Hi Bryan Here…
The biggest shopping day is upon us and the holiday shopping spree season has already begun. I am kinda disappointed in this lack of releases this week. I figured the studios would be pushing their biggest titles this week because it is the largest shopping weekend and weekend of the year. But they just sort of half-assed it. Maybe because of all the incredible sales on past releases that have started and will continue on through Monday. Oh well. As usual, you will get some info about the disc and the extras that come with the movie as well as a personal opinion about the movie and a link to purchase the film over at AMAZON where you can save quite a bit of money, and it will give a small percentage kick back to this site so we can continue bringing you excellent stories and sales.
Enjoy and Here We Go!!
AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY (CRITERION BLURAY)
This is just one AWESOME Box set of films. This totally made me giddy and want to have a movie marathon night with all of these films included in this set. Much like the rest of America, Hollywood was wanting a revolution in the late 1960’s. And a few directors knew how to make and what to make for audiences of old and new to bring us in to the future with new talent and new types of films. In thins set you will get the innovative films made from 1968 -1972 from the extraordinary directors.
The movies you get are:
HEAD – Hey, hey, it’s the Monkees . . . being catapulted through one of American cinema’s most surreal sixties odysseys. In it, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork become trapped in a kaleidoscopic satire that’s movie homage, media send-up, concert movie, and antiwar cry all at once. Head escaped commercial success on its release but has since been reclaimed as one of the great cult objects of its era.
1968 • 85 minutes • Color • Monaural/Surround • 1.78:1 aspect ratio
EASY RIDER – This is the definitive counterculture blockbuster. The former clean-cut teen star Dennis Hopper’s down-and-dirty directorial debut, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one planted firmly, angrily against the mainstream. After Easy Rider’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave–style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same.
1969 • 96 minutes • Color • Surround • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
FIVE EASY PIECES – Jack Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of romantic or familial responsibility, who returns to his childhood home to see his ailing estranged father, his blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, like Nicholson nominated for an Oscar) in tow. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.
1970 • 98 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
DRIVE, HE SAID – Based on the best-selling novel by Jeremy Larner, Drive, He Said is free-spirited and sobering by turns, a sketch of the exploits of a disaffected college basketball player and his increasingly radical roommate, a feverishly shot and edited snapshot of the early seventies (some of it was filmed during an actual campus protest). Jack Nicholson’s audacious comedy (starring Bruce Dern and Karen Black) is a startling howl direct from the zeitgeist.
1970 • 90 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
A SAFE PLACE – In this delicate, introspective drama, laced with fantasy elements, Tuesday Weld stars as a fragile young woman in New York unable to reconcile her ambiguous past with her unmoored present; Orson Welles as an enchanting Central Park magician and Jack Nicholson as a mysterious ex-lover round out the cast. A Safe Place was directed by independent cinema icon Henry Jaglom.
1971 • 92 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW – The Last Picture Show is one of the key films of the American cinema renaissance of the seventies. Set during the early fifties in the loneliest Texas nowheresville to ever dust up a movie screen, this aching portrait of a dying West, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, focuses on the daily shuffles of three futureless teens—enigmatic Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), wayward jock Duane (Jeff Bridges), and desperate-to-be-adored rich girl Jacy (Cybil Shepherd)—and the aging lost souls who bump up against them in the night like drifting tumbleweeds. This hushed depiction of crumbling American values remains the pivotal film in the career of the invaluable director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich.
1971 • 126 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS – For his electrifying follow-up to the smash success of Five Easy Pieces, Bob Rafelson dug even deeper into the crushed dreams of wayward America. Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern play estranged siblings David and Jason, the former a depressive late-night radio talk show host, the latter an extroverted con man; when Jason drags his younger brother to a dreary Atlantic City and into a real-estate scam, events spiral into tragedy.
1972 • 104 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
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THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS (BLURAY)
One of the greatest films of all time. And it was made in 1927. And a silent film. This movie is so badass on such a grand scale. It must be seen to be believed. This was released on DVD a couple of weeks ago, but here is the bLURAY high def version, which is the true way of seeing it. A futuristic look at the schism created in mankind as industrialization and technological advancement serves to alienate the humans from one another. People are divided into two groups: the thinkers–who make plans, yet don’t know how to operate machinery, and the workers–who forward production without having any overview vision. Completely separate, neither group is complete; however, together they make a whole. When one man, a “thinker,” dares to journey to the underground, where the workers ‘slave away,’ he’s surprised at what he sees. A must own.
EXTRAS
– A never-before-seen 50-minute documentary on the making and restoration of Metropolis – as well as an interview with Paula Felix-Didier, curator of the Museo del Cine, in Buenos Aires, and the Trailer to the 2010 restoration.
DEADWOOD: THE COMPLETE SERIES (BLURAY)
Hell yes. Finally this series is on Bluray. Now we need The Wire, Six Feet Under, and Carnivale on bluray and I will be one happy camper. I loved this show. It was cancelled too soon. All the acting in this show is top notch and all the story lines were perfect. I am going to love showing this show to new faces all in the awesomeness that is high-def.
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EAT, PRAY, LOVE (BLURAY)
This is a movie for that special girl who you are smitten with. Trust me, if you buy this for her and watch it with her, it will score you so many cool points, that you will have the clout to take her and make her watch that XXX Chainsaw Alice In Wonderland Gore Fest you have been talking about for a while. But that is all I can really say about pick this up. Meh!
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THE EXPENDABLES (BLURAY)
Sylvester Stallone’s love letter to action movies the way they used to be made. A hard “R” film with just about every action star you would want in a film with the exception of JCVD and Stephen Segal. It is a hell of a lot of fun and a perfect film for a guy’s night of badass action movie marathon. I am excited that Stallone will be making a sequel to this, and hopefully he gets Tony Jaa, JCVD, and Stephen Segal. Good for Stallone. Love it.
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I’M STILL HERE (BLURAY)
We all witnessed the life of Joaquin Phoenix and his dive into a troubled year of the weird fights, rap career, and drunken antics. It was all for a mockumentary of sorts made by Ben Affleck’s brother, Casey Affleck. A portrayal of a tumultuous year in the life of actor Joaquin Phoenix. With remarkable access, the documentary follows the Oscar-nominee as he announces his retirement from a successful film career in the fall of 2008 and sets off to reinvent himself as a hip hop musician. The film is a portrait of an artist at a crossroads and explores notions of courage and creative reinvention, as well as the ramifications of a life spent in the public eye.
EXTRAS
That’s it for this week. Enjoy and stay tuned for next week as it is the last week of November.