DVDBeaver Newsletter for
August 4th,
2005
Hi folks, a big newsletter this
week....
Well, we are all over the board again with our content (John Wayne westerns,
heavy on Chabrol murder mysteries, Wyler, Von Trier, Kitano, Polanski...
Comparisons focus on Ozu, Zhang, Morrissey ,Chabrol again, and a late night
supernatural, Vampire, Kung Fu classic...) - but first: the NEWS:
Many have heard but it bears repeating - Home Vision have been bought by Image
Entertainment and in the process have struck a deal and will now be able to
mount a full-fledged marketing campaigns for DVDs from Criterion. It remains to
be seen what the eventual outcome will be for the consumers, but we are very sad
to lose Home Visions dedication to the foreign film market in Region 1 DVDs.
More
HERE.
Great news for Beaver - we have struck a lucrative deal with
YesAsia.com to become associates. After
many individual transactions we have concluded they are a very worthy customer
oriented partner and we encourage you to use the Beaver Homepage link and
YesAsia search box as well as our
individual review links to buy from their huge catalogue of Asian DVDs and other
products.
Director's Chair database - Kubrick, Welles and Chabrol
added - see Homepage
(right column) for all.
Next week's director is one whose prolific Oscar statistics dwarf any of
his peers... and he won Cannes too. Can you guess? - see this Sunday.
Feature DVD
for the month of August - Mei Ah's (2 disc limited edition) - Region 0 - NTSC
Eros - it is a three-part anthology film about eroticism by a trio of world
cinema's outstanding directors. "The Hand" by Wong Kar Wai, "Equilibrium"
by Steven Soderbergh, "The Dangerous Thread of Things" by Michelangelo
Antonioni. this is purely on the strength of the film as the DVD may possibly be
improved in a future release, but the Mei Ah isn't too shabby at all...
Imminent releases::
Bottom of the Sea
(Damian Szifron, 2003) Home Vision,
Chekhovian Motifs
(Kira Muratova, 2002) Image,
Columbo:Complete Third Season
-
Universal,
Three Men and a Cradle
(French original) (Coline Serreau, 1985) Home Vision,
Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol.
1 (Top Hat / Swing Time / Follow
the Fleet / Shall We Dance / The Barkleys of Broadway) Warner,
The Brown Bunny
(Vincent Gallo, 2004) Sony,
The Chaplin Revue
(Chaplin) Warner [R2-UK],
Flic Story
(Jacques Deray, 1975) Kino,
My Neighbors the Yamadas
(Isao Takahata, 1999) Walt Disney Video,
Krzysztof Kieslowski Collection
(The Scar, Camera Buff, No End ,Blind Chance , A Short Film About Killing and A
Short Film About Love) - Kino ,
Notre musique
(Jean-Luc Godard, 2004) Optimum Releasing [R2-UK],
Platform
(Zhantai) (Zhang Ke Jia, 2000) New Yorker
Most Recent Reviews:
Three of the 10 disc John Wayne Boxset that Beaver is uncharacteristically
endorsing
HERE:
True Grit - cantankerous territorial
marshal Rooster Cogburn, gets Wayne's belated acting Oscar.
The Sons of Katie Elder - The Elder boys
return to Clearwater, Texas for their Mother's funeral...
The Shootist - A late Wayne triumph - James
Stewart as the doctor, and Lauren Bacall, as the widow...
Three new 16X9 Kitano film/DVD transfers from down-under:
Violent Cop - The Japanese title means
"Watch out, this man is dangerous" ... far more fitting
Boiling Point - a catalogue of elliptic and
experimental editing...
Sonatine - Films that explain nothing often
make everything clear....
Two from Polanksi
The Tragedy of Macbeth - Polanski imposes
his vision to great effectiveness
Cul-de-Sac - Polanski's films bear marks of
his main themes - sexual perversity, humiliation, and fear.
Two
from Wyler:
The Desperate Hours - In one of the most
notable films on the theme of home-invasion assault in American suburbia...
The Collector - works on a subtler level of
disturbing but undeniably human behavior.
Epidemic
- is the first true von Trier film, cynical as hell, extremely provocative and
utterly genial.
The
Lady From Shanghai - a complex film noir with subtle plot twists
and magnificent directorial techniques. Welles has some fun!
Chabrol:
Just Before Nightfall - one of Chabrol's
best films on his favorite theme - people who commit murder to their own
astonishment.
Story of Women - Chabrol's films is an
honest, original, and utterly absorbing film about abortion.
Poulet au vinaigre - proves that the classic French cinema has
never been quite as dead as U.S. release policies have suggested.
La Fleur du mal - Chabrol does what he does
best: charting the rhythms and rituals of upper middle class French life with a
detached yet detailed eye.
Inspecteur Lavardin - 1985 follow-up to
Claude Chabrol's Poulet au vinaigre, bringing back the same police inspector on
another case...
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert's classic
novel about a passionate woman who rebels against the conventions that stifle
her.
Betty - Chabrol's adaptation the novel - There is no plot, but we
are hooked from the very first scene.
Blood Relatives - Chabrol's oddball,
Canadian-set picture focuses on the sexual assault and murder of a teenage girl.
Cry of the Owl - awash with impressive
images, montage and other cinematic values. But amid the aesthetics, something
vital is missing.
October Criterions Announced
Le Samoura?/b>
(Jean-Pierre Melville), The Wages of Fear (All-New Restored Special Edition,
Henri-Georges Clouzot), Samurai Boxset including- Kill! (Kihachi Okamoto),
Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi), Samurai Spy (Masahiro Shinoda), Sword of
the Beast (Hideo Gosha)
NEW Comparisons:
Bo Ying -
Region 0 - NTSC "Late Spring"
vs. Tartan (Ozu Volume 1: The Noriko Trilogy) - Region 0 - PAL vs. Panorama -
Region 0 - NTSC
Artificial Eye - Region 2 - PAL "Merci Pour le
Chocolat"
vs. Remstar - Region 1 - NTSC
Carlotta Films (4-Disc Limited Collector's Edition) -
Region 2 - PAL "Paul Morrissey Trilogy (Flesh, Heat, Trash)"
vs. Tartan (3-Disc Collector's Edition) - Region 2 - PAL
Guang
Dong Face Video (Chinese Extended SE version) - Region 0 - NTSC "Hero
- extended cut"
vs. EDKO Video Ltd. (Director's Cut) - Region 3 - NTSC
Intercontinental Video Ltd. (Digitally Remastered) - Region 0 - NTSC "Mr.
Vampire" vs.
Mega Star - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Fox - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Hong Kong Legends -
Region 2,4 - PAL
We have 10 more
Malata 393a Region Free Players at bargain-basement price! This may
be the last shipment - So far - 120 sold! - 4 returns (defective) Best selling
Region-Free player IN THE WORLD! If you haven't made the plunge yet see
HERE
and then start shopping
HERE and
HERE!
Please support our GoogleAds in our
reviews and click when you see something of interest (Above the DVD Menus of
every review!).
Fully
Loaded DVDs
Used Art House and
International DVDs HERE
Amazon's DVD Bargain
page
P.S. We will be
receiving screeners to review from the exciting new label Second Run DVD. Thanks
for the endorsements from J. Rosenbaum and N. Wrigley and while I am name
dropping - Dave Kehr (previously of the Chicago Reader and now NY Times DVD
Columnist) has joined the DVDBeaver discussion ListServ located
HERE...
Take
care and enjoy the Summer,
Gary