Kino Lorber Announces its August 2019 Home Video Releases
Touch of Death (Raro Video, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: August 6, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
1970 / Horror / 86 min / Color
Director: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Brett Halsey, Ria De Simone, Al Cliver
Synopsis:
Lester Parson has a great shortcoming: he loves gambling and betting which always, inevitably, makes him broke. Prematurely a widower, Lester decides to resolve his constant need for cash by seducing rich women who are themselves widowed. Once intimate he persuades them to place all their wealth in his name and then he slaughters them mercilessly and, if the situation is such, he eats them. Things appear to be going ok until a mysterious murderer begins emulating Parson’s crimes.
Bonus Features: When Lucio Fulci broke the mirror (20 min., English subtitles)
Big Ballet Day (Wiggles, DVD)
DVD Street Date: August 6, 2019
DVD SRP: $14.99
Children / 71 min / NR / Color
Director: Anthony Field
Starring: Anthony Field, Lachy Gillespie, Simon Pryce, Emma Watkins
Synopsis: The Wiggles are ffo to the ballet in this new release, The Wiggles’ Big Ballet Day! Joining with dancers from The Australian Ballet, The Wiggles warm up, demi-plié and jeté with joy! We hope this wiggly ballet special inspires the child viewer to dress up, listen to the ballet music, watch and express themselves through their own form of ballet. The Wiggles visit the theatre to watch David McAllister’s The Sleeping Beauty and children can follow on the adventure of going to the theatre, buying popcorn and, most importantly, taking the time to visit the bathroom to go to the toilet before the show starts. ‘The Toilet Song’ is one of many new songs featured in this release, as well as the debut of the bright, fun, bubbly new character Shirley Shawn the Unicorn! We had such a wonderful time creating this wiggly ballet special and we would like to thank Ballet Master Paul Knobloch and the dancers from The Australian Ballet – Lana Jones, Leanne Stojmenov, Ako Kondo, Chengwu Guo, Jarryd Madden, Dana Stephensen, Benedicte Bemet and Jake Mangakahia. Please enjoy The Wiggles’ Big Ballet Day!
– Emma, on behalf of all The Wiggles
Bonus Features: The Wiggles’ Big Bloopers Day & Photo Gallery
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache (DVD)
DVD Street Date: August 20, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95
Documentary / 102 min / G / Color
Director: Pamela B. Green
Narrated by Jodie Foster
Synopsis: When Alice Guy-Blaché completed her first film in 1896 Paris, she was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors ever to make a narrative film. Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché follows her rise from Gaumont secretary to her appointment as head of production a year later, and her subsequent illustrious 20-year career in France and in the United States, as the founder of her own studio and as writer, director, and/or producer of 1,000 films-after which she was veritably erased from history. Until now…. Directed by Pamela B. Green, the film is narrated by Jodie Foster.
Last Year at Marienbad (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: August 20, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95
Drama / 94 min / NR / B&W
Director: Alain Resnais
Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff
Synopsis: Winner of the Golden Lion at the 1961 Venice Film Festival, Last Year in Marienbad (1961) is a hypnotically beautiful puzzle box of a film, and one of the most influential in history. Alan Resnais’s sensuous tracking shots and Delphine Seyrig’s iconic Chanel gowns have become part of the cinematic lexicon, and can now be seen in a gorgeous 4K restoration from StudioCanal. In a large international hotel in the European resort town of Marienbad, with a sumptuous but austere décor-a marble universe with gold paneling, statues, and stuff servants-the rich, anonymous, idle clientele circulates. A man (Giorgio Albertazzi) is convinced he met an enigmatic woman (Seyrig, Jeanne Dielman) the previous year at the same location, and perhaps had a flirtation. A second man (Sacha Pitoëff, Inferno), possibly the woman’s lover or husband, repeatedly intimidates the first man. Their relations unfold through flashback shards that never quite fit into place, their lives a hall of mirrors that never reveal a true self.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas / Trailers / Booklet essay by Vanity Fair film critic K. Austin Collins / Interview with filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff / Last Year at Marienbad A to Z, a visual essay by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque / Memories of Last Year at Marienbad, a making-of doc using Super-8 footage shot on set / Toute la mémoire du monde (1957), a short film by Alain Resnais.
The Bureau Season 4 (Kino Lorber, DVD)
DVD Street Date: August 20, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95
Drama / 520 min / NR / Color
Director: Eric Rochant, Pascale Ferran, Anna Novion, Antoine Chevrollier, Laïla Marrakchi
Synopsis: In Season 4 of the critically-acclaimed French spy series The Bureau, Malotru (Mathieu Kassovitz, Amélie) is hiding out in Moscow while being relentlessly pursued by the CIA and DGSE (France’s Directorate-General for External Security). In order to survive he explores a collaboration with the Russian secret service. Back in Paris, the “Bureau of Legends,” the most confidential branch of the DGSE, is in the crosshairs of JJA (Mathieu Amalric, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), the new Director of Internal Security within the DGSE. JJA feels very strongly that The Bureau is due for a big shake-up: believing it had been under Malotru’s influence for far too long.
The Bureau nevertheless goes ahead and launches two large-scale operations: one to infiltrate Russian hackers in Moscow, the other to track French jihadists across the Middle East. Both missions push the Bureau agents to their limit, and up against the unavoidable shadow of Malotru.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: August 20, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95
Drama / 112 min / NR / B&W
Director: Harry Pollard
Starring: James B. Lowe, Margarita Fisher, George Siegmann
Synopsis: An earnest attempt to depict the harsh realities of slavery, Harry Pollard’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was — at an advertised cost of $2 million — one of the most extravagant epics of its time. Margarita Fisher stars as Eliza, a slave who flees a Kentucky plantation after her son and a dignified father figure, Uncle Tom (James Lowe), are sold to a rival landowner. Her Dickensian quest eventually places her in the backwater kingdom of the sadistic Simon Legree (George Siegmann). But the film’s most memorable sequence is Eliza’s flight to freedom across a treacherous ice floe (a staple of the many stage productions, which D.W. Griffith shamelessly appropriated for his 1920 film Way Down East).
Bonus Features: 2K restoration of the original 1927 release with Movietone score by Ernö Rapée / Complete 1958 re-issue version, introduced and narrated by Raymond Massey / Audio commentary by historian Edward J. Blum / Essay by film historian David Pierce (Blu-ray) / New 2K restoration of the 1914 World Film version, starring Sam Lucas, preserved by the Library of Congress, music by Andrew Earle Simpson / New 2K restoration of the 1910 Vitagraph version, directed by J. Stuart Blackton, preserved by the Library of Congress, music by Andrew Earle Simpson
Babylon (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95
1980 / Drama / 95 min / NR / Color
Director: Franco Rosso
Starring: Brinsley Forde, Karl Howman, Trevor Laird, Brian Bovell, Victor Romero Evans, David N. Haynes, Archie Pool, T. Bone Wilson, Mark Monero and Beverly Michaels
Synopsis: Franco Rosso’s incendiary Babylon had its world premiere at Cannes in 1980 but went unreleased in the U.S. for “being too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension” (Vivien Goldman, Time Out). Raw and smoldering, it follows a young reggae DJ (Brinsley Forde, frontman of landmark British group Aswad) in Thatcher-era Brixton as he pursues his musical ambitions, battling fiercely against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbors, police, and the National Front. Written by Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia) and shot by two-time Oscar® winner Chris Menges (The Killing Fields), Babylon is fearless and unsentimental, and set to a blistering reggae, dub, and lovers rock soundtrack featuring Aswad, Johnny Clarke, and more, anchored by legendary producer Dennis Bovell’s (The Slits) atmospheric score.
Bonus Features: Audio Commentary with director Franco Rosso, screenwriter Martin Stellman, actor Brinsley Forde and producer Gavrik Losey, Booklet Essay by Music Journalist Mike Rubin, Dread Beat and Blood (1979) — short documentary on Linton Kwesi Johnson directed by Franco Rosso, New Interviews with Brinsley Forde and Dennis Bovell, Restoration Featurette, Q&A with Cast and Crew (Recorded at the BFI Southbank in 2008), Trailers
Love Letters (Scorpion Releasing, Blu-ray & DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: August 27, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95
1983 / Drama / 88 min / R / Color
Director: Amy Holden Jones
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, James Keach, Matt Clark, Bud Cort, Amy Madigan, Bonnie Bartlett, Sally Kirkland
Synopsis: Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, Terror Train, The Fog) stars in a poignant tale of forbidden love and obsession, as a young woman who discovers her recently deceased mother’s love letters, revealing a secret double life of love and infidelity. Now she finds herself retracing her mother’s emotional footsteps as she becomes involved with a married man (James Keach, Stand Alone, Moving Violations). Also starring Bud Cort (Traveling Executioner, Brewster McCloud), Amy Madigan (Places In The Heart, Streets of Fire) and Matt Clark (Eye For An Eye, The Grissom Gang), now see this film in HD from an uncut master!
Bonus Features: Interview with co-star James Keach | Theatrical Trailer
Butley (Kino Classics, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: August 27, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
1974 / Drama / 130 min / NR / Color
Director: Harold Pinter
Starring: Alan Bates, Jessica Tandy, Michael Byrne, Georgina Hale, Susan Engel, Richard O’Callaghan
Synopsis: On any given day, Ben Butley, a self-made train wreck of an English Literature professor at a London university, can shrug off everyone and everything with equal ease. But today, the disaster of Butley’s proudly misspent life threatens to dwarf even his cynically fatalistic non-expectations. Arriving at his cramped cave of an office, Butley is informed that his adored protégé Joey (Richard O’Callaghan) is moving in with another man, his estranged wife (Susan Engel) is re-marrying, and his seemingly untalented colleague has been published ahead of him. Acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter, in what Time Magazine hailed as “a quite superior directorial debut,” turns author Simon Gray’s single-set dialogue-driven play into an irresistibly dynamic visual experience that tracks Bates’s hilarious and fearless performance with cunning precision.
Bonus Features: Interview with Alan Bates, Interview with Edie Landau, “Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera,” a promotional film for the American Film Theatre, Gallery of trailers for the American Film Theatre, Optional English SDH subtitles
In Celebration (Kino Classics, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: August 27, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
1975 / Drama / 130 min / NR / Color
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Starring: Alan Bates, Brian Cox, James Bolam, Bill Owen, Constance Chapman
Synopsis: Utilizing the same cast that appeared in the play’s acclaimed Royal Court Theatre run, director Lindsay Anderson (If….) transforms the stage triumph of In Celebration into a riveting cinematic experience. In their tiny house in a Yorkshire mining town, God-fearing and hardworking Mr. and Mrs. Shaw (Bill Owen and Constance Chapman) welcome their sons home to celebrate the couple’s fortieth wedding anniversary. But with each son’s arrival, more of the Shaws’ model family facade begins to wear away. Colin (James Bolam) is on the path to a loveless marriage. Steven (Brian Cox) is on the threshold of a nervous breakdown. But it is eldest son Andrew (Alan Bates) who tears into the Shaw family’s carefully maintained fictions, to either heal the painful rifts or else finally tear apart the fabric that binds them together.
Bonus Features: Interview with Alan Bates / Interview with playwright David Storey / Interview with Edie Landau / “Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera,” a promotional film for the American Film Theatre / Gallery of trailers for the American Film Theatre / Optional English SDH subtitles
Blue (Zeitgeist Films, Blu-ray) New 4K master overseen by producer James Mackay
Blu-ray Street Date: August 27, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $24.95
1993 / Drama / 75 min / NR / Color
Director: Derek Jarman
Starring: Derek Jarman, Tilda Swinton, John Quentin
Synopsis: In his final-and most daring-cinematic statement, Derek Jarman the romantic meets Jarman the iconoclast in a lush soundscape pulsing against a purely blue screen. Laying bare his physical and spiritual state in a narration about his life, his struggle with AIDS and his encroaching blindness, Blue is by turns poignant, amusing, poetic and philosophical.
Bonus Features: Bliss(1991, a concert recording of the project that would become Blue) / David Lewis remembers Blue / Glitterbug (1994, a compilation of Derek Jarman’s home movies, scored by Brian Eno) / Hard to Imagine (John Maybury recalls Jarman’s journey towards Blue) / James Mackay remembers Blue / Simon Fisher Turner remembers Blue / Blue plaque unveiling
The Garden (Zeitgeist Films, Blu-ray and DVD) New 2K restoration overseen by producer James Mackay
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: August 27, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95
1990 / Drama / 92 min / NR / Color
Director: Derek Jarman
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Johnny Mills, Philip MacDonald
Synopsis: Half waking dream and half fiery polemic, The Garden was born of director Derek Jarman’s rage over continued anti-gay discrimination and the sluggardly response to the AIDS crisis — he had been diagnosed HIV-positive in 1988. Starring Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton), this uniquely kaleidoscopic film shows the filmmaker’s genius at its most coruscating, making space in its breadth of vision for an over-the-top Hollywood-style musical number, nightmare images of tar-and-feather queer persecution, and footage of the particularly menacing-looking nuclear power plant that overlooks Jarman’s own garden, the point from which his film begins, and a cherished spot which he must keep tending to even as his body begins to betray him. Writhing with sorrow and anger, and yet so vividly alive to the loveliness of being, The Garden is a baleful and beautiful epistle from the brink of beyond.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan / After the Garden, Richard Heslop remembers Derek Jarman’s later days / Anything Can Happen, Richard Heslop on working with Jarman / David Lewis remembers The Garden / James Mackay remembers The Garden / The Other Great Masterpiece, John Maybury considers Jarman’s enthusiasm for gardening / Trailer
