26.11.2014 12:29
Thief
Release Date: 26 January 2015
Format: Blu-ray
Starring: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson
Directed by: Michael Mann
Synopsis:
For his first theatrical feature, Michael Mann (Manhunter, Public Enemies) returned to the rain-soaked streets of his hometown, Chicago, for a stunning piece of neo-noir starring James Caan (The Godfather, Rollerball) at his toughest.
Caan plays Frank, a jewel thief and former convict who is looking to settle down with his girlfriend (Tuesday Weld, Once Upon a Time in America) and begin a family. But when his fence is thrown from a window and the Chicago mafia begin to flex their muscles, his hopes of a quiet life become anything but
With a sterling supporting cast in the shape of James Belushi, Robert Prosky, Willie Nelson and Dennis Farina, lush electronic score by Tangerine Dream and the assured direction of Mann, Thief is a standout eighties crime flick that paved the way for the his later urban thrillers such as Heat and Collateral as well as Nicolas Winding Refns Drive.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
– Limited Slipcase Edition [3000 units] featuring two versions of the film
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the directors cut from a new 4K film transfer, approved by director Michael Mann, with uncompressed 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the original theatrical cut [Limited Edition Exclusive] with original uncompressed 2.0 Stereo PCM audio
– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Optional isolated music and effects track on the theatrical cut
– Audio commentary by writer-director Michael Mann and actor James Caan
– The Directors: Michael Mann a 2001 documentary on the filmmaker, containing interviews with Mann, James Belushi, William Petersen, Jon Voight and others
– Stolen Dreams – a new interview with Caan, filmed exclusively for this release
– Hollywood USA: James Caan an episode of the French TV series Ciné regards devoted to the actor, filmed shortly after Thief had finished production
– The Art of the Heist – an examination of Thief with writer and critic F.X. Feeney, author of the Taschen volume on Michael Mann
– Theatrical trailer
– Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by maarko phntm
– Illustrated collectors booklet featuring new writing on the film by Brad Stevens
Rabid
Release Date: 2nd February 2015
Format: Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD
Starring: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Synopsis:
PRAY IT DOESNT HAPPEN TO YOU! First come the Shivers then, you turn RABID! Celebrated Canadian cult auteur David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome) followed up Shivers with this tense and gory thriller which expands upon the venereal disease theme of that film, this time unleashing it on the whole of downtown Montreal with terrifying consequences.
When beautiful Rose (adult film star Marilyn Chambers) is badly injured in a motorcycle crash, Dr. Keloid, who is in the process of developing a revolutionary new type of skin-graft, seizes the opportunity to test out his as yet unproven methods. The surgery appears successful and Rose seems restored to full health. But all is not as it should be Rose has been transformed into a contagious blood-sucker, endowed with a bizarre, needle-like protrusion in her armpit with which she drains the blood from those unfortunate enough to be in her vicinity.
An important landmark in the early career of Cronenberg, Rabid sees the director returning to the viral theme of his earlier work but on a much larger (and more assured) scale where the infection has shifted from the confines of a single apartment block to the expansive shopping centres and motorways of Canadas second largest city.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
– Limited Edition SteelBook packaging
– New High Definition Digital Transfer
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature
– Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Audio Commentary with writer-director David Cronenberg
– Audio Commentary with William Beard, author of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg
– Archive interview with David Cronenberg
– Brand new interview with executive producer Ivan Reitman
– Brand new interview with co-producer Don Carmody
– Make-up Memories: Joe Blasco Remembers Rabid A short featurette in which Blasco recalls how the films various gruesome effects were achieved
– Raw, Rough and Rabid: The Lacerating Legacy of Cinépix Featurette looking back at the early years of the celebrated Canadian production company, including interviews with author Kier-La Janisse and special makeup artist Joe Blasco
– The Directors: David Cronenberg A 1999 documentary on the filmmaker, containing interviews with Cronenberg, Marilyn Chambers, Deborah Harry, Michael Ironside, Peter Weller and others
– Original Theatrical Trailer
– Collectors Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kier-La Janisse, reprinted excerpts of Cronenberg on Cronenberg and more, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
The Comedy of Terrors
Release Date: 16th February 2015
Format: Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD
Starring: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Synopsis:
From Jacques Tourneur, director of numerous horror classics including Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and Night of the Demon, comes The Comedy of Terrors a gleefully macabre tale which brings together genre greats Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff.
Price plays Waldo Trumbull, a perpetually inebriated, down-on-his-luck undertaker who has struck on an interesting way to boost business by hastening the deaths of those whom he buries. When landlord Mr. Black (Basil Rathbone) threatens to put him out on the street for falling behind with the rent, Trumbull, together with his reluctant and bumbling assistant Felix Gillie (Lorre), hatches an ill-advised plan to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak
The penultimate directorial effort from Tourneur, The Comedy of Terrors bears many of the hallmarks of the master filmmakers earlier works, whilst adding a healthy dash of humour to the proceedings. Careful you might just die laughing!
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature, transferred from original film elements by MGM
– Original Mono 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Audio Commentary with Price historian David Del Valle
– Extensive archive interview with Vincent Price
– Whispering in Distant Chambers: The Nightfall of Jacques Tourneur a specially-commissioned video essay by David Cairns, which charts the career of director Tourneur- Richard Matheson Storyteller an archive featurette on the Comedy of Terrors writer
– Original Theatrical Trailer
– Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper
– Collectors booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris Fujiwara, author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
The Killing + Killer's Kiss
Release Date: 9th February 2015
Format: Blu-rayStarring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Synopsis:
An ex-con, a corrupt cop, a reformed alcoholic, a wrestler, a sharpshooter and a pair of inside men: these seven men intent on executing the perfect robbery and taking a racetrack for two million dollars. But this is the world of film noir, a tough, sour place where nothing quite goes as planned
For his third feature Stanley Kubrick adapted Lionel Whites Clean Break with a little help from hard-boiled specialist Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me), and in doing so created a heist movie classic, one to rank alongside John Hustons The Asphalt Jungle and Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs. The robbery itself is one of cinemas great set-pieces, as taut a piece of filmmaking as youll ever find, expertly controlled by Kubrick, who called The Killing his first mature work.
Starring Sterling Hayden (Johnny Guitar, The Godfather), perennial fall guy Elisha Cook Jr (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep) and Marie Windsor (The Narrow Margin) as his duplicitous wife, The Killing is quintessential film noir, still as brutal, thrilling and audacious as it was almost six decades ago.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature
– Original uncompressed mono PCM Audio
– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Stanley Kurbricks second feature, Killers Kiss (1955), presented in High Definition (1080p)
– A look at Kubrick's 1950s output with critic Michel Ciment
– An appreciation by filmmaker Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers)
– An extract from the French television series Journal de la cinéma featuring an interview with Sterling Hayden
– Original theatrical trailers for both films
– Collectors booklet containing new writing by Peter Kramer (author of volumes on Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange), Barry Forshaw and filmmaker Ron Peck, illustrated with original archive stills
Tenebrae
Release Date: 19 January 2015
Format: Blu-rayStarring: Anthony Franciosa, Daria Nicolodi, John Saxon
Directed by: Dario Argento
Synopsis:
Terror Beyond Belief! A notorious horror classic returns in all its depraved glory. This infamous video nasty updated the classic Giallo blueprint for the gorified 80s, courting controversy and drenching the viewer in crimson arterial spray.
A razor-wielding psycho is stalking the horror writer Peter Neal, in Rome to promote his latest work, Tenebre. But the author isnt the obsessive killers only target, the beautiful women who surround him are doomed as one by one, they fall victim to the murderers slashing blade
Will fiction and reality blur as fear and madness take hold? Watch in terror as by turns the cast fall victim to the sadistic imagination of Dario Argento, Italys master of horror.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
– Newly remastered High Definition digital transfer of the film
– Presented in High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD
– Optional original English & Italian Mono Audio tracks (uncompressed PCM Mono 2.0 Audio on the Blu-ray)
– Optional English subtitles for Italian audio and English SDH subtitles for English audio for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Audio Commentary with authors and critics Kim Newman and Alan Jones
– Audio Commentary with Argento expert Thomas Rostock
– Introduction by star Daria Nicolodi
– The Unsane World of Tenebrae: An interview with director Dario Argento
– Screaming Queen! Daria Nicolodi remembers Tenebrae
– A Composition for Carnage: Composer Claudio Simonetti on Tenebrae
– Goblin: Tenebrae and Phenomena Live from the Glasgow Arches
– Brand new interview with Maitland McDonagh, author of Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento
– Original Trailer
– Reversible Sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
– Exclusive collectors booklet featuring writing on the film by Alan Jones, author of Profondo Argento, an interview with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli and an appreciation of the film by director Peter Strickland, illustrated with original posters and lobby cards
