades of filmmaking. Director Kuroki passed away in April 2006, months before the release of this critically acclaimed film. Continuing with the themes of Tomorrow, Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima, and Face of Jizo, The Youth of Kamiyo Etsuko delves into the lives of ordinary Japanese people during the closing days of WWII. Based on a play by Matsuda Masataka, the film is strong, simple, and austerely shot, eschewing bells and whistles for a direct, affecting story and realistic, raw emotions.

Prison Break - Season One BR - The hero needs to be sufficiently threatened to keep us on the edge of our seats, but not to the point of actually killing him or the adventure comes to an end – something like the Saturday matinee serial. This is hard enough to manage in a two-hour feature film (think: Indiana Jones as a successful instance), but stretches believability in a TV series (think 24 as a drama whose characters and situations frequently tipped the scales into comedy). In a backhanded sort of way, Prison Break was more satisfying than the first couple of seasons of 24 because there was less disparity between the acting (so compelling and serious in 24) and the situations they found themselves in. Blu-ray DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2007

Shrek the Third - The strategy of the Shrek movies has always been to appeal to the easy, smirky cynicism of the parents while whetting their children’s appetite for crude humor and plush merchandise. Shrek 2 pulled off the trick in a way that struck me as coarse and overdone, turning travestied fairy tales into the stuff of hackneyed Hollywood satire. But Shrek the Third seems at once more energetic and more relaxed, less desperate to prove its cleverness and therefore to some extent smarter. DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2007

Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train - American viewers, who've come to expect a film to spoon-feed them plot, characters, and motivations, tend to react with hostility to a film that can't be totally apprehended in a single viewing. They'd rather blame the film than doubt their own intellectual capacity. But I guarantee that if you find yourself confused, so does everyone else in the audience. I loved this film from the first time I saw it but it took me a second viewing to sort out the characters and relationships, and a third to begin to appreciate the intricacies of the form. For a fetishist, this is the film of the year.

Alive Day Memories - Home From Iraq - For the first time in history, 90% of wounded American soldiers survive their injuries. This represents a triumph of modern medicine, but also means that thousands of badly wounded soldiers are returning to adapt to a very different and very difficult life. The film has a simple purpose: to tell the stories of ten American veterans of the current Iraq war who have been badly injured physically and/or psychologically. DVD Release Date: October 23rd, 2007

Ocean's Thirteen HD - Ocean’s Thirteen is really the pits, though. The plot is ridiculous, the situations are ludicrous, and the characters behave idiotically. What’s more, there’s a nasty streak of sexism, and I’m not referring to the absence of Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It may’ve been fun for Soderbergh and his friends to spend Warner’s money, but it wasn’t fun for me watching them spend Warner’s money. HD-DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2007

Ocean's Thirteen BR - As heist films go, the Ocean's franchise is harmless and entertaining. More than in the previous two films, the chances for someone to get hurt or killed are raised, along with the stakes. That there is no rough stuff is a real challenge, not only to bring off a complicated heist under such constraints, but that such a movie could make money in this day and age where sex, violence and bathroom humor rules. We should be grateful for that at least. Blu-ray DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2007

Happy Feet HD + BR - Happy Feet fits perfectly in the niche for late baby boomers (those with kids now) with music from The Beatles, Queen, Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind and Fire. There really is so much to enjoy in Happy Feet and the final message may give off airs of being preachy - but it's really not. This is musical, funny, poignant and inspirational. I couldn't ask more from the manner the film presents its themes or the way it looks.

Pride and Prejudice HD - The sumptuous new screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has so much to recommend it that it seems almost churlish to point out that its plucky, clever heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, played by Keira Knightley, is not exactly the creature described in the 1813 novel. HD-DVD Released: November 13th, 2007

Legends of the Poisonous Seductress #1: Female Demon Ohyaku - With a demon tattoo splayed across her back and a sword in her hand, she embarks on a crusade of vengeance against all those who have wronged her, laying waste to man and woman alike in her quest for bloody retribution. Featuring tattooing, beheadings, and merciless torture, "Ohyaku" is a gruesome Pinky Violence classic that proved highly influential on later series of sexy action films from Toei Studios in the 1970s. DVD Release Date: November 13th, 2007

Black Sun - It might have been written 800 years ago but this sensual declaration by troubadour Guiraut de Bornelh catches precisely the primary intentions of this remarkable new British film, an extraordinary essay on the epiphanies of looking. In 1978, French artist Hugues de Montalembert, enjoying great success in New York, was mugged in an acid attack and lost his sight. Astonishingly, within a matter of months, he was travelling alone to Indonesia, reversing all expected responses to an assault that, in a single corrosive moment, destroyed his profession and vocation, while threatening the foundations of his identity and humanity. DVD Release Date: November 12th, 2007

Les Diaboliques - In this heralded French terror classic by director-screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot, the wife (Vera Clouzot) of a boys-school headmaster (Paul Merisse) tires of his violent treatment of her, along with his philandering, and teams up with his mistress (Simone Signoret) to drown him and make it appear as a suicide. When the body goes missing and sightings of the supposedly dead man are reported all over town, the two mismatched women must uncover what happened to the body before it's discovered what they've done. Upon its release, Clouzot urged all who saw the film not to reveal its surprise ending---one which still stands as one of the original 'shock' endings. The Arrow Films DVD Release Date: October 29th, 2007

Shrek the Third HD - Unless the Shrek team wants to follow its hero into the dangerous swamps of mid-life, thus shifting his literary pedigree away from William Steig and in the direction of John Updike or Philip Roth, it may want to leave him in a condition of more-or-less happily ever after. Which is only to say that Shrek the Third, directed by Chris Miller and Raman Hui from a script with a half-dozen credited begetters, already feels less like a children’s movie than either of its predecessors. (This may be why I liked it better than the others. But then again, so did my kids.) HD-DVD Released: November 13th, 2007

Wings of Honneamise BR - "I will not give up. I will realize my dream...even if it means death!" Acclaimed by anime fans all over the world, Royal Space Force-The Wings of Honneamise comes back to life 20 years after its original release! The stirring odyssey created by nascent anime masters at GAINAX is still unsurpassed for its meticulous artistry and heartfelt drama of a young man's coming of age in a turbulent world! Blu-ray DVD Release Date: September 11th, 2007

Chase a Crooked Shadow - This yarn concerns Anne Baxter as an heiress who becomes a frightened lady when Richard Todd arrives at her Costa Brava hangout and claims to be her brother, who Baxter knows was killed in a car crash in South Africa a year before. What is the purpose of his visit? Is he a crook? A fortune hunter? Todd builds up so much evidence that even the local chief cop (Herbert Lom) is convinced that his story is true. There begins a nightmare of terror as she believes the plot is to drive her insane and then murder her. Final twist is a sock climax. DVD Release Date: November 5th, 2007

Drunken Angel - In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura's jaded physician. Set in and around the muddy swamps and back alleys of postwar Tokyo, Drunken Angel is an evocative, moody snapshot of a treacherous time and place, featuring one of the director's most memorably violent climaxes. DVD Release Date: November 27th, 2007

Tremors HD - With a tip of the hat towards its '50s forefathers, this canny genre entry exploits its novel subterranean threat to the max, the ingenious situations being orchestrated with considerable skill by first-time director Underwood. Bacon and Ward project a wonderful low-key rapport, based initially on jokey ignorance before giving way to terse apprehension. It's great to hear authentic B movie talk again, especially when the cast takes it upon itself to name the monsters, only to come up with 'graboids' by default, and to debate their probable origin: 'One thing's for sure...them ain't local boys'. This is what a monster movie is supposed to be like, and it's terrific. HD-DVD Released: November 20th, 2007

Tales From Earthsea - Enter a dark, magical world of dragons and sorcery in Studio Ghibli's blockbuster animated epic Tales from Earthsea. Adapted from Ursula K. Le Guin's beloved children's fantasy book series, Tales from Earthsea marks the phenomenal directorial debut of Miyazaki Goro, the son of the legendary Miyazaki Hayao. Complex and compelling, Tales from Earthsea presents a sweeping, fantastical story about a young prince's journey through darkness and redemption.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind BR - Close Encounters takes the favoured dream of every UFO enthusiast (that the US government has been operating a cover-up) and turns it into a majestic and finally unprecedented adventure story. As early references to The Ten Commandments and Chuck Jones's Warner cartoons show, the film seems less concerned with science fiction than with recapturing the wonder of a child's first experience of the cinema, and the surprising thing is that Spielberg moves into this territory so effectively. Blu-ray DVD Released: November 13th, 2007

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:

Exciting releases this week: