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The John Sayles Collection | The
Naked City | 49th Parallel
| When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
| My Wife is a Gangster
The
John Sayles Collection in February
5 January 2007
The
leading light of modern American independent cinema,
John Sayles started out as a scriptwriter on high
class exploitation films such as Piranha,
Lady in Red, Alligator
and The Howling, but
early on began directing his own low budget, more
personal films, starting with the 1980 Return
of the Secaucus 7, a smart and engaging
tale of a weekend reunion by seven former college
friends, an idea and structure lifted and reworked
by Lawrence Kasdan three years later for the bigger
budgeted, studio backed The Big Chill.
Sayles followed his overshadowed delight in 1983
with Lianna, the tale of an unhappy
wife who leaves her film lecturer husband for
another woman in a sensitively handled and well
performed tale that still stands as one of the
director's most accomplished dramas. Following
the 1983 Baby It's You (I'm not
dismissing the movie, which is great, but I'm
going somewhere with this) he drew on his genre
movie scripts for the splendid blend of science
fiction, comedy and social commentary that was
The Brother From Another Planet
(1984), the tale of a black mute alien who crash-lands
on earth and finds himself in Harlem, where he
soon finds a niche for himself as a repair man,
until two white intergalactic bounty hunters arrive
on the scene to upset his plans to fix his ship
and return home.
None
of these films have been available on DVD in the
UK, but Optimum Home Entertainment are set to
put that right in february with the release of
The John Sayles Collection, a
three disc set that will contain Return
of the Secaucus 7, Lianna
and The Brother From Another Planet.
Great news, huh? Except...
At
the risk of reviving an old moan about region
2 viewers getting stiffed, all three films, according
to the press release, which I have no reason to
doubt, are to be framed 4:3 and completely devoid
of extras. And while to have the films at all
is pleasing, it should be noted that over in the
USA, MGM have released all three with anamorphic
widescreen transfers and commentary tracks by
John Sayles, and damned good commentary tracks
at that. Time permitting, we'll be reviewing the
region 1 discs soon.
Anyhoo,
The John Sayles Collection is
released on 26th February 2007 at the RRP of £29.99.
The
Naked City from Criterion in March
5 January 2007
One of the greatest of all police procedural dramas, master noir craftsman Jules Dassin and newspaperman-cum-producer Mark Hellinger's gripping film broke with the tradition and moved out of the studio and onto the streets of New York, shooting the entire film on location and creating in a manner that foreshadows the gritty police dramas of the 1970s and still looks fresh and exciting today. Featuring a cast devoid of star faces and striking, Academy Award-winning monochrome cinematography by William Daniels, this is the The Naked City remains a benchmark for naturalism in noir.
Arriving on US region 1 DVD in March from Criterion, the following features are listed:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer;
- Audio commentary by screenwriter Malvin Wald;
- An analysis of the film’s New York locations by Celluloid;
- Skyline author James Sanders;
- A new video interview with NYU film professor Dana Polan;
- Footage of Jules Dassin from his 2003 appearance at the Los;
- Angeles County Museum of Art;
- Theatrical trailer;
- Stills gallery;
- A new essay by Luc Sante.
Release date is 20th March 2007 at the SRP of $39.95
49th Parallel from Criterion in February
5 January 2007
A propaganda film that is also a damned fine
movie,
49th Parallel is typical of the great British filmmaking team of Michael Powell
and Emeric Pressburger
in its refusal to paint its characters in simple black and white terms (yes I know the film was made in black and white, but you know what I mean), despite being made in 1941 and being centred around the efforts of a stranded Nazi
U-Boat crew
to cross from Canada into the then still neutral
United States. Already available in the UK as part of the
Powell & Pressburger Collection, the film has been fully restored for a region 1
2-disc Special Edition release by Criterion with the following announced features:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer;
- Audio commentary by film and music historian Bruce Eder;
- The Volunteer, a 1943 Powell and Pressburger war-effort short starring Ralph Richardson;
- A Pretty British Affair, a BBC documentary on the careers of Powell and Pressburger, which considers their WWII-era collaborations and features rare footage of the filmmakers together;
- Excerpts from Michael Powell's audio dictations for his autobiography;
- Original theatrical trailer;
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing;
- A new essay by film scholar Charles Barr and Powell's 1941 premiere speech.
The DVD is released on 20th February at the SRP of $39.95.
You can read Camus's review of the film and the UK DVD here.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs from Criterion in February
5 January 2007
Discussed and admired in academic and filmmaking circles, the films of Mikio Naruse are finally starting to emerge on DVD, with Masters of Cinema delivering a three-film box set in the UK, and the announcement from Criterion that they are to release one of the most celebrated of his works, the 1960 Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki, or When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. The powerful, heartbreaking story of Keiko, a woman working as a bar hostess in Tokyo's post-war Ginza district and entertains businessmen after work, the film uses Keiko to symbolise the struggles and conflicts of an independently minded woman in a strongly patriarchal society. A beautifully realised film with a compelling central performance by Hideko Takamine, this is Naruse at his most socially exacting and
profoundly emotional.
Criterion have announced a region 1 US DVD release of the film for February, with the following confirmed features:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer;
- Audio commentary by Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie;
- New video interview with Tatsuya Nakadai;
- Theatrical trailers;
- New and improved English subtitle translation;
- A booklet featuring essays by film scholars Audie Bock, Catherine Russell, and Phillip Lopate.
Release date is 20th February 2007 at the SRP of $39.95.
My
Wife is a Gangster in February
4 January 2007
Cult
Korean films are certainly in vogue at the moment,
and one that has enjoyed a cult status for some
years is Jin-gyu Cho's 2001 comedy actioner, My
Wife is a Gangster (Jopog manura).
Mind you, this is partly due to its unavailability
on DVD in the UK, though there were at last count
four Asian DVDs of the film available, including
a 2-disc special edition with English subtitles,
though probably on the main feature only. The
unlikely plot - the right-hand woman from one
of the country's most feared gangs agrees to observe
her dying sister's wish and marry a simple office
worker, and finds it increasingly difficult to
keep her other life a secret from her new husband
- is a springboard for some smart characterisations,
comic scenes and niftily choreographed and sometimes
unexpectedly brutal fight scenes.
Those
new to the film will have their chance to be part
of the cult when it is released on UK DVD in February
by Premiere Asia, with an anamorphic widescreen
transfer, Korean and English 5,1 and DTS soundtracks
and, the only listed extra at present, a commentary
track by - woo-hoo! - Bey Logan.
Release
date is set for 12th February 2007 at the very
reasonable RRP of £12.99.
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