Kino

[L.A.]

Kino will be releasing the 1930 exploitation film / hoax Ingagi, which I'd never heard of but was apparently a huge commercial hit and the history of it all makes it sound interesting-- the Federal Trade Commission actually banned it from being shown!

Beaver.

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray February 16th from Kino Classics and the BFI!

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Directed by Dziga Vertov

One of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era, Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera utilizes rapid editing and innumerable other cinematic effects to create a work of amazing modernity and power. This dawn-to-dusk view of urban Soviet life shows people at work, at play, and at the machines that endlessly whirl to keep the metropolis alive. It was Vertov’s first full-length film, and it employs all the cinematic techniques at the director’s disposal—dissolves, split-screens, slow-motion, and freeze-frames—to produce a work that is as exhilarating as it is intellectually brilliant. Restored by the British Film Institute, this edition features an orchestral score composed and conducted by Michael Nyman (The Piano), first performed on May 17, 2002 at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Special features:
*Audio commentary by film historian Adrian Martin
*The Life and Times of Dziga Vertov: An Interview with Ian Christie (46 Min.)
*Dziga Vertov: Non-Fiction Film Thing, a video essay by David Cairns (20 Min.)

Beaver.

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray April 6th from Kino Classics!

The Delicious Little Devil (1919)
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino

The Delicious Little Devil (1919) is a delightfully risqué silent comedy starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino (The Sheik), presented in a 4K restoration by Universal Pictures. Murray stars as Kitty Maguire, the virtuous daughter of a washerwoman who loses her job as a hat-check girl. She is forced to make ends meet as a dancer at a roadhouse cabaret, but she can only get the job by pretending to be Gloria du Moine, the notorious mistress of the Duke de Sauterne (Bertram Grassby). Mary falls in love with Jimmie Calhoun (Valentino), who is wary of marrying her because of her supposedly sordid past, and the film careens to a rollickingly funny conclusion as her true identity is revealed.

Special features:
*Audio commentary by film historian Gaylyn Studlar
*Blood and Sand (1922) trailer
*Music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
*Newsreel footage of Rudolph Valentino's funeral
*Orson Welles Remembers Rudolph Valentino

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray April 6th from Kino Classics and Something Weird!

The Lash of the Penitentes (1936)
Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture Volume 9
Directed by Harry Revier and Roland Price
Starring Marie DeForrest and William Marcos

Exploitation films were often ripped from the most sensational headlines of the day, and few headlines were as scandalous as those reporting a murder within the community of a masochistic religious cult in northern New Mexico. Los Hermanos Penitentes celebrated Lent by enacting elaborate tableaus of flagellation, self-mutilation, and crucifixion. Envisioning the box-office potential of such a spectacle, cinematographer Roland Price (Marihuana: Weed With Roots in Hell) shot several reels of footage of the rituals, then teamed with producer Harry Revier (Child Bride) to fashion a murder mystery around the documentary material. For years, The Lash of the Penitentes flourished on the exploitation circuit, sometimes with new footage cut into the feature (and most notoriously: the trailer). Usually circulated in an abbreviated 35-minute version, this Kino Classics edition was restored from film elements preserved by the Library of Congress, and represents the uncensored 48-minute cut: The Penitente Murder Case.

Special features:
*The Penitente Murder Case (the complete, uncensored, 48-minute cut)
*The Lash of the Penitentes (the censored and condensed 35-minute version)
*Audio commentary by series curator Bret Wood
*Optional English SDH subtitles
*Trailer gallery

[rockysds]

Coming to Blu-ray April 6th from Kino Classics and the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation!

The Man in Search of his Murderer (1931)
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Starring Heinz Rühmann
Screenplay by Ludwig Hirschfeld, Curt Siodmak and Billy Wilder

Prior to emigrating to the U.S., where he would make such classics as The Spiral Staircase and The Killers, Robert Siodmak took a familiar black comedy premise and transformed it into a diabolical thriller. Heinz Rühmann, employing his trademark persona of the childlike naïf, portrays Hans, a despondent young man who decides to murder himself by hiring a burglar to commit the crime. But when Hans’s life takes an unexpected turn for the better, he realizes he must locate and stop the killer before the contract can be fulfilled. Combining morbid comedy with broad slapstick, The Man in Search of His Murderer owes much of its comic sensibilities to screenwriters Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity) and Curt Siodmak (The Wolf Man) who were also soon to leave Germany, to later enjoy fruitful careers in Hollywood.
Special features:
*Audio commentary by film historian Josh Nelson
*Optional English subtitles

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray April 13th from Kino Classics!

Sensation Seekers (1927) and A Chapter in Her Life (1923)
Directed by Lois Weber

Among the most exciting rediscoveries of silent cinema are the films of Lois Weber, who produced and directed a series of popular and provocative films at Universal Studios, often depicting women’s struggles for independence within the ever-shifting moral landscape of 1920s modernity. Sensation Seekers stars Billie Dove (The Black Pirate) as the free-spirited Egypt, a small-town girl who dreams of escape and adventure, and resists the efforts of a pious minister (Raymond Bloomer) to tame her thirst for excitement. Egypt’s progress is highlighted by moments of cinematic spectacle, including a lavish masquerade ball and a stunning shipwreck sequence. A Chapter in Her Life explores the efforts of a young girl (Jane Mercer) whose childish innocence exposes the hypocrisy and weakness that threaten the happiness of an aristocratic family.

Special features:
*New 2K restorations by Universal Pictures
*Audio commentary for Sensation Seekers by Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood

[Calvin]

Kino will be releasing Max Ophuls' Liebelei, presumably the German version, rather than the French Une histoire d'amour but fingers crossed that we get both. It's apparently not a new announcement but it seems to have slipped through the cracks.

[JSC]

Moshé Mizrahi's Madame Rosa and Jacques Doillon's Ponette have just gone up as pre-orders for May.

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray May 4th from Kino Classics and Something Weird Video!

Wages of Sin (1966)
Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture, Volume 10

Weary of repackaging the creaky melodramas of the 1930s and ’40s, exploitation distributors in the 1960s began importing European films, which were more frank in their depictions of sexual matters. Any integrity the original films may have possessed was obliterated by the sensational titles and ad campaigns employed to market them to the American grindhouse. A perfect example is Der Arzt stellt fest... (The Doctor notes...), directed by Aleksander Ford (Mir Kumen On). A soap-style dramatization of life inside a women’s clinic, the film argues on behalf of birth control and safe, legal abortion. In the U.S., the film was released by Donn Davison as Wages of Sin and accompanied by a live lecture and additional childbirth shorts, both of which are included here. This Kino Classics edition includes another serious treatise on birth control (though one not sold on the exploitation circuit): The Misery and Fortune of Women, produced by Der Arzt stellt fest... co-producer Lazar Wechsler.

Special features:
*Audio commentary by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
*The Misery and Fortune of Women (1929, 58 min.)
*Donn Davison medical lecture/book pitch
*Life and Its Secrecies (11 min.)
*Triplets by Cesarean Section (8 min.)
*Trailer gallery

[senseabove]

They announced a BD of La Habanera years ago and it disappeared without a trace, so it's good to see this finally get a release date:

Coming to Blu-ray May 11th from Kino Classics and the the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation!
To New Shores (1937) and La Habanera (1937)
The Douglas Sirk Collection

Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows) would become synonymous with the 1950s American melodrama, but he was already reinventing the genre while working in Germany in the 1930s. This disc collects two of these rarely-seen, innovative films, both showcasing the talents of Swedish-born superstar Zarah Leander. To New Shores stars Leander as a woman sentenced to an Australian penal colony for a crime committed by her former lover (Willy Birgel). She eventually marries a farmer (Viktor Staal) and returns to the cabaret stage, but remains tragically fixated on the man who broke her heart. In La Habanera, Leander plays Astree, a Swedish woman who marries a Puerto Rican land baron (Ferdinand Marian). As years pass, their love fades, and Astree’s passions are reawakened by a doctor (Karl Martell) who has come to help fight a devastating epidemic, igniting the fury of her jealous husband. While she bore certain resemblances to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich (with her sultry insouciance, defiance of authority, and her low singing voice), Zarah Leander was in fact a striking original, and has largely been overlooked by American audiences because of the inaccessibility of her films (produced at Ufa when the studio was under Reich control).

Special Features:
*Audio commentary for To New Shores by film historian Josh Nelson
*Audio commentary for La Habanera by film historian Olaf Möller
*Optional English subtitles

[What A Disgrace]

The Final Chord is one of my most anticipated films, so this is kinda frustrating.

[Glowingwabbit]

Definitely agree with you, What A Disgrace. But this gives me some hope for Schlußakkord (Final Chord) one day. I'll definitely be purchasing this as I enjoyed both films and obviously want it to sell enough that they do more. Also the emphasis on "The Douglas SIrk Collection" makes me think they'll do more.

[knives]

Cracked the Jewish set with The Dybbuk today and it ever makes me glad I waited as, if I understood things correctly, this is a half hour longer than the VHS cut.

Obviously the anthropological elements are very interesting as it functions as a final snapshot for a now extinct culture (despite desperately clinging to an idea of this culture this film clearly shows how radically different the American and Israeli descendent cultures are from the original).

What comes as a pleasant surprise is how mature and truly great as a film it is. So many shots and scenes made me exclaim aloud and hope to someday see this theatrically. It shows an alternative route for the cinema that used a two dimensional expressionism rather than Murnau’s three dimensional. Really only Ruiz has given me something like this in recent decades.

The story telling is great as well using a Jewish law, don’t pray for a sex for a child, and uses it to paint a multifaceted morality play extending to the heart of the community. (The film could probably warrant an examination of collectivist tendencies in Hebraic fiction for how it shows the damage of individualistic actions in strictly communal terms)

Plus it’s a musical. I’m curious how penetrable the film is for those completely unfamiliar with Polish-Jewish culture? It sounds like the commentary doesn’t help much with that.

[senseabove]

Surprised this one took so long, but glad it's finally surfacing:

Coming to Blu-ray June 29th from Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist Films!
Poison (1991)
Directed by Todd Haynes
Poison is the second feature directed by Todd Haynes, the Oscar®-nominated filmmaker of Far from Heaven and Carol. It is a groundbreaking American Indie and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes’ spectacular follow-up to his legendary
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is audacious, disturbing and thrillingly cinematic. Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, Poison deftly interweaves a trio of transgressive tales—“Hero,” “Horror” and “Homo”—that build toward a devastating climax. “Hero,” shot in mock TV documentary style, tells a bizarre story of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice; “Horror,” filmed like a delirious ’50s B-movie melodrama, is a gothic tale of a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague; while “Homo” explores the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates. A runaway hit which made national headlines when it was attacked by right-wing politicians, Poison is unsettling, unforgettable and thoroughly entertaining.
Special features:
• New introduction by director Todd Haynes
• Sundance Q&A with Todd Haynes, producer Christine Vachon and executive producer James Schamus, for the 20th Anniversary of the film’s Grand Jury Prize
• Archival 1999 audio commentary by Haynes, Vachon, and star/editor James Lyons
• Booklet essay by Dennis Lim, Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center
• Last Address, a short film by Ira Sachs (2010)
• Original 1991 U.S. theatrical trailer
• Optional English SDH subtitles

[criterionsnob]

Great news about Poison. I seem to recall some horizontal stretching in certain scenes on the Zeitgeist DVD from 10 years ago. I hope this version can fix that.

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray April 6th from Kino Classics!

The Delicious Little Devil (1919)
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino

The Delicious Little Devil (1919) is a delightfully risqué silent comedy starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino (The Sheik), presented in a 4K restoration by Universal Pictures. Murray stars as Kitty Maguire, the virtuous daughter of a washerwoman who loses her job as a hat-check girl. She is forced to make ends meet as a dancer at a roadhouse cabaret, but she can only get the job by pretending to be Gloria du Moine, the notorious mistress of the Duke de Sauterne (Bertram Grassby). Mary falls in love with Jimmie Calhoun (Valentino), who is wary of marrying her because of her supposedly sordid past, and the film careens to a rollickingly funny conclusion as her true identity is revealed.


Special features:
*Audio commentary by film historian Gaylyn Studlar
*Blood and Sand (1922) trailer
*Music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
*Newsreel footage of Rudolph Valentino's funeral
*Orson Welles Remembers Rudolph Valentino

Beaver.

[nitin]

Ozon's terrific Under the Sand also announced.

[_shadow_]

Great news about Poison. I seem to recall some horizontal stretching in certain scenes on the Zeitgeist DVD from 10 years ago. I hope this version can fix that.

This is a big concern for me. The "20th Anniversary Edition" DVD is a nice package with decent special features, but it's gobsmacking to see what they've done in service of forced widescreen.

(Actually, perhaps this served as an inspiration to Wong Kar Wai for his "World of" revisionism)




It's been a while, but there was a screening at Cinefamily in LA and I'm pretty sure it was shown in widescreen with the same issues.

I hope this is addressed and it is released at 1.33 since it doesn't seem to have been protected for any type of widescreen framing.

[criterionsnob]

Yikes, that’s even worse than I remembered. It is really a shame if that is not fixed. Maybe Haynes has some influence over the Blu.

[therewillbeblus]

Ozon's terrific Under the Sand also announced.

I coincidentally just watched this last week, and while it's not a movie I have much interest in revisiting, I thought it was a very mature presentation of grief

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray April 13th from Kino Classics!

Sensation Seekers (1927) and A Chapter in Her Life (1923)
Directed by Lois Weber

Among the most exciting rediscoveries of silent cinema are the films of Lois Weber, who produced and directed a series of popular and provocative films at Universal Studios, often depicting women’s struggles for independence within the ever-shifting moral landscape of 1920s modernity. Sensation Seekers stars Billie Dove (The Black Pirate) as the free-spirited Egypt, a small-town girl who dreams of escape and adventure, and resists the efforts of a pious minister (Raymond Bloomer) to tame her thirst for excitement. Egypt’s progress is highlighted by moments of cinematic spectacle, including a lavish masquerade ball and a stunning shipwreck sequence. A Chapter in Her Life explores the efforts of a young girl (Jane Mercer) whose childish innocence exposes the hypocrisy and weakness that threaten the happiness of an aristocratic family.

Special features:
*New 2K restorations by Universal Pictures
*Audio commentary for Sensation Seekers by Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood

Beaver.

[domino harvey]

I completely missed that FTA is getting a Blu-ray release in a few weeks!

[Ovader]

Coming to Blu-ray July 20th from Kino Classics and StudioCanal! Jean Renoir's Whirlpool of Fate (1925) and Nana (1926).

[Glowingwabbit]

R. Emmet Sweeney tweeted about a 2-disc collection of Ken Jacobs' films. It says volume 1 on it as well. Pretty exciting as I don't believe his work has gotten any US release before (besides some anthology series perhaps). The cover is also posted in the tweet: https://twitter.com/r_emmet/status/1388 ... 30628?s=20

[hearthesilence]

R. Emmet Sweeney tweeted about a 2-disc collection of Ken Jacobs' films. It says volume 1 on it as well. Pretty exciting as I don't believe his work has gotten any US release before (besides some anthology series perhaps). The cover is also posted in the tweet: https://twitter.com/r_emmet/status/1388 ... 30628?s=20

Oh nice! I never expected to see this anytime soon (if ever). I've seen a few at Anthology, but will definitely be picking this up.