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Suspense - Let other movie
ice queens skate into happily-ever-after. Belita straps on her
blades for the noir-on-ice thriller Suspense, a torrid tale of
an ice-show star who commits adultery for the man she loves –
and of the man who commits murder for her. Frank Tuttle (This
Gun for Hire,
The Glass Key) directs; Barry Sullivan co-stars. Belita’s career was exceptional, even by Hollywood standards. A
12-year-old sensation at the 1936 Winter Olympics, the
British-born beauty made several films in the 1940s that
showcased her dazzling skating skills. But her artistry was not
limited to the rink. Also an accomplished ballerina, she worked
with Gene Kelly in 1956’s Invitation to the Dance. DVD
Release Date: September, 2009
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
BR - Inspired by Ron and
Judi Barrett's beloved children's book of the same name, Cloudy
with a Chance of Meatballs follows inventor Flint Lockwood
(voice of Bill Hader) and a brainy weathergirl (voice of Anna
Faris) as they attempt to discover why the rain in their small
town has stopped, and food is falling in its place. Meanwhile,
lifelong bully Brent (voice of Andy Samberg) relishes in
tormenting Flint like he did when they were kids, and Mayor
Shelbourne (voice of Bruce Campbell) schemes to use Flint's
latest invention -- a device designed to improve everyone's
lives -- for his own personal gain. Mr. T voices by-the-books
cop Earl Devereaux, and James Caan voices Flint's technophobe
father, Tim. Blu-ray Release
date: January 5th, 2009
The Green Berets
BR - Anyone who fought in
Vietnam can tell you that the war bore little resemblance to
this propagandistic action film starring and co-directed by John
Wayne. But the film itself is not nearly as bad as its
reputation would suggest; critics roasted its gung-ho politics
while ignoring its merits as an exciting (if rather conventional
and idealistic) war movie. Some notorious mistakes were made--in
the final shot, the sun sets in the east!--and it's an awkward
attempt to graft WWII heroics onto the Vietnam experience. But
as the Duke's attempt to acknowledge the men who were fighting
and dying overseas, it's a rousing film in which Wayne commands
a regiment on a mission to kidnap a Viet Cong general. David
Janssen plays a journalist who learns to understand Wayne's
commitment to battling Communism, and Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad)
plays an ill-fated soldier who adopts a Vietnamese orphan.
Blu-ray Release date: January 5th,
2009
50 Dead Men Walking
BR - Belfast hoodlum Martin
(Jim Sturgess) is recruited by a British agent (Ben Kingsley) to
infiltrate the IRA during the height of the Northern Irish
conflict and quickly becomes embroiled in a dangerous game that
could cost him his life if his secret is found out. As other
informers are brutally murdered, Martin starts to look for a way
out, but his handler urges him to stay undercover in this taut
action packed thriller based on a true story.
Blu-ray Release date: January 5th,
2010
The Silence of Lorna -
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (THE CHILD) direct this drama about
an Albanian woman torn between connections to three men and her
own dreams. Lorna (Arta Dobroshi) is an immigrant living in
Belgium. Though she has a boyfriend, her involvement with the
Mafia leads her to marry Claudy (Jeremy Renier) so she can get
citizenship. But her life is further complicated when she is
told to marry a Russian criminal, putting Claudy's life in
danger. Sony DVD Release Date: January 5th, 2010
Ichi
BR - ICHI is a variation on the long-running
ZATOICHI blind swordsman series with a wandering blind female
protagonist Ichi (Haruka Ayase) in search of her teacher. After
she decimates three members of the notorious Banki gang, she is
joined by Toma (Takao Osawa), a reticent samurai who endeavored
to save her before she took matters in hand. Ichi and Toma
arrives in a small village living in fear of the Banki gang.
Disfigured rogue samurai Banki sends his men after the samurai
who killed three of his men. The men assume that Toma is the one
responsible since the village has hired him to defend them.
Banki's underestimation of Ichi enables her to help Toma and the
village take on Banki's gang but Banki suggests to Ichi that he
may know the man she is looking for and had also picked up
learned enough from the blind swordsman to be a formidable
rival. Blu-ray Release Date:
December 22nd, 2009
Orpheus - Jean Cocteau’s
1940s update of the Orphic myth depicts Orpheus (Jean Marais),
a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for
both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and the mysterious Princess
(Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the
Princess from the world of the living to the land of the
deceased through Cocteau’s trademark “mirrored portal.” As the
myth unfolds, the director’s visually poetic style pulls the
audience into realms both real and imagined in this, the
centerpiece to his
Orphic Trilogy. BFI DVD Release Date:
October 27th, 2008
Bollywood Horror Collection Vol. 3
- Anita has been having terrifying nightmares in which she is
stalked in a boiler room/cavernous dungeon (well, there are
chains hanging all over the place amidst boilers and
guillotines) by Shakaal, a creepy guy with a burnt face and a
metal glove with claws and in waking life Anita's got the claw
marks to prove it wasn't just a dream (although she doesn't show
it to anyone until 45 minutes into the film). After "The Boss,"
a local tough and his gang try to "disrespect" Anita and her
boyfriend comes to a kickboxing rescue, Anita and her friends
(including the college's Michael Jackson-lookalike canteen
owner) take off for a seaside romp (the second of several 5+
minute musical numbers) and get stranded. DVD Release Date:
May 19th, 2009
House (Hausu) - An
unforgettable mixture of bubblegum teen melodrama and grisly
phantasmagoria, Obayashi's deranged fairy tale HOUSE is one of
Japanese cinema's wildest supernatural ventures and a truly
startling debut feature. Distressed by her widowed father's
plans to remarry, Angel sets off with six of her schoolgirl
friends in tow for a summer getaway in her aunt's isolated
mansion. But all is not well - in this house of dormant secrets,
long-held emotional traumas have terrifyingly physical
embodiments and the girls will have to use all their individual
talents if any are to survive. A rollercoaster ride without
brakes, HOUSE is by turns sinister, hilarious and curiously
touching, with ceaseless cinematic invention and a satirical,
full-blooded approach to the horror genre. DVD Release Date:
January 25th, 2010
The Mel Brooks Collection
BR - The rear cover page for
Fox's Mel Brooks collection reads: "Includes nine of the best
Mel Brooks films." Since there are only ten, and the one that's
missing – The Producers – is arguably the best or, at least, the
most consistently brilliant, one might as easily have written:
"Includes nine of the worst Mel Brooks films". That would have
had a shot at being funny instead of pointing up the obvious
oversight. The Producers is not a careless omission: Since MGM
was responsible for the DVD, we can assume that there are other
reasons why Fox chose to omit it from this collection. In any
case, this is the same collection that appeared on DVD back in
2006. The titles are the same, but they are now all in high
definition, with a few new extra features and all but one in
uncompressed audio. Blu-ray
Release Date: December 15, 2009
Highway 301 - Warner Bros.
forgotten 1950 film Highway 301 is a bit of a hybrid of old WB
gangster and film noir - which was then at its peak. Star Steve
Cochran - who naturally looked like a former thug from the
streets - plays George Legenza the leader of a gang of
not-too-bright bank robbers blandly dubbed The Tri-State Gang.
DVD Release Date: September, 2009
Arabian Nights
BR - The final part of
Pasolini's Trilogy of Life was two years in the making. The
locations - Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal - form a rich,
exotic backdrop to these tales of slaves and kings, potions,
betrayals, demons and, most of all love and lovemaking in all
its myriad forms. Engrossing, mysterious, profound and
liberating, Arabian Nights is an exquisitely dreamlike, sensuous
and adult interpretation of the original folk tales, presented
here in a beautiful new High-Definition restoration.
Blu-ray Release date: April 27th,
2009
The Canterbury Tales
BR - The second installment
of Pasolini's Trilogy, with its depiction of unbridled
fornication and a comically blasphemous visit to Hell in the
closing five minutes, proved to be one of his bawdiest and most
controversial films. Presented here in a transfer from the
original negative, and with special features including
alternative audio options, and a new documentary on Pasolini and
the Italian genre film. Blu-ray
Release date: April 27th, 2009
A Tale of Two Sisters
BR - Following the death of
their mother, the two sisters Su-mi and Su-yeon have spend some
time recovering at a mental hospital, and are now returning home
to their father, and their new “mother”. Already on their first
night at home, strange things start to happening: footsteps,
doors opening by themselves, and it soon is obvious, that the
sisters isn’t what their stepmother had hoped for and she isn’t
what the sisters want. Is it ghosts? Is it the stepmother who is
playing tricks on them? Or is it something else?
Blu-ray Release Date: November 2nd,
2009
9
BR - An action-packed adventure, director Shane
Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9 is the feature-length expansion
of his Academy Award-nominated 2004 short film of the same name.
The screenplay for the feature is by Pamela Pettler (Monster
House); directors Tim Burton (Beetlejuice) and Timur Bekmambetov
(Wanted) are producing. Set in the near future, the world’s
machines have turned on mankind and sparked social unrest -
decimating the human population. But as our world falls to
pieces, a mission begins to salvage the legacy of civilization,
and a group of small “stitchpunk” creations is given the spark
of life by a scientist - and they successfully survive the
apocalypse. With their group being so small, these creatures
must summon individual strengths well beyond their own
proportions in order to outwit and fight against the
still-functioning monster machines. 9 dynamically explores the
will to live and how one soul can change the world.
Blu-ray Release date: December
29th, 2009
Time Bandits
BR - Plunging headfirst into
history, director Terry Gilliam fearlessly brings the logic of
children's fairy tales to bear as he navigates through myth and
legend in a bizarre, ingenious retelling of
THE WIZARD OF OZ. A
boy and six good-natured little persons careen through
time-twisting interactions with Napoleon, Robin Hood, and
Agamemnon, among others, with a map the little people stole from
their employer, the Supreme Being. But their intention is to rob
their way through the past, which does not make their boss
happy. Meanwhile, Evil is after the map in order to become the
Supreme Being himself. The result is an extraordinarily visual
extravaganza that overflows with Gilliam's ecstatic vision. The
film is shot from a child's viewpoint, both through the
character of Kevin and the placement of the camera. One of the
morals of this thoroughly enjoyable, charming fantasy is that
heroes aren't always all they're cracked up to be. Fun special
effects and great supporting performances abound, including
terrific turns by Ian Holm, John Cleese, Ralph Richardson, and
especially David Warner as Evil.
Blu-ray Release Date: October 5th, 2009
Seven Women for Satan -
Businessman Boris Zaroff (writer/director Michel Lemoine)
daydreams of hunting naked women for sport (in a sexualized
variation on the exploits of his ancestor the Count Zaroff in
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME). When Zaroff takes for the weekend to
his ancestral castle looked after by , Zaroff puts his fantasies
into practice with the assistance/encouragement of sinister
servant Karl (Howard Vernon,
THE BLOOD ROSE), a vicious mastiff,
and the beckoning ghost of Anne (Joelle Coeur, LES DEMONIAQUES)
brutally murdered by his ancestor. He hires a comely secretary
Muriel (Nathalie Zeiger, Robbe-Grillet's PLAYING WITH FIRE) to
do little more than get drugged and fondle herself naked before
a two-way mirror before Zaroff sets the dogs after her but a
stranded comic-relief motorist couple may be a hindrance or
provide more fresh meat. DVD Release Date: November 11th,
2003
Sopranos Season One -
BR - As Babe Ruth was to
Yankee Stadium, so Tony Soprano was to Home Box Office, for
surely it was the six-season crime/family drama The Sopranos,
capitalizing on HBO's popular and critical success of their
prison series, Oz, that put HBO on the map and set the stage for
what HBO is today: the leader in original television series. The
Sopranos paved the way for other intelligent, non-frantic,
long-arced dramas that would eventually beget Deadwood and
The
Wire, arguably the three best television drama series of the
past ten years. Blu-ray Release
date: November 24th, 2009
District 9
BR - “District 9,” a
smart, swift new film from the South African director Neill
Blomkamp (who now lives in Canada and who wrote the screenplay
with Terri Tatchell), raises such a possibility in part by
inverting an axiomatic question of the U.F.O. genre. In place of
the usual mystery — what are they going to do to us? — this
movie poses a different kind of hypothetical puzzle. What would
we do to them? The answer, derived from intimate knowledge of
how we have treated one another for centuries, is not pretty.
Blu-ray Release date: December
22nd, 2009
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