Category Archives: DVDs

DVDs, Movies

Film Movement Classics release two remastered Eric Rohmer gems

Iconic French director Eric Rohmer has (finally!) been celebrated  with two of his most renowned films: Full Moon in Paris and The Marquise of O. Both have been released by Film Movement Classics.
Originally released in 1984 to universal acclaim, Full Moon in Paris was heralded as “a small masterpiece” and “the very best of Rohmer” by The New York Times. The story of Louise (portrayed by Pascale Ogier), a young interior designer bored with her life in the sleepy suburbs with her live-in boyfriend Remi, and eager to lead the life of an independent socialite in the city, Louise arranges to move back into her Paris apartment during the week.
Balancing a steady boyfriend in the suburbs with a best friend, Octave (Fabrice Luchini), who makes plain his interest in her, and a bad boy musician who catches her eye at a party, eventually even the sophisticated and aloof Louise cannot untangle herself from the emotional realities of her various romantic encounters. Decades after first impressing critics and audiences alike, Full Moon in Paris remains a modern, wry observation of youth and love.
Already an established filmmaker by the 1976 release of The Marquise of O, an adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s classic short story, the film stands as Rohmer’s “dazzling testament to the civilizing effects of several different arts, witty, joyous and so beautiful to look at” (The New York Times). Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year, Rohmer’s film is set in 1799 during the Russian invasion of Italy. A young widow, The Marquise (Edith Clever) lives with her parents; her father is the commander of a citadel embroiled in battle. With the fort overrun by Russians, the Marquise is abducted by a group of rowdy soldiers and nearly taken advantage of when the Russian commander Count F (Bruno Ganz) appears as if from nowhere to rescue her.

Later, the Marquise realizes she is pregnant, though she cannot decipher how the circumstance came to be. The Marquise’s scandalized parents banish her to their country estate, where she pens a letter to the newspaper announcing that she will marry the father, whomever he may be, should he only present himself.
DVDs, Movies

“The Mahoning Drive-In” steers film fans to saving a piece of Hollywood history

It remains one of the last remaining
drive-in theaters in the country. The Mahoning Drive-In,opened in 1949 and was operated by James Humphries. It originally  had a capacity for 500 cars. The drive-in changed ownership in years; new owners took over the Mahoning Drive-In in 2014.

Located in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, the drive-in is open May through on weekends. It features the second largest screen (measuring 120 feet) in the country, FM listening devices and room for 900 cars. The Mahoning Drive-In also offers camping on the grounds for an extra $10 per car load.

Mahoning Drive-In

From sleeping in the concession stand to working entirely for free, the film fanatics at the struggling drive-in face uncertainty when Hollywood announces it will switch to digital projection for all new movies. Unable to purchase a $50,000 digital projector, a group of quirky film fanatics inrural Pennsylvania fight to keep the dying drive-in theater alive by screening only vintage 35mm film prints on their original 1949 projectors, and working for free. Relive their underdog story to save film, the Mahoning Drive-in, and drive-in theaters everywhere.

The drive-in’s history has been documented in the award-winning  At The Drive-in.
“Technology moves so fast today, faster than ever before. As technology distracts us from one another and segments us further into smaller audiences, it was just magical to see a bunch of people gather together in rural Pennsylvania to watch film flicker through a projector from 1948,” Alexander Monelli, director. “That’s ultimately what this documentary is about.”
It has also screened at multiple Alamo Drafthouses and at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood as an official selection of Dances With Films.
Bonus Materials
  • Over 17 Minutes of Deleted Scenes
  • Three Separate Feature Length Commentary Tracks (two with cast and one with director)
  • 30-minute Q&A from Alamo Drafthouse Screening
  • Trailer
DVDs, Movies

Arrow Films unleash a slew of must-have Blu-rays . . . shoot that arrow!

Close to completing your spring cleaning? Sit and savor these nifty Blu-rays from Arrow Films.

Not to bug you out: We have Takashi Miike’s Terra Formars, a sci-fi adventure sees a team of space explorers take battle against a horde of oversized anthropomorphic cockroaches.

Terra Formars [Blu-ray]
The release in includes a full-full-length documentary on the making of the film, outtakes and more. Fans of Miike will certainly be thrilled to get their hands on this modern classic.
The Iguana with the Tongue Fire is an oddity for a giallo. Set in Dublin, this film from legendary director Riccardo Freda follows a series of brutal killings that carry political complications. The film is presented with a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative. A second giallo release: Mélo from director Alain Resnais.
Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire, TheThis story of a doomed love triangle is based on the classic play from Henri Bernstein and come with a stunning new 2K restoration.
Keoma, one of the greatest spaghetti westerns, pairs two icons in star Franco Nero and director Enzo G. Castellari, this is the story of a half-breed gunfighter that returns home to find his fellow townsfolk terrorized by a terrible gang.
Keoma This truly epic film gets an epic release resented with a new 2K restoration and loaded with brand new special features. If you’re a spaghetti western aficionado this one is a must for your collection.
Mary Page Keller and Andrew Stevens star in Richard Friedman’s Scared Stiff. A singer moves into a colonial mansion with her son and boyfriend only to uncover deep, dark secrets hidden within the boarded up attic.
Scared StiffFans of ’80s horror and practical effects are sure to have a soft spot for this one.
On April 30 comes the release of Khrustalyov, My Car! This darkly funny satire is the story of a military doctor arrested in Stalin’s Russia, accused of being a participant in the so-called “doctor’s plot.”
Khrustalyov, My Car!This limited edition release includes a 60-page booklet featuring new writing by Gianna D’Emilio, an archival essay by Joël Chaperon and original reviews.
DVDs, Movies

Cohen media Group celebrates the brilliance of Buster Keaton in a trio of true marvels

Charles S. Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group, can never be accused of having a stone face.

He could, of course, be honestly called a great fan of The Great Stone Face.  (Those would don;t know who we are chatting about need to open a new window and Google.)

This month he has released (on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms) director and movie historian Peter Bogdanovich’s acclaimed new film The Great Buster: A Celebration. It is as brilliant as the tribute it pays to one of silent cinema’s greatest artists, Buster Keaton.

The Great Keaton celebrates the life and career of one of America’s most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians, whose singular style and fertile output during the silent era secured his legacy as a true cinematic visionary. Filled with stunningly restored archival Keaton films from the Cohen Film Collection library, the film is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker and cinema historian whose landmark writings and films on such renowned directors as John Ford and Orson Welles have become the standard by which all other studies are measured.
The Great Buster chronicles Keaton’s life and career, from his beginnings on the vaudeville circuit through the development of his trademark physical comedy and deadpan expression that earned him the lifelong moniker “The Great Stone Face,” all of which led to his career-high years as the director, writer, producer and star of his own short films and features. Interspersed throughout are interviews with nearly two-dozen collaborators, filmmakers, performers and admirers, including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Knoxville, who discuss Keaton’s influence on modern comedy and cinema itself.
The loss of artistic independence and career decline that marked his later years are also covered by Bogdanovich, before he casts a close eye on Keaton’s extraordinary output from 1923 to 1929, which yielded 10 remarkable feature films (including 1926’s The General and 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr.)that immortalized him as one of the greatest actor-filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Keaton in The General, a true classic
In his landmark book The American Cinema, critic Andrew Sarris placed Buster Keaton among the “Pantheon Directors,” his elite grouping of the 14 greatest filmmakers. Sarris wrote, “Cops, Sherlock Jr., The Navigator and The General stamp Keaton as the most enduringly modern of classical directors.” Critic and film historian David Thomson, in his famed Biographical Dictionary of Film, writes, “In Keaton’s films there is an extraordinary use of space in the jokes that is faithfully and beautifully recorded.”
Wait! There’s more Keaton craze.

On May 14, Cohen Media Group releases the Keaton masterpieces The General and Steamboat Bill, Jr. together on single-disc Blu-ray and DVD packages, as well as digital platforms.

The films, high points not only of Keaton’s incomparable career but of all silent cinema (both are included on the National Film Registry),  are presented in new 4K restorations and feature orchestral scores by Carl Davis.
Many critics and historians consider The General  (1926) to be the last great comedy of the silent era, and it consistently ranks as one of the finest films of all time on international critics’ polls. It is No. 18 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Films, and is No. 34 on the latest Sight & Sound critics poll of the Greatest Films of All Time.
Set during the Civil War and based on a true incident, the film is an authentic-looking period piece that brings the scope and realism of Mathew Brady-like images to brilliant life. Keaton portrays engineer Johnnie Gray, rejected by the Confederate Army and thought a coward by his girlfriend (played by Marion Mack). When a band of Union soldiers penetrate Confederate lines to steal his locomotive, called The General, Johnnie sets off in pursuit. There is no better showcase for Keaton’s trademark physical comedy and deadpan expression that earned him the moniker “The Great Stone Face.”
The renowned critic Raymond Durgnat wrote, “Perhaps The General is the most beautiful film, with its spare, grey photography, its eye for the racy, lunging lines of the great locomotives, with their prow-like cowcatchers, with its beautifully sustained movement.” “The pioneering genius of Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent film … looks even more startling than ever … more or less invented the action movie,” said The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw.
In Steamboat Bill, Jr.  (1928), Buster, as the son of a steamboat captain, falls in love with the daughter of a rival steamboat owner. When a cyclone rages, Buster proves himself a hero by rescuing his love (played by Marion Byron) and her father from a watery grave.

The comedy contains what many consider Keaton’s most memorable, and potentially deadly, film stunt: One side of a house falls on him while he stands in the perfect spot to pass through a window frame unharmed.
DVDs, Movies

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in the gritty crime thriller “We Die Young”

Action legend Jean-Claude Van Damme takes a powerful and dramatic turn in the action-packed crime thriller We Die Young, available on Blu-ray (plus Digital), DVD and Digital on April 9 from Lionsgate. (The film is currently available On Demand.)

When ruthless drug lord Rincon and his MS-13 gang recruit 10-year-old Miguel to work as a runner in a crime-ridden barrio in Washington, D.C., big brother Lucas is desperate to keep Miguel safe. Fleeing for their lives, the boys are rescued by an Afghanistan war veteran with PTSD named Daniel (played by Van Damme), who helps them find their revenge. Finally, on the wedding day of Rincon’s sister, the ghetto explodes with violence.

Based on the award-winning short film Roads (2008 Student Academy Award for Honorary Foreign Film Award – Foreign Short; 2008 London Film Festival – Short Film), which screened at more than 70 international film festivals and held the Guinness World Record for Most Awards Won by a Student Film, We Die Young focuses on the struggles of gang life in Washington, D.C.
We Die Young also stars Elijah Rodriguez, Joana Metrass and David Castañeda. The Blu-ray and DVD includes a commentary with writer-director Lior Gellar and members of the cast, a storyboard-to-screen comparison and the featurette “On the Set of We Die Young”. 
DVDs, Movies

Dane Cook is not only for laughs: Check out his powerful role in the crime thriller “American Exit”

We love it when actors cook up something that will make an impression. Take comedian Dane Cook. He’s quite the stunner in a new type of role in the intense crime-thriller based on a true story, American Exit, arriving on DVD, Digital and On Demand May 14 from Lionsgate.

Based on an incredible true story, this searing crime-thriller stars  Cook as Charlie, a desperate father who steals a million-dollar painting from Anton (played by Udo Kier), a shady art dealer. With time running out, he flees to the California desert with his rebellious teen son, Leo (Levi Miller).
But when Anton and his henchman come seeking revenge, the situation explodes into violence, and suddenly Charlie is not the only one whose days may be numbered.
DVDs

“Hot to Trot” celebrates the joyous world of same-sex competitive ballroom dance

Mad Hot Ballroom meets Paris is Burning? Or is it RuPaul’s Drag Race meets Dancing with the Stars? Whatever your reference, the award-winning and crowd-pleasing documentary Hot to Trot offers a deep-dive look inside the fascinating but little-known world of same-sex competitive ballroom dance.

Gail Freedman’s lively, poignant film follows an international cast of four magnetic men and women over several years, on and off the dance floor, as they journey to the quadrennial Gay Games. Along the way, dancing is revealed to be both a means of overcoming personal hardships—from drug addiction to familial rifts—and a joyous opportunity to merge passionate artistic expression with proud sexual identity.

DVDs

Ready to enjoy something sweet? Order “Peppermint Soda”, new from Cohen Film Collection

Whenever Charles S. Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group, has something to say, we listen. Closely. The newest film the Cohen Film Collection has released: director Diane Kurys’ acclaimed debut film, Peppermint Soda, now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms.
In the vein of such coming-of-age classics as Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Peppermint Soda captures a particular moment in the tumultuous life and development of two young people. Anne (played by Eléonore Klarwein) and Frederique (Odile Michel) are teenage sisters in 1963 France, torn between divorced parents and struggling with the confines of their strict school. Along the way, they undergo an awakening both political and romantic.
Diane Kurys’ celebrated film, with cinematography by Oscar-winning Philippe Rousselot, revels in the comedy and tragedy of the seemingly mundane, weaving a complex tapestry of everyday existence that also touches on the universal. The world cinema classic received a 2K restoration for its 40th-anniversary theatrical re-release in 2018, and Cohen Film Collection is proud to present k this striking new restoration for home viewing.
The flicwas the first film by actress-turned-writer/director Kurys, and instantly established her as a highly personal filmmaker drawing on her own life for cinematic inspiration. It won France’s Prix Louis Delluc, while the U.S. National Board of Review’s 1979 awards honored it as Top Foreign Film.
The Cohen Film Collection’s deluxe Blu-ray and DVD of Peppermint Sodaboth include interviews with Diane Kurys and actress Eléonore Klarwein; the featurette “A Meeting with Yves Simon;” a scrapbook of the film; the French restoration trailer; and the 2018 re-release trailer.
DVDs

“The Sunday Sessions” offers a disturbing but riveting look into conversion therapy

The Sunday Sessions (First Run Features) offers an intimate portrait of a deeply conflicted young man named Nathan, who is struggling to reconcile his religious conviction and sexual identity.

In this observational documentary, the filmmakers are given unfettered access as Nathan willingly attends clandestine conversion therapy sessions, family sessions,and weekend camps with an alluring therapist. The result is a sensitively crafted emotional and psychological thriller, which chronicles two years of his journey from acceptance to skepticism, all leading to a profound epiphany.

Although it has been discredited by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations, some disturbing and unsettling quacks still offer conversion therapy for reasons almost exclusively rooted in a conservative religious belief system.

Let us share director Richard Yeagley’s statement about the documentary
“The filming and production of this documentary proved time and time again to be an emotionally taxing process. I knew from the outset that access was going to be the most important element to producing this story. I didn’t want to make a film that was a presentation of facts (something that relied on talking head interviews and an authoritative voice-over narration); I wanted to tell a personal story of an individual’s journey through this therapy.

Instead of an exposé or advocacy-based documentary, I preferred to tackle the story with an observational, fly-on-the-wall approach. I wanted access to the therapy sessions and to the personal life of the protagonist. In order to garner such access, I knew I had to strip myself, as best I could, of bias and approach the film as objectively and curiously as possible.

With all this said, biting my tongue was difficult at times. In many situations, and specifically when things started to get emotionally dark for Nathan, I just wanted to give him a hug and tell him that everything was going to be alright. I wanted to recommend that he move out of rural Virginia, and into a city like New York or Washington D.C., where there is more diversity and a bigger support system for the LGBTQ community. But as a documentary filmmaker employing the observational technique, this was not my role. So I remained observant, and strictly so, in hopes that it would result in the creation of a powerful, thought-provoking film.”

-Richard Yeagley
DVDs, Movies

A teenager. A baby T. Rex named Albert. let the fun begin in “The Adventures of Jurassic Pet”

Save the date: On April 16, Lionsgate releases The Adventures of Jurassic Pet on DVD, Digital, and On Demand. This is a cute,  amusing film about an adventurous teenager adopts and hatches a baby T. Rex (that he names Albert), but then must rescue the creature from a mad scientist who wants to clone a whole new breed of dinosaurs.