Jeune & Jolie / Young and Beautiful (2013) DVD5, DVD9, Blu-Ray

Following the well-received In The House, Francois Ozon returns with yet another voyeuristic character study with Jeune & Jolie (Young and Beautiful). Over the course of four weather seasons, the film follows a sexually driven adolescent striving to discover herself while pushing boundaries that society sets in front of her.

One summer, Isabelle, 16, is on holiday with her family on the French Riviera. Encouraged by her hedonistic parents, she allows an attractive young man to rob her of her virginity, but she takes no pleasure in the experience and sees no real significance in it. The following autumn, Isabelle, now 17, is a fully fledged Parisian prostitute, although naturally she keeps this fact from her parents. Between leaving school and returning to her comfortable middleclass home, she arranges to meet up with her clients at various hotels, clients she has no difficulty attracting over the internet.

Throughout, she remains curiously aloof, showing little interest in the encounters themselves or the money she makes, while Ozon slyly refrains from offering easy answers. As the enigmatic Isabelle, Marine Vacth is magnetic, delivering a star-making breakout performance in this sleek and sexy coming-of-age drama.

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The Stunt Man (1980) 2xDVD9 and Blu-Ray Severin Films

This brilliant and provocative film has the dubious distinction of sitting on the shelf with the label "commercially unviable." Lawrence B. Marcus's screenplay is based on Paul Brodeur's 1970 novel of the same title. The movie presents a fast-paced, revealing, and thoroughly engaging look at the movie business. Propelled by the excellent music of Dominic Frontiere and the expert cinematography of Mario Tosi, The Stunt Man is a beguiling work of art which lingers in the mind long after its closing credits.

Cameron (Steve Railsback) is a Vietnam veteran who is being pursued by the police and the FBI. During his flights from the law, he is involved in a strange episode where he apparently causes the death of another man. Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole), a charismatic and authoritarian film director who is making a movie about World War I, offers him work as a stunt man. Cameron soon discovers that the dead man was his predecessor in the job. For a while, the young fugitive is safe from discovery by the police; instead he is at the mercy of the director — an obsessed genius who senses that Cameron possesses the feral drive and madness to make his film something extraordinary.

Director Richard Rush thrusts us into the mad mad world of moviemaking. We see the hectic last three days of production from Cameron's point of view. In several daring stunt scenes, Cameron proves his pluck and death-defying courage. Each of the film's stunts is more dangerous than the one preceding it, and Eli Cross seems hellbent on capturing Cameron's death on film. Cameron is driven the point of total paranoia, unsure if he can trust anyone around him or even if he can rely on his own perceptions.

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Dopo mezzanotte / After Midnight (2004) DVD5

Almost any film would automatically be worth watching if it were set in the amazingly gorgeous Mole Antonelliana the Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy — but After Midnight surpasses all expectations.

Giorgio Pasotti plays Martino, the sad-eyed museum worker who venerates Keaton and who has tried as best he can to approximate Keaton's world, from the witty gadgets that populated his movie sets (a record player that turns into a bar) to the actor's signature pratfalls, tics and subtle physical gags. But Martino's tightly controlled universe is shattered with the arrival of Amanda (Francesca Inaudi), a fast-food clerk who crashes into his life after dousing her boss with a vat of french fry oil. The two embark on an unlikely romance, made problematic by Amanda's volatile boyfriend, Angel (Fabio Troiano).

The film utilizes the magic of cinema to communicate emotions between the characters in an enchanting way.

Director: Davide Ferrario
Cast: Giorgio Pasotti, Francesca Inaudi, Fabio Troiano, Francesca Picozza, Silvio Orlando, Pietro Eandi, Andrea Romero, Giampiero Perone
Country: Italy
Genre: Comedy, Romance
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A Night at the Opera (1935) Blu-Ray Warner

The first movie the Marx Brothers did for MGM under the watchful eye of Irving Thalberg, A Night at the Opera is a comedic tour de force that was not only one of the Brother's funniest films, but also one of the most successful. In 1993, the movie was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The plot to this movie, like all of the Marx brothers' best films, is really only there as a backdrop, a reason for all the zaniness to take place.

Groucho plays Otis B. Driftwood, a con man working the Opera scene in Italy. He is hired by the clueless widow, Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont), to help her break into proper society. Meanwhile the egomaniacal star of the opera, Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), abuses his dresser (Harpo) and sexually harasses the company's young ingenue, Rosa (Kitty Carlisle), who is in love with the less successful, but equally talented tenor, Riccardo (Allan Jones). Riccardo is managed by Fiorello (Chico) who hustles Otis into signing him to a contract.
As the opera company sets sail to New York the three Marx Brothers follow it in order to help the young lovers reunite, make some cash, and bring down the arrogant Lassparri.
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Target: Harry (1969) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Surly pilot-for-hire Harry Black (Vic Morrow) is commissioned by British businessman Jason Carlyle (Stanley Holloway) to fly him from Monte Carlo to Istanbul. The flight itself is routine, but soon after arriving Carlyle is murdered by an assassin. Unaware that his client won't be flying back to Monaco, Harry wanders the city, where he meets fetching, flirtatious American Diane Reed (Suzanne Pleshette), and later local gangster Mosul Rashi (Buono) and his two henchmen, Milos Segora (Michael Ansara) and Kemal (Milton Reid).

All assume Harry knows the whereabouts of what they believe Carlyle was transporting, and could only have left in Harry's care: five-pound note printing plates, originals stolen from the British mint.

BD25, DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:23:10 | 21.1 Gb + 4.79 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: English

Director: Roger Corman
Cast: Vic Morrow, Suzanne Pleshette, Victor Buono, Cesar Romero, Stanley Holloway, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Ansara, Kathy Fraisse, Christian Barbier, Fikret Hakan
Country: United States
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
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Michael Kohlhaas – Der Rebell / Michael Kohlhaas – The Rebel / Man on Horseback (1969) DVD5, DVD9

Volker Schlondorff's film adaptation of the Heinrich von Kleist novella "Michael Kohlhaas" tells the true story of a righteous man in the 16th century who seeks vindictive justice and bloody revenge for injustice suffered. Unjustly treated by a nobleman, the horse dealer Kohlhaas becomes a relentless fighter against arbitrariness, corruption and oppression.

On his way to market to sell his horses, Kohlhaas is intercepted by the minions of a nobleman named Tronka. He is informed that he is trespassing on Tronka's land, must pay a toll in order to continue, and winds up being forced to leave two of his horses behind as a surety. Upon returning to reclaim the horses, he finds that they have been maltreated and starved. Outraged, he seeks justice through official channels, but is stonewalled at every turn by the prevailing old-boy network. At length, his indignation erupts into violence. Brushing off advice to "just let it go," he takes up arms, gathers a band of similarly disenfranchised people, and starts an insurrection.

Director: Volker Schlondorff
Cast: David Warner, Anna Karina, Thomas Holtzmann, Michael Gothard, Anton Diffring, Peter Weiss, Inigo Jackson
Country: West Germany
Genre: Drama
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Edition Filmmuseum 118: Die Reise nach Lyon / Le voyage a Lyon / Blind Spot (1981) DVD9

The young historian Elisabeth abruptly leaves her partner and young daughter in Germany to travel by train to the French city of Lyon. In the summer heat, she wanders near-empty streets in pursuit of Flora Tristan, the socialist feminist activist and writer who spent time in Lyon in 1844, just months before her death at age 41. Tristan roamed the country with the aim of organizing workers, calling on them to form a single trade union, while also campaigning for recognition of the fact that "woman is the proletariat of the proletariat." Carrying with her a tape recorder, a notebook, and Tristan's posthumously published diary, Le Tour de France, Elisabethdrifts across the cobblestones, unfettered by the demands of family life, subject to no will but her own. She runs into dead ends, kisses a stranger, sleeps in the daytime. Elisabeth tries to put together the clues she can find in Lyon wanting to reconstruct Tristan's life in the most sensual way.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 01:47:43 | 5.95 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Deutsch, Francais
Subtitles: English, Deutsch, Francais

Director: Claudia von Alemann
Cast: Rebecca Pauly, Denise Peron, Jean Badin
Country: West Germany
Genre: Drama
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