Here's a list of DVDs coming out this summer. The list was a bit more concise, but I apparently haven't learned my lesson after this being the third fucking time my computer froze in the middle of one of these DVD updates.
14 August: You'll have to wait until then to see if David Lynch is really going to produce a commentary for his latest,
Inland Empire.
On
31 July: David Fincher's critically-acclaimed, but unsuccessful
Zodiac.
Miramax will be releasing the French science-fiction animation film,
Renaissance, on
24 July. Also out that day will be Andrei Tarkovsky's
Ivan's Childhood, from Criterion. First Look will have the long-delayed
Nicotina, with Diego Luna, on the shelves as well; they will also be releasing a 20-film set, entitled
Grindhouse Experience, though I have no word on what titles it will include. Finally, the monster-movie/comedy
The Host, from Magnolia, will be out this day.
On
17 July, Criterion will release Billy Wilder's film noir
Ace in the Hole. ThinkFilm will be releasing the French romantic comedy
Avenue Montaigne (
Fauteuils d'orchestre) with Cécile de France. Koch Lorber will repackage three of their Emmanuelle Béart DVDs (
Un coeur en hiver,
Nathalie..., and
L'histoire de Marie and Julien) in a three-disc box-set (I don't care for any of the three films, myself). Lionsgate, with their new stateside acquisition of Studio Canal titles, will have Volker Schlöndorff's
The Orge, with John Malkovich, and Jérôme Boivin's
Baxter, a strange French film about a dog that thinks, on your shelves. The Weinstein Company will release a definitive edition of John Woo's
Hard Boiled, which is said to be superior to the long out-of-print Criterion disc. MGM will have a "Fully Exposed" edition of Paul Verhoeven's unsung masterpiece,
Showgirls, out as well, which will likely just be the same disc as the VIP Edition, without the pasties and shot glasses. And finally, IFC Films will unload Jean-Claude Brisseau's follow-up to his controversial
Secret Things,
The Exterminating Angels (
Les anges exterminateurs).
Criterion will be putting out three films by director Hiroshi Teshigahara (
The Face of Another,
Pitfall, and his most famous film,
Woman in the Dunes) in a box-set on
10 July. IFC Films will be releasing Cam Archer's
Wild Tigers I Have Known, with Fairuza Balk as the mother of a thirteen-year-old boy coming to grips with his homosexuality, and Susanne Bier's Oscar-nominated
After the Wedding (
Efter brylluppet), with Mads Mikkelson about a bunch of family secrets. Tartan Video will release the French thriller,
The Page Turner (
La tourneuse de pages), with Catherine Frot and Déborah François of
L'Enfant. Orson Welles' adaptation of
The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, will be out from MGM. Home Vision will be releasing Shunji Iwai's
Hana & Alice, about two Japanese BFFs in love with the same boy. And, don't forget to preorder 20th Century Fox's
Joan Collins collection, which includes the films
Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,
Rally 'round the Flag,
Sea Wife,
Seven Thieves, and
Stopover Tokyo!
3 July: absolutely
nothing so far, so play catch up.
26 June: Craig Brewer's lackluster
Black Snake Moan; Kim Ki-duk's
The Bow; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's follow-up to
Distant,
Climates; Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-winning
The Lives of Others; a nunsploitation flick,
Nuns of Saint Archangel;
Puccini for Beginners, a romantic comedy with Gretchen Mol and Justin Kirk; two films by Chris Marker,
La jetée and
Sans soleil, from Criterion; and three box-sets from Warner of
Cult Camp Classics, including
Attack of the 50ft Woman,
Trog, Sergio Leone's
Colossus of Rhodes, and Howard Hawks'
Land of the Pharoahs.
19 June: The dud biopic of Edie Sedgwick,
Factory Girl; a crime drama,
Ginostra, with Harvey Keitel, Asia Argento, and Andie Macdowell;
Harrison's Flowers, with Adrien Brody, Elias Koteas, and also with Macdowell; the Charles Bronson/Alain Delon crime flick,
Honor Among Thieves; Criterion's release of Lindsay Anderson's
If... with Malcolm McDowell; Lucille Balle in the much-hated
Mame; Marlon Brando in the horror film
The Nightcomers; the long-delayed
Panic in Needle Park, which won a Best Actress prize at Cannes for Kitty Winn;
Reno 911!: Miami in an unrated cut; and two Dusan Makavejev Criterion discs,
Sweet Movie and
WR: Mysteries of the Organism, the latter in a two-disc special edition.
12 June: Eric Steel's documentary about suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge, entitled
The Bridge; Fina Torres'
Celestial Clockwork (
Mécaniques célestes); Rachid Bouchareb's Oscar-nominated
Days of Glory (
Indigènes) from Algeria; an Eclipse boxset of early
Ozu; Julien Temple's concert film
Glastonbury, with Radiohead, Coldplay, Bowie, and a bunch of others; a rerelease of Ken Loach's comedy
Raining Stones; Claude Berri's
The Two of Us (
Le vieil homme et l'enfant) from Criterion; and Abderrahmane Sissako's
Waiting for Happiness.
5 June: The cult classic
The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert in an "Extra Frills" Edition; a sure-to-be-awful sound remake of
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; a "Best Of" for
Chappelle's Show, in a final attempt for Comedy Central to milk its popularity to the fullest extent; Stephen Frears' made-for-TV Cold War drama,
Fail Safe, with George Clooney; the first season of
Fame (no thank you); Joe Angio's doc about Melvin Van Peebles with the best title of the year,
How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It);
Maxed Out, about credit card debt in America; the documentary
The Prisoner, or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair; and a
Sergio Leone Anthology from MGM.
29 May: something being dubbed "
Citizen Kane for a new millennium" from producer Steven Soderbergh, called
Able Edwards; a stupid gay sequel,
Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds; a "guilty pleasure" from TLA, called
Flirting with Anthony; Amos Gitai's
Free Zone, with Natalie Portman; the unnecessary
Hannibal Rising in an unrated version; rereleases of Fernando Arrabal's
I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse and
Viva la muerte; a blood bag collector's disc of Takashi Miike's
Ichi the Killer; a film once titled
Forever Emmanuelle, and retitled
Laure, from Severin; Nigel Finch's
The Lost Language of Cranes; a splatter-punk wetdream called
Meatball Machine from Japan; and an adaptation of Quentin Crisp's
The Naked Civil Servant starring John Hurt.
21 May: A 2-disc of
The 40-Year-Old Virgin; a thriller with Colin Hanks called
Alone with Her; Mel Gibson's (boo)
Apocalypto; a no-thank-you rerelease of Renny Harlin's disaster
Cutthroat Island; Hal Hartley's (boo again) sequel to
Henry Fool,
Fay Grim with Parker Posey as the title character; Steven Soderbergh's
The Good German with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett; Andrei Kravchuk's
The Italian; an Argentinian film called
Jews in Space (wonderful title); a big ol' boring box-set including Clint Eastwood's
Letters from Iwo Jima,
Flags of Our Fathers, and a documentary; another unnecessary rerelease from Lionsgate, this time Polanski's
The Ninth Gate; Sidney Lumet's
Prince of the City with Treat Williams; Philippe Garrel's
Regular Lovers (
Les amants réguliers) with his son Louis; a two- and three- special editions of Howard Hawks'
Rio Bravo; Kenji Mizoguchi's
Sansho the Bailiff from Criterion; a two-discer of
The Third Man from Criterion; and Roger Michell's
Venus with Peter O'Toole.
15 May: Jean-Pierre Melville's
Army of Shadows (
L'armée des ombres) from Criterion; a special edition of
Becket with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and John Gielgud; Daniel Burman's
Family Law (
Derecho de familia) with Daniel Hendler; Darren Aronofsky's
The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz; a pre-New Queer Cinema flick entitled
Fun Down There;
Pan's Labyrinth in single-disc and two-disc special edition; and Shohei Imamura's
Vengeance Is Mine from Criterion.
8 May: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's controversial
Blissfully Yours, banned in its homeland of Thailand; Anthony Minghella's
Breaking and Entering with Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, and Vera Farmiga; two Claude Chabrol/Isabelle Huppert flicks, nearly twenty-five years apart,
Comedy of Power and
Violette, the latter of which gave Huppert her first Cannes best actress win; a rerelease from Home Vision of Frank Perry's
David and Lisa; Karen Moncrieff's
The Dead Girl with Toni Collette and Brittany Murphy; the Oscar-nominated doc
Deliver Us from Evil; Steven Shainberg's critically-panned Diane Arbus biopic
Fur;
The Painted Veil with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton; Isabel Coixet's follow-up to her sublime
My Life Without Me,
The Secret Life of Words, also with Sarah Polley; Roberto Benigni's disastrous take on the war in Iraq,
The Tiger and the Snow; and Hitchcock's
To Catch a Thief in a special edition.
1 May: A limited-edition of
28 Days Later... just in time for the sequel; Nick Cassavetes'
Alpha Dog, with Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake; a collection of a number of Academy Award nominated shorts;
Dreamgirls (snore); the films of
Alejandro Jodorowsky:
El topo,
The Holy Mountain, and
Fando and Lis; Todd Field's
Little Children; the long-delayed
Mahogany with Diana Ross; and Kelly Reichardt's
Old Joy with Will Oldham.
I hope you're now up-to-date.
Alpha Dog - dir. Nick Cassavetes - USA - 2007
It’s a real feat to make Larry Clark look like a visionary, but Cassavetes appears to have done so. Alpha Dog, rather awkwardly, intertwines interviews with those involved in the crime (most notable Sharon Stone wearing a frightening fat-suit) with the depictions of the crime, conducted by a young drug dealer (Emile Hirsch) with a vendetta against a speed-head (Ben Foster), who owes him a large chunk of money. If Clark’s Bully was true crime in the falsely-plastered southern Florida, Alpha Dog is the My Super Sweet 16 version. It’s nearly as sleazy, but in more of a Paris Hilton sort of way than an Aileen Wuronos one. Each of the kids live with their equally morally-reputable parental units (including Bruce Willis and Alex Kingston) in Beverly Hills mansions, all equipped with large swimming pools to inspire the most flesh possible. That the final murder scene is rather hard to watch doesn’t make Alpha Dog any more sophisticated, as the real superiority in this scene is the surprising dramatic abilities of Yelchin and, yes, Justin Timberlake.
Though the trial of the Hirsch character has yet to be finalized, Alpha Dog jumps into its final credits just as you might expect, with text letting the audience know of the severity of the kids involved’s sentence. It’s these moments that Clark actually succeeds in Bully, adding a chilly realism and gravity to the crimes of a bunch of fucked-up, bored teenagers. It’s hard to imagine that, within a film like Alpha Dog, that any of the characters had time to concoct a murder between binge-drinking, pot-smoking, fucking, and partying (all while still keeping their perfectly-toned bodies in check). The true sadness of Bully is that murder was simply a way to cure the sad teenagers’ boredom. In Alpha Dog, murder comes from power and manipulation (though, like Bully, there‘s still some sort of homosexual undertones in the relationship between Hirsch and Shawn Hatosy, who actually commits the crime), something strikingly less interesting. Either way, Alpha Dog only ends up being curiously viewable if you want to see what dogshit the loins of John Cassavetes has produced or seeing Sharon Stone, who might have delivered the best performance of her career if not for being one of the annoying talking heads, in a ridiculous fat-suit.
