DVDBeaver Newsletter - May 5th, 2006
Hello! - Firstly my ISP has lost about a day's worth of my emails. If you sent me something and didn't get a response - please send again.
This is a great week - 14 reviews - many worthy films and DVD releases. Prime Ozu, Chris marker, Kazan, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (LOVE saying that name)... more releases where preo-order savings should be considered... and more.
Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.
Feature DVD for May: Michelangelo Antonioni takes his own uniquely unanswerable and elliptical look at the basic precepts of identity and truth. Character study, suspense and road picture wrapped up into one intentionally-paced masterpiece of pure cinema... REVIEW HERE PURCHASE HERE
Popular Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER and SAVE!) : Restored Edition (2-disc) - Image Entertainment (Special Edition) (Billy Wilder, 1944) Universal Studios
Warner Bros Tough Guys Collection
(6pc) - Bullets or Ballots, City for Conquest, Each Dawn I Die, G-Men, San Quentin, A Slight Case of Murder - WarnerFilm Noir Classics Collection 3
(6pc) - Border Incident, Film Noir: Bringing Darkness Into Light, His Kind of Woman, Lady in the Lake, On Dangerous Ground. The Racket - Warner (Edward Yang, 2000) Criterion Collection (Richard Fleischer, 1959) 20th Century FoxHouse of Flying Daggers [Blu-ray]
(Yimou Zhang, 2004) Sony Pictures (Ridley Scott , 2005) 4-disc - 20th Century Fox (Marco Bellocchio, 2002) New Yorker Video (James Ivory, 2005) Sony Pictures (Ron Peck, 1978) Water Bearer Films (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (John Frankenheimer, 1998) MGM (Barbet Schroeder , 1978) Criterion Collection (Powell and Pressburger, 1944) 2-disc Criterion Collection (Two-Disc Special Edition) (John Frankenheimer, 1966) Warner Home Video
RECOMMENDATIONS: Criterion's Late Spring, pictureboxed and all, rose beyond my expectations and is an essential DVD purchase. Speaking of Ozu - intense fans may wish to indulge in the Aussie Pal of An Autumn Afternoon as it has some very keen extras - but the transfer is weak. Second Run's Blissfully Yours may have its flaws as well but it remains the best English friendly version existing on digital. A real work of poetic beauty. Baby Doll completes our review of the entire Tennessee Williams boxset and it is very appealing. Don't own La Jetee / Sans Soleil - well you should - and you better. Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure are two 70's disaster flics that, at there DVD price and value, I have a hard time not endorsing - digital deals of the year! Finally Noir fans might like to have Green For Danger on the shelf! Do you like Terry Gilliam's creative cinema stylings? - try out Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen.
Stay satisfied?: Frankenheimer's Ronin is a heck of a ride but the original DVD transfer (and commentary) are adequate unless you intend to wade through the new version's 2nd disc. Just my opinion.
Miss? - Robert Altman Collection The may be one to pause on. A Wedding is the gem that can't be bought individually. Hmmmm...
New Reviews:
Late Spring - (also reviewed with more
captures
HERE) One of the most powerful of Yasujiro
Ozu’s family portraits, Late Spring tells the story of a widowed father who
feels compelled to marry off his only, beloved daughter. Loyal Ozu players
Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in
postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever—almost by itself justifying
Ozu’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors. DVD Release
Date: May 9th, 2006
Blissfully Yours - While the plot paparazzi
might miss this scoop, it's not for lack of story. A detour form conventional
narrative fixation is requisite, going off-road and leaving behind the gridlock.
The narrative of Blissfully Yours barges medias res into a web of calculated
maneuverings, some to which, on a larger scale, the off-screen personalities are
either oblivious or apathetic. The stakes aren't limited to abstract moral
victories, but rather, concrete, readily identifiable human needs. Though the
dealers may go incognito, what's clear is that the multi-nationally incorporated
house keeps winning. DVD Release Date: May 1st, 2006
Robert Altman Collection -
M*A*S*H /
A Perfect Couple /
Quintet /
A Wedding - Clever camera setups, Altman's
patented overlapping dialogue, wonderful sight gags and situations, and
universally fine ensemble performances combine in 4 of his unique films. DVD
Release Date: April 25th, 2006
La Jetee / Sans Soleil - La Jetee’s fans
insist that it’s the finest science fiction film ever made, and why not? It’s
truly unique, implementing a series of hundreds of unmoving pictures,
beautifully edited together to tell a mind-bending story of time travel that
doubles as a melancholy fable about memory, loss, childhood, and destiny. In
Sans Soleil director Chris Marker hopes to excite you, to share his secrets with
you, to consolidate your friendship by the cinema's greatest essayist. It sums
up a lifetime's travels, speculations and passions. Among very many other
things, his film is the most intimate portrait of Tokyo yet made.
Green For Danger - Hidden Noir - A wartime
tale of murder most horrid, with Alastair Sim as the detective sent in to a
hospital to sniff out the perpetrator of an operating table death...
DVD Release Date: April 17th, 2006
Delicatessen - In a post-apocalyptic
society where food is so rare it's invaluable and used as currency and people
eat each other a young clown applies for a job at a local delicatessen. The
butcher's intent is to have him work for a little and then serve him to his
stranger than normal tenants who pay him in, of course, grain. The film evokes
Gilliam, Lynch, the Coens and Carné, but the allusions never get in the way of
the nightmarish humor. DVD Release Date: May 2nd, 200
Towering Inferno - Hot off the heels of the
success of "The Poseidon Adventure," producer Irwin Allen chose to follow up
that seaworthy disaster epic with yet another excursion in peril: "The Towering
Inferno," which went on to become an even bigger box office success than its
predecessor, and remains to this day one of the most suspenseful and potent
thrillers ever to come from a Hollywood studio. DVD Release Date: May 9th,
2006
The Poseidon Adventure - Hands down, this
is the best movie (and was one of the first) to come out of the seemingly
endless cycle of disaster movies that dominated box offices during the 1970s. It
could even be argued that Titanic owes some of its success to the precedent set
by this 1972 blockbuster starring Gene Hackman as a priest who leads a small
group of survivors to safety from the bowels of a capsized luxury liner. DVD
Release Date: May 9th, 2006
Ronin - Director John Frankenheimer (The
Manchurian Candidate), opens up by helpfully informing us of the following: "In
feudal Japan, the warrior class of samurai were sworn to protect their liege
lords with their lives. Those samurai whose liege was killed suffered great
shame, and... were no longer referred to as samurai... Such men were called
Ronin." And, although the film takes place in modern-day France, not ancient
Japan, the main characters are all, in their own way, Ronin. They are munitions
experts, tactical masters, and battle-hardened veterans of the Cold War who,
after the systematic dismantling of the Eastern Bloc, find themselves without a
master to serve. So they sell themselves to the highest bidder. DVD Release
Date: May 9th, 2006
The Virgin Queen - Bette Davis takes on the
role of Queen Elizabeth I for a second time - 16 years after the successful The
Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Richard Todd plays Sir
Walter Raleigh, the love interest while Joan Collins via's for his affections.
Standard fare for a Hollywood historical drama but Davis is always a treat to
see. DVD Release Date: April 17th, 2006
Silent Waters - Silent Waters (Khamosh Pani),
the first feature by Pakistani independent documentary filmmaker Sabiha Sumar,
is an intense and rare cinematic perspective of the political evolution of
Pakistan, the advent of fundamentalism and the fragile rights of ordinary women.
The film was selected for The Times bfi London Film Festival 2005. DVD
Release Date: April 24th, 2006
An Autumn Afternoon - Ozu's last film and a
noble competition to his much lauded directorial career. Close to ranking with
his recognized great films - "Late Spring" and "Tokyo Story" his themes of
familial communication continue. This time we have a similar narrative with
widowed father unselfishly releasing his daughter for marriage leaving only
himself and courting his son left at home. Contemplative shots fill many scenes
with elderly loneliness and the cycle of life being examined in another gentle
fashion. Ozu's trademark shots of power lines, trains, and solitary smoking all
make their presence but social drinking is dealt extensively throughout perhaps
foreshadowing Ozu's own enjoyment of alcohol and shortened lifespan.
Battle in Heaven - Working without a
screenplay, Reygadas is a Warholian impresario, creating existential situations
where nonprofessionals can expose themselves—sometimes cruelly—on camera. (The
Factory connection is clinched by Mushkadiz, an Edie Sedgwick type with a
throaty voice and a bird's-nest coiffure.) This concern for authenticity is
reinforced by the interpolation of documentary footage—most spectacularly in
using a vast religious procession as a backdrop. Tartan Region 1 DVD Release
Date: May 9th, 2006
Baby Doll - Regarded as scandalous when it
was first released, Baby Doll has lost its shock value but retains a strong,
sweaty Deep South sensuality. Businessman Wallach moves in next door to boring
Malden and his young wife Baker, who is essentially a walking, talking erogenous
zone. Lust, muckiness and flaming, violent retribution follow swiftly after
Wallach and Malden get into a fight over their cotton mill interests and the
nubile Baker. Written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Kazan, it's a darkly
witty portrait of passion in a small, sun-baked town full of repressed sexuality
and titillating nightwear. DVD Release Date: May 2nd, 200
Next 3 weeks on the Calendar:
Week of May 8th, 2006
The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) Criterion Collection
Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974) Universal
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005) Momentum Pictures
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu 1949) Criterion Collection
The New World (Terrence Malick, 2006) New Line Home Video
Nighthawks (Ron Peck, 1978) Water Bearer Films
The Poseidon Adventure (Special Edition) (Ronald Neame, 1972) 20th Century Fox
Ronin (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (John Frankenheimer, 1998) MGM
Strip Jack Naked (Ron Peck, 1991) Water Bearer Films
The Towering Inferno (Special Edition) (John Guillermin, Irwin Allen, 1974) 20th Century Fox
Week of May 15th, 2006
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke , 1994) Kino International
Benny's Video (Michael Haneke, 1992) Kino
Christ Stopped At Eboli 2-disc [Francesco Rosi, 1979] Infinity Arthouse R2 UK
L' Enfant (Dardenne Brothers, 2005) TVA
Film
Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997) Kino
Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) Paramount
Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005) Warner UK
Monsieur Hire (Patrice Leconte , 1989) Second Sight Films Ltd.
My Mother's Smile (Marco Bellocchio, 2002) New Yorker Video
The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke, 1989) Kino
Three Times (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2005) TF1 Vidéo R2 France
The White Countess (James Ivory, 2005) Sony Pictures
Week of May 22nd, 2006
Abhijaan (Satyajit Ray, 1962) Eureka Masters of Cinema R2 UK
100 Rifles (Tom Gries, 1969) 20th Century Fox
The Boondock Saints (Troy Duffy, 1999) 20th Century Fox
Cecil B Demille Collection (5pc) (Cecil B. DeMille directs Sign of the Cross, Four Frightened People, Cleopatra, The Crusades and Union Pacific) Universal
Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959) 20th Century Fox
Decision Before Dawn (Anatole Litvak, 1951) 20th Century Fox
Guns at Batasi (John Guillermin, 1964) 20th Century Fox
Harlan County, U.S.A. (Barbara Kopple, 1976) Criterion Collection
Hidden aka Caché (Michael Haneke , 2005) Artificial Eye
Histoire (s) du cinéma - 4 DVD (Jean-Luc Godard) Gaumont R2 France
House of Flying Daggers [Blu-ray] (Yimou Zhang, 2004) Sony Pictures
Immortal Sergeant (John M. Stahl, 1943) 20th Century Fox
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964) Eureka - Master's of Cinema R2 UK
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott , 2005) 4-disc - 20th Century Fox
The Last Wagon (Delmer Daves, 1956) 20th Century Fox
The Longest Day (Ken Annakin , 1962) 2-disc SE - 20th Century Fox
Murder, Inc. (Burt Balaban, 1960) 20th Century Fox
Music in Darkness (Ingmar Bergman, 1947)
Tartan [R2-UK]
Prison (Ingmar Bergman, 1949) Tartan
[R2-UK]
The Proud Ones (Robert D. Webb, 1956) 20th Century Fox
The Seven-Ups (Philip D'Antoni, 1973) 20th Century Fox
These Thousand Hills (Richard Fleischer, 1959) 20th Century Fox
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chan-wook Park, 2005) Tartan UK
Tora! Tora! Tora! (Richard Fleischer , Kinji Fukasaku 1970) 2-disc SE - 20th Century Fox
Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman , 1949) 20th Century Fox
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel, 1962) Criterion Collection
TGIF!!!!!!!
Gary
P.S. NOTE: It is quite possible that Histoire (s) du cinéma - 4 DVD (Jean-Luc Godard) R2 France from Gaumont will NOT have English (or any subtitles). We will report when we are more sure. Stay tuned!
P.P.S. - Wait at your own risk - sale is still good
: (60% off), The Gospel According To St. Matthew (46% off), Jamon Jamon (60% off), Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf (65% off), Girl on the Bridge (70% off), Baise-Moi (56% off), The Seventh Seal (65% off), Central Station (62% off), Kes (56% off), The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (2-disc) (70% off), Amelie (Two Disc Special Edition) [DTS] (72% 0ff), Pedro Almodovar Collection: Bad Education / Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down / Live Flesh / All About My Mother / Talk To Her (58% off), Visconti's Conversation Piece (61% off), The Fallen Idol (43% off), Sherlock Holmes - The Definitive Collection (54% off), Katherine Hepburn - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Rita Hayworth - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Barbara Stanwyck - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Sophia Loren - 6-disc Screen Goddess Collection (52% off), Marilyn Monroe - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off)