Kino Lorber May Releases

A Delicate Balance (Kino Classics, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: May 7, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

1973 / Drama / 133 min / PG / Color

Director: Tony Richardson
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Remick, Kate Reid, Joseph Coten, Betsy Blair

Synopsis: Four-time Oscar®-winner Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Academy Award®-winner Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons) lead a cast of stage and screen luminaries in this acclaimed adaptation of the heart-wrenching drama by Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directed by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones). Agnes (Hepburn) and Tobias (Scofield) are the heads of an affluent Connecticut family,whose quietude and tenuous happiness are disrupted by a series of houseguests, each of whom has come to unburden themselves of their darkest emotional secrets.

Special Features: Interview with Edward Albee / Interview with cinematographer David Watkin / 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 / English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

Blu-ray Street Date: May 7, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

1974 / Comedy / 104 min / PG / Color

Director: Tom O’Horgan
Starring: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Karen Black

Synopsis: Reunited for the first and only time after their triumph in Mel Brooks’s The Producers, Gene Wilder and Zero Mostrel push their shared genius for physical slapstick, manic wit, and sly satire to a level of fearless absurdity that virtually no other comedy team would dare approach. Director Tom O’Horgan, originator of the Broadway smash Hair, transforms Eugene Ionesco’s Theater of the Absurd curio Rhinoceros into a fluid, character-rich screen comedy that The Hollywood Reporter deemed, “an excellent film.”

Special Features: Interview with director Tom O’Horgan / 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 / English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

Sex Madness Revealed (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray & DVD Street Date: May 7, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

Comedy / 66 min / NR / Color

Director: Tim Kirk
Starring: Patton Oswalt, Rob Zabrecky, Patrick Cooper

Synopsis: Playfully exploring the outer reaches of cult film fandom, Sex Madness Revealed is both an ingenious twist on the audio commentary and a satire of the wisecrack track (featuring the voice of MST3K regular Patton Oswalt).

Using as it foundation a low-budget sex hygiene picture from 1938 (Sex Madness, aka Human Wreckage), we listen in as Jimmy Morris (Oswalt), of the popular “Film Dick” podcast, hosts an irreverent conversation with the filmmaker’s grandson, the eerily emotionless Chester Holloway (Rob Zabrecky) while the film streams behind them. But as the on-screen plot unfolds, a much darker story unravels within the recording booth, about the sinister mastermind behind the film, and the unorthodox methods he employed. behind the film, and the unorthodox methods he employed.

Blu-ray Street Date: May 14, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

1975 / Drama / 107 min / PG / Color

Director: Michael Anderson

Starring: Michael York, Stacy Keach, Christopher Plummer, Richard Attenborough, Susannah York, Trevor Howard, James Faulkner, James Donald

Synopsis: An Unspeakable Crime Among Officer and Ladies! Honor. Duty. Respect. The timeless moral and ethical code of our military-and the backbone of civilized Western society. All are at risk for this British regiment stationed in colonial India at the end of the nineteenth century. The conduct unbecoming: a beautiful widow (Susannah York, The Silent Partner) is brutally attacked by one of the new officers. In a desperate bid to prevent a public scandal, the superior officers Richard Attenborough (Jurassic Park), Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express), Stacy Keach (Road Games) and Christopher Plummer (Murder by Decree) undertake a Court Martial. Can an idealistic young officer (Michael York, Logan’s Run) defend the accused attacker (James Faulkner, Game of Thrones), even if it means shattering the military’s-and his own-code of honor? Conduct Unbecoming boasts a stellar cast in an epic historical drama which will keep you in suspense until the shocking climax. Co-starring James Donald (The Bridge on the River Kwai) and directed by Michael Anderson (Orca, Operation Crossbow, The Quiller Memorandum).

Special Features: NEW interview with actor Stacy Keach | NEW interview with actor James Faulkner | NEW interview with editor John Glen | Audio Commentary by star Michael York | Audio Commentary by director Michael Anderson | Trailers

What is Democracy? (Zeitgeist Films, DVD)
DVD Street Date: May 14, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95

Documentary / 107 min / NR / Color

Director: Astra Taylor
Starring: Wendy Brown, Silvia Federici, George A. Papandreou

Synopsis: Coming at a moment of profound political and social crisis, What Is Democracy? reflects on a word we too often take for granted. What does it mean for the people to rule-and is that something we even want?

Director Astra Taylor’s idiosyncratic philosophical journey takes us from ancient Athens’ groundbreaking experiment in self-government to capitalism’s roots in medieval Italy; from modern-day Greece grappling with financial collapse and a mounting refugee crisis to the United States reckoning with its racist past and the growing gap between rich and poor.

Celebrated theorists Silvia Federici, Cornel West, Wendy Brown, and Angela Davis are joined by trauma surgeons, activists, factory workers, asylum seekers, former prime ministers, and others. This urgent film connects the past and the present, the emotional and the intellectual, the personal and the political, in order to provoke and inspire. If we want to live in a democracy, we must first ask what the word even means.

Special Features: DELETED SCENES * Q&A AT THE JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER * TRAILER INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ASTRA TAYLOR ON THE DIG, A PODCAST FROM JACOBIN MAGAZINE

DVD Street Date: May 21, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95

Documentary / 91 min / NR / B&W

Director: Sasha Waters Freyer
Starring: Geoff Dyer, Jeffrey Fraenkel, Susan Kismaric

Synopsis: Described as a “poet”, an “athlete”, or a “philosopher” of photography, Garry Winogrand harnessed the serendipity of the streets to capture the American 1960s and ’70s. His Leica M4 snapped spontaneous images of everyday people, from the Mad Men era of New York to the early years of the Women’s Movement to post-Golden Age Hollywood, all while observing themes of cultural upheaval, political disillusionment, intimacy and alienation. Once derided by the critics, Winogrand’s “snapshot aesthetic” is now the universal language of contemporary image making. Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable is the first cinematic treatment of Winogrand’s work, including selections from the thousands of rolls of film still undeveloped upon his unexpected death in 1984. Interviews with Tod Papageorge, Matthew Weiner and more attest to Winogrand’s indisputable influence, both as artist and chronicler of culture, while archived conversations with Jay Maisel highlight the gruff, streetwise perspective of “a city hick from the Bronx.” In the tradition of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand’s candid, psychological style transports us to a bygone world, one where image lacked the editing and control possible today.

Special Features: DELETED SCENES * Q&A AT THE JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER * TRAILER INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ASTRA TAYLOR ON THE DIG, A PODCAST FROM JACOBIN MAGAZINE

RKO Classic Adventures (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: May 21, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $34.95
DVD SRP: $29.95

1930-31 / Adventure / 220 min / NR / B&W

Director: Howard Higgin, Lowell Sherman, George Archainbaud
Starring: Bill Boyd, Helen Twelvetrees, Lowell Sherman, Marian Nixon, Evelyn Brent, Joel McCrea

Synopsis: Kino Classics and Lobster Films are proud to present four newly restored action-packed films in the RKO CLASSIC ADVENTURES collection. Preserved by the Library of Congress and restored by Lobster Films, these potent two-fisted brawlers from the prolific RKO Radio Pictures studio were the types of movies that sold out theaters in the wild early days of sound film. The Painted Desert is a pistol-packing Western about feudin’ families starring Bill Boyd and Helen Twelvetrees (and featuring Clark Gable in his talkie film debut). The Pay-Off is a cool-minded gangster movie directed by (and starring!) Lowell Sherman as an honorable mobster in a dishonorable racket. The Silver Horde drops Joel McCrea into the midst of a dreaded rivalry between two fishing groups – led by Evelyn Brent on one side and Gavin Gordon on the other.

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: May 21, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $39.95
DVD SRP: $29.95

1930-31 / Romance / 385 min / NR / B&W

Director: John Francis Dillon, Lloyd Bacon, George Archainbaud, Victor Schertzinger, Paul L. Stein
Starring: Helen Twelvetrees, Clara Kimball Young, Betty Compson, Lili Damita, Constance Bennett

Synopsis: Kino Classics and Lobster Films are proud to present five Pre-Code love stories from RKO Radio Pictures in the RKO CLASSIC ROMANCES collection. Preserved by the Library of Congress and restored by Lobster Films, these are tearjerkers that will tug every last heartstring. Millie is a grand melodrama about a divorcée (Helen Twelvetrees) who climbs the ranks at a luxe hotel, and whose tattered romantic relationships drive her to a life of independence. Kept Husbands circles around a bet made by a steel magnate’s impish daughter, played by Dorothy Mackaill. She guarantees that she will get a plant manager (Joel McCrea) to marry her within four weeks. She wins her bet, but gets all the class issues that come with it. The Lady Refuses is a frank Pre-Code melodrama about a poor woman on the verge of becoming a prostitute (Betty Compson), who is hired by an aristocrat to woo his son away from a gold-digger. The Woman Between is a risqué romance in which Lili Damita unknowingly enters into an affair with her estranged stepson (Lester Vail). In Sin Takes a Holiday Constance Bennett plays a poor secretary in love with her boss – a womanizing divorce attorney. He proposes a sham marriage to Bennett to keep his lovers at bay, giving her what she wants in exactly the wrong way.

The Image Book (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: May 21, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $34.95
DVD SRP: $29.95

Drama / 87 min / NR / Color and B&W

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Jean-Luc Godard, Dimitri Basil, Buster Keaton

Synopsis: The legendary Jean-Luc Godard (La Chinoise, Goodbye to Language) adds to his influential, iconoclastic legacy with this provocative collage film essay, a vast ontological inquiry into the history of the moving image and a commentary on the contemporary world. Winner of the first Special Palme d’Or to be awarded in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, The Image Book is another extraordinary addition to the French master’s filmography.

Displaying an encyclopedic grasp of cinema and its history, Godard pieces together fragments from some of the greatest films of the past, then digitally alters, bleaches, and washes them, all in the service of reflecting on what he sees in front of him and what he makes of the dissonance that surrounds him. He uses his own voice to guide us through the fascinating labyrinth of his mind. In some cases, it is to reflect on the metaphysical properties of the world – time, and space, and where meaning is found – but more importantly it is the image, the thing that has obsessed Godard for his entire career, that anchors this film. His ontological enquiry into the image continues to be one of the most moving in history.
– Piers Handling, CEO/Director Toronto International Film Festival

Special Features: Interview with producer and DP Fabrice Aragno * Trailers * Booklet essay by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque * Conversation with researcher/critic Nicole Brenez at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam (94 minutes)Interview with producer and DP Fabrice Aragno * Trailers * Booklet essay by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque * Conversation with researcher/critic Nicole Brenez at the
2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam (94 minutes)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: May 28, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1968 / Drama / 106 min / NR / Color

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Starring: Laurent Terzieff, Elisabeth Wiener, Bernard Fresson

Synopsis: The final film of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear) brilliant career, La Prisonnière (1968) is a sensuously colorful film of voyeuristic sexual obsession. It maps a love triangle between abstract sculptor Gilbert (Bernard Fresson), his TV editor girlfriend Josée (Elisabeth Wiener), and art gallery owner Stanislas (Laurent Terzieff). At an art opening, Gilbert ditches Josée, so she ends up going home with Stanislas, who shows her a photograph of a woman in bondage. The image is shocking and alluring, and Josée asks to attend his next erotic photo shoot, her first step in unlocking the depths of her desires. Making full use of the psychedelic optical effects that Clouzot developed for the unfinished L’Enfer, La Prisonnière is a visionary swansong for this legendary cinema artist.

Special Features: Audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger * Booklet essay by film critic Elena Lazic The Rebellious Elisabeth Wiener (25 minutes) * Trailer

The Nun (1965) La Religieuse (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: May 28, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1965 / Drama / 140 min / NR / Color

Director: Jacques Rivette
Starring: Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver

Synopsis: Restored in 4K from the original lm negative, Jacques Rivette’s THE NUN (1965), initially banned in France, can now be seen in all its revolutionary glory. Adapted from Denis Diderot’s novel, it follows a rebellious nun (played by an incandescent Anna Karina) who is forced into taking her vows. Initially shunted into a restrictive, torturous convent, she eventually moves on to a more liberated one, where she becomes an object of Mother Superior’s (Liselotte Pulver) obsession. Banned for over a year by the French Minister of Information, and not released in the United States until 1971, it slowly became a landmark of the French New Wave, and with this stunning restoration, should also become an object of worship.

Special Features: Audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton / Booklet essay by Dennis Lim, director of programming at the Film Society of Lincoln Center / Suzanne Simonin, / La Scandaleuse, a new making-of documentary (29 minutes) / Trailer

DVD Street Date: May 28, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95

Documentary / 81 min / NR / Color

Director: Mark Noonan

Synopsis: Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect is a revelatory documentary about the enigmatic Pritzker Prize-winning Irish-American architect Kevin Roche. He reached the top of his profession, but had little interest in celebrity and eschewed the label of “Starchitect.” Despite a lifetime of acclaimed work that includes 40 years designing new galleries for The Met in New York, he had no intention of ever retiring. He graduated from University College Dublin in 1945, and after more than 60 years in the USA, his first Irish project, the Convention Centre Dublin, opened in 2010. Roche’s architectural philosophy focused on creating “a community for a modern society” and he has been credited with creating green buildings before they became part of the public consciousness. He has won awards for his designs of over 300 major buildings around the world, among them the Pritzker Prize in 1982 – the highest honor given to a living architect.

A Space Program (Ultimate Blu Ray Edition) (Zeitgeist Films, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: May 28, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

Documentary / 67 min / NR / Color

Director: Van Neistat
Starring: Chris Beeston, Nick Doyle, Mary Eannarino

Synopsis: In A Space Program, presented in its definitive Director’s Cut, internationally acclaimed artist Tom Sachs takes us on an intricately handmade journey to the red planet, providing audiences with an intimate, first-person look into his studio and methods. The film is both a piece of art in its own right and a recording of Sachs’ historic piece, Space Program 2.0: MARS, which opened at NYC’s Park Avenue Armory in 2012.

Special Features: Theatrical cut of the feature (69 minutes) * 7 short films by Tom Sachs and Van Neistat (100+ minutes) Feature audio commentary by Tom Sachs and director Van Neistat * Trailer