US DVD Update, 16 January

In taking time off from film writing for the past few weeks, I've been surprised how much I don't particularly miss doing it. At least, not yet. So, I apologize for the only updates on here being DVD announcements, but I'll be returning to actual writing soon. So for now, here's probably the most exciting release update so far this year, with dates announced for Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Serge Bozon's La France (one of my favorite films of the past decade), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata, Jennifer M. Kroot's It Came from Kuchar and Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public. Also, Blu-rays for Death Race 2000 and William Friedkin's hilariously awful Jade (in its unavailable-on-DVD director's cut, as far as I've heard), as well as Michael Mann's Collateral. And Sony has also announced a Hammer box-set, including Joseph Losey's These Are the Damned (also known as The Damned) with Oliver Reed, which is posted below the Blu-rays.

DVDs

- Bitch Slap, 2009, d. Rick Jacobson, 20th Century Fox, 2 March
- We Live in Public, 2009, d. Ondi Timoner, Indiepix, 2 March
- Gentlemen Broncos, 2009, d. Jared Hess, also on Blu-ray, 20th Century Fox, 2 March
- Dread, 2009, d. Anthony DiBlasi, Lionsgate, 23 March
- Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2009, d. Wes Anderson, also on Blu-ray, 20th Century Fox, 23 March
- Hidden [Skjult], 2009, d. Pål Øie, Lionsgate, 23 March
- An Education, 2009, d. Lone Scherfig, also on Blu-ray, Sony Pictures, 30 March
- Focus/Refocus: When Porn Kills, 2009, d. Tony DiMarco, Breaking Glass Pictures, 30 April [A "softcore" edit of the most expensive gay porn film of 2009]
- AIR: The Musical, 2009, d. Jeremy Osbern, Cinema Epoch, 6 April
- Five Minutes of Heaven, 2009, d. Oliver Hirschbiegel, also on Blu-ray, IFC Films, 6 April
- La France, 2008, d. Serge Bozon, Lorber Films/Kino, 6 April
- All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, 2010, d. Tim Rutili, Indiepix, 13 April
- Evening Primrose, 1966, d. Paul Bogart, Koch Vision, 20 April, w. Anthony Perkins
- The Horse Boy, 2009, d. Michel O. Scott, Zeitgeist, 20 April
- Mammoth, 2009, d. Lukas Moodysson, IFC Films, 20 April
- Uncertainty, 2008, d. Scott McGehee, David Siegel, IFC Films, 20 April
- Dark Nature, 2009, d. Marc de Launay, also on Blu-ray, Troma, 27 April
- Raging Sun, Raging Sky [Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo], 2009, d. Julián Hernández, TLA Releasing, 27 April
- Matinee, 1993, d. Joe Dante, Universal, 4 May
- No Time for Sergeants, 1958, d. Mervyn LeRoy, Warner, 4 May, w. Andy Griffith
- Tokyo Sonata, 2008, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, here! Films, 4 May
- The World Unseen, 2007, d. Shamim Sarif, here! Films, 4 May
- Misconceptions, 2008, d. Ron Satlof, here! Films, 18 May
- Murder in Fashion [aka Fashion Victim], 2008, d. Ben Waller, here! Films, 18 May
- It Came from Kuchar, 2009, d. Jennifer M. Kroot, Indiepix, 15 June


Blu-ray

- Collateral, 2004, d. Michael Mann, DreamWorks/Paramount, 30 March
- Jade, 1995, d. William Friedkin, Lionsgate, 6 April
- Lords of Dogtown, 2005, d. Catherine Hardwicke, Sony Pictures, 6 April
- The Natural, 1984, d. Barry Levinson, Sony Pictures, 6 April
- The Relic, 1997, d. Peter Hyams, Lionsgate, 6 April
- Rock 'n' Roll High School, 1979, d. Allan Arkush, Joe Dante, Jerry Zucker, Shout! Factory, 4 May
- Death Race 2000, 1975, d. Paul Bartel, Shout! Factory, 22 June


Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films, Sony Pictures, 6 April

- Stop Me Before I Kill! [aka The Full Treatment], 1960, d. Val Guest
- Cash on Demand, 1961, d. Quentin Lawrence, w. Peter Cushing
- Never Take Candy from a Stranger [aka Never Take Sweets from a Stranger], 1960, d. Cyril Frankel
- Maniac, 1963, d. Michael Carreras
- The Snorkel, 1958, d. Guy Green
- These Are the Damned [The Damned], 1963, d. Joseph Losey, w. Oliver Reed

Another Quick DVD Update

I didn't notice anything worth mentioning on the Blu-ray horizon (as usual), so here are some newly announced titles, three noir box sets and a couple of new titles in the Warner Archive.

- The Films of Amos Gitai [ Kadosh / Kippur / Kedma / Alila / Devarim / Yom Yom], 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 1995, 1998, d. Amos Gitai, Kino, 23 February
- The Informant!, 2009, d. Steven Soderbergh, also on Blu-ray, Warner, 23 February
- Soo, 2007, d. Sai Yoichi, Virgil Films, 23 February
- The Baby Formula, 2008, d. Alison Reid, Wolfe, 9 March
- Breaking Bad, Season 2, 2009, also on Blu-ray, Sony, 9 March
- Wonderful World, 2009, d. Joshua Goldin, also on Blu-ray, Magnolia, 16 March, w. Matthew Broderick, Sanaa Lathan, Michael Kenneth Williams, Philip Baker Hall
- Heinrich Himmler: Anatomy of a Mass Murderer [Heinrich Himmler: Aus dem Leben eines Massenmörders], 2008, d. Michael Kloft, First Run, 23 March
- The Statue, 1971, d. Rodney Amateau, Code Red, 23 March
- Ex Drummer, 2007, d. Koen Mortier, Palisades Tartan, 20 April
- Disgrace, 2008, d. Steve Jacobs, also on Blu-ray, Image, 27 April
- Veronica Decides to Die, 2009, d. Emily Young, First Look, 27 April, w. Sarah Michelle Gellar

Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 1, Sony, 9 February

- The Killer That Stalked New York [aka Frightened City], 1950, d. Earl McEvoy
- Two of a Kind, 1951, d. Henry Levin
- Bad for Each Other, 1953, d. Irving Rapper, w. Charlton Heston
- The Glass Wall, 1953, d. Maxwell Shane, w. Vittorio Gassman

Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2, Sony, 9 February

- Night Editor, 1946, d. Henry Levin
- One Girl's Confession, 1953, d. Hugo Haas
- Women's Prison, 1955, d. Lewis Seiler, w. Ida Lupino
- Over-Exposed, 1956, d. Lewis Seiler, w. Richard Crenna

British Film Noir Double Feature, VCI, 23 February

- Twilight Women [aka Women of Twilight], 1952, d. Gordon Parry
- The Slasher [aka Cosh Boy], 1953, d. Lewis Gilbert, w. Joan Collins

New Additions to the Warner Archive

- The Boy with Green Hair, 1948, d. Joseph Losey
- The Canterville Ghost, 1944, d. Jules Dassin, Norman Z. McLeod, w. Charles Laughton
- The Enchanted Cottage, 1945, d. John Cromwell
- The Happy Years, 1950, d. William A. Wellman, w. Dean Stockwell
- Hard, Fast and Beautiful, 1951, d. Ida Lupino
- The Hollywood Revue of 1929, 1929, d. Charles Reisner, w. Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, John Gilbert, Marion Davies, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy
- Sally, 1929, d. John Francis Dillon
- Show Girl in Hollywood, 1930, d. Mervyn LeRoy
- The Strange Love of Molly Louvain, 1932, d. Michael Curtiz
- Untamed Youth, 1957, d. Howard W. Koch, w. Mamie Van Doren

Le mépris, Ran and Others on Blu-ray in the UK This Fall

Despite the bad news that Criterion's planned Blu-rays of Jean-Luc Godard' Contempt [Le mépris] and Akira Kurosawa's Ran were scrapped due to the loss of rights, Optimum Releasing in the UK has both, plus a bunch of other exciting titles, set for a Blu-ray release in September. The other titles include: David Lynch's The Elephant Man, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad [L'année dernière à Marienbad], Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, Joseph Losey's The Go-Between (which isn't even out on DVD in the US), Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum [Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann], Luc Besson's Le dernier combat, Angel-A, Léon: The Professional, Le grand bleu [The Big Blue], Atlantis, Subway and Nikita [La femme Nikita].

In August, Optimum will be releasing Blu-rays of Mathieu Kassovitz's La haine, Alan Parker's Angel Heart and Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark; in July, Alexandre Aja's Haute tension (which is called Switchblade Romance in the UK), Roman Polanski's The Pianist, Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, Rian Johnson's Brick, Gus Van Sant's Elephant and Stephen Frears' The Grifters. Apparently, the UK is the place for great international cinema in high def.

Also, thanks to Eric for the heads up, Artificial Eye in the UK is releasing a Jacques Rivette box-set, which includes La belle noiseuse, Secret défense and Jeanne la Pucelle I and II. This may be the first official release of the uncut version of Jeanne, but that has yet to be confirmed.

The Saint Louis International Film Festival 2008

For all of those living in the ‘Lou, the 17th Annual Saint Louis International Film Festival line-up has been announced for the dates of Nov. 13-23. Although you can check out the schedule in pdf form here, I thought I might point out some of the more exciting inclusions this year. SLIFF will be awarding writer/director Paul Schrader a Lifetime Achievement Award and will screen his latest film Adam Resurrected, starring Jeff Goldbum, Willem Dafoe, Moritz Bleibtreu and Derek Jacobi, as well as a restored print of Mishima: A Life in Four Parts. Following the screening of Adam Resurrected, LA Weekly film editor Scott Foundas will have a Q&A with the director.

A “Micro-Budget Filmmaking Seminar” will be conducted on the 15th at 11 am at the Tivoli. Mary Bronstein, who co-starred in Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland and whose directorial debut Yeast will be screened during the fest, is going to be one of the participants, as well as Missouri native Blake Eckard (Sinner Come Home) and St. Louisan Aaron Coffmann (Texas Snow). In addition to Bronstein’s Yeast, another mumblecore flick, Nights and Weekends, written, directed and starring Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig will also be screening at this year’s fest.

Humboldt County co-directors Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs, both hailing from Saint Louis, are also making an appearance this year with a Q&A and after-party which opens the festival. The film, which premiered at this year’s SXSW fest and was just recently distributed theatrically by Magnolia, stars Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Frances Conroy, Brad Dourif and Chris Messina.

Steven Soderbergh’s absent-on-DVD King of the Hill, which was set and shot in Saint Louis, will be featured in a panel discussion about the translation from the book to film. There’s also going to be a film noir seminar, following a screening of Joseph Losey’s The Prowler (his last film shot in the US and also unavailable on DVD in the US). The panel will include noir expert Eddie Muller and actress Marsha Hunt, who was blacklisted from Hollywood. And rounding up the special events is a Q&A with Michael Apted (the Up! series), recipient of this year’s Maysles Brothers Lifetime Achievement Award in Documentary, conducted by Cinema Saint Louis executive director Cliff Froehlich. His latest film, The Power of the Game, will also screen this year.

And onto the big gals of this year’s fest. Darren Aronofsky’s Venice and Toronto winner The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood and Judah Friedlander, will close the fest before the film makes its theatrical run in the middle of December. Palme d’Or winner The Class (Entre les murs), from writer/director Laurent Cantet, is also screening on the 22nd.

Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime), starring Kristin Scott-Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein as sisters, will also screen on closing night before it hits local theatres soon. Bent Hamer’s O’ Horten is also showing, after receiving a number of praises when it played at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Danny Boyle’s crowd-pleaser of a film, Slumdog Millionaire, will play on the 15th.

Kelly Reichardt’s much anticipated follow-up to Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, which stars Michelle Williams, is also set for the 17th. I should mention that Wendy and Lucy is probably my most anticipated film to premiere at SLIFF this year. The new film from Rian Johnson (Brick), The Brothers Bloom, is playing on the 22nd. The film, which will make its limited theatrical run beginning 19 December from Summit Entertainment, stars Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Robbie Coltrane and Rinko Kikuchi, whom you should remember as the jumper-lifting deaf girl from Babel.

As for the hot docs, Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City will screen on the 15th. I wish I could remember who exactly said it, but someone, via GreenCine Daily, called the film the real masterpiece of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, which also premiered at Cannes and will be Israel’s official submission for next year’s foreign language Oscar, will also be spotlighted on the closing day of the festival.

As for a few smaller films to pay attention to, I’ve read some wonderful things about Aditya Assarat’s Wonderful Town, from Thailand, which will play on the 18th. Marco Bellocchio’s The Wedding Director (Il regista di matrimoni), which stars Sergio Castellitto of Va savoir, The Last Kiss and Mostly Martha, screens on the 20th and 22nd. Beloved director Giuseppe Tornatore (whom, as you should know, I quite despise) has his most recent film, The Unknown Woman (La sconsciuta), set for the 14th and 15th. Reha Erdem’s Times and Winds, which is one of two films I’ve seen prior to the fest, is playing on the 15th. Nic Balthazar’s Ben X, the other film I’ve already seen, is playing on the 21st and 22nd. It should be mentioned that I much preferred Times and Winds to Ben X.

Director John Boorman’s (The General, Deliverance) The Tiger’s Tail, which stars Brendan Gleeson, Kim Cattrall, Ciarán Hinds and Sinéad Cusack, will screen on both the 19th and 20th. Nacho Vigalondo’s sci-fi/horror film Timecrimes (Los cronocrímenes) will screen on the 19th, before Magnolia’s Magnet Releasing puts it in theatres sometime in December. According to the schedule, David Cronenberg is set to return to his horror roots and remake the film. The schedule also reports that Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in), which screens on the 15th and is also going to be released by Magnet, is also getting a Hollywood remake (although much less exciting as it's to be directed by the asshole who made Cloverfield).

Eric Guirado’s The Grocer’s Son (Le fils de l’épicier) is going to play on the 16th and 17th. The film, which stars Nicolas Cazalé and Clotilde Hesme (Love Songs), was reported through IndieWire as being Film Movement’s highest grossing film in their existence. Also from France is Nicolas Klotz’s The Heartbeat Detector (La question humaine), which screens on the 18th and 19th, starring Mathieu Amalric. For those who can’t make it, New Yorker released the DVD back in July. Yang Li’s Blind Mountain, which hits DVD from Kino in January, will play on the 14th. And finally, Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort, which was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award for Israel this year, will show on the 21st and 23rd (although Kino released the DVD at the end of September).

I should be seeing a number of these films before the festival goes underway, so if any of the films happen to strike me, I’ll be sure to point you in their direction.