Blu-ray/DVD/Streaming Reviews & News
Entries from December 2010
By Lee Pfeiffer
You're a Big Boy Now, the 1966 coming of age sex comedy, has finally received a DVD release through the Warner Archive. The film is primarily significant because it marked the elevation of young Francis Ford Coppola from B horror movies and skin flicks to slick big studio fare. The film traces the experiences of a young nerd, Bernard (Peter Kastner) as he tries desperately to lose his virginity. It seems the sexual revolution is occurring all around him but he's stuck in the role of Establishment reactionary. This is do in no small part to his overbearing parents. Mom (Geraldine Page) is a monstrously bossy, overbearing type who seems to want to instill an Oedipus complex in young Bernard. Dad (Rip Torn) is a revered department head at the New York City Library who rules the roost with the type of disciplinary tactics that would have offender Himmler. Every time Bernard thinks about rebeling against his uptight parents, he is shamed into conformance. He must also suffer the frustration of seeing his friend and co-worker (Tony Bill) blatantly bed every woman who comes into his orbit.
Continue reading ""YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW" COMES TO DVD"
Cinema Retro spoke and Warner Brothers listened! In one of our previous "We Want Our DVD!" columns, we called for the release of this obscure 1974 crime film on DVD. Lo and behold, it has just been released by Warner Archives. What follows is our original review.
By Lee Pfeiffer
Although Robert Duvall had been playing supporting roles in major films since To Kill a Mockingbird, it was his Oscar-nominated turn as Tom Hagen in The Godfather that elevated him to leading man status. Before long, Duvall was being courted for numerous other gritty crime thrillers. One of the best is one of the least-heralded, The Outfit, a 1974 production from MGM. Written and directed by John Flynn, the film is expertly-made and enacted on all levels. Duvall plays a small-time crook doing time for a bank robbery. As soon as he is released from jail, he finds he's been marked for death by mob boss Robert Ryan (excellent, as always, in what turned out to be his final screen appearance). Apparently, Duvall had been unaware that the bank he held up was secretly owned by Ryan, who has already killed his brother for acting as an accomplish during the heist. Duvall becomes obsessed with avenging his brother's death and getting to Ryan before the mob can exercise its contract. He enlists the help of sultry girlfriend Karen Black and fellow petty crook Joe Don Baker. Before long, they are barely escaping death as they raid various mob locations to bleed Ryan financially. The climax finds Duvall and Baker trying to infiltrate Ryan's seemingly impregnable compound to deliver the coup de grace.
Continue reading ""THE OUTFIT" STARRING ROBERT DUVALL COMES TO DVD"
Warner Home Video gained distribution rights to movies owned by Agamemnon Films, which is controlled by the estate of Charlton Heston. Among the titles to be released in March 2011 are Charlton Heston Presents the Bible, a four-part TV documentary hosted by Heston who takes viewers to key sites in the Holy Land. Also making their debut in March are Mother Lode, a late career film in which Heston was cast against type as a villain and the little-seen Antony and Cleopatra, which Heston starred in and directed in 1972. If that isn't enough for his fans, Heston's 1970 film The Hawaiians (aka Master of the Islands) is being released this month. Now how about Counterpoint, 55 Days at Peking and Number One? We're getting close to having all of the iconic star's major films available on home video.
Warner Home Video has released the ultimate tribute to Humphrey Bogart, whose long association with the studio resulted in some of the greatest films of the era. The boxed set contains a mind-boggling 24 films and is packed with extras and collectibles. The set includes international movie poster reproductions, studio telegrams and correspondence and a hardback book about Bogie's life and career. There is also a bonus DVD, The Brothers Warner about the legendary siblings who formed the studio. The feature films are:
Petrified Forest/ Marked Woman, Kid Galahad/ Black Legion, San Quentin/The Roaring Twenties, Dark Victory/ Virginia City, Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse/ Invisible Stripes, High Sierra/ They Drive by Night, Maltese Falcon/ Across the Pacific, All Through the Night/ Brother Orchid, Action in the North Atlantic/ Passage to Marseilles, To Have and Have Not/ The Big Sleep, Dark Passage/ Key Largo, Casablanca/ Treasure of the Sierra Madre
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, SAVE $30 AND GET FREE SHIPPING!
Continue reading ""HUMPHREY BOGART: THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION" ON DVD"
By Spencer Lloyd Peet (www.slpeet.com)
Eureka! Entertainment Ltd has released a Blu-ray and DVD combined two-disc limited edition dual format steelbook of the cult classic blood-spurting Japanese/American film Shogun Assassin. Hailed in the West as one of the most popular samurai films ever, it is a spectacular representation of violence in film as an art form.
The film depicts the story of ronin Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and his son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa). After the deranged Shogun has Ogami’s wife murdered in an exercise to test the samurai’s loyalty, Ogami abandons his role as official decapitator and, with son in tow who now travels in a wooden cart affixed with hidden lethal weapons, takes up the life of a paid assassin. Lone Wolf and Cub now wander among the wilderness of ancient Japan constantly fending off attacks by ninja spies hired by the Shogun. The warrior’s lightening sword skills are soon pitched against the deadly weapons of the “Masters of Death†as they go head-to-head in a bloody climatic battle.
Shogun Assassin was released in the US in 1980 and comprises of an edited version of the first two films (Sword Of Vengeance and Baby Cart At The River Styx) in the Lone Wolf & Cub saga from the early 1970s directed by Kenji Misumi and adapted from the hugely popular manga series. The project was undertaken by producer David Weisman and director and writer Robert Houston and includes English dubbing with a voice-over narration by Daigoro (voiced by then child actor Gibran Evans) as well as a new superior electronic soundtrack co-written by Mark Lindsey, former lead vocalist with the ‘60s pop outfit Paul Revere and the Raiders. The English dialogue was written to match the actor’s lips movement and thus the translation isn’t exact and the plot line is somewhat altered and simplified as a result. However, Weisman and Houston remained respectful to Misumi’s original work and kept in the vicious, violent scenes which incorporate slicing off heads and hacked off body parts including nose, ears, fingers and arms, leaving one poor ninja as little more than a rolling torso.
Continue reading "DVD REVIEW: "SHOGUN ASSASSIN" ON BLU-RAY IN UK"
Irwin Allen's 1968 sci-fi series Land of the Giants is available as a complete DVD collection from Fox. All 51 episodes are included in the limited edition boxed set that boasts 9 DVDs. The discs are packed with extras including cast and crew interviews, Irwin Allen's home movies, still gallery and collectibles repros included in the set. Here is the series description from Amazon:
Premiering on ABC in 1968 and lasting just 51 episodes before its cancellation in 1970, Irwin Allen's fantasy series Land of the Giants has built a sizable (if you'll pardon the pun) fan base in subsequent decades thanks to its mix of adventure, science fiction, and camp; now those dedicated fans can enjoy the entire series in an impressive set that features a wealth of extras. The template for Giants is remarkably similar to that of Allen's Lost in Space; here, the passengers and crew of the commercial spacecraft The Spindrift encounters a mysterious energy force en route to London and finds themselves on a planet which parallels Earth in every way save one – its inhabitants are twelve times the size of the marooned crew. The protagonists are less tightly knit than Space's astronaut family Robinson – in fact, pilots Gary Conway and Don Marshall regularly butt heads with architect Don Matheson and entertainer Deanna Lund – though all seem to agree that orphan Stefan Arngrim is cute as a button and Kurt Kasznar is as much a pain in the neck as Dr. Smith (amusingly, Jonathan Harris turns up in this set in the episode "Pay the Piper"). But The Spindrift castaways' adventures are less juvenile than those of the later Lost in Space episodes, and the special effects (which cost the network a record-setting $250,000 per episode) are impressive for the period. The nine-DVD set for Land of the Giantscontains the series' entire network run, as well as the unaired pilot, which offers a similar take on the debut episode, "The Crash," minus John Williams' jazzy theme and other elements. Most of the surviving cast members (Kasznar passed away in 1979, and Heather Young is not included) is featured in interviews about their experiences on the show, and there are several home videos of producer Allen directing the program and interacting with the over sized props and sets. Also featured on the discs are galleries of publicity shots, episodic photos, show merchandise and of the photogenic Ms. Lund, and the MAD Magazine parody. Meanwhile, buyers can also pursue a reproduction of the comic book adaptation and a booklet with more cast interviews and photos, and check out a set of trading cards, a Spindrift key chain and crew iron-on patch – all of which is contained in the set's clever carrying case, which reproduces a wooden cage that held the Giants' heroes in one episode. Though casual admirers may balk at the Giant Collection price tag, diehards will undoubtedly appreciate having the entire set and quality extras at their disposal. -- Paul Gaita
CLICK HERE TO ORDER AND SAVE $109! YOU CAN ALSO VIEW INDIVIDUAL EPISODES FOR 99 CENTS EACH.
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