DVDBeaver Newsletter - March 20th, 2006

Hello! This is one of our better weeks - New reviews of DVDs with films directed by Malle (3), Nicholas Ray (3), Renoir, De Sica, Assayas, Lang, Lubitsch, plus 4 new Criterions, 3 classic film noirs and more!

Vittorio De Sica and Carl Th. Dreyer have finally been added to our Director's Chair database - see our Reviews, Search or Master List pages and click their tiled names (browser must allow pop-ups methinks).

MORE NOIR announced -

Ring of Fear (James Edward Grant, 1954) Paramount

Man in the Vault (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1956) Paramount

Boomerang! (Elia Kazan , 1947) 20th Century Fox

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

La Double vie de Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991) Region 1- NTSC - see HERE (we'll keep an eye out)

WARNING!: Steer clear of the new Canadian (TVA) DVD release of Olivier Assayas' Clean with Maggie Cheung. See comparison HERE - NOTE: We have also added the Edko release to the comparison.

RECOMMENDATIONS:  Another week with some very strong recommendations - the Criterion releases are quite essential in the Beaver's collective mind - De Sica's The Children Are Watching is highly significant and moving neorealism... and 3 Films by Louis Malle ( Murmur of the Heart; Lacombe, Lucien; and Au revoir les enfants ) are simply wonderful and the DVD image is brilliant - a great package and frontrunner for Feature DVD of the Month.

I'm tightly embracing the films of Nicholas Ray and They Live By Night may be my favorite noir. Flying Leathernecks - what you see you get but King of Kings is an ambitious foray - and an amazing, and reasonably priced, DVD - must-own stuff folks.

The last film Lubitsch completed has a very decent release from France - Cluny Brown is poignantly funny cinema embellished with 'The Lubitsch Touch'.

So we don't get accused of totally snubbing modern film we conveniently loved Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. Truly this has a lot to offer - a biting comedy that touches at the right moments.

AVOID: Secret Beyond the Door  - only on the basis that the French subs are mandatory (requires a re-burn), is currently out-of-print - and is coming out this year in Region 1 in a probable sharper transfer.

 Clean - avoid the upcoming TVA release - and nab the HK edition which has too many superior attributes.

New Reviews:

The Woman on the Beach - Captivating and stylized Film Noir from Renoir is deftly delivered with fog-shrouded atmospheres'. The mood is quintessential noir and although the plot is sparse the mysterious atmosphere, performances and overly-powerful score carry the film. One can't help but feel the neurotic aura under the surface of the under-spoken dialogue and meaningful character glances. I found both female leads stunningly attractive - Noir babes! DVD Released March 6th, 2006

They Live By Night - Nicholas Ray's energetic first feature, tells the tragic story of two doomed lovers and of their short, fast life together before they are torn apart by the criminal world. Beautifully acted, They Live By Night stands today as one of the most poignant and unforgettable noirs ever made.

3 Films by Louis Malle - Few directors have portrayed the agonies and epiphanies of growing up as poetically—and scandalously—as Louis Malle. Laced with autobiographical details, Murmur of the Heart; Lacombe, Lucien; and Au revoir les enfants tell stories of youth, set against the tumult of World War II and postwar France. Controversial, tragic, amusing, and poignant, these three films are not just coming-of-age stories but the director’s ongoing response to a world gone wrong, revealing his true nature as rebel. NOTE: each release is also available individually but you lose the Bonus Disc. DVDs Released March 28th, 2006

The Children Are Watching - In his first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini, Vittoria De Sica examines the cataclysmic consequences of adult folly on an innocent child. Heralding the pair’s subsequent work on some of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, The Children Are Watching Us is a vivid, deeply humane portrait of a family’s disintegration. DVD Released March 28th, 2006

Clean - Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung) is a woman who wrestles with her dream of becoming a singer, her own fitness as a mother, and daily life without her partner Lee (James Johnston). Her past is riddled with drugs and regrets. We have added the HK Edko edition and it is the best of the lot. In 2.35 with interviews but still not HD - half the price of the bare-bones, pan-and-scan upcoming TVA edition - "we no like". TVA DVD Released March 21st, 2006

King of Kings - Director Nicholas Ray managed an impressive feat encapsulating the Christ narrative so elegantly into such a spectacular film extravaganza. The movie is majestic yet holds the divine and respectful chronicling of the life of Jesus quite adeptly. Orson Welles narration adds another perfect touch and there are numerous highly memorable scenes with barely a frame of wasted footage.

Flying Leathernecks - Although not in the realm of a blatant US propaganda film it still approaches that branding - and why not? - two of the best Yank macho-men in all of film history - John Wayne and Robert Ryan both giving excellent performances of leaders under immense combat duress - thank director Nick Ray for any input and promotion of the personal psychological aspects in the film.

Secret Beyond the Door - Joan Bennett is the woman who falls for an architect and promptly marries him, not asking as many questions about his past as she should have done. She soon discovers that he has a few skeletons in his cupboard, maybe even literally. Another of the Freudian thrillers that were so in fashion in the 1940s, director Lang manages to turn on the suspense but is more interested in the art of film-making than what makes his protagonist tick.

Cluny Brown - This late, delicious comedy of manners by Ernst Lubitsch is a notch below his best, but the character acting is so good one hardly notices. A plumber's daughter (Jennifer Jones) and a refugee (Charles Boyer) meet in England prior to World War II, and Una O'Connor, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Reginald Gardiner, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, and Richard Haydn are around to take up what slack there is. This 1946 film is the last one Lubitsch completed.

Good Morning, Night - Internationally acclaimed and award-winning director Marco Bellocchio (My Mother's Smile, Devil in the Flesh) delivers a film of devastating emotional power based on the shocking true story of the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italy's former Prime Minister. WARNING!: My Wellspring DVD of Good Morning, Night has audio and video issues - see review. We suggest, as an alternate, purchasing the Region 2 PAL release reviewed HERE.

The Squid and the Whale - The literary craze for tell-all family memoir gets a unique twist in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, a film à clef that satirically dramatizes the disintegration of his parents' marriage. Tender, cruel, and very funny, Baumbach's fourth feature turns family history into a sort of urban myth. DVD Released March 21st, 2006

The Story of Ruth - It should be apparent to anyone who has ever read the Biblical Book of Ruth that to get a screen play from it a writer would have to do a lot of reading between the lines, then put his imagination to rather extensive use. As it stands, it is a curiously cryptic and temptingly stimulating book-turned film. DVD Released March 14th, 2006

Princeas - In "Princesses," a warmhearted, sharp-eyed study of a roller-coaster friendship between two women who happen to be prostitutes, Fernando Leon de Aranoa confirms his Loach-like ability to convert marginalized subjects into socially committed cinema.
 

First - I don't know how these snuck by us ... but they did:

Next 3 weeks on the Calendar:

Here's hoping you have a relaxing and enjoyable week,

Gary

P.S. - LOOKING FOR PAST RELEASES of 2006? SEE HERE

P.P.S. LATEST ADDITIONS TO THE CALENDAR:

The Intruder (Claire Denis, 2004) Wellspring

Bukowski - Born Into This (John Dullaghan, 2002) Magnolia

Track of the Cat - Special Collector's Edition (William A. Wellman, 1954) - Paramount Home Video

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke , 1994) Kino International

And The Ship Sails On (Federico Fellini, 1984) 2-disc - Infinity Arthouse - R2 UK

Ginger And Fred (Federico Fellini, 1986) 2-disc set Infinity Arthouse R2 UK

Princess Raccoon aka Operetta tanuki goten (Seijun Suzuki, 2005) Silver Kent

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (Luciano Ercoli, 1970) Blue Underground

King Kong (2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition) (Peter Jackson , 2005) Universal

Memoirs of a Geisha (Widescreen 2-Disc Special Edition) (Rob Marshall, 2005) Sony Pictures

Osaka Tough Guys (Takashi Miike) Arts Magic

Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1934) Synapse Video

Uno Bianca (Michele Soavi, 2001) NoShame

Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger, 1947) 2-disc Warner Home Vidéo - France

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Special Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (Andrew Adamson , 2005) Walt Disney Video

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell and Pressburger, 1943) 2-disc Warner Home Vidéo - France

The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948) 2-disc Warner Home Vidéo - France

Renoir Silents - La Fille de l'eau / Sur un air de Charleston / La petite marchande d'allumettes (Jean Renoir - silents) - No English subtitles - Studio Canal

Seven Beauties (Lina Wertmüller, 1975) Koch Lorber Films