Cinema Retro
Entries from Thursday, August 2. 2007
Warner Brothers has announced that a new major Stanley Kubrick boxed DVD colletion will be released in October. Although the studio released these same titles in a boxed set several years ago, this new release has some major new additions. The titles in the set are: - 2201: A Space Odyssey
- Full Metal Jacket
- A Clockwork Orange
- The Shining
- Eyes Wide Shut
- The documentary Stanley Kubrick- A Life in Pictures
The films will also be available as single titles in both regular and HD and Blu Ray versions. The major enhancements to this set are: - The films have been remastered and are now in their original theatrical aspect ratios for the first time
- Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut will be presented in its theatrical version and its uncensored, unrated version
- The inclusion of a new featurette: Lost Kubrick: The Films That Never Were which will almost certainly touch upon his long-planned, but ultimately aborted biography of Napoleon
- A Clockwork Orange will have a new featurette about the making of the film titled Great Bolshy Yarblockos!
- New featurette on Full Metal Jacket
- Three new featurettes on The Shining
Each of these special editions will consist of 2 DVDs. Previously released extra materials from the old box set will be retained, including commentaries from actors, directors and film scholars. Warner Bros. is also rereleasing Barry Lyndon and Lolita but this time as single titles and not part of the box set. Continue reading for the official press release.
Continue reading "WARNER BROS. ANNOUNCES NEW STANLEY KUBRICK SET"
"I WANT MY MAMMY" DEPARTMENT Warner Home Video has announced a major 80th anniversary DVD release of Al Jolson's landmark 1927 classic, The Jazz Singer. The movie revolutionized the motion picture industry by introducing synchronized sound and music to the feature film format. The 3 disc DVD set celebrates every aspect of The Jazz Singer and its impact on the film industry. The set will be released in October and it will include a tremendous number of bonus programs and collectibles. If you think you've seen The Jazz Singer before, well, you ain't seen nothin' yet! Continue reading for Warners full official press release detailing all aspects of the new edition.
Continue reading "WARNERS TO RELEASE "THE JAZZ SINGER" SPECIAL EDITION"
Cinema Retro's Lee Pfeiffer reports on the latest unnecessary remake We hate to be judgmental, but the lack of originality in Hollywood continues to manifest itself with yet another uncalled for remake of an excellent film. This time, it's director Sidney Lumet in the barrel - his terrific 1971 thriller The Anderson Tapes is due to be remade. Naturally, the superb New York locations employed by Lumet in the original are just far too dowdy for today's moviegoers, so the whole enterprise is being shifted to Miami (yawn). Both versions are based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders that centered on a career criminal, Duke Anderson who is released after a long stretch in prison. He plans an audacious robbery of an entire swanky apartment building using a moving van and a crew of misfits, each of whom has a specialty to bring to the scheme. The hook of the first film was that Anderson's years in prison have made him out of touch with modern technology and he fails to realize that the entire building has been coincidentally - and illegally- wired by the feds who are snooping on unrelated improprieties. The film was regarded as a fine thriller on its initial release, but it took on an added significance the in the next couple of years as the Watergate scandal unfolded and substantiated legitimate belief in paranoia of government eavesdropping. It's doubtful the new version will be able to resonate in the same way. After all, in today's society we simply assume that virtually everything we do can potentially be recorded, even inadvertently, by mini spy cameras, cell phone cameras and ubiquitous surveillance systems. Thus, the only value of the new film is how well it can be constructed as a simple heist drama. We should remain objective and wait and see, but our instincts tell us the usual culprits - countless CGI shots and shootouts- will undermine the plot. What evidence do we have of this? Well, the producer is the same guy who has brought you the Rush Hour movies. 'Nuff said! The original starred Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Alan King, Martin Balsam and young Christopher Walken in one of his first screen roles. No casting has been announced, but let's see them try to top that cast. For Cinematical's report, click here.
As regular readers of the Cinema Retro site know, Warner Brothers and Paramount have teamed for major Elvis DVD promotions to commemorate the 30th anniversary of The King's passing. The Paramount side of the promotion, a boxed set titled Lights! Cameras! Elvis! showcases 8 feature films, packaged in four clamshell cases containing double features. The movies are from the 1960s with the exception of King Creole from 1958. Other titles in the collection are: Easy Come, Easy Go, Blue Hawaii, Fun in Acapulco, G.I. Blues, Girls! Girls! Girls!, Roustabout and Paradise Hawaiian Style. We received a set in advance of the August 7 release date and we were pleasantly surprised to see the films packaged in a smart, blue velvet (what else?) collector's case. The merits of the films themselves range from being among Elvis' better efforts to being weak even by The King's standards - but even the worst of the lot merit being classified as entertaining, guilty pleasures. One of the great joys of watching Elvis films is the array of gorgeous co-stars and this boxed set is a feast for the eyes, topped by Ursula Andress lighting up the screen in Fun in Acapulco. If there's a complaint about the set, its that once again Paramount has been stingy with extras. It would have been great to have film historians or Elvis experts comment on the individual films, but each title is sans extras except for a few trailers. The films are also available individually, but if you give a hoot about Elvis at all, you shouldn't be able to resist purchasing the entire boxed set, though even the most devout fan will probably have to quit their jobs and put their lives on hold for several months to get through the plethora of titles released in August alone. A good value from Paramount, but we hope to see special editions of these titles in the future. CLICK HERE TO ORDER THIS DVD SET DISCOUNTED FROM AMAZON! WRITER TOM LISANTI INTERVIEWS ELVIS' SEXY CO-STARS IN CINEMA RETRO ISSUES #6, 7 AND 8. FOR ALL THINGS ELVIS, VISIT TOM'S SITE AT WWW.SIXTIESCINEMA.COM ALSO IN ISSUE #6: THE LATE ACTOR JEREMY SLATE RECALLS STARRING WITH THE KING IN "G.I. BLUES" AND "GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!"
Since Hollywood has exhausted the stable of classic TV shows that can be turned into disastrous big screen features, it looks like Get Smart! might be added to the list. The film stars Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Fine actors, to be sure, but some roles seem uniquely imbedded in the talents of the actors who created them and both Carell and Hathaway will have a Herculean task to rid themselves from the long shadows of Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. The Get Smart! TV show tribute site www.wouldyoubelieve.com has seen the script for the feature film version and their verdict is a mixed bag at best. There are some promising aspects to the script and web site founder Carl Birkmeyer thinks the casting will not be the problem. He is especially confident that Carell and Alan Arkin, who plays Chief, will generate plenty of chemistry. However, his concerns are the ones we've all dreaded: the script lacks any sophistication and relies on juvenile sight gags- and worse coarse language in a desperate attempt to make the characters look hip. It never seems to occur to producers that the TV series we most cherished were made in an age where the writers and actors worked clean. After many decades, series such as The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show and Get Smart! seem as fresh and funny as ever - and they never had to resort to toilet humor. Worse, Birkmeyer reports that the script relegates the Max/99 relationship to stereotypical bickering and one-upmanship. This was never the case in the series. The pair had mutual respect for each other and a romantic relationship eventually developed that led to marriage. Birkmeyer also expresses concerns that the big screen version's director Peter Segal seems to have no understanding the 99 character. He's made derogatory comments that Barbara Feldon's interpretation was as a "stand by your man" woman who wouldn't hold up in the feminist age. In fact, Feldon's 99 had no such idiosyncracies. She was tough, competent and independent and Max relied on her to get him out of countless fixes. Birkmeyer warns that the script may present her as Bruce Willis' Die Hard character John McClane with breasts! Click on above link for Birkmeyer's insightful and very readable analysis of the script. Meanwhile, a teaser trailer for the new film has been released. It's too brief to form much of an opinion, but if you can judge a book by its cover, the end result is not promising. For one thing, the reliance on the phone booth gag seems lame and pretentious in an age where there are virtually no phone booths left in existence. Consider that the funniest gags would be used in the teaser trailer and you'll see why we share Carl Birkmeyer's concerns. To view the trailer click here. The verdict will not be known until the film is released next year. We hope for the best but fear for the worst. Sorry about that, Chief!- Lee Pfeiffer
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