DVDBeaver Newsletter for September 22nd, 2005

 

 

Hello my fellow DVD archivists and curators! (don't worry I'll run out of these pithy sayings soon),

 

For those with less civilized mail clients - you may read our newsletter via the web HERE.

 

How lucky we are... not so long ago people would cross the ocean to attend festivals to see the films you can have delivered to your doorstep.

Our Toronto International Film Festival LOG is further UPDATED HERE with over 115 reviews (from field reporters Adam Lemke, Bill McAlpine , Tony Youngblood and one from moi) and our finalizing 5-star ratings system... watch out Rex Reed!

This weeks newsletter is reporting 23 new reviews/comparisons... with films directed by Chaplin, Murnau, Fuller, Roeg, Angelopoulos, Leigh, Godard, Cassavetes, 2 Koreans, and Indie production, a spaghetti western and a Giallo... We're the greatest! - why not support us with one of our sweatshirts! - its great for snubbing philistines!

 

Rumors : I emailed Robert Harris in the week to see if he knew the scoop on this upcoming Alfred Hitchcock - Masterpiece Collection... and he didn't. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious but I have my suspicions that the Boxset may contain all the old transfers just packaged together with the bonus disc. I hope I'm wrong but we will let you know as soon as we do... in a special newsletter announcement, if necessary. If many are new and 16X9's of Vertigo and Psycho, it could be the news of the year! Still a biggie though: Val Lewton Horror Collection. 

 

Esthetics: We've had to remove our fancy Flash banner and JavaScript Directors Chair links from the homepage as it was slowing main access horrendously. The flash still exists on every review and the Directors Chair is now on the Search Page HERE.

 

By the way, speaking of the Director's Chair we have added Chaplin and Nick Roeg to our illustrious grouping. It may take me a while but I'll have to eventually add The Master.

 

NEWS:

There were many more good products on DVD this again this past week. Maybe you shouldn't go by me - I loved the innocence of Branded. If you liked the film or Bowie The Man Who Fell to Earth is a heck of a package. My Name is Nobody is a cool film and the new German DVD is the bomb!  I liked Fear and Trembling a lot. Bad Timing is one of the most filimic looking DVDs I've ever seen. Godardians will want Masculin, féminin. Plus much more depending on your tastes...        
 

Calendar - In the next 2 week these upcoming releases look pretty interesting: Antonieta (Carlos Saura, 1982) Vanguard, The Ear (1970, Karel Kachyna) - Second Run DVD, Heimat 3 (Edgar Reitz, 2004) Artificial Eye [R2-UK], Interrogation (1982, Ryszard Bugajski) - Second Run DVD, Parole et Utopie (Word and Utopia) (Manoel de Oliveira, 2000) Gemini Films [R2-France], Porto de mon enfance (Oporto of My Childhood) (Manoel de Oliveira, 2001) Gemini Films [R2-France], Portrait Of Jason (1967, Shirley Clarke) - Second Run DVD, Le Principe de l'incertitude (The Principle of Uncertainty) (Manoel de Oliveira, 2002) Gemini Films [R2-France], Tale of Springtime (Eric Rohmer, 1990) Artificial Eye [R2-UK], Alfred Hitchcock: Masterpiece Collection: Saboteur/Shadow of a Doubt/Rope/Rear Window/The Trouble with Harry/The Man Who Knew Too Much/Vertigo/Psycho/The Birds/Marnie/Torn Curtain/Topaz/Frenzy / Family Plot (Hitchcock) Universal, Another Way (1982, Károly Makk) - R2 -UK - Second Run DVD, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Jean-Marie Straub/Daničle Huillet, 1968) New Yorker, Edgar G. Ulmer: Moon Over Harlem/Bluebeard/The King Of The Bs: The Strange Woman (Ulmer, 1939/1944/1946) All Day Entertainment, Interrogation (1982, Ryszard Bugajski) - Second Run DVD, Kolchak - The Night Stalker (3-disc - 1974) Universal, Private Parts (1972, Paul Bartel) Warner Home Video, Kill! (Kihachi Okamoto, 1968) Criterion, Rebel Samurai - Sixties Swordplay Classics (Criterion Collection) (1965), Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi, 1967) Criterion, Samurai Spy (Masahiro Shinoda, 1965) Criterion, Sword of the Beast (Hideo Gosha, 1965) Criterion, Teorema (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968) Koch Lorber, The Tunnel (Roland Suso Richter, 2001) Image Entertainment, Val Lewton Horror Collection - Cat People (1942), Ghost Ship (1943), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Leopard Man (1943), The Seventh Victim (1943), Curse of the Cat People (1944), The Body Snatcher (1945) , Isle of the Dead (1945), Bedlam (1946) - Warner

 

 

Most Recent Reviews and Comparisons:

My Name is Nobody - It goes without saying that, in many ways, My Name is Nobody is not just a movie about the dying West, but is also a movie about a dying genre. New German DVD is tops... just one catch.

Eternity and a Day - Theo Angelopoulos is one of the forgotten masters on DVD. Eternity And A Day follows the final days of Alexandre (Bruno Ganz), a celebrated Greek author as he prepares to leave his seaside home for what he feels is the last time. Taiwan DVD for now.

The Man Who Fell to Earth - a daring exploration of science fiction as an art form. The story of an alien on an elaborate rescue mission provides the launching pad for Nicolas Roeg’s visual tour de force. Criterion via for DVD package of the decade!

Fear and Trembling - a nightmare for Amélie, a Japanese-born Belgian woman, exposes and deftly dissects the universal absurdities of corporate culture. Home Visions best package!

Young Adam - kind of psychological thriller set in and around Glasgow in the early 1950s, a time of high employment and low wages, with Ewan McGregor. Great film... you choose the DVD!

Bad Timing - Amid the decaying elegance of cold-war Vienna, psychoanalyst Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) becomes mired in an erotically charged affair with the elusive Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell). Nicolas Roeg’s Bad Timing is a masterful, deeply disturbing foray into the dark world of sexual obsession.

Naked - Naked is the angriest, most bitterly critical attack on the false values of society that Mike Leigh, Britain’s constant chronicler of the tragic comedy of desperate lives, has ever made.

Two Deaths - Ugly characters in an ugly surrounding with a few of them honestly confessing stories of humiliation, cruelty, warped desire with flashbacks to their past. Yucchhh.. and the DVD is just as bad.

Peppermint Candy - unfolding in reverse, Peppermint Candy is both a portrait of one man's self-destructive regret and also 20 years of turbulent Korean history. Possibly the best Korean film I have seen (but it is harsh)

Bye Bye Havana - Cuba stands pummeled by an unworkable socialism and a voracious consumer appetite. Great Indie production! (We always support the litte guy!)

Gloria - Cassavetes - the most salient feature is Gena Rowlands' extraordinarily well-rounded embodiment of the titular role: an extremely classy ex-mob dame with a hair-trigger temper and a tongue of fire.

Branded - One of the great lines in Alan Ladd-lore comes at the beginning of 'Branded' when someone asks his character, Choya ,if he has any friends, he replies "my guns". Classical western, inexpensive DVD.

We're No Angels - An unlikely trio of cons - Bogart, Ustinov, Ray - escape Devil's Island, and become involved in the family affairs of a French merchant. You want more than that?

Masculin, féminin - ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard introduces the world to “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,” through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and each other.

Sunrise - what Cahiers du cinéma described as "the single greatest masterwork in the history of the cinema". #6 on our Top 100 Films list HERE

Shock Corridor - Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, a reporter has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Writer/director/producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia.

Naked Kiss - The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit into mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer/director/producer Sam Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome facade.

A King in New York - a hopeful film, more bittersweet than bitter. Only the hysterical frenzies of the Joe McCarthy era could have made it seem otherwise.

A Woman of Paris - At the height of his success (after making The Kid and The Pilgrim), the most famous entertainer in the world wanted to direct a different kind of picture.

Monsieur Verdoux - is Chaplin's entertaining and controversial mish-mash of wry philosophy, dark humor and smattering of physical comedy.

Oldboy - Winner of the Grand Prix de Jury in Cannes, “Oldboy” is Park’s most complex and cruel film. Where all his films study cause and effect, “Oldboy” is a Kafka-ian ping pong game.

Body and Soul - Excellent account of ambitious boxer Garfield clambering his way to the top and selling his soul in the process. The template for all subsequent pugilist-with-a-conscience flicks.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much - I haven't really seen enough giallo at this point to say whether this is where the whole genre began, but I've heard it referred to as such, so I'll leave it to others to decide. At any rate, this movie is a great deal of fun and well worth catching.

Best,

Gary

P.S. Quick mention of a couple of associations we have -

DVDCovers for those artful creators of their own DVds (wink) - http://www.freecovers.net/

Renting?: http://www.nicheflix.com/ Mark is always helping us out - buy through us - rent through him!