The Princess Bride (1987) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

A high-spirited adventure that pits true love against inconceivable odds, The Princess Bride has charmed legions of fans with its irreverent gags, eccentric ensemble, and dazzling swordplay.
A kid (Fred Savage), home sick from school, grudgingly allows his grandfather (Peter Falk) to read him a dusty storybook — which is how we meet the innocent Buttercup (Robin Wright, in her breakout role), about to marry the nefarious Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) though her heart belongs to Westley (Cary Elwes). The wedding plans are interrupted, however, by a mysterious pirate, a vengeful Spaniard, and a good-natured giant, in a tale full of swashbuckling, romance, and outrageously hilarious spoofery. Directed by Rob Reiner from an endlessly quotable script by William Goldman, The Princess Bride reigns as a fairy-tale classic.

BD50, 2xDVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:38:38 | 44.3 Gb + 12.8 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Romance

Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright
Country: USA
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After Love (2020) Blu-Ray BFI

It's a quiet domestic scene. A Muslim couple arrive home, she makes a cup of tea in their nicely equipped kitchen and chats to him while he settles down in his armchair in the next room in the background. She takes him his tea, speaks to him and he doesn't reply. There's no sound, we can't hear what she says next, but her actions make it very clear that something sudden and terrible has happened.

That brief moment at the start of After Love changes Mary's (Joanna Scanlan) life for ever. An English woman who converted to Islam to marry the man she loved years ago, she's an integral part of the community attending the mosque in Dover, who all support her in the following days. After the funeral, she sits amongst them, clad from head to toe in white, her face a picture of numb pain. It's only when the dust settles and she starts going through her husband's possessions that she discovers he had a secret life, something she'd never suspected, and her need to find out more takes her across the Channel to France...

Secrets, lies, love and sacrifices spanning a lifetime resonate across the English Channel and far beyond in writer-director Aleem Khan's staggering debut, After Love.
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The Lumiere Brothers’ First Films (1895-1897) DVD5

This restored collection of the works of cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumiere is a must-see for film historians and fans of movies in general.
When they turned a motion picture camera on fellow factory workers leaving work for the day on March 19, 1895, the Lumiere Brothers shot the world's first film. It wasn't until they premiered their footage in December of that same year that the art of cinema was truly born. As they continued to develop their miraculous invention, the cinematographe, the brothers boldly began to film natural events as they unfolded. Shot in a series of unedited takes that usually last about one minute, their wide-ranging catalog is more documentary-like than fictional or abstract.
Included in this remarkable collection is "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat," "Demolition of a Wall," "A Sprinkler Sprinkled," and other rare works. Providing even greater historical insight into the images is the narration by director Bertrand Tavernier, who describes the influence of the Lumiere Brothers' aesthetic on world cinema.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:02:45 | 3.56 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Silent
Subtitles: none
Genre: Documentary, History

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Swimming Pool (2003) DVD9 R1, Blu-Ray Studio Canal

Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a successful British crime/mystery author with writer's block. Burned out and fed up, she pays a visit to her publisher, John Bosload (Charles Dance), in search of a little inspiration. John has just the thing for her - spend a few weeks at his country house in France. There, she will have the peace and quiet she needs to write a new novel. She accepts his offer, and, at first, the secluded place, with its wooded grounds and secluded swimming pool, are perfect. Enter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), John's rebellious, oversexed, teenage daughter, who intends to share the house with the older, more reserved woman. Sarah is not pleased, and her attempts to establish boundaries are continually flouted by Julie, who brings a new man home every night and keeps Sarah awake with the sounds of her lovemaking. Gradually, however, the relationship between the two softens, until a series of events cause a radical shift.

Director: Francois Ozon
Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance, Jean-Marie Lamour, Marc Fayolle, Mireille Mosse, Michel Fau, Jean-Claude Lecas, Emilie Gavois-Kahn, Erarde Forestali
Country: France, UK
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
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Faust Sonnengesang / Faust Song of the Sun (2012) DVD9

What mental images do you create to explain the reality around you? Are they of beauty or of terror? These are questions that are tackled in Werner Fritsch's cinematic poem "Faust Song of the Sun".

Faust Sonnengesang is the journey of a German poet of today who starts where Goethe's Faust ends. Fritsch asks "What film runs through the head of a human when they close their eyes forever?" Filmed all over the world in India, California, Egypt, New York, Germany, Norway, Nepal, Mexico and New Zealand, where he shot images during his previous stay in Christchurch and the South Island. Der Spiegel describes Faust Sonnengesang as a "hell-trip" featuring "Punk rock, drunken images, Bach choirs….a delirium of wild colours and idyllic nature, images of wonderful music and powerful lyrics….This film is pure madness" - Faust Sonnengesang should not disappoint.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 03:02:39 | 7.77 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English
Genre: Experimental

Director: Werner Fritsch
Cast: Corinna Harfouch, Angela Winkler, Ulrich Matthes
Country: Germany
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Nude per l’assassino / Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975) DVD9 Blue Underground, Blu-Ray Arrow Films

Sex, slaughter and gory thrills galore figure in this super-sleazy giallo, which for all its many foibles rates as the most accomplished movie made by Italian exploitation hack Andrea Bianchi. Things get off to a typically classy start with a gynaecological procedure shot from the doctor's point of view. The unfortunate woman dies on the operating table, forcing the abortionist and his seedy pal to dispose of her body.

From here we follow the lives of a group of people who are all intertwined through their work at a modeling/fashion photography studio. One by one these people are hunted down and sliced and diced by a maniac in a leather suit and a motorcycle helmet. But what is the motive? Why is the killer after these people? Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo), the top photographer at the agency, and his lady friend Magda (the always lovely Edwige Fenech) are intent on finding out just who is behind the rash of murders, and why – but will they do that before everyone winds up dead?

Director: Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Edwige Fenech, Nino Castelnuovo, Femi Benussi, Solvi Stubing, Amanda, Franco Diogene, Lucio Como, Erna Schurer, Gianni Airo, Silvana Depreto, Achille Grioni, Giuseppa Meschella
Country: Italy
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
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The Parallax View (1974) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection, DVD9 Paramount

Perhaps no director tapped into the pervasive sense of dread and mistrust that defined the 1970s more effectively than Alan J. Pakula, who, in the second installment of his celebrated Paranoia Trilogy, offers a chilling vision of America in the wake of the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. and about to be shocked by Watergate.

The film opens up at the Space Needle in Seattle where a prominent senator is killed by a deranged assassin during a highly publicized public event. Reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) then begins investigating the assassin and discovers that he might be connected to a giant organization that could be behind some of the most talked-about political executions. Frady digs deep to gather information that can expose the organization and its dealings, but gets lost in a massive rabbit hole where people are dying like flies.

The intense sense of paranoia that permeates this film is its greatest strength. As Frady looks for answers, you get the feeling that the real world is nothing but a playground for extraordinarily powerful shadow figures that have the ability to manipulate every single aspect of it. Sadly, this actually seems like a pretty accurate summation of the reality we face today as well.
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Sour Grapes / Winepress / Hndzan / Терпкий виноград (1974) DVD5 RUSCICO

Far behind the lines Vahe receives the news of his father's death. Small boy neither could accept it nor reconcile himself with the new family of his mother who married to another man. The boy prefers to live with his handicapped uncle and every day visits the railway station waiting the trains coming from the frontline. And, indeed, his father comes back after two years of guerilla warfare. But he must leave for war again as soon as his injury is healed. Vahe must be strong enough to withstand the blow.

Bagrat Oganesyan graduated from Yerevan State University (the Romano-Germanic Philology Department), Yerevan Institute of Literature and Moscow Institute of World Literature, he came into cinema while practicing in Mosfilm Studios in 1960s. There he assisted Andrei Tarkovsky during the shooting of his Andrei Rublyov (1969), worked at Armenfilm Studios as an editor, assistant director and film director. Tarkovsky was the creative advisor of the Oganesyan's first feature film "Sour Grape" (Winepress).

Director: Bagrat Oganesyan
Cast: A. Isahakyan, Sos Sargsyan, H. Azizyan, Alla Tumanian, Vruyr Panoyan
Country: Soviet Union
Genre: Drama
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Ottimismo Democratico / Democratic Optimism (1990 – 1999), Il passato e il mio bastone/ The Past is My Stick (2008) DVD9

Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella, known as RezzaMastrella, an artistic duo that has no equals on the contemporary theatre scene. They have made an infinite number of short films, three full-length films, nine theatre performances, television programmes and various artistic and literary works. Their productions, all in black and white, have never been issued as home videos but have won numerous prizes in the main festivals of independent cinema and are now considered cult movies.

"Ottimismo Democratico" (Democratic Optimism) is a first anthology of short films by Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza created and produced between 1990 and 1999. A constant feature is the presence of Antonio Rezza 's tragic-catastrophic figure and (hypnotic) voice. The events tell of a culture in decadence. The stories, the voice and the settings are all dense with atmosphere, the body seen to be trapped in an alienating space where, in the fragments pieced together, the protagonism of a pedantic humanity stands out in all its meanness yet is extremely comical.

DVD9 | PAL | 01:26:31 | 7.34 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English, Italiano
Genre: Short

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Underneath (1995) DVD9 R2, Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

When a director has as wide and varied a body of work as does Steven Soderbergh, it's no surprise that not every film in the oeuvre will be successful. Even Hitchcock has The Trouble With Harry and Spielberg has Hook. But few directors are as willing to be as openly candid as Soderbergh was about a movie he describes as "totally sleepy" and "dead on arrival:" 1995's Underneath.

Gallagher stars as Michael Chambers, a man who was forced to flee from his wife, Rachel (Elliot) and his hometown years ago thanks to a massive gambling debt. He returns for his mother's wedding, after earning enough money to make everything square only to find that his ex has moved on and is now seeing local gangster Tommy Dundee (Fichtner). Michael wishes to pick up with Rachel where he left off, much to the displeasure of his cop brother, David (Adam Trese). Dundee is also unhappy at the prospect, and when he catches Michael and Rachel in a compromising situation, Michael talks his way out of certain death by proposing a heist. Michael, with the help of his step-father, has gotten a job as an armored car driver and he knows a way Dundee can make off with millions of dollars, using Michael's help as an inside man.

Of course, everybody involved in the operation has their own motives and goals. Numerous questions appear with each person's behavior. Does Rachel still love Michael, or is her interest an act? Why does David hate his brother so much? The armored car owner (Joe Don Baker) seems too friendly. What's his game? These questions set the groundwork for a mix of twists that keeps viewers guessing right to the end.
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The Wobblies (1979) DVD9

Early in the last century, a new labor union began. They accepted everyone who was members of the working class: blacks, women, immigrants. They weren't interested in working within the system like the AFL or the Teamsters. They wanted to change the world, and make it so the workers benefited from American prosperity, not the few heartless robber barons that ran the monopolies and the government that aided and abided them. Whether they were singing in solidarity or busting the heads of some strike busters, they were a force to be reckoned with. But while the organization bickered over the impact of the Russian Revolution, the authorities struck back and used patriotic sentiment and the sweeping powers generated by The Great War. The organization was mortally crippled, but their legacy lives on. They were the International Workers of the World, the I.W.W. They were The Wobblies.

"The Wobblies" is a history of the Industrial Workers of the World, researched lovingly and corroborated by the reminiscences of some of the union's former members, who are now in their 80's and 90's.Along with filming interviews with these stalwarts, the directors — Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer — have collected songs, posters, portraits and animated and live-action footage of the period. In assembling these ingredients, they divide their attention between actual and exaggerated images of the labor movement — between the facts of its history and the propaganda.
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La Cienaga / The Swamp (2001) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection, DVD5

Everything and nothing happens in La Cienaga, the debut feature from Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman). Spanning the space of one aimless summer, this avant-garde drama captures the boredom and the heat for one extended family forced together by circumstance as life changes and petty concerns swirl all about.

The translation of the title is "The Swamp", and there may be no better word to describe the sticky bog that creeps over its characters' ankles, literally and metaphorically. Even the narrative stalls out in the muck: Save for the alarming events that bookend the film, nothing much happens beyond suggestion and observation, apart from a steady, patient accumulation of minor details. With an anthropologist's eye for behavior, Martel plants her camera in a crowded bourgeois estate in northwestern Argentina and watches the decaying lives of two families rotting in a provincial backwater. Echoes of Luis Bunuel's social comedies are unmistakable, but Martel examines the situation from a greater remove, relying mainly on subtle touches in the framing and on the dense soundtrack. In that sense, La Cienaga could be called a pointillist movie, with all the pleasures and frustrations that description implies.
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Manon des sources / Manon of the Spring (1952), Ugolin (1952) 2 x DVD9

Writer/ producer/ director Marcel Pagnol's beautiful original 1952 film version of one of his haunting excursions through village life in Provence makes for epic French cinema.

Focusing on minor affairs, gossip and the villagers' superstitions, the film depicts everyday village life in an unglamorous but intriguing fashion.

The director's wife, Jacqueline Pagnol, gives a superior performance as Manon the shepherdess who avenges herself for her father's death on Ugolin (Rellys) and his uncle, the greedy neighbouring farmed called Le Papet (Henri Poupon), by blocking the spring supplying the water to the villagers.

This is the original work of the well known remake from 1986. It is split in two different movies, Manon des sources and Ugolin, two hours each. It is a delightful picture of the Provence (southern part of France) during the fifties.

Director: Marcel Pagnol
Cast: Edmond Ardisson, Henri Arius, Charles Blavette
Country: France
Genre: Drama

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Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 2: The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931), Night Nurse (1931), Three on a Match (1932), Female (1933) 3 x DVD9

Illicit sex. Glorified vice. Crime that pays. You can't do that said the film industry's Production Code. But in the pre-Code era, Hollywood could – and did – with lots of classic style.

Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume 2 is an irresistibly lurid selection of pre-Code yarns that had moviegoers flocking to theaters during the Great Depression. While none of these five flicks quite has the trashy appeal of 1933's "Baby Face", which appeared on Volume 1, this collection boasts at least two dynamite potboilers in "Three on a Match" and "Night Nurse", as well as a first-rate comedy with "Female".

3xDVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 449 Minutes | 18 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Francais
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance

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The Keep (1983) DVD9, DVD5, Blu-Ray

A one-of-a-kind gothic thriller, The Keep combines elements of horror, romance and the supernatural, in a World War II setting.

There is a secret buried deep within the walls of the keep, an ancient mystic shrine in the Carpathian Alps of Romania. It is an Evil so long contained that it has since been forgotten. It is an Evil more vile than the World War II German troops who have unwittingly released it, having violated the mausoleum. But there is a Man, a Man who has risen from a forgotten age who can stop the growing demon...

Though it has a semblance of a link to real world events (World War II), The Keep is completely unlike every other film Mann has made in that it explicitly deals with the fantastical. This is a horror movie rife with demonic spirits, seemingly ancient evil and mysterious figures with supernatural abilities. Just about the only way in which it feels anything like another Mann film is in the presence of actor Robert Prosky and a Tangerine Dream score popping up to provide moody atmospherics in the way only Tangerine Dream can.

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson, Jurgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne, William Morgan Sheppard
Country: USA
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, War

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Rubber’s Lover (1996) DVD9

Often interpreted as a prequel to 964 Pinocchio, Rubber's Lover details a clandestine group of scientists who believe they have found a way to create the perfect super human with psychic capabilities by injecting captive human guinea pigs with ether and subjecting them to metal torture. The whole project is riddled with problems however as one of the scientists becomes hooked on the ether, and the projects investors want to shut them down. It isn't long before the scientists last shackles of sanity are completely shed in what can only be described as a pus drenched industrial orgy of noise and death.

Like many of the Japanese cyberpunk films of the 1990's, Rubber's Lover focuses upon themes of transhumanism and explores it through ideas of post-human sexuality, fetishism and death, all set against a grimy industrial noir background.

DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:30:27 | 6.60 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi

Director: Shozin Fukui
Cast: Nao, Norimizu Ameya, Yota Kawase
Country: Japan
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Beau travail / Good Work (1999) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

The imaginative French director Claire Denis proved her ability to beautifully choreograph a movie with her first effort Chocolat, released in 1989. This drama, also set in Africa, is inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd. Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) is in charge of the men in a small French Foreign Legion outpost. These muscular soldiers spend their days in training, doing guard duty, and playing war games. For rest and relaxation, they swim in the ocean and dance in an open-air disco. The Africans in the town view them as strange outsiders from another world.

Bored with the routine of his life, Galoup finds himself upset by the interest of his commander (Michel Subor) in Sentain (Gregoire Colin), a new recruit who seems to impress everyone with his selflessness and generosity. Envy is a vicious emotion, bitter and vindictive. In this meticulously staged drama, Galoup comes up with a scheme to do away with Sentain.

Director: Claire Denis
Cast: Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Gregoire Colin
Country: France
Genre: Drama, War

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