2008 List #2: USA Region 1 DVD Premieres

By my count, 44 titles were scratched off the M.I.A. for DVD list I made last year. A few were announced and then swiftly canceled (Ken Russell's The Devils, Patrice Leconte's The Hairdresser's Husband and The Perfume of Yvonne) and others (like Marguerite Duras' Nathalie Granger, the Taviani brothers' Kaos, Sidney Lumet's Daniel, André Téchiné's Hotel America) were curiously missing on my lists. 2008 also saw new-and-improved discs of some of my favorites (Godard's Pierrot le fou, Gregg Araki's The Living End). I didn't have the time or the money to buy a lot of DVDs this year, so I can't comment further. 2009 already has 10 titles ready to cross off the list: Criterion's Simon of the Desert, The Exterminating Angel, Dodes'ka-den and Danton; Koch Lorber's Taxi Blues and L'Innocente; Warner's Far from the Madding Crowd; New Yorker's Same Old Song; MGM's Yentl; and Universal's Howard the Duck (!). Beginning sometime in January, I'm going to revise the MIA lists, and around then, I'd love for you all to help me perfect it. They are as follows (keep in mind I haven't taken off the released titles yet, and there's a few that I mistakenly thought weren't available): Pre-1950, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s. Here are the 44 (excuse me if I'm miscounting... cold medicine can do that to you) Region 1 USA DVD premieres that I could scratch off the MIA list, in order of their release date (thanks to DVDBeaver for some of the images):

Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear – Eclipse/Criterion [available in Eclipse's Post-War Kurosawa box]
Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It – MGM
Agnès Varda’s Le bonheur – Criterion
Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom 2 [Riget 2] – Koch Lorber
Jean-Luc Godard’s Passion – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Jean-Luc Godard’s Hélas pour moi [Oh, Woe Is Me] – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling – Wolfe
Paul Schrader’s Touch – MGM
David Lynch’s Lost Highway – Focus Features
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Fiorile – Koch Lorber

Seth Holt's The Nanny - 20th Century Fox
Jean-Luc Godard’s La chinoise – Koch Lorber
Louis Malle’s The Lovers [Les amants] – Criterion
Louis Malle’s The Fire Within [Le feu follet] – Criterion
Olivier Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred [Au-delà de la haine] – First Run Features
Shohei Imamura’s The Ballad of Narayama – AnimEigo
Tsai Ming-liang’s The Wayward Cloud – Strand Releasing
Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation – Zeitgeist [part of the Derek Jarman Glitterbox]
Derek Jarman’s Blue – Zeitgeist [part of the Derek Jarman Glitterbox]
Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio – Zeitgeist
Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein – Zeitgeist

Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain – Criterion
John Sayles’ Baby, It’s You – Paramount/Legend
Patrice Leconte’s The Girl on the Bridge [La fille sur le pont] – Paramount/Legend Films
André Téchiné’s J’embrasse pas [I Don’t Kiss] – Lionsgate [part of the André Téchiné set]
Hector Babenco’s Kiss of the Spider Woman – City Lights
Derek Jarman’s War Requiem – Kino
Elia Kazan’s Boomerang – 20th Century Fox [Amazon lists this OOP already, so who knows if it was actually released; let me know if you picked it up yourself]
Luis Buñuel’s La ilusión viaja en tranvía [Illusion Travels by Streetcar] – Lionsgate [note that according to Amazon, there are no English subtitles for either of the Lionsgate Buñuel titles]
Luis Buñuel’s Nazarín – Lionsgate
Lou Adler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains – Rhino
Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame de… [Madame de…] – Criterion

Max Ophüls’ Le plaisir – Criterion
Max Ophüls’ La ronde – Criterion
Yasujiro Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon – Criterion
Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig – Koch Lorber
Claude Chabrol, Jean Douchet, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Eric Rohmer, and Jean Rouch’s Six in Paris [Paris vu par…] – New Yorker
Elie Chouraqui’s Love Songs [Paroles et musique] – Sommerville House
Larry Kent’s The Apprentice [Fleur bleu] – Sommerville House
William Friedkin’s The Boys in the Band – Paramount
Samuel Fuller’s White Dog – Criterion
Lars von Trier’s Europa [Zentropa] – Criterion
Bruno Barreto’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands [Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos] – New Yorker [hopefully! But you know New Yorker...]