Women in Love (1969) Blu-Ray

Women in Love is Ken Russell's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's classic novel, though more famous for it's nude wrestling scene between Reed and Bates than Russell's direction.

Set in 1920s England, Gerald (Oliver Reed) and Rupert (Alan Bates) star as friends who fall in love with a pair of sisters, iron-willed artist Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), and her schoolteacher sister Ursula (Jennie Linden). The relationships take markedly different directions as the film explores the nature of commitment and love, Rupert and Ursula learn to give themselves to each other; the more withdrawn Gerald cannot, finally, connect with the demanding and challenging Gudrun.
Set against the lush English landscape, the protagonists engage with nature in a direct and sensuous way, each searching for love but unsure what it means.

BD50 | 1080p AVC | 02:10:46 | 46.1 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Ken Russell
Cast: Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson
Country: UK
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Khoya Khoya Chand / Lost Moon (2007) DVD9

Sudhir Mishra's 'Khoya Khoya Chand' is his tribute to the classic Hindi films of the 1950s-1960s which is considered the golden era of Hindi cinema. The film captures the tumultuous love story between a rising starlet and a talented writer/director in the fickle world of the film industry.
Superstar Prem Kumar (Rajat Kapoor) notices aspiring actress, Nikhat (Soha Ali Khan) on a film set and gives her the break she desperately wants, but at the cost of compromising any morals she has left. Having been raped on the casting couch at the age of fourteen, Nikhat is all too familiar with being used in the industry where she wants to succeed. Zafar (Shiney Ahuja), a writer looking for his first break, stumbles into Nikhat's life and they instantly fall for one another. The ebb and flow of their relationship and individual careers takes them on a personal journey, forcing them to confront issues from their past.

DVD9 | NTSC 16:9 | 02:09:35 | 6.83 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Hindi
Subtitles: English, Arabic
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Sudhir Mishra
Cast: Shiney Ahuja, Soha Ali Khan, Rajat Kapoor
Country: India
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Early Murnau – Five Films 1921-1925: Schloss Vogelod (1921), Phantom (1922), Der letzte Mann (1924), Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs (1924), Herr Tartuff (1925) 3 x Blu-Ray Eureka! – Masters of Cinema

One of the most influential and revered figures in all of cinema, Friedrich Wilheim Murnau came to prominence in the first half of the 1920's with a diverse string of productions ranging from buoyant satire to swirling psychological drama. Five key works are presented here: Schloss Vogelod, Phantom, Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs (the Grand Duke's Finances), Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) and Tartuffe. The five films included vary in quality, style, and content, but taken as a whole they offer a portrait of Murnau's gradual development as a filmmaker.

Disc one of this box set includes Der Schloss Vogelod (1921) and Phantom (1922), two early films atypical of the style the director is most famous for. In contrast to the highly stylised expressionism of the earlier The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Murnau employs a more naturalistic style for both of these films. Der Schloss Vogelod is an intimate and claustrophobic chamber drama, where terrible secrets from the past return, and Phantom is the tragic tale of a man possessed by a destructive and all-consuming love. Although Murnau was compulsively drawn to magic and the occult, both of these films are notable for their human focus.

Despite their age, there is a great amount of modern relevance in the thematic content of these films, ensuring they are more than just interesting historical artefacts. On disc two there is Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs (1924), a farcical comedy set in the Mediterranean, and Tartuffe (1925), Murnau's subtly satirical adaptation of Moliere's classic play. Compelled towards the source text because of his dislike for the church and his rejection by it (he was openly gay), the film is an open criticism of the sexual hypocrisy of societal institutions.

On disc three there is Der Letzte Mann. This is a poignant social-realist parable about the mental deterioration of an elderly hotel porter, played by Murnau regular Emil Jannings. Always as interested in special effects as he was in characterisation and plot, the film contains some interesting surrealist flourishes and groundbreaking camera work. The eerie and dizzying dream sequence is a notable highlight.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Casotto / Beach House (1977) DVD9

It is a comedy and at times a little bit goofy. But, the film is far smarter than that. It makes wonderful observations about life and its flawed characters are, despite the obvious exaggerations, recognisable as the scheming, the vain, the pious, the hypocritical, the manipulative, the chaste and so on. It's life in microcosm

The film is set in one room. That room is a changing room on a beach or a beach-house and the characters reveal more of their inner selves as they interact with each brief visit. Highlights include a sunburned couple who seek a quiet moment to make love without touching, a man with two dicks and the competition for female companionship between two wide-boys from Rome and two posers from Torino with tissue paper stuffed down their trunks.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:39:31 | 7.84 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English, Italiano
Genre: Comedy

Director: Sergio Citti
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jodie Foster, Paolo Stoppa, Michele Placido, Ugo Tognazzi
Country: Italy
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Der mude Tod / The Weary Death / Destiny (1921) Blu-Ray

With Der mude Tod (Destiny, 1921), Fritz Lang mounted one of the most revolutionary and influential works of the German Expressionist movement. The film was a lavish Decla-Bioscop production co-scripted by Lang and his second wife, Thea von Harbou, who originally went uncredited. The scenarists were aided by splendiferous set pieces by three highly talented art directors and a cadre of cinematographers. Destiny is famous for introducing Luis Bunuel to the "poetic expressiveness" of cinema and convinced the Spanish surrealist to become a filmmaker. Additionally, death in Destiny as both a recurrent theme and visual specter almost certainly caught Ingmar Bergman's attention for the Swede used the character of Death to probe existential questions during the Black Plague in The Seventh Seal (1957).
In his commentary track on this disc, film critic Tim Lucas discusses several other films that are indebted to Lang's work.

Destiny is a visually ambitious, cinematic allegory in which a young woman (Lil Dagover) confronts the personification of Death (Bernhard Goetzke), in an effort to save the life of her fiance (Walter Janssen). Destiny contains four historical episodes: a modern parable, an Arabian tale set in ninth-century Baghdad, a Venetian tale set in the Italian Renaissance, and a nineteenth-century Chinese tale set in the Emperor's palace.

Restored by Anke Wilkening on behalf of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, this definitive presentation of Destiny preserves the original German intertitles and simulates the historic color tinting and toning of its initial release. Accompanying the film is a newly-composed score by Cornelius Schwehr as a commissioned composition by ZDF / ARTE performed by the 70-member Berlin Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Frank Strobel.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 8: Blonde Crazy (1931), Dark Hazard (1934), Hi, Nellie! (1934), Strangers May Kiss (1931) 4 x DVD5

Warner Bros. has a lot of pre-Code cinema, so much that they're up to volume 8 of their popular Forbidden Hollywood series. This latest set is especially diverse, mixing comedy and drama and settings from swanky hotels and European villas to raucous newsrooms and racetracks.

Blonde Crazy (1931) (Dir. Roy Del Ruth)
A bellboy (James Cagney) joins forces with a chambermaid (Joan Blondell) and embarks on a new career as a con artist.

Strangers May Kiss (1931) (Dir. George Fitzmaurice)
A young woman (Norma Shearer) with modern views on romance finds herself torn between a pair of beaus (Neil Hamilton and Robert Montgomery).

Hi, Nellie! (1934) (Dir. Mervyn LeRoy)
In a more lighthearted turn than usual, Paul Muni plays a newspaperman demoted to writing the love advice column after botching a big story...or so he thinks.

Dark Hazard (1934) (Dir. Alfred E. Green)
A former hotshot gambler (Edward G. Robinson) finds a second chance at success with a dog named Dark Hazard.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

Anna (1972-1975) DVD9

ANNA is an astonishing nearly four-hour documentary about a 16-year-old homeless junkie, eight months pregnant, whom the filmmakers discovered in Rome's Piazza Navona. The film was initially constructed on the basis of the events and experiences of its protagonists, but soon the script was abandoned for a full immersion into their daily lives.
ANNA cuts between long, often discomfiting domestic scenes and equally protracted cafe discussions back in the square, where the unruly cross talk among hippies, bums, bourgeoisie, and angry young men touches on the movie's key themes of obligation and intervention: between filmmakers and their subjects, the state and its citizens, fellow members of society.
Of the eleven hours filmed, a short version was transcribed onto 16mm film using a vidigrafo created by Alberto Grifi, before making its debut at the Berlin Film Festival in 1975.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 03:33:41 | 7.91 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English
Genre: Documentary

Directors: Alberto Grifi, Massimo Sarchielli
Country: Italy
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws