Spoke to Soon; More from the Warner Archive

The day after I mentioned a number of new films coming to the Warner Archive, The New York Post revealed even more titles becoming available on 16 March (thanks, Eric). Funny enough, all of the titles I give a shit about seem to be the ones the writer doesn't as they're all listed near the end. The ones I didn't mention yesterday include Lina Wertmüller's Night Full of Rain [La fine del mondo nel nostro solito letto in una notte piena di pioggia] with Candice Bergen and Giancarlo Giannini; István Szabó's Meeting Venus with Glenn Close and Niels Arestrup; James Ivory's Surviving Picasso with Anthony Hopkins, Natascha McElhone and Julianne Moore; Art Napoleon's Too Much, Too Soon with Dorothy Malone and Errol Flynn; and Dino Risi's The Priest's Wife [La moglie del prete] with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Arizona Dream, Rabbit, Run, A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later and Saint Joan will also be available on the 16th.

Pick Your Favorite Siren: More Great Moments in Bad Cover Art

Since I know a number of you already traded in your month-old Criterion discs of Repulsion in favor of Koch's exquisitely packaged "Cinema Sirens" edition, I thought you might like to collect some of your other favorite silver screen ladies, crudely photoshopped into always-appropriate beach attire. My personal favorite you can find above. Vittorio De Sica's Two Women [La ciociara] was a landmark film, introducing American audiences to the imitable Sophia Loren, who became the first actor to win a Best Actress Oscar for a performance not in the English-language with this film. A devastating WWII-era drama about a mother's attempts to keep her daughter safe from the bombings in Rome deserves some classy artwork. So what better than the beautiful Loren in fishnet stockings and clown make-up looking like she's ready to lay an egg? Wasn't there a horrific rape scene in Two Women? I guess that's really beside the point.

All of these ladies know a good bikini is only as good as the high heels you pair with them... which is why Ava Gardner on the cover of The Snows of Kilimanjaro is by far the weakest. Those ankle-strapped low heels are not what I expect out of a Cinema Siren... and why did Koch choose Gardner over the film's star, Miss Susan Hayward? She doesn't even get a mention on the box, and you know mauve is her color! I could complain about the choice of Jayne Mansfield over Phyllis Diller on the box for The Fat Spy, but they didn't even bother to ask Phyllis how she prefers to spell her name. I think I like the extra S; the extra hiss sounds more appropriate for her. Mansfield and Brigitte Bardot must have both asked for the Blondie comic strip hue at the salon. That color is always à la mode. Sadly, I couldn't find a decent-looking cover for a belly-dancing Gina Lollobrigida in Bambole, but you can get a glimpse of it here. The cover touts "Three Italian Bombshells in Four Comedic Vignettes; Also Starring Elke Sommer and Verna Lisi;" I guess that means Monica Vitti isn't a bombshell, Virna Lisi changed her name and Elke Sommer is no longer German. So which siren will you be taking home with you??

Peck, Rossellini, and Julianne Moore on Your Way

For the first time on DVD in the US, Universal will release Stanley Donen's espionage thriller Arabesque, starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, on 4 November. It will also be a part of a Gregory Peck boxset which includes Edward Dmytryk's Mirage (with Walter Matthau), David Miller's Captain Newman, M.D. (with Tony Curtis and Angie Dickinson), Raoul Walsh's The World in His Arms (with Anthony Quinn), which are all new-to-DVD, though no separate release has been announced yet. The set also has two of Peck's iconic classics, To Kill a Mockingbird and Cape Fear.

Water Bearer has announced Todd Verow's Between Something and Nothing for November (no actual date has been released), as well as Santiago Otheguy's La león for December (no official date yet for this one either). Picture This! will have the German coming-of-age film Teenage Angst, from directed Thomas Stuber, on 11 November. The disc also includes the short Bébé requin from director Pascal-Alex Vincent, which co-stars Adrien Jolivet (Après lui, In the Arms of My Enemy).

Through their Studio Canal relationship , Lionsgate will be releasing four films for November. The first is a two-film set of Roberto Rossellini's Where Is Freedom? [Dov'è la libertà...?] and Escape by Night [Era notte a Roma], sometimes known as Blackout in Rome, set for 11 November (thanks, Eric). Manuel Poirier's Western, starring Sergi López and winner of the Prix du jury at Cannes in 1997, will street the same day. And finally, Fabien Onteniente's farcical People: Jet Set 2 will round out the Canal titles. The latter stars Rossy de Palma, Rupert Everett, Jean-Claude Brialy, Lambert Wilson, Ornella Muti and comic José Garcia; the first Jet Set is not available yet in the US.

Image Entertainment is releasing Ana Kokkinos' The Book of Revelation for the first time uncut in the States, on 2 December. The film was previously available by a company I hadn't heard of with the frontal nudity blurred out. The film stars Tom Long, Greta Scacchi and Colin Friels and is Kokkinos' follow-up to the film Head-On (not the Fatih Akin one, but the one about the Greek hustler in Australia). Rene Daadler's Here Is Always Somewhere Else, a documentary about Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader and his disappearance at sea, will be Cult Epics' latest release, set for 18 November.

IFC's Savage Grace will be out just in time to make your family look a little less dysnfunction this Christmas, on 23 December. Magnolia's Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is set for 18 November. Kino's My Father, My Lord will be out 2 December. HBO's Generation Kill, from the creators of The Wire, will be released 16 December. And finally, Sony Pictures Classics' When Did You Last See Your Father? will hit shelves 4 November.

And speaking of Mademoiselle Cotillard...

The writers' strike better end to set Rob Marshall's Nine back into production. If you're unfamiliar, it's a musical (?) remake of Fellini's 8 1/2, with Javier Bardem in the Marcello Mastroianni role. Wanna know who else is in this? Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Sophia Loren. Christ, I haven't been more pleased with casting this good in... I dunno, forever. That's really too much sexy for one film. I may write a blog in the upcoming days about my newfound obsession with Mlle. Cotillard, who has coincidentally become my Penélope Cruz for 2007.