Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF December 15th, 2014

Ka weru! A slower week that includes Blu-rays by Criterion, Arrow, Warner, Raro, Music Box etc. including films by Walerian Borowczyk, Sydney Pollack, Lewis Milestone, Pawel Pawlikowski, Antonio Margheriti, Alejandro Amenábar and others. Our Release Calendar includes last week's updates of films-to-Blu-ray by Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer, Stanley Donen, Michael Mann, Dario Argento, Jacques Tourneur, David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and more. We have a CONTEST posted with another Brand New Kino-Lorber Blu-ray prize!- Enjoy!

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(Week of) December 15th CONTEST  identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE to win a Brand Kino Lorber Blu-ray of Drum 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

Tootsie BD - In Tootsie, Michael Dorsey lands the role of a lifetime—as did the actor playing him, Dustin Hoffman. This multilayered comedy from Sydney Pollack follows the elaborate deception of a down-on-his-luck New York actor who poses as a woman to get a soap opera gig; while “Dorothy Michaels” skyrockets to fame, Michael finds himself learning to be a better man. Given support by a stellar cast that includes Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Teri Garr, George Gaynes, Bill Murray, and, in a breakthrough performance, Jessica Lange, Tootsie is a funny, cutting, and poignant film from an American moment defined by shifting social and sexual identities. Blu-ray Release date: December 16th, 2014

Immoral Tales BD - It tells four stories revolving around particular taboos (virginity, female masturbation, bloodlust, incest), each delving further back in time, as if to suggest that the same issues recur constantly throughout human history and in all walks of life, whether it s Lucrezia Borgia (Florence Bellamy) or Erzsébet Báthory (Paloma Picasso in her only screen role) or the anonymous teenagers of the earlier episodes. Blu-ray Release date: September 8th, 2014

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) BD - 1787. HMS Bounty sets out on a journey through perilous seas to a tropical paradise... and into history as the one of the most ill-fated vessels in naval lore. Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) directs this color-drenched spectacular nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. Filmed before in 1935 and again in 1984's The Bounty, the gripping story centers on first officer Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando), a dandy transformed into a man of action, and Capt. William Bligh (Trevor Howard), uncompromising in his command or his cruelty. "Fear is [my] best weapon," Bligh proclaims. But it's also the most costly, driving men to desperation and mutiny. Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith and Richard Haydn also star in this epic adventure. Blu-ray Release Date: November 8th, 2011

Ida (Music Box added) BD - Spare, haunting, uncompromising, "Ida" is a film of exceptional artistry whose emotions are as potent and persuasive as its images are indelibly beautiful. The first film in his native Poland by the gifted Britain-based director Pawel Pawlikowski, "Ida" is by design simultaneously simple and complex, timely and outside of time. It tells the story of one specific young woman's search for identity in 1962, and in so doing effortlessly brings in issues roiling contemporary Poland as well as themes of trauma and redemption that are as old as the ancient Greeks. Music Box Blu-ray Release date: September 23rd, 2014

Blanche BD - Based on Juliusz Sowacki's 19th-century play Mazepa but relocated to 13th-century France, Blanche tells the story of the beautiful young wife (Ligia Branice) of a nobleman many decades older (French acting legend Michel Simon). As innocent as her name suggests, Blanche becomes the unwilling centre of attention in a power struggle between her husband, the visiting King and his page, the latter a notorious womaniser. Its unique visual style resembles a medieval fresco, and its period-instruments soundtrack, adapting the ancient Carmina Burana song book, was years ahead of its time. Blu-ray Release date: September 8th, 2014

The Long Hair of Death BD - In the 15th century, a young woman is accused of being a witch and committing a murder. She is burned at the stake. Years later, during a plague, she is revived by lightning. She returns to her village to prevent her daughter from marrying the man who actually committed the murder for which she was executed. Blu-ray Release date: December 16th, 2014

Tesis BD - The winner of 6 Goya Awards - including Best Picture - TESIS is an American-style thriller from Spain's director sensation Alejandro Amenabar (The Others, Open Your Eyes). Angela (Ana Torrent: Spirit of the Beehive, Cria), is a university student writing her thesis about violence in the media. During her research, she comes across a shocking ''snuff'' film (a film where a murder is actually committed for the camera) that has apparently been shot on the campus. Investigating further, she uncovers clues that the university s administrators may be involved in an unexplained series of student disappearances, leading her to the ultimate terrifying revelation: she might be the next victim. TESIS has been acclaimed by critics around the world as a superbly constructed thriller that generates considerable suspense and thrills from beginning to end. Blu-ray Release Date: December 9th, 2014

Chase a Crooked Shadow - The 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. Warner Archive DVD Release Date: June 17, 2014
 

 Next 4 weeks on the Calendar