Mulheres da Beira (1923), Os Lobos (1923) 2 x DVD9

Version restored by the Portuguese cinematheque. Fantastic masterpiece of European silent film.

Mulheres da Beira (1923)
Ana, a beautiful young peasant woman, never cares for the love Andre showers on her. Dreaming of a wealthy future ahead, she finds herself caught in the web of a sinister seduction of Fidalgo da Mo…

Os Lobos (1923)
Cabreira Hill. A village dominated by patriarchal tradition: the woman takes care of the household or picks up wood; the man takes care of the cattle or chops down trees to produce coal. After doing time for a crime of passion, a sailor arrives, becoming an element of fascination, changing things.
It is a very realistic film where we can see how people lived on the 20's on the country side in Portugal and how a man can change the life of so many different people just because of his way of seeing love and life.

2 x DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:28:14 + 01:20:14 | 5.72 Gb + 7.06 Gb
Language: Portugues intertitles
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Romance, Silent

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Kollektivet / The Commune (2016) DVD9

An emotional and intensely focused lead performance from Trine Dyrholm carries this new movie from Danish director and Dogme 95 veteran Thomas Vinterberg, shot on HD digital video.

The setting is 1975, the location a well-heeled coastal suburb north of Copenhagen. A little bored with her staid midlife routine, TV newsreader Anna (Trine Dyrholm) persuades her stuffy college lecturer husband Erik (Ulrich Thomsen) to turn his newly inherited family home into a commune. Together with their 14-year-old daughter, Freja (Martha Sofie Wallstrom Hansen), they fill the house with bohemian friends and eccentric strangers. Soon this rambling suburban mansion is abuzz with rowdy dinner parties, domestic power struggles and — this being Scandinavia — full-frontal nudity.
Predictably, sunny utopian idealism takes a stormy turn when infidelity and sexual jealousy cloud the picture.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:47:10 | 5.29 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Dansk
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama

Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Fares Fares, Trine Dyrholm
Country: Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands
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Tower of London (1962) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Arrow Video

Having made their mark on American horror cinema with three colourful adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum and Tales of Terror – Vincent Price and director Roger Corman enjoyed a brief hiatus from the macabre author with Tower of London. Shot in black and white, the film was loosely based on the Universal horror picture of the same name as well as two Shakespeare plays: a dash of Macbeth and a dollop of Richard III.

The film opens in April of 1483. England's King Edward IV lies on his deathbed, and, surrounded by his family and several loyal subjects, declares his brother, the Duke of Clarence, the Protector of the Realm, which makes him the legal guardian of the two young princes, future king Edward V and Richard. In turn, the king asks his other brother Richard (Price) to be Clarence's closest advisor and right-hand man. But Richard is ambitious, and instead leads Clarence into a wine cellar and plunges a dagger into his back. As a result, Richard is proclaimed Protector the moment Edward IV dies, and aided by Sir Ratcliffe, he eliminates all those who stand between him and the throne of England. But as Richard will discover, the path to the monarchy is not without its perils, and each and every day, he is haunted by the spirits of those he's killed, pushing him to the brink of insanity.

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The Informer (1929) DVD9 and Blu-Ray

This rare silent adaptation of Liam O'Flaherty's famous novel is set among Dublin revolutionaries in the early days of the newly independent Irish Free State, formed in 1922.
It is a tale of revolution and betrayal, with an underground cell of activists torn apart when one of their member accidentally kills a police officer.

The dense narrative develops in a short time heightening the intensity of emotional effect. Our sympathies are challenged to deal with the complexity of personal versus political loyalties, where no-one is entirely innocent and the implications of seemingly minor or impulsive decisions create inescapable moral dilemmas for all the protagonists.

The story of "The Informer" has been made into feature films a few times over the years. The 1929 film was the first.

This Dual Format Edition includes the silent version alongside the rare sound version which was produced at the same time. The sound version of the film was restored in 2005 from the picture camera negative while the silent version was restored in 2014. The sound version has a good but lesser restoration while the silent version is simply amazing.
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La pirogue / The Pirogue (2012) DVD9

Baye Laye is a Senegalese fisherman who reluctantly agrees to navigate and pilot a boat carrying over thirty people illegally from the African coast to the shores of Spain where they can all live our their dreams of becoming athletes, rock stars, or reuniting with their families. Not only is the boat drastically overweight and the equipment faulty at the best of times, but not even all of the passengers speak the same language, some of which have never even seen the ocean before. He seems to be the only one capable of keeping a level head since the trip's organizer is more fashionable than reasonable and the ship's back-up "captain" is nothing more than a boy.
Senegalese director Moussa Toure gives us the sympathetic perspective of those who take that risky journey, and relives what it's like for his countrymen who travel almost a thousand miles from West Africa to Spain's Canary Islands.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:24:13 | 6.94 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Wolof
Subtitles: English, Francais
Genre: Drama

Director: Moussa Toure
Cast: Souleymane Seye Ndiaye, Laity Fall, Babacar Oualy
Country: France, Senegal, Germany
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Eclipse Series 26: Silent Naruse: Flunky, Work Hard! (1931), No Blood Relation (1932), Apart from You (1933), Every-Night Dreams (1933), Street Without End (1934) 3 x DVD Criterion Collection

It's sad to read in the liner notes for the Eclipse set, Silent Naruse, that of the twenty-four films that the Japanese writer/director Mikio Naruse made in his first years of filmmaking, only the five contained here still exist. An early cinematic pioneer whose career spanned nearly half a century, he made eighty-nine films in total, and only about half of them have survived the decades since. In an age when film seems so permanent, and even the worst box office dud gets preserved in high-definition for future generations to suffer through, we can't forget that, once upon a time, the art of movies was mutable.

Thus, Mikio Naruse is a director that more of us probably know by name rather than by his work. He was an artist whose specialty was what was termed the "woman's picture." Like Douglas Sirk in the U.S., Naruse made movies that, for the most part, focused on family drama with a female center. Many of his films were emotional tales that explored the unique struggle of women in Japanese society--particularly those who lived on the fringe, either economically or socially, or sometimes both, one dictating the other. This peek into his earliest work confirms that these were issues he was concerned with from pretty much the get-go, though the core ideas would be ones that would develop over time, along with his style.
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Vitaphone Varieties: Volume Two (1927-1931) 2 x DVD9

Starting in 1926, a year before "The Jazz Singer," Warner Bros. started producing a series of sound shorts, usually musical or comedy acts, mostly taken from the vaudeville stage. These shorts have been difficult to see and much coveted by aficionados. Last year saw the release of a magnificent four-disc collection of these shorts, "Vitaphone Varieties." Now comes "Vitaphone Varieties: Vol. 2," a two-disc collection of 35 short films, which originally played in theaters in the years 1927 through 1931 and haven't been seen since.

Viewers will find several novelty acts in this set, and we can be thankful that their performances were recorded for posterity.

Nestled in among 35 Jazz Age gems to be found on this 2-Disc collection are appearances by Edgar Bergen, Fred Allen, Fred Waring, Blanche Sweet, Bert Lahr, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown and a (very) young Natalie Schafer – the future Mrs. Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island.

2 x DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 02:24:42 + 02:51:54 | 7.40 Gb + 7.57 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Short, Comedy, Music

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Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-2011) 16 x DVD5 The Complete Collection (Seasons 1-8)

This half-hour HBO comedy follows comedy writer and co-creator of Seinfeld, Larry David, through the regular day hell that is his life. That's not to say that he doesn't have a great life: he's rich, he's got a beautiful, loving wife and a successful career, but what makes this show funny (which is the same thing that made Seinfeld funny) is the endless series of uncomfortable situations and hilarious misunderstandings that Larry constantly finds himself in.

For a show that was only created as a one-off, one-hour, mock-doc special, and was never intended to be a show in its own right, the profound success of it has been a huge surprise to all; not least Larry David. The self-confessed 'rich fuck' who co-created, wrote and produced hit US sitcom, Seinfeld, has become an on-screen cult icon for his larger-than-life portrayal of himself in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

16 x DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 2820 minutes | 69.3 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English, Francais
Subtitles: English, Francais, Espanol
Genre: Comedy

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British Comedies Of The 1930s Volume 7: Lost in the Legion (1934), The Dominant Sex (1937) DVD9

If you like you vintage classics, you'll find it hard to go past this little piece of movie history. The British Film Collection from Network is reissuing classics, many of which have not been seen since they were released in cinemas. Part of a five-year plan to release more than 450 old films, this series showcases significant comedies from the 1930s, an era when comedy was so important to an audience who needed the release and escapism from the Great Depression. Volume 7 contains two great films, The Dominant Sex and Lost in the Legion.

The Dominant Sex, stars Phillip Holmes and Diana Churchill as a young married couple who constantly argue. The husband has invented a machine that could change their financial circumstances, but he's hoping to return to his roots as a gentleman farmer rather than sell it. Directed by Herbert Brenon who won best director at the first ever Oscars, the film is quite startling in it's modernity and sexual politics.

The second comedy, Lost In the Legion, is more traditional, with Leslie Fuller co-starring with his regular sidekick Hal Gordon as two ship's cooks who fall for a couple of dancers. When the cute dancing girls get kidnapped and sold into a harem, they're determined to rescue them, but during their exploits, they are rescued by the French Foreign Legion and accidentally enrol for service.
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Caltiki il mostro immortale / Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Arrow Video

The mystery of the Mayans is one which may never be solved: why did they leave their homes after centuries of prosperity never to return, with their cities decaying behind them?

A group of archaeologists are in Mesoamerica investigating Mayan ruins when a delirious expedition member (Arturo Dominici) stumbles into their camp and collapses. Led by Dr John Fielding (John Merivale) and Max Gunther (Gerard Herter), they enter a cave in search of his missing colleague. Imagine their delight on discovering a deep pool of water containing priceless treasures, guarded by a statue of the Mayan goddess Caltiki. They can't believe their luck until a shapeless monster emerges from the depths...

BD50 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:16:25 | 44.8 Gb + 7.63 Gb
Language: Italiano, English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Directors: Riccardo Freda (as Robert Hamton), Mario Bava (uncredited)
Cast: John Merivale, Didi Sullivan, Gerard Herter, Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Country: Italy, USA
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The Mary Pickford Signature Collection: The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), Pollyanna (1920), Little Annie Rooney (1925) DVD9

Mary Pickford (1892-1979) was a multifaceted pioneer of early cinema. She was a talented performer, a creative producer and a savvy businesswoman who helped shape the film industry as we know it today.

Mary Pickford rose steadily to fame at a time when there was no path to follow. Actresses who came after her, such as Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow, cut pictures from fan magazines, pinned them to their walls and dreamed of stardom. Mary was known as "the girl with the curls" and "the Biograph girl" before audiences learned her name; fan magazines were created because of stars like Mary Pickford. In fact, the very first issue of Photoplay in 1912 featured Mary dressed in character for Little Red Riding Hood.

Her first film director was D.W. Griffith and she went on to work with most of the greats of her era such as Cecil B. De Mille, Allan Dwan, James Kirkwood, Marshall Neilan, Sidney Franklin, Maurice Tourneur and Ernst Lubitsch. Her career was buoyed by fellow professionals who were also friends, including the cinematographer Charles Rosher and the screenwriter Frances Marion, at a time when the art form was in a near constant state of change.
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Ludwig (1973) 2 x Blu-Ray Arrow Academy Limited Edition

Luchino Visconti's film Ludwig is an example of a biopic done as an epic, a grand and opulent study of the life of the 19th-century "mad kind of Bavaria," Ludwig II.

The story behind Ludwig is a rather tragic one. A young man becomes king of Bavaria, providing him with the freedom to explore his love of art, music and young men in a decadent lifestyle that ultimately leads to his downfall.

The director was able to withstand the urge to convey Ludwig as a simple crazy regent, and instead delve deep within the mystique and draw out the complex historical character. He is never portrayed in the film as being crazy, but overly passionate regarding architecture and music.

2 x BD50 | 1080p AVC | 238 min | 87.4 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English, Italian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Biography, Drama, History

Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Silvana Mangano, John Moulder-Brown, Gert Frobe
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
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Animated Soviet Propaganda: From the October Revolution to Perestroika (1924 – 1979) 4 x DVD

There hardly is a time in world history more politically polarized than the 20th century, which divided the globe in two camps — capitalism and communism — divided at the height of the divergence by the infamous Iron Curtain. The Cold War was very much a war of ideologies and each side relied heavily on the ideological unity of its people, often employing the power of the visual arts — graphic design, animation, illustration — to drive its message home. From 1924 to perestroika the USSR produced 41 animated propaganda films. Their target was the new nation and their goal was to win over the hearts and minds of the Soviet people. Anti-American, Anti-British, Anti-German, Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Fascist, some of these films are as artistically beautiful as the great political posters made after the 1917 revolution which inspired Soviet animation. Unearthed from Moscow's legendary Soyuzmultfilm Studios, the 41 films in Animated Soviet Propaganda span sixty years of Soviet history.

4 x DVD | NTSC 4:3 | 8h 34min | 21.7 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Animation

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And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Spalding Gray left this Earth in January of 2004, after struggling for several years following a horrific car accident in Ireland. We see the effects of that accident at the tail end of And Everything is Going Fine, Steven Soderbergh's documentary tribute to the actor and writer. He is clearly in pain, and he no longer looks himself. It's a sad finish for a man who otherwise pulled wit and wisdom out of what he termed the great accident of life.

Gray was a struggling actor until his one-man monologues started getting notice in the 1980s. His watershed moment was Swimming to Cambodia, a stage show based on his experience filming The Killing Fields. Gray developed his own kind of theatre--just himself and a desk and a microphone, talking about his life.

In deference to Gray's fabled eloquence and remarkable genius for introspection and rigorous self-examination, Steven Soderbergh, who collaborated with his subject on the performance film Gray's Anatomy, turns And Everything Is Going Fine into what's essentially a one-man show. Soderbergh follows Gray's alternately sad and hilarious life story through performance footage, home movies, and clips of Gray being interviewed on everything from The Charlie Rose Show to MTV and E!
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Kidnapped (1978) 2 x DVD9 The Complete Series

David McCallum stars as the rebellious Alan Breck Stewart, and this ambitious serial (a co-production between HTV and Germany's Tele-Munchen) also features a host of British character actors, including Bill Simpson, Patrick Allen, Andrew Keir, Patrick Magee and Frank Windsor.

When young David Balfour arrives at his uncle's bleak Scottish house to claim his inheritance, his relative tries to murder him then has him shipped off to be sold as a slave in the colonies. Luckily for the lad, he strikes up a friendship with Alan Breck Stewart, who is on the run after Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat at Culloden. When a ship's captain tries to kill Breck for his money, the two manage to get to land and set out for Edinburgh, dodging the ruthless Redcoats along the way.

2 x DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 350 minutes | 7.43 Gb + 6.63 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Adventure, Drama, History, Romance

Director: Jean-Pierre Decourt
Cast: David McCallum, Ekkehardt Belle, Aude Landry
Country: France, West Germany
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Father’s Day (2011) Blu-Ray + 2xDVD + CD 4 Disc Limited Edition

The story is set in Tromaville where a deranged lunatic named Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock) is running around raping and killing fathers, occasionally eating their genitals as well. When a teenage male prostitute named Twink (Conor Sweeney) finds out that his own father (Billy Sadoo) has been added to the list of Fuchman's victims, he sets out for revenge. He knows he won't be able to go this alone, however, so he teams up with a Roman Catholic priest named Father Sullivan (Matthew Kennedy) to convince a one eyed man named Ahab (Adam Brooks), the toughest of the tough in Tromaville, to join their cause.

It takes some convincing but soon enough, Twink and Sullivan have talked Ahab into helping them out and added Ahab's sister, a stripped named Chelsea (Amy Groening), to their ranks. As they work together to scour the streets in order to find the killer, they realize that this won't be as easy as they had hoped…

This is not a movie for the squeamish. There's multiple scenes of male rape, tons of male nudity (some of it comical, though there's also plenty of female nudity to go with it), graphic gore and even genital mutilation. In spite of all that, this is actually a comedy that serves as both a homage and a satire of exploitation films.
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Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection: Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964), Torn Curtain (1966), Topaz (1969), Frenzy (1972), Family Plot (1976) 14 x Blu-Ray

Everyone knows that the legendary Alfred Hitchcock is the "Master of Suspense". He has directed some of cinema's most thrilling and recognizable classics. This release is definitely the definitive collection and it showcases Alfred Hitchcock's true cinematic talent.

This ultimate box set is jam-packed with 14 classic Hitchcock films including 13 that have never been released on Blu-Ray. Each film has been digitally restored from high resolution film elements in order to guarantee the ultimate Hitchcock experience.

These films feature some of the best talent and performances that Hollywood has to offer, including James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Julie Andrews, Paul Newman, Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Novak, John Forsythe, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Priscilla Lane and even Sean Connery. If 14 amazing Hitchcock films in high definition isn't enough this release also includes over 15 hours of bonus features including a newly produced documentary for "The Birds".

14 x BD50 | 1080p AVC, 1080p VC-1 | 1621 min | 530 Gb + 3% rec
Language & Subtitles: see below
Genre: Crime, Drama, Comedy, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, War

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Bergerac (1981–1991) 27 x DVD9 The Complete Collection

Jim Bergerac (John Nettles) is a recovering alcoholic, divorcee and father of a young daughter. He is a detective sergeant with the Bureau des Etrangers, a department for non-residents in Jersey, Channel Islands. Jim likes doing things his own way, a true maverick, and consequently doesn't always carry out his investigations in the traditional manner, the way his boss, Barney Crozier, would have preferred. But Jim's winsome grin and chirpy optimism always win through, and in a way he still manages to remain on fairly good terms with Crozier despite their differences. Jim gets his fair share of women during the series, but more than anything else he is married to his job, which becomes increasingly difficult for some of them. In the later series Bergerac leaves the police to become a private investigator.

Handsome, blue-eyed and brooding, maverick cop Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac of Jersey's Bureau des Etrangers is one of television's most popular detectives.
Moving with the power of Bergerac's vintage red Triumph Roadster sports car, each episode guarantees full-throttle excitement, ingenious plots and colourful characters as Bergerac patrols the harbour cafes, cliff-top mansions and secluded coves on the trail of the villains, murderers, spies and smugglers of the holiday island and tax haven.
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Ajans-E Shisheh-I / The Glass Agency (1999) 2 x DVD5 The Collection of Ebrahim Hatamikia

The Glass Agency is the story of a war veteran living in post war Iran.

Two veterans of Iran-Iraq war, Abbas and his wartime commander Kazem are the main protagonists of the film. Abbas comes to Tehran to seek medical treatment for a war injury. Kazem wants to help Abbas as the doctor recommends that he should go abroad for the operation. However, it is almost New Year's Eve, and arranging a flight becomes difficult. The problems they encounter make Kazem lose his temper, and he ends up taking a whole travel agency hostage.

2 x DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 01:49:41 | 3.16 Gb + 3.28 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Persian
Subtitles: English, Arabic, Persian
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance, Thriller, War

Director: Ebrahim Hatamikia
Cast: Parviz Parastui, Reza Kianian, Habib Rezaei
Country: Iran
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Neurot Recordings I Bonus DVD (2004) DVD5

Neurot Recordings is more than a record label - it is the mouthpiece for a community that redefines the concept of "heavy" music. It is a conduit for like-minded experimental artists whose only common goal may be to create sounds that challenge the mind while expressing true passion and soul. It isn't a label concerned with a niche sound or releasing recordings based on their commercial potential.

Neurot Recordings began in 1999 as a means to collect the varied Neurosis-related projects - such as Tribes of Neurot, Blood & Time and the solo endeavors of guitarist/vocalists Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly. The label quickly grew to encompass a wide variety of innovative and important artists. Each of these affiliated artists explore the boundaries of music in their own way, combining and refining sounds, be they psychedelic, ambient, melodic, avant-noise, folk, bludgeoning rock or any combination thereof.

This compilation offers a wealth of both audio and video content for the Neurot Recordings fan.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:14:46 + 00:39:22 | 3.68 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Experimental, Musical

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Multiple Maniacs (1970) Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Multiple Maniacs remains one of the most provocative, outright filthy, plain insane and unabashedly disgusting movies ever made. It is also John Waters's most complex film, dealing with sexual and religious taboos in the most graphic and contentious way conceivable. Despite the extremely brazen, impudent and overtly trashy tone, Multiple Maniacs is an intellectual piece and also a harsh criticism of American society, and it remains ever so politically and socially relevant nearly five decades later.

The film follows the escapades of the sideshow 'Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions', which invites audiences to look upon various 'perverse' acts. The audience is eventually robbed by the 'perverse' performers, as the troupe go on to their next group of targets. Divine leads the troupe with her boyfriend Mr. David, and their contentious relationship drives the remainder of the story.

BD50 | 1080p AVC | 01:36:43 | 37.9 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Horror

Director: John Waters
Cast: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole
Country: USA
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Judex (1963) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Georges Franju's Judex is an arch, playful tribute to the serials of the influential silent filmmaker Louis Feuillade. Franju shuffles through the plot of Feuillade's lengthy serial of the same name, about an adventurer named Judex (Channing Pollock) whose revenge against the corrupt banker Favraux (Michel Vitold) unleashes a complicated series of schemes. The film is defined by its complex twists and turns, its melodramatic indulgences: a wronged father (Rene Genin) who's searching for his missing son; the fiendish femme fatale Marie Verdier (Francine Berge) who faces off against Judex; the plots centering around Jacqueline (Edith Scob), the daughter of Favraux; the incompetent detective Cocantin (Max Montavon), who seems more comfortable as a babysitter than an investigator. The film opens with Favraux being blackmailed by Judex, who threatens to expose the banker's many crimes if he doesn't give his ill-gained fortune back to his victims.

BD50 + 2xDVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:37:48 | 44.6 Gb + 13.7 Gb
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Director: Georges Franju
Cast: Channing Pollock, Francine Berge, Edith Scob, Sylva Koscina
Country: France, Italy
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British Comedies of the 1930s Volume 5: Joy Ride (1935), Radio Lover (1936) DVD9

Double bill of British comedies from the 1930s.

Joy Ride (1935)
It's cabaret time in London's West End. At a ringside table sit Bill (comedy star Gene Gerrard) and his cousin Dippy. Suddenly they spot their uncle. Assuming the coast to be clear, the boys invite their girlfriends to share a joy ride to the ancestral home, but car trouble leads to catastrophe!

Radio Lover (1936)
Co-directed by George Formby/Tommy Trinder collaborator Austin Melford (I See Ice, Keep Fit), this inventive comedy stars the director's brother Jack Melford (A Shot in the Dark, Scruffy) as Reggie, a charming but penniless young man who hits upon an ingenious route to fame and fortune.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 137 minutes | 7.39 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Comedy

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Breaking the Waves (1996) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Great movies shake you up. They make demands on you, challenge your beliefs, force you to look at things through another person's eyes. "Breaking The Waves," the first English-language film from Danish director Lars von Trier, is transcendent filmmaking. Using a tragic love story as his framework, Von Trier takes an unflinching look at the chasm between the rational and the spiritual sides of our lives. A haunting, brutal fairy tale, this masterfully detailed character study is uncompromising and emotionally exhausting. It's a great movie.

Set in the early 70's, the North Sea oil boom brings outsiders to a remote Scottish community on the Isle Of Skye. Bess, a "simple-minded" local, meets and falls in love with Jan, a Norwegian oil-rigger. Their impending marriage disturbs the religious community, a group of Calvinists whose severe fundamentalism makes the Amish seem like anarcists by comparison. Bess' determination wins out, though, and life with her new husband becomes a blissful journey of personal and sexual discovery for the naive young woman.
Eventually, Jan has to return to the rigs, leaving a devastated Bess begging God to bring her husband home. When an industrial accident sends Jan back, paralyzed from the neck down, Bess is convinced the disaster was caused by her prayers. She stays by her husband's side, acutely depressed and desperate to atone. Then, under the influence of drugs and despair, Jan makes an startling request of his wife that sends her spinning madly on a frenzied and shocking quest of self-sacrifice in the name of love.
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Be name pedar / Bi nam-i pidar / Sins of the Father / In the Name of the Father (2006) 2 x DVD5 The Collection of Ebrahim Hatamikia

A college student is on a archeology expedition when she steps on a mine. Her father rushes to the hospital, a war veteran, and in a perfect example of irony, it is the same mine the father had placed a decade or so back to stop the Iraqis from attacking. The hill which the mine had been placed was supposed to have been cleared, but this one mine was missed.

And the characters are thrown in a story of pain. The father's guilt, the guilt of the friend who was responsible for clearing the mines, the girl who might lose her leg, the mother who has to carry the burdens of the family, and the boy who wants to marry the girl. The shadow of Iran's war looms all over them. A war that the world does not seem to fully appreciate. Iran faced Iraq and the world for eight years. Over one million Iranians died. This is the dark memory that exists in each Iranian, whether they know it or not. And like the college girl, who had nothing to do with the war, mines lie under each of our feet.

2 x DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 01:36:03 | 3.70 Gb + 2.50 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Persian
Subtitles: English, Arabic, Persian
Genre: Drama, War

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Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave: Perlicky na dne / Pearls of the Deep (1965), Sedmikrasky / Daisies (1966), O slavnosti a hostech / A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966), Navrat ztraceneho syna / The Return of the Prodigal Son (1967), Rozmarne leto / Capricious Summer (1968), Zert / The Joke (1969) 4 x DVD9 Criterion Collection

The political situation in the Czechoslovakia in the '60s was to some extent a boon to local filmmakers, since they had ready access to resources (with no producers to woo), and an endless source of inspiration in the pervasive bureaucratic madness. The Czech films in the years leading up to the late-'60s' "Prague spring" are at once satirical and celebratory, embracing the nation's Bohemian roots and dark sense of humor, while also acknowledging the hellishness of the system. But these films didn't escape censorship entirely; many were banned almost as soon as they were made. The movement toward a more expressive, low-to-the-ground cinema came later to Czechoslovakia than it did to other European countries, but it's a miracle that artists facing such scrutiny were ever able to produce work as varied and innovative as the six features in Eclipse's remarkable, essential Pearls Of The Czech New Wave box set.

4 x DVD9 | NTSC | 513 minutes | 28.2 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Czech(Ceske)
Subtitles: English
Genre: Comedy, Drama

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Canoa: Denuncia de un hecho vergonzoso / Canoa: A Shameful Memory (1976) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

One of Mexico's most highly regarded works of political cinema, Canoa: A Shameful Memory reimagines a real-life incident that had occurred just eight years before its release.

On September 14, 1968, five employees from the University of Puebla arrived in San Miguel Canoa to climb The Malinche, an easy mountain that would help them hone their backpacking skills. Delayed in arriving and soaked by an unexpected rain, the boys sought refuge in the local church. Unfortunately for them, the priest, was a rabid anti-Communist who kept his flock in a heightened state of paranoia, convincing them that "atheists, enemies of God and of our Holy Church" were out not only to get him personally but to steal their children and take away their religion. When the boys tell the villagers they are "from the University", it is assumed they are students, radicals, and in Canoa to raise the strike flag.

BD50 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:55:11 | 44 Gb + 6.91 Gb
Language: Espanol
Subtitles: English

Director: Felipe Cazals
Cast: Enrique Lucero, Salvador Sanchez, Ernesto Gomez Cruz
Country: Mexico
Genre: Adventure, Crime, Drama, Thriller
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Prismatic Music – The Super 8 Films Of Joseph Bernard (2015) Blu-Ray

In the decade spanning 1975 to 1985, visual artist Joseph Bernard completed more than 100 films in Super 8mm. Frustrated by a lack of funds, materials, and attention, he withdrew from filmmaking and, ultimately, public art production entirely, though he remained on the faculty at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, retiring in 2007 as Professor Emeritus. American experimental cinema is considerably poorer for both the brevity and obscurity of his career. Happily, the latter of these issues might now be rectified thanks to the Blu-ray release of Prismatic Music, a collection of 40 of Bernard's films.

Prismatic music is an astonishing Blu-Ray release of 40 Super 8 films by Detroit filmmaker Joseph Bernard. Bernard, a protege of Stan Brakhage, went from painting to film to painting again over the course of 40 years. These films cover the period of 1975-85 in Detroit, Provincetown and Chicago, and now reside in The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Collection. Transferred from original film source material in 2K at the prestigious Cinelicious Hollywood, this project offers 6 hours of film.

Too rarely screened, Bernard's work offers a rich contribution to traditions of formalist and experimental filmmaking, often described in terms of—but never reducible to—rhythm, color, abstract expressionism, photography, documentary, self-portraiture, and collage.
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Chilly Scenes of Winter / Head Over Heels (1979) Blu-Ray Twilight Time

Charles is a young man carrying a heavy load of problems and confusions. He's hopelessly in love with Laura, a woman who's recently separated from her husband and stepdaughter. He works as a "reports analyst" for the state of Utah, a boring and unfulfilling job. And his family is a teeter totter of excessive individuals: a crazy mother who repeatedly threatens or attempts suicide and a sister who's so straight that her spirit stands at right angles.
How does Charles cope? He uses laughter as a way of surviving. He and his friend Sam, a Ph.D. who clerks at a men's clothing store, are wiseacres par excellence. Perhaps that is what endears him to Laura. However, when he puts her on a pedestal, she flees the relationship. Charles builds a dollhouse to match her A-frame house and wonders why she is incapable of seeing that he loves her and has to be with her.

BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:35:22 | 23.6 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Director: Joan Micklin Silver
Cast: John Heard, Mary Beth Hurt, Peter Riegert, Kenneth McMillan
Country: USA
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Il dolce corpo di Deborah / The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968) DVD9 and Blu-Ray X-Rated Kult

Romolo Guerrieri directs a story of love, sex and revenge, and it begins in Geneva.
They're rich, good looking and in love. American heiress Deborah (Carroll Baker) and her Italian husband Marcel (Jean Sorel) are on honeymoon in Geneva. At a restaurant Marcel happens to see an old friend, Philip (Luigi Pistilli) who proves strangely hostile. He informs Marcel that Suzanne is dead. Who is that? It happens Suzanne (Evelyn Stewart, a.k.a. Ida Galli) was Marcel's first love who took her own life shortly after her debt-ridden boyfriend left to seek his fortune in America. Stricken with guilt, Marcel brings Deborah along to visit Suzanne's palatial mansion which he finds abandoned. However, a suspiciously burning cigarette and the sound of someone playing the piano convince Marcel someone is lurking about. Then the telephone rings. When Deborah answers a voice tells her she must die for Marcel's crime!
The Sweet Body of Deborah is broadly credited as the film that ushered in a new era of sexual frankness to Italian cinema, where a Catholic rigidity held sway for much of the 1960s.

BD25 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, PAL | 01:36:03 | 22.3 Gb + 5.49 Gb
Language: Italiano, Deutsch
Subtitles: English, Deutsch
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

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The Essential Jacques Demy: Lola (1961), La baie des anges / Bay of Angels (1963), Les parapluies de Cherbourg / The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Les demoiselles de Rochefort / The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), Peau d’ane / Donkey Skin (1970), Une chambre en ville / A Room in Town (1982) 7 x DVD9 and 6 x Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

For many years, when people would think about the French New Wave film movement that revolutionized the world of cinema in the late 1950s, their thoughts would drift to the most famous names — Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol, Resnais and others. One name that rarely came up in the conversation, however, was that of Jacques Demy. Even though he was making films during that time and achieved some degree of international success, many observers considered his contributions to be either too tangential or too dependent on Hollywood traditions and his own self-created cinematic universe to fully embrace the formal radicalism of the movement. In fact, when he was discussed as part of the New Wave, it was often because of his marriage to Agnes Varda, a filmmaker whose work was more firmly entrenched as part of the approach, and that semi-snubbing continued until he passed away in 1990 at the age of 59.

In the years since his passing, however, there has been a gradual reappraisal of Demy's cinematic legacy, spurred on in no small part by the efforts of Varda, who has helped to keep the flame alive by supervising restorations and reissues of his films as well as directing both "Jacquot de Nantes," a 1991 biopic focused on his early years, and the 1995 documentary "The World of Jacques Demy." Now The Criterion Collection has gotten into the act with "The Essential Jacques Demy," a mammoth box set that includes restored versions of six of his best-known features — "Lola" (1961), "Bay of Angels" (1963), "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964), "The Young Girls of Rochefort" (1967), "Donkey Skin" (1970) and "Une Chambre En Ville" (1982) — a slew of extras spanning the length of his career, including shorts, documentaries and archival interviews with Demy and many of his key collaborators. The end result is one of the major home video releases of the year and a project that should finally restore Demy's place as one of the leading lights of the New Wave.
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La mort de Louis XIV / The Death of Louis XIV (2016) DVD9

A monarch's devotion to duty and service endures until the last breath in The Death Of Louis XIV, a painstakingly realised portrait of the agonising final days of the Sun King. Based on extensive medical records and the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon and other courtiers, Catalan director Albert Serra's film has a documentary-like authenticity, matching the unblinking instincts of a modern reality television series with the visual allure of the old masters.

Crowned King in 1643, Louis's reign is the longest of any European monarch. The film begins in 1715 as the aged King suffers horrible pains in his left leg and is confined to bed. Royal obligations continue, but gangrene sets in and the leg turns black. It becomes apparent that the situation is hopeless and that the King must prepare for death...

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:51:00 | 7.22 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English, Nederlands
Genre: Biography, Drama, History

Director: Albert Serra
Cast: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Patrick d'Assumcao, Marc Susini
Country: Portugal, France, Spain
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Behold a Pale Horse (1964) DVD9

Manuel Artiguez (Peck) is an expatriate rebel leader from the Spanish Civil War living in France. A young orphan named Paco (Italian star Marietto Angeletti, Angel in a Taxi) seeks him out to beg him to return to his country and kill the man who murdered the boy's father (an old comrade of Artiguez). The murderous villain is Chief Vinolas (Quinn), the head of the oppressive police. At first Artiguez is reluctant to go, but when he learns his mother is dying in a hospital he decides to make the arduous trek to see her one last time. Vinolas sees an opportunity to set a trap for the rebel, and quickly sends an informer (Italian star Raymond Pellegrin) to feed him false information that the coast is clear and his mother is waiting. Omar Sharif plays a priest who knows the truth about the trap, and the mother has already passed away. He goes to great lengths to warn Artiguez of what is waiting for him. Artiguez decides he should go anyway, even if it could very well be suicide to walk into Vinolas's trap. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:56:13 | 7.30 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English, Deutsch, Espanol
Subtitles: English, Deutsch, Espanol, Nederlands, Czech(Ceske), Greek, Hindi, Magyar, Polish, Portugues, Turkish
Genre: Drama, War

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The Adventures of Tintin (1991–1992) 6 x DVD9 The Complete Collection (Seasons One, Two, Three)

One of the most popular European classic comic strips of all time tells stories of the heroic escapades of youthful reporter Tintin and his loyal canine companion Snowy. From a comic that first appeared in 1929 by Belgian artist Herge, these delightful adventures were spun into books, magazines, TV series, radio programs and theater productions. The television series The Adventures Of Tintin (1991-1993) follows Tintin and Snowy in solving mysteries closely related to the much-loved original stories. A colorful cast of characters is along for the ride, including the salty Captain Haddock, handy Professor Calculus and clumsy Thomson & Thompson. Exploring the globe, solving mysteries and searching for truth and justice, Tintin and crew inspire the adventurer in all of us!

Each episode is faithful to the times, set during the 20th century despite some wondrous events, the world Tintin inhabits is quite realistic and covers some major historical moments including Cuba's overthrow, Japan's Manchurian invasion and many more...

6 x DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 900 minutes | 41.7 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English, Espanol
Subtitles: none
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Crime, Family, Mystery

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45 Years (2015) Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Tom Courtenay) are a mature couple who live their quiet lives in a quaint British community. Their daily routine includes Kate walking the dog in the morning and Geoff reading. They are approaching their 45th wedding anniversary and a big party is going to be held to commemorate the event. As the week leading up to the celebration begins, Geoff receives a mysterious letter. Nearly 50 years ago, Geoff and his then girlfriend Katya, had been hiking in the Alps, when Katya fell to her death. Now, all of these years later, her body has been found under the ice.

This letter rekindles deep-held emotions, and the relationship comes under strain as Geoff is clearly troubled and Kate struggles to understand why. As they discuss it and Kate finds further background it becomes clear that the ancient relationship was no mere tryst for Geoff. Is he being entirely honest with her about it, or does it threaten to taint their trusting relationship? As we see preparations for the 45th anniversary party coming to a head we are taken deep into the couple's emotions, their insecurities and their feelings for one another.

Director: Andrew Haigh
Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James
Country: UK
Genre: Drama, Romance
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Pistolary! Films and Videos by Peggy Ahwesh (1989-2003) 3 x DVD5

Peggy Ahwesh's films, videos and found-footage manipulations are among the most complex, alluring, irreverent and pleasurable objects in women's experimental moving image-making. Since the 1980s Ahwesh has produced works encompassing ethnography, melodrama, science fiction, horror, documentary, pornography and virtual reality, each realized through the aesthetic particularities of different formats (including 16mm, Super-8, digital video and PixelVision), her physical uses of cameras, and her 'ornate, complicated pastiche' relationship with processes of editing.1 Aesthetically, formally and structurally Ahwesh's practice is 'slippery', associative and, above all, extraordinarily heterogeneous.

Over the last two decades, Peggy Ahwesh has produced one of the most heterogeneous bodies of work in experimental film and video. Drawing from horror films, psychoanalysis, and the writings of Bataille, her films and videos are sublime studies of culturally complex subjects: sexual pleasure, relationships, and notions of the self. With playfulness and humor, she investigates cultural and gender identities, the role of the subject, language and representation.

This 3-disc DVD collection features nine works by maverick film and video maker Peggy Ahwesh.
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Drei Tage Liebe / Three Days of Love (1931) DVD5

This is the story of the unhappy maid Lena, who falls in love with the furniture mover Franz. But Franz' former girlfriend Karla is jealous of Lena and starts an intrigue against the couple, suggesting that Franz would leave Lena because of her poverty and shabby clothes. So Lena steals a ring and brings it to the pawnshop in order to get some money to buy something more attractive. However, when Franz finds out he throws her out, and Lena only sees one way to end her misery....

A rather impressive and atmospheric early Weimar sound film. This was the debut film by director Heinz Hilpert, whose name isn't exactly well known today and who only directed a handful of films.

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 01:32:00 | 4.08 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Heinz Hilpert
Cast: Hans Albers, Kathe Dorsch, Trude Berliner
Country: Germany
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Mildred Pierce (1945), Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star (2002) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Told in flashback, "Mildred Pierce" opens with a murder and a trip to police headquarters, where we learn that Mildred was a self-sacrificing middle class woman, whose every decision was motivate by her blind lover of her children, particularly her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth).
To give Veda all the best things in life, Mildred becomes a successful restaurateur the hard way, by starting out as a lowly waitress and then working almost continuously to better her position in the industry. Mildred even wrecks her own love life for her daughter's sake, and only after doing so does she discover the depth of Veda's ungratefulness.

"Mildred Pierce" is a stark and intriguing film noir from hard boiled novelist James M. Cain and stalwart director of the time Michael Curtiz, whose name seems to be forgotten today. Joan Crawford won her only Oscar for her whirlwind and emotional performance.

BD50 + 2xDVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:51:00 | 44.4 Gb + 13 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance

Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Country: USA
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Science Fiction Theatre (1955–1957) 8 x DVD9 The Complete Series

Blending the discoveries of factual science with the limitless frontiers of fantasy, Science Fiction Theatre offered Atomic Age television viewers an intriguing look at the possibilities science could provide us in the near future as well as the immediate present. Airing from 1955 to 1957 and hosted by Truman Bradley, Science Fiction Theatre's seventy-eight episodes presented its intelligent and fantastic stories in an anthology format, pre-dating The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

The series speculated on such things as visitors from other planets, UFO incidents, space fight, espionage technology, and miracle drugs that could cure all ills. Stories of crackpots, who turn out to be visionaries, and eyewitnesses to the fantastic, fighting to be believed. The show also utilized experts as consultants to help keep the show within the known realm of the scientific possibilities speculated at the time.

Guest stars on this unique program feature a roster of actors well-known to any lover of classic film and television, including DeForest Kelley ("Star Trek"), Hugh Beaumont ("Leave It To Beaver"), Barbara Hale ("Perry Mason"), Gene Barry (The War of the Worlds, "Burke's Law"), Macdonald Carey, Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street), Beverly Garland, Basil Rathbone, June Lockhart ("Lost In Space"), and the great Vincent Price.
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The Lupino Collection: No Lady (1931), Her First Affaire (1932), Shipmates o’Mine (1936) DVD9

No Lady (1931)
Stars: Lupino Lane, Renee Clama, Sari Maritza
Lane directs and stars as henpecked Mr Pog, who takes his wife and stepchildren on holiday to Blackpool. He is mistaken for an international criminal mastermind and drawn into a series of adventures that climaxes in a glider race which a foreign power aims to win by fair means or foul. Lovely shots of 1930s Blackpool.

Her First Affaire (1932)
Stars: Ida Lupino, George Curzon, Diana Napier
Ida Lupino stars in her first film aged just 18 and plays an impetuous teenager, who, much to the consternation of her boyfriend (Arnold Riches), becomes infatuated with a famous novelist (Curzon). The boyfriend and the writer's wife (Napier) join forces to deter her, and he decides an early marriage is the best cure.

Shipmates O'Mine (1936)
Stars: John Garrick, Jean Adrienne, Wallace Lupino
A through-the-years story with songs and sentiments. A sailor rises from first officer to captain, gets married and has a son, but loses his command when his ship is rammed and the vessel is abandoned to save passengers. For years he lives in the countryside. Then his son, now grown, contacts his father's old shipmates and eventually their ship is put back into commission with its old skipper in command.
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And Still I Believe… / I vsyo-taki ya veryu… / И все-таки я верю… (1974) DVD9

Romm is a crucial figure for understanding the phenomenon of the Soviet sixties. His film "Nine Days in One Year" (1962) pioneered — and in many ways defined — the aesthetics of film in that decade. "Ordinary Fascism" (1965) turned out to be at the epicenter of debate on the nature of totalitarianism.

Following Romm's untimely death during the making of "...And Still I Believe", his former students Khutsiev and Klimov completed this remarkable film montage, a personal journey across 20th-century history and the clash of civilizations told, in part, through Romm's own diary entries and gripping historical footage.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 02:00:15 | 6.95 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Documentary, Drama

Director: Mikhail Romm, Marlen Khutsiev, Elem Klimov
Country: Soviet Union
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Pickpocket (1959) DVD9 (Reissue) and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Michel (Martin Lassalle) is unable to keep a job and feels that all the positions that his friend Jacques (Pierre Leymarie) manages to set up for him are beneath a man of his intelligence. He needs to live however and, believing that society owes him, and resorts to stealing people's wallets. Initially he is not very good but, falling in with a group of thieves and getting lessons from an experienced pickpocket, Michel moves from the random pickings of the Paris underground to elaborate operations on banks and train stations. More than just making money however, Michel feels an elation at asserting his superiority over other people and being beyond the law. But the thrill of evading the police is not enough – Michel needs to actively challenge the police to catch him, meeting a police detective (Jean Pelegri) in a bar and expounding his theories that certain gifted and intelligent people should be free to disobey laws that are restrictive on their freedom of expression and their abilities.

BD50 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:16:19 | 44.1 Gb + 7.60 Gb
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English
Genre: Crime, Drama

Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Martin LaSalle, Marika Green, Jean Pelegri
Country: France
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F for Fake (1973) 2 x DVD9, Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

This incredible film directed by the great Orson Welles tells not one but three different stories. They mix facts and fiction with such authority that one never feels the need to question its observations.

F for Fake is an autobiographical "essay film" masquerading as a documentary. On the surface, it's a study of notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and biographer Clifford Irving (shot by cinematographer Francois Reichenbach), and was originally planned as such...but the discovery of Irving's fabricated Howard Hughes biography turned it into a layered examination of fraud and forgery.

With these three stories, Welles' constructs layers of lies while revealing a great many truths. A self-confessed bender of the truth, he's a faker, telling the story of a faker, who told the story of a faker. There are rules about double negatives, but how about triple? Does that negate everything? Not at all, as by delving into the falsehoods, the basest of human realities are put under Welles' microscope and revealed in the truest of lights.

Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Oja Kodar, Francois Reichenbach
Country: France, Iran, West Germany
Genre: Documentary
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The Chief (1933) DVD5

A bumbling honorary fire chief runs for alderman against a gangster in this madcap comedy.

A timid man (Ed Wynn) is thrust into the spotlight when his father is honored as a hero. He blunders into a series of adventures because of a woman (Dorothy Mackaill) and becomes a hero himself. Although two political parties try to use him for their benefit, he unwittingly foils all their plans. This is based on Wynn's famous radio character, and the film ends with Wynn on his own radio show.

This farce satirizes the corruption of local politics in the big city by making a popular hero out of a clumsy but likable fool.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:05:20 | 4.19 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Comedy

Director: Charles Reisner
Cast: Ed Wynn, Charles 'Chic' Sale, Dorothy Mackaill
Country: USA
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Dragon Seed (1944) DVD9

A strong cast render good performances in this lengthy film which is based on Pearl Buck's best-seller about the wartime atrocities leveled by the Japanese against the Chinese. Jade (Katharine Hepburn) is the aggressive and idealistic wife of Lao Er (Turhan Bey). Fearing imminent Japanese invasion, Jade persuades her husband to escape to the mountains to work in a munitions factory, although her father-in-law, Ling Tan (Walter Huston), refuses to believe that the Japanese will attack. En route they stay with Ling Tan's son-in-law, Wu Lien (Akim Tamiroff), a well-to-do merchant who slavishly collaborates with local Japanese troops. When Jade learns that Wu Lien is preparing a banquet for Japanese officers, she poisons the food; as a result, Wu Lien is executed. Jade and Lao Er later return to find Ling Tan's farm looted and the old man's opinion of the Japanese drastically changed...

DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 02:27:47 | 6.77 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Francais
Genre: Drama, History, War

Directors: Harold S. Bucquet, Jack Conway
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon
Country: USA
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L’albero degli zoccoli / The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Ermanno Olmi's masterpiece The Tree of the Wooden Clogs, which follows the lives of three peasant families in turn-of-the-century Lombardy for approximately one year, is unusual among Italian peasant epics in that its director is of peasant stock, and the narrative, based on his grandmother's stories of rural life, reflects his family's own experiences.

Olmi is also a fervent Catholic, and the film, with its warm depiction of traditional Catholic faith and piety as an integral part of the rhythms of peasant life, and its distinct lack of violent revolutionary spirit, has widely been regarded as a gentle Catholic counterpoint to angry Marxist peasant cinema, specifically Bertolucci's thematically similar Novecento.

The film was the winner of the prestigious Palme d'or (Best Picture) at Cannes and is regarded as one of the best Italian films ever produced.

Director: Ermanno Olmi
Cast: Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi, Omar Brignoli
Country: Italy
Genre: Drama, History
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1922 (1978) DVD5

The setting for the film is 1922 -- the Greek army is leaving Asia Minor and in its wake, the Turkish army rounds up the remaining Greek civilians and either kills them, or sends them on forced marches outside of the region.

Koundouros' film is based on the autobiographical novel by Greek novelist Elias Venezis (a pseudonym for his real name Elias Mellos) entitled "Number 31328", where he describes his experiences during his 14-month stay in a hard-labor concentration camp. The number in the novel's title references the number he was assigned as a prisoner. The film consists on the development of personal tragedies of three different characters – a wife's merchant, a professor and a 17-year-old adolescent – against the backdrop of the displacement of more than one million Greek Orthodox Christians.

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 02:09:05 | 3.46 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
Genre: Biography, Drama, History

Director: Nikos Koundouros
Cast: Antigoni Amanitou, Zaharias Rohas, Nikos Kapios
Country: Greece
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Another Part of the Forest (1948) DVD5

"Another Part of the Forest" backtracks 20 years from "The Little Foxes", Lillian Hellman's play, showing the same family of Hubbards and how they got to be that way in "Foxes".

Convoluted family saga set in an 1880 Southern town whose wealthiest citizen (Fredric March) is despised by his neighbors as a Civil War profiteer, but his years of lording it over the townspeople and his own conniving offspring (Edmond O'Brien, Dan Duryea and Ann Blyth) come to an end when his downtrodden wife (Florence Eldridge) reveals a dark secret from his past...

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:47:10 | 4.33 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Michael Gordon
Cast: Fredric March, Dan Duryea, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Blyth, Florence Eldridge, Dona Drake, Betsy Blair
Country: USA
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Das Madchen Johanna / Joan of Arc / Joan the Maid (1935) DVD5

The story of Joan of Arc has been filmed so often that it need not be repeated here. This 1935 version a very effective film which focuses much more on the intrigues of the men around Joan than on the girl herself, who gets surprisingly little screentime. Heinrich George's Duke of Burgundy is almost a buffo character in his arrogance and lecherousness. And Jeanne in her naivity admires the king and doesn't see through his Machiavellian schemes which in the end lead to her death.

"Das Madchen Johanna" was intended at least partly as a Third Reich propaganda film which shows both the French and the English as morally corrupt and conversely at least implicitly turns the Maid into a national 'leader' figure, German style.

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 01:17:39 | 3.99 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English
Genre: Biography, Drama, History

Director: Gustav Ucicky
Cast: Angela Salloker, Gustaf Grundgens, Heinrich George
Country: Germany
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An Act of Murder / Live Today for Tomorrow (1948) DVD5

Calvin Cooke (Fredric March) is an old-fashioned kind of man whose profession, a judge in a small town near Philadelphia, allows him to pass sentence literally on his fellow citizens. When his beloved wife Catherine (Florence Eldridge, March's wife in real life) falls terminally ill, he and their doctor conceal the nature of her illness in a vain attempt to ease her suffering. After Calvin witnesses a policeman put a dog, critically hurt by an automobile, out of its misery by shooting it, he knows what he has to do. He's willing to die along with his wife, but the irony is that he survives their deliberate auto crash; he must then stand trial for her murder and he winds up with David Douglas (Edmond O'Brien), a brash young lawyer who is dating the Cooke daughter, as his lawyer. Douglas has clashed with Calvin in the courtroom before, and their adversarial relationship continues, as Calvin insists on following the letter of the law, pleading guilty to his crime.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:31:11 | 4.33 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Director: Michael Gordon
Cast: Fredric March, Edmond O'Brien, Florence Eldridge
Country: USA
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Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws