Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF November 19th, 2018

Bziara žəbaait!, This week we have Blu-ray reviews of titles by Criterion, Warner Archive (Hammer Studios), Kino, Kimstim, Mondo Macabro, Arbelos Films, Universal of films directed by The Coen brothers, Raoul Ruiz, Lucio Fulci, Dennis Hopper, William A. Wellman, Julien Duvivier, Euzhan Palcy. Our Calendar has new updates of films-to-Blu-ray, including February Criterions and films by Charles Burnett, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Luchino Visconti, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Georges Méliès, Bob Fosse, Joseph H. Lewis, Desmond Davis, Tony Richardson, Julien Duvivier, Otto Preminger, Robert Aldrich, Jean Cocteau, Ingmar Bergman, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kramer, David Byrne etc. and more. We have our Feature Blu-ray is posted for NOVEMBER Enjoy!!

50% OFF Barnes and Noble Sales for all Criterion Blu-ray and DVDs HERE as well as all Arrow US titles HERE - treat yourself and save!

Cinephile friends,

This is being released Tuesday.

DVDBeaver have been reviewing DVDs and Blu-rays for almost 18-years. In all that time - we have never seen more value in one Blu-ray set than Criterion's upcoming Centennial Celebration Ingmar Bergman's Cinema (reviewed HERE). Without a doubt this is the most valuable Blu-ray sets ever offered; over 70 hours (39 films) of one of THE greatest directors of all time, majority new transfers surpassing previous releases and many films never before available in 1080P, approaching 60 hours of supplements and commentaries plus, after only $5 each Criterion-quality Region FREE Blu-ray (at the current 50% OFF sale price) also included is a lavish 248-page keepsake book. There is little doubt that Ingmar Bergman's Cinema is the package of the 2018 calendar year and we can't think of much as reviewers that even comes close. We encourage you to treat yourself this Holiday Season and take advantage of this 50% discounted price offered by both Amazon HERE and Barnes + Noble HERE.

LISTING PAGES:

Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, 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 NOVEMBER!

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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): Because of its dynamic improvement over the previous Blu-ray, The Coen Brother's The Big Lebowski 4K UHD gets the nod for top package of the week. It's a magnificent presentation. Criterion's Blu-ray of Julien Duvivier's Noir-heavy, French, Panique - a brilliant film with valued supplements. Great to see Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie comes to Blu-ray. This chaotic masterpiece is finally given the release it deserves thanks to newcomers Arbelos Films! Raúl Ruiz's Time Regained gets a Blu-ray release from, previously dormant, Kimstim. "A lush, elegant epic taking us on a time-swirling trip down the infinitely complex labyrinth that is Marcel Proust's memory lane." Kino's new, updated Blu-ray of William A. Wellman's Nothing Sacred is a surprisingly advanced image from their initial 1080P release. A classic screwball satire starring Carole Lombard. Criterion have brought Euzhan Palcy's A Dry White Season, starring Donald Sutherland and Marlon Brando to Blu-ray. A memorable, impacting politically-driven drama. Fans of Hammer Studios gothic vampire cycle with certainly find something to appreciate about Dracula A.D.1972 - brought to Blu-ray by Warner Archive. The essential Giallo Perversion Story directed by Lucio Fulci comes to Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro. A stylish Italian murder mystery thriller that will delight fans of the genre. You Never Know Women is a Silent Era romantic thriller brought to Blu-ray by Kino as is 1939's Made For Each Other starring James Stewart and Carole Lombard - delightfully sweet with a dark turn in the film's closing acts.

"Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.?" - The Dude, possibly discussing our DVDBeaver film preferences.

Buy a friend a coffee this month. Make DVDBeaver the friend, and do it monthly. Please?

The Big Lebowski 4K UHD - Released in 1998 the Coen brothers film The Big Lebowski introduces us to characters that are stuck in the 70's and who are unable or unwilling to adapt to the 90's. The story continues with a focal backdrop of the unique community that has fashioned itself around the American pastime of... bowling. The Coens also found time in the films 118 minutes to pay homage to past film genre's including westerns and Busby Berkley musicals. 4K Ultra HD Release Date: October 16th, 2018

Made For Each Other BD - James Stewart and Carole Lombard star in this comedy-drama about the struggles of a young married couple directed by John Cromwell. Stewart and Lombard play a recently married couple, Jane and John Mason. John works as an attorney for the law firm of skinflint Judge Doolittle (Charles Coburn). Doolittle calls John back to work immediately after the wedding ceremony, forcing the couple to abandon their honeymoon. But John is ready to do Doolittle's bidding, since he hopes to become a partner in the firm. Blu-ray Release Date: November 13th, 2018

A Dry White Season BD - With this bracing drama, made at the climax of the anti-apartheid movement, director Euzhan Palcy issued a devastating indict­ment of South Africa’s racist government—and made history in the process, becoming the first black woman to direct a Hollywood studio film. White schoolteacher Ben Du Toit (Donald Sutherland) lives in Johannesburg and remains blissfully incurious about the lives of his black countrymen until a wave of brutal treatment comes crashing down on his gardener (Winston Ntshona), bringing Du Toit face-to-face with harsh political realities. Based on a celebrated novel by André Brink and rooted in the first-hand research the Martinican Palcy did in South Africa into the way black people lived under apartheid, A Dry White Season is unflinching in its depiction of violence and its chronicling of injustice, making for a galvanizing tribute to those willing to sacrifice everything to fight oppression. Blu-ray Release Date: December 11th, 2018

Panique BD - Proud, eccentric, and antisocial, Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon) has always kept to himself. But after a woman turns up dead in the Paris suburb where he lives, he feels drawn to a pretty young newcomer to town (Viviane Romance), discovers that his neighbors are only too ready to suspect the worst of him, and is framed for the murder. Based on a novel by Georges Simenon, Julien Duvivier’s first film after his return to France from Hollywood finds the acclaimed poetic realist applying his consummate craft to darker, moodier ends. Propelled by its two deeply nuanced lead performances, the tensely noirish Panique exposes the dangers of the knives-out mob mentality, delivering as well a pointed allegory for the behavior of Duvivier’s countrymen during the war. Blu-ray Release Date: December 18th, 2018

You Never Know Women BD - You Never Know Women is a thrilling romance that constructs a combustible love triangle between a Russian dancer, a handsome escape artist, and a wealthy broker. Vera Janova (Florence Vidor) is on her way to star in a Russian vaudeville revue when a falling girder nearly kills her. A construction worker saves her life, but before she wakes up the conniving Eugene Foster (Lowell Sherman) takes Vera into his arms, pretending to be the one who rescued her. Susceptible to Eugene’s oily charms, Vera begins ignoring Ivan Norodin (Clive Brook), a Houdini-like master of illusion who had loved her his whole life. Racked with jealousy, Norodin plans the ultimate illusion, one that could change their lives forever. Blu-ray Release Date: November 6th, 2018

Nothing Sacred BD - As potent today as it was when released in 1937, this classic screwball satire stars Carole Lombard as Hazel Flagg, the small-town girl who mistakenly believes she's dying of radium poisoning. Sensing a great human interest story that will tug the public's heartstrings and help sell newspapers, exploitative journalist Wally Cook (Fredric March) brings Hazel to New York City and turns her into a media darling. Wally's callous strategy takes a sudden turn when he starts having feelings for the vulnerable Hazel. Filmed in early three-strip Technicolor and scripted by Ben Hecht and James H. Street, this sharp comedy still sizzles with its cynical take on media profiteering, and the matching of Lombard and March is unforgettably entertaining. Blu-ray Release Date: November 13th, 2018

The Last Movie BD - With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). Blu-ray Release Date: November 13th, 2018

Perversion Story BD - Dr. George Dumurrier is looking for money to expand the San Francisco based clinic he runs with his brother. He is also having an affair with Jane, a glamorous fashion photographer. When Dumurrier's wife Susan dies following an asthma attack, leaving him a million dollar insurance pay-out, it seems that all his problems are solved - until an anonymous phone call sends him to the Roaring 20s strip club where he is astonished to discover that its featured performer, the dangerously desirable Monica Weston, looks exactly like his dead wife. As he tries to unravel this mystery, George learns that the police are now investigating his wife's death and that he is under suspicion of murder. Blu-ray Release Date: November 13th, 2018

Time Regained BD - Raúl Ruiz's most ambitious literary adaptation and considered his greatest cinematic achievement. An Official Selection at both the Cannes and New York Film Festivals and starring an outstanding cast of international film stars, including Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Emmanuelle Beart, and Vincent Perez, Ruiz's Time Regained distills all of Marcel Proust s iconic In Search of Lost Time into a single epic feature. Blu-ray Release Date: November 20th, 2018

Dracula A.D.1972 BD - London’s become a small town for a handful of jaded psychedelic-era hipsters. But Johnny Alucard has a groovy new way for his pals to get their kicks. A certain ritual will be the living end, he insists. And if you still wonder where Johnny’s coming from, try spelling his last name backwards. Dracula is raised into the modern era in this Hammer Studios shocker that’s “quite well done”. Christopher Lee dons the cape for the sixth time and seeks out fresh victims. As archnemesis Van Helsing, fellow horror legend Peter Cushing clutches a vial of holy water and edges within throwing distance. Their harrowing battle royale is not to be missed. Blu-ray Release Date: October 16th, 2018
 

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