Missed a week, but I’m catching up. Had tons going on with the Asian Film Festival, which I shall have a few reviews for you shortly. But this is last week’s releases, and next will be this week’s bluray picks. Anywho, let’s jump right in and get to all the goodies. As usual in this article, 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 bizarre tales. So click on the pictures and start saving.
Enjoy and Here We Go!!
4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH (BLURAY)
I haven’t seen this one yet, but I hear good things. Tomorrow at 4:44 AM the world is going to come to an end. As panic hits the Earth’s population, two lovers (Willem Dafoe, Antichrist, The Life Aquatic, and Shanyn Leigh, Public Enemies) seclude themselves in a Manhattan high-rise and decide to spend their last moments in existence together. Accepting their doomed fate, the pair discovers more about themselves and each other in a few short hours than most do in an entire lifetime. Acclaimed director Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, King of New York) creates a uniquely suspenseful romance with 4:44: Last Day On Earth that examines the power of love when all other hope is lost. This sort of sounds like the recent Steve Carrell film, ‘Seeking a Friend For The End of the World’. If you have seen this, let me know how it is.
THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (BLURAY)
Peter Cushing (Star Wars) and Robert Flemyng (Battle of Britain) star in this classic horror film. A crazed etymologist is dabbling in gruesome experiments that are turning his beautiful daughter into a vampire-beast with an insatiable lust for blood! From Cushing’s investigations of the opening atrocities to the fiery finale–this gory thriller from legendary director Vernon Sewell (Ghost Ship) is definitely not for the squeamish! Newly remastered in HD. First time ever on Blu-ray! I’m all over this and you should be too.
EXTRAS
Still Gallery
Trailers
THE BUNNY GAME (BLURAY+DVD)
Banned in the UK and partially inspired by a real-life experience of star Rodleen Getsic, ‘The Bunny Game’ is an unflinching descent into torment and madness. Junkie hooker Sylvia Grey (Getsic in a brave, award-winning performance) turns the wrong trick in demented trucker JR (Jeff Renfro). After knocking her out cold and taking her to a desolate place where no one can hear her cries, JR subjects Sylvia to a series of increasingly twisted, sadistic “games”. But will she survive the ultimate test when she wakes up with her head sealed in a white leather bunny mask? Adam Rehmeier directs with a fearless eye, pushing the boundaries of on-screen mayhem to the extreme. Controversy has surrounded ‘The Bunny Game’ since it premiered to festival audiences around the world by delivering a terrifying experience that once seen is impossible to forget. Some truly crazy shit here. For the truest of cinephiles.
CASA DE MI PADRE (BLURAY)
Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell) has lived and worked on his father’s ranch in Mexico his entire life. As the ranch encounters financial difficulties, Armando’s younger brother Raul (Diego Luna) shows up with his new fiancée, Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez). It seems that Raul’s success as an international businessman means the ranch’s troubles are over as he pledges to settle all debts his father has incurred. But when Armando falls for Sonia, and Raul’s business dealings turn out to be less than legit, all hell breaks loose as they find themselves in a war with Mexico’s most feared drug lord, the mighty Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal). I just love that Will Ferrell made an entire film in spanish. He’s genius and this film is actually very good.
EXTRAS
Audio Commentary
Featurettes
Music Video
Deleted Scenes
Trailers
DOWN BY LAW (BLURAY CRITERION COLLECTION)
A must own. Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch. Enough said. Jim Jarmusch follows his groundbreaking Stranger Than Paradise with another rambling, character-driven film with a twisted sense of humor. Set in a seedy New Orleans summer, Down By Law details the meeting of three unlikely convicts and their just as unlikely escape. Zack (Tom Waits) is an out-of-work DJ who is accused of murder when a body is found in the trunk of a stolen car he was hired to drive across town. Jack (John Lurie) is a pimp set up for a fall by a competitor. These two sullen souls are locked in a cell with Roberto (Roberto Benigni), a cheerful Italian immigrant who happens to have killed a man. The chemistry between the members of this loosely bound “team” is fascinating: Zack and Jack are forever laughing at Roberto, yet they rely on his energy and good will to escape their dire situation. The three mismatched miscreants eventually bust out of jail and head into the Louisiana bayous. Tired and hungry, they separate to search for food: Waits goes one way, Lurie another, and the frightened Benigni decides to risk stepping into a ramshackle diner. Somehow or other, he winds up in the arms of gorgeous Italian girl Nicoletta Braschi — and is even able to provide new clothes and escape routes for his astonished comrades!
EXTRAS
Thoughts and reflections on the making of the film from director Jim Jarmusch in 2002
Q&A with Jarmusch in which he responds to fans’ questions
Recordings of phone conversations between Jarmusch and Waits, Benigni, and Lurie
Production Polaroids and location stills
Isolated music track
Optional French dub track, featuring Benigni
Trailer
An essay by critic Luc Sante
Interview with director of photography Robby Müller from 2002
Footage from the 1986 Cannes Film Festival
Sixteen outtakes
Music video for Tom Waits’s cover of Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me,” directed by Jarmusch
FEAR CITY (BLURAY)
All I need to say really is that this stars Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Rae Dawn Chong, and Melanie Griffith. Dancers in a Manhattan strip club are being stalked and murdered by a vicious psychopath. A hard-nosed police detective and a conflicted ex-boxer-turned-private-eye set out to find him before he strikes again. Starring an all-star powerhouse of a cast! Tom Berenger (Platoon, Inception, Training Day, Major League), Melanie Griffith (Working Girl, Body Double, Pacific Heights), Billy Dee Williams (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, Batman), Jack Scalia (Dallas, All My Children), Rae Dawn Chong (Quest for Fire, The Color Purple, Commando), Rosanno Brazzi (South Pacific, Summertime), Maria Conchita Alonso (The Running Man, Predator 2). This just needs to be in every collection.
FRIENDS WITH KIDS (BLURAY)
Great cast and very funny film. I was surprised that this little comedy a little more to it than it seems. Friends with Kids is a daring and poignant ensemble comedy about a close-knit circle of friends at that moment in life when children arrive and everything changes. The last two singles in the group observe the effect that kids have had on their friends’ relationships and wonder if there’s a better way. They decide to have a kid together – and date other people. There are big laughs and unexpected emotional truths as this unconventional ‘experiment’ leads everyone in the group to question the nature of friendship, family and, finally, true love. Great comedy to add to the collection.
EXTRAS
Audio commentary with Writer/Director/Actress Jennifer Westfeldt, Actor/Producer Jon Hamm and Director of Photography Will Rexer
Deleted Scenes with optional audio commentary
“Making of” featurette
Gag reel
Scene 42: Anatomy of a Gag
MJ Rocks at Video Games
GET THE GRINGO (BLURAY+DVD+DIGITAL COPY)
Holy fuck! Mel Gibson is fucking awesome in this. Finally, he has returned with a very hardcore ‘R’ rated action film. Mel needs to do more of these. He’s fucking awesome in this. Mel Gibson finds new life in a Mexican jail after getting caught at the border with $4 million dollars of Mobster money in this production from former first assistant director turned helmer, Adrian Grunberg. Get this. It owns on all levels.
EXTRAS
Featurettes
Music Video
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)(BLURAY)
So great to have this on bluray, however this is a bare bones release. I anticipate a much better release in the future with tons of extras. I’d wait till this is very cheap if you can’t wait for the ultimate edition. One of the greatest and most influential Sci-Fi films of all time stars Kevin McCarthy as a doctor in a small California town whose patients are becoming hysterical and accuse their loved ones as emotionless imposters. Plant-like extra-terrestrials have invaded Earth, replicating the villagers in giant seed “pods” and taking position of their souls while they sleep. Realizing that the epidemic is out of control, in a terrifying race for his life, he escapes to warn the world of the deadly invasion of the pod people! Directed by the great Don Siegel (Dirty Harry) and co-starring Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones, Larry Gates and King Donovan. Remade in 1978, 1997 and 2007.
JUST CAUSE (BLURAY)
Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne in a spooky thriller. A brutal murder is committed in the Florida Everglades. Eight years later, a principled Harvard law professor tries to save the convicted man on Death Row who swears he’s innocent of that crime. For the small-town detective who investigated the killing, however, there’s no question he caught the right man–and no last-minute intervention is going to keep that cold-blooded killer out of the electric chair. Someone is the mastermind of a deadly game… and all roads lead back to the site of that long-ago murder–where, this time, there are two intended victims. Amazing.
LOCKOUT (BLURAY)
Damn, this movie is all sort of dumb, ridiculous, and over-the-top. But, it’s a lot of fun and Guy Pearce is fucking brilliant in it. Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, Lockout follows a falsely convicted ex-government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum-security prison. Lockout was directed by Stephen St. Leger and James Mather from their script co-written with Luc Besson, who is also a producer. Peter Stormare co-stars. This looks and sounds top notch on bluray.
EXTRAS
Breaking into Lockout
A Vision of the Future: Production Design and Special Effects
MEAN STREETS (BLURAY)
Why did this not get a criterion release or at least an ultimate edition release? Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel are brilliant in this Martin Scorsese film. The future is set for Tony and Michael – owning a neighbour- hood bar and making deals in the mean streets of New York city’s Little Italy. For Charlie, the future is less clearly defined. A small-time hood, he works for his uncle, making collections and reclaiming bad debts. He’s probably too nice to succeed. In love with a woman his uncle disapproves of (because of her epilepsy) and a friend of her cousin, Johnny Boy, a near psychotic whose trouble-making threatens them all – he can’t reconcile opposing values. A failed attempt to escape (to Brooklyn) moves them all a step closer to a bitter, almost preordained future. A must own, but this is bare bones, so don’g get too excited.
NEXT OF KIN (BLURAY)
Obligatory Patrick Swayze film plug. Just do it. Next of Kin’s action blasts through Chicago right from the get-go. The mob wants to muscle in on a local business but they make two mistakes. They kill a youth whose brother is a cop. And that cop is Truman Gates (Patrick Swayze), transplant from Appalachia’s backwoods to Chicago’s mean streets.
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN 60TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (BLURAY+DVD)
One of the most iconic films of all time. Everyone should own this. America’s beloved musical gem, starring Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, celebrates its 60th Anniversary on Blu-ray for the very first time with an all new 3-Disc Blu-ray & DVD Ultimate Collector’s Edition. The sensational limited and numbered 3-Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition will feature the film both on Blu-ray and DVD, and includes an all new hi-definition documentary, and special collectible memorabilia. Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions onscreen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can’t stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), Don’s best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That’s all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle “The Dueling Cavalier”? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter; put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on a blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team’s first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin’ in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM’s catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs — “You Were Meant for Me,” “You Are My Lucky Star,” “The Broadway Melody,” and of course the title song — the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made.
EXTRAS
Limited and numbered editions 48 page hard cover production book with never-before-seen memos and photos Custom full-size umbrella (40” diameter, consumer value $29.99) Theatrical poster reproductions Includes 4 hours of Bonus Content Commentary by Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Stanley Donen,Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Baz Luhrmann, and Rudy Behlmer “Singin’ in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation” All New Documentary “Great Performances: Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM” (1996 PBS Documentary) “What a Glorious Feeling: The Making of Singin’ in the Rain” “You Are My Lucky Star” Outtake Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed Film Excerpts (A collection of 12 film clips from earlier movies that originally carried the Freed/Brown songs.) 26xScoring Stage Session Cues Stills Gallery Trailer
That’s it for this week. Next week promises to be AWESOME! Stay tuned.
Former husky model, real-life Comic Book Guy, genre-bending screenwriter, nude filmmaker, hairy podcaster, pro-wrestling idiot-savant, who has a penchant for solving Rubik's Cubes and rolling candy cigarettes on unreleased bootlegs of Frank Zappa records.
