Spring (And By Summer Fall)

I'm going to be experimenting with a few changes on this blog in the coming weeks, including devising a better way to list DVD announcements. For now, there's no real need, as the holidays kept the studios busy with their Oscar baiters with very few new, noteworthy DVDs announced for spring 09. For starters, Plexifilm's release of 13 Most Beautiful... Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests has been moved to 9 March. The Weinstein Company's release of Martyrs in March looks shaky, so don't be surprised if it doesn't show up then. Actually, be weary of any of the Weinstein Company's films that have been mentioned here; their deal with Blockbuster seems to be screwing up their DVDs' retail.

As for new titles, Sony announced 3 for March: Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (17th), Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married (17th) and Isabel Coixet's Elegy (10th). Facets is releasing Rafi Pitts' It's Winter, from Iran, on 24 March. Warner announced their third box-set of pre-code baddies called Forbidden Hollywood. The titles, all six features directed by William A. Wellman, are Other Men's Women (with Mary Astor and James Cagney), The Purchase Price (with Barbara Stanwyck), Frisco Jenny, Midnight Mary, Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys of the Road. A number of shorts accompany the features, which streets on 24 March. And finally, the band Xiu Xiu will have a music DVD entitled You Can't Hear Me on 24 February.

As for the rest of the releases, here's a rundown of some of the notable UK releases that have already been announced for the upcoming months. Of course, all are subject to change. They are listed in order of release date. Titles unavailable or as of yet unannounced in the US are in sexy red.

Alexandra [Aleksandra] - dir. Alexandr Sokurov - Artificial Eye - 12 January
Eichmann - dir. Robert Young - High Fliers - 12 January [with Thomas Kretschmann, Troy Garity, Franka Potente, Stephen Fry]
The Handmaid's Tale - dir. Volker Schlöndorff - Optimum - 12 January [with Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway]
The Honey Pot - dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz - Optimum - 12 January [with Susan Hayward, Maggie Smith, Rex Harrison]
The Living End - dir. Gregg Araki - Verve - 12 January
Red Sorghum - dir. Zhang Yimou - Drakes Avenue - 12 January [with Gong Li]
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon [Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon] - dir. Eric Rohmer - Artificial Eye - 12 January
Rosebud - dir. Otto Preminger - Optimum - 12 January [with Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough]
Somerstown - dir. Shane Meadows - Optimum - 12 January
Sunday Bloody Sunday - dir. John Schlesinger - Optimum - 12 January [with Glenda Jackson, Peter Finch]
The Wave [Die Wielle] - dir. Dennis Gansel - Momentum - 12 January [with Jürgen Vogel]

This Happy Breed - dir. David Lean - Network - 16 January [
Partner - dir. Bernardo Bertolucci - BFI - 19 January [with Pierre Clémenti, Tina Aumont]
The Chaser - dir. Na Hong-jin - Metrodome - 26 January
The Dardenne Brothers Collection (La Promesse; Rosetta; The Son; L'Enfant) - Artificial Eye - 26 January
Divorce Iranian Style; Runaway - dir. Kim Longinotto, Ziba Mir-Hosseini - Second Run - 26 January
The Fan - dir. Otto Preminger - BFI - 26 January
Import/Export - dir. Ulrich Seidl - Trinity - 26 January
Jar City [Mýrin] - dir. Baltasar Kormákur - Universal - 26 January
The Wong Kar-wai Collection (Ashes of Time Redux; Chungking Express; Happy Together) - Artificial Eye - 26 January
Puffball - dir. Nicolas Roeg - Yume - 1 February [with Donald Sutherland, Miranda Richardson]

The Accidental Husband - dir. Griffin Dunne - Momentum - 2 February [with Uma Thurman, Colin Firth]
Fear(s) of the Dark [Peur(s) du noir] - dir. Various - Metrodome - 2 February
JCVD - dir. Mabroul El Mechri - Revolver - 2 February [with Jean-Claude Van Damme]
A Man Called Adam - dir. Leo Penn - Optimum - 2 February [with Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, Cicely Tyson, Ossie Davis, Frank Sinatra Jr.]
Paris - dir. Cédric Klapisch - Optimum - 2 February [with Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini]
Unrelated - dir. Joanna Hogg - Drakes Avenue - 2 February
Gomorrah [Gomorra] - dir. Matteo Garrone - Optimum - 9 February
Laurent Cantet Collection (Human Resources; Time Out; Heading South) - Artificial Eye - 9 February
The Wong Kar-wai Jet Tone Collection (Christopher Doyle's Away with Words; Jeffrey Lau's Eagle Shooting Heroes; Eric Kot's First Love: Litter on the Breeze) - Artificial Eye - 9 February
Alice et Martin - dir. André Téchiné - Optimum - 23 February [with Juliette Binoche, Mathieu
Amalric, Carmen Maura]

Alone Across the Pacific - dir. Kon Ichikawa - Masters of Cinema - 23 February
The Devil and Daniel Webster - dir. William Dieterle - 23 February
Exterminating Angels [Les Anges exterminateurs] - dir. Jean-Claude Brisseau - Axiom - 23 February
Kokoro [The Heart] - dir. Kon Ichikawa - Masters of Cinema - 23 February
Lola Montès - dir. Max Ophüls - Second Sight - 23 February
To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die - dir. Jamshed Usmonov - Trinity - 23 February
Wise Blood - dir. John Huston - Second Sight - 23 February [with Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton]
Federico Fellini Collection (Nights of Cabiria; La Strada; White Shiek) - Optimum - 2 March
Jean-Pierre Melville Collection (Army of Shadows; Le Doulos; Léon Morin, prête; Bob le flambeur, Un flic) - Optimum - 2 March
My Dinner with Andre - dir. Louis Malle - Optimum - 2 March [with Wallace Shawn]

Quiet Chaos [Caos calmo] - dir. Antonio Luigi Grimaldi - 2 March [with Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Alessandro Gassman]
Linha de Passe - dir. Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas - Pathe - 3 March [with Sandra Corveloni]
The Baader-Meinhof Complex [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex] - dir. Uli Edel - Momentum - 9 March [with Moritz Bleibtreu, Alexandra Maria Lara]
Obscene - dir. Daniel O'Conner, Neil Ortenberg - Revolver - 9 March
L'air de Paris - dir. Marcel Carné - Optimum - 16 March [with Jean Gabin]
Les amants criminels [Criminal Lovers] - dir. François Ozon - Optimum - 16 March [with Natascha Régnier, Jérémie Renier, Miki Manojlovic]
'night Mother - dir. Tom Moore - Anchor Bay - 16 March [with Sissy Spacek, Anne Bancroft]
Taxi 4 - dir. Gérard Krawczyk - Optimium - 16 March
À l'aventure - dir. Jean-Claude Brisseau - Axiom - 23 March
Let's Talk About the Rain [Parlez-moi de la pluie; Let It Rain] - dir. Agnès Jaoui - Artificial Eye - 23 March [with Jaoui]

Muriel [Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour] - dir. Alain Resnais - Masters of Cinema - 23 March [with Delphine Seyrig]
A Time to Love and Die - dir. Douglas Sirk - Masters of Cinema - 23 March
The Wind Will Carry Us - dir. Abbas Kiarostami - Artificial Eye - 23 March
Of Time and the City - dir. Terence Davies - BFI - 30 March
Patti Smith: Dream of Life - dir. Steven Sebring - Drakes Avenue - 30 March
Tyson - dir. James Toback - Revolver - 30 March
Waltz with Bashir - dir. Ari Folman - Artificial Eye - 30 March
La gueule ouverte [The Mouth Agape] - dir. Maurice Pialat - Masters of Cinema - 20 April [with Nathalie Baye]
Il grido - dir. Michelangelo Antonioni - Masters of Cinema - 25 May
Une femme mariée - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Masters of Cinema - 25 May

Updates!

Warner will release documentary about Annie Leibovitz entitled, Life Through a Lens, which was directed by her sister Barbara; the disc streets on 28 October. Zeitgeist will release two films in October: the wonderful documentary Billy the Kid and Up the Yangtze, which has gotten across-the-board acclaim, both on the 18th.

Criterion's October releases include Jean-Pierre Melville's Le deuxième souffle and Le doulos, as well as Costa-Gavras' Missing with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek.

Music Box Films will release, through MPI, Tuya's Marriage on 28 October and Guillaume Canet's mystery Tell No One [Ne le dis à personne] on 25 November. Dokument Films will have the German comedy Eight Miles High on the same day as Tuya.

New Yorker is releasing Jia Zhang Ke's Still Life on 14 October. First Look has Brad Anderson's Transsiberian, with Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, Eduardo Noriega, Thomas Kretschmann and Ben Kingsley, on 4 November, as well as Priceless [Hors de prix] with Audrey Tautou on 18 November.

Kino will release the uncut television version of Pascale Ferran's 2006 adaptation of Lady Chatterley on 14 October. And finally, PeaceArch will have a biopic of punk rocker Darby Crash entitled What We Do Is Secret on 4 November. The film stars Shane West, Bijou Phillips and Ashton Holmes.

André Téchiné + Melville in July

Lionsgate, through Studio Canal, will be releasing a 4-film boxset of the films of André Téchiné in July, similar to the manner they did with Godard and Buñuel. The set will include two previously available titles (Wild Reeds [Les roseaux sauvages] and My Favorite Season [Ma saison préférée]) as well as two R1 debuts (I Don't Kiss [J'embrasse pas] and Hotel America [Hôtel des Amériques]). Lionsgate will also re-release Jean-Pierre Melville's final film, Un flic, under the title Dirty Money on the same day (22 July).

List #1 for 2007

Here's my first list of the year. There'll be at least two more (best, worst) and maybe another (performances), but here are your best new-to-region-1-DVDs of 2007, in alphabetical order. I didn't have the time or patience to annotate the list, so please forgive (I've been catching up on The Wire, which is better than fucking sliced-bread. (Naturally, the Twin Peaks Gold Box would have made the cut, but I disqualified it as everything but the pilot was already available)

Army of Shadows [L'armée des ombres] - dir. Jean-Pierre Melville - Criterion. With Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret. France/Italy. 1969.

Berlin Alexanderplatz - dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Criterion. With Günter Lamprect, Karlheinz Braun, Hanna Schygulla, Brigitte Mira, Barbara Sukowa. West Germany. 1980.

The Films of Kenneth Anger: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 - dir. Kenneth Anger - Fantoma. Sets includes Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit's Moon, Eaux d'artifice, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising. With Anger, Marianne Faithfull, Anais Nin. 1947-1972. USA.

Mala Noche - dir. Gus Van Sant - Criterion. With Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate. 1985. USA.

The Milky Way [La voie lactée] - dir. Luis Buñuel - Criterion. With Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Michel Piccoli, Pierre Clémenti, Delphine Seyrig. 1969. France/West Germany/Italy.

Muriel [Muriel, ou Le temps d'un retour] - dir. Alain Resnais - Koch Lorber. With Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée. 1963. France/Italy.

Performance - dir. Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg - Warner. With Mick Jagger, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg. 1970. UK.

Sombre - dir. Philippe Grandrieux - Koch Lorber. With Marc Barbé, Elina Löwensohn. 1998. France.

Sweet Movie / WR: Mysteries of the Organism - dir. Dusan Makavejev - Criterion. With Carole Laure, Pierre Clémenti, Anna Prucnal / With Milena Dravic, Ivica Vidovic, Jackie Curtis. 1974/1971. France/Canada/West Germany / Yugoslavia/West Germany.

Viva Pedro: The Pedro Almodóvar Collection - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - Sony Pictures. Set includes: Bad Education, All About My Mother, Talk to Her, The Flower of My Secret, Live Flesh, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, as well as new-to-DVD titles Law of Desire and Matador. With Carmen Maura, Penélope Cruz, Marisa Paredes, Antonio Banderas, Cecilia Roth, Javier Bardem, Assumpta Serna, Darío Grandinetti, Rossy de Palma, Rosa Maria Sardà, Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Javier Cámara, Gerladine Chaplin, Paz Vega, Leonor Watling, Chus Lampreave, Eusebio Poncela, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal. 1986-2004. Spain.

Smile

After watching Jean-Pierre Melville's brilliant Army of Shadows, I was reminded of how much I love the late French actress Simone Signoret. With a bit of reading, I found a quote of hers that I enjoyed and thought I'd share.

"I collect all the reviews of the films I turned down. And when they're bad - I have to smile."