Holy smokes! Went The Criterion Collection Blu/DVD and Warner Archive Collection crazy this week!!! So many great updated discs, and so many rad looking westerns (ones written by freakin Dario Argento! and ones called The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing! Is it a documentary about me?! Probably not, but Im stoked!). Oh, and Mondo Macabro releases their first BLU/DVD combo, we now have TWO more PROM NIGHT movies (on one disc!), the DeNiro/Duvall flick TRUE CONFESSIONS on DVD for the first time, and an insane lookin Monte Hellman (Cockfighter, Two Lane Blacktop, ) Id never heard of. Wha-wha-wha?!?!?!?!? Rest of the new ones coming soon after you digest this insanely huge list...I had to take off like half the reissue wall... CRITERION -Ace in the Hole -BLU/DVD - 1951 Billy Wilder at his most cynical. Kirk Douglas plays a reporter twisting the plight of a trapped miner to his benefit. Wonderfully parodied by the Simpsons! -All That Heaven Allows - BLU/DVD - 1955 Douglas Sirk melodrama starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. Dan reps super hardcore for this bad boy. -Fantastic Mr. Fox - BLU/DVD - 2009 Wes Anderson claymated kids flick that is absolutely the bomb. I cant wait to watch this again in pristine BLU glory. Hot dawg, dudes, a Roald Dahl adaptation and Wes Andersons set design ramped up to a million? Whats not to like? -Lonesome - 1928 Paul Fejos silest flick lovingly restored. From the cusp of sound comes this silent that pushes camera-work to the limit. Not as insane as Man With a Movie Camera, but getting there with superimpositions and color tinting and other boundary bustin camera wizardry. Also easily wins the Most Beautiful Box Art of the week award. -On the Waterfront - 1954 Elia Kazan classic starring Marlon Brando. Presented on 3 discs in 3 different aspect ratios! Craziness! Been meaning to upgrade our disc for a while... -Picnic at Hanging Rock BLU/DVD - 1975 Peter Weir flick from Australia. Been on my hit-list forever, hopefully Ill take this bad boy home soon...Ive heard very good things, and I think it might have the dude from Wolf Creek in it! WARNER ARCHIVES -Devils Doorway - 1949 Anthony Mann western starring Robert Taylor, and one of the earliest films sympathetic to Native Americans. Dan digs this one a good bit. -Five Man Army - 1969 western written by the incomparable Dario Argento (director of great horror, co-writer of Once Upon a Time in the West)!!! A rag tag crew robs a train of gold during the Mexican Revolution. -The Hanging Tree - 1959 western starring Gary Cooper, Karl Malden and George C. Scott in his first role! Cooper plays a doctor equally skilled with a gun and a scalpel...but hes got a past that may just f things up. -Heaven With a Gun - 1969 western starring Glenn Ford as a preacher/gunsman whos gotta use one or both of those skills to bring peace to the town hes in. Also with Barbara Hershey and David Carradine. -The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - 1972 John Huston directed western starring Paul Newman as a real-life self-appointed judge. Also stars Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Roddy McDowell and Ava Gardner. Written by John Milius (Conan the Barbarian, Apocalypse Now)! -The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing - 1973 Burt Reynolds western comedy, also with Lee J Cobb. I cant bear to read the actual description of this since I assume it is not just the story of a man who loved watching cats dance. -The Sheepman - 1958 western starring Glenn Ford, Shirley Maclaine and the great Leslie friggin Nielsen! Nielsens the bad-guy in this tale of a man that won a bunch of sheep in a poker game and just wants to graze em with no hassle. Sounds like a role Charles Bronson coulda tore up. -Sitting Target - 1972 action flick directed by Douglas Hickox (the great Theater of Blood!) starring Oliver Reed as a vengeance wantin jail-breaker out to kill his wife. -The Skin Game - 1971 western comedy starring James Garner and Lou Gossett as a pair of swindlers that sell Lou Gossett into slavery and then bust him out to share the proceeds town after town. Sounds kinda bonkers! -Wichita - 1955 western directed by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Curse/Night of the Demon, Out of the Past) starring Joel Mccrea as Wyatt Earp. Also with Vera Miles. Dan adores this picture. REST OF EM -Billion Dollar Brain - 1967 Ken Russell directed fun spy thriller starring Michael Caine as an MI-5 agent blackmailed into one last job. Also starring Karl Malden. -Iguana - 1988 Monte Hellman (Cockfighter, Two-Lane Blacktop) directed picture about a disfigured whaler that makes himself king of an island and declares war on mankind! Sounds insane!!! -Prom Night III: The Last Kiss/ Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil - 1989/1992 - Thats right, now we have all the Prom Nights. Happy Halloween!!!! -The Slave - BLU/DVD -1969 smutty Italian S&M picture put out by my favorite labe, Mondo Macabro. They offer the most bizarre and excellent slices of world cinema so I am sure to check this out...if you do, make sure to watch their ridiculously great trailer reel featuring music from the awesome Bollywood flick THE JEWEL THIEF! -True Confessions - 1981 noirish thriller about the Black Dahlia murder starring Robert Duvall as the investigator and Robert DeNiro as a preacher whos worlds collide during the investigation. Oh, and they play brothers too. Sheesh! What a mountain of watchin you all have to do!!!!!
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:36:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015