Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Vinegar Syndrome

From the bowels of cinematic hell comes this grandfather of all blaxploitation films. Written, directed, produced, and containing music composed by star of the film Melvin Van Peebles (father of Mario "I was Solo!" Van Peebles), "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" was dedicated to "all the Brothers and Sisters who have had enough of The Man". It went on to pave the way for such legendary films as "Shaft", "Super Fly", and "Foxy Brown" as well as the not-so-legendary films "Dolemite II: The Human Tornado", "Black Belt Jones" and "Blackenstein".

One of the most iconic, notorious, and influential American films of the 1970s, Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song stars Van Peebles as Sweetback, a black orphan raised in a brothel and groomed into becoming a sex show performer. Set up by his boss and two corrupt white policemen for a murder he didn't commit, Sweetback escapes custody only to find himself thrust into an increasingly hallucinogenic world of violence and bigotry where no one can be trusted and the possibility of death lurks at every corner...

Director: Melvin Van Peebles
Cast: Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales
Country: USA
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
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Mister Flow / Compliments of Mr. Flow (1936) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Les Documents Cinematographiques

It is with great reluctance that Antonin Rose, a struggling young barrister in Paris, agrees to take on the case of Achille Durin, a valet accused of stealing a tie-pin from his employer, Lord Scarlett. The impecunious lawyer is duped into purloining a suitcase that will prove Durin's innocence, but in doing so he falls foul of a ruse concocted by the world-renowned burglar Mister Flow! By the time Antonin realises that Durin and Flow are one in the same man, he is in the arch-criminal's power and easy prey for Flow's even more devious partner-in-crime, the delectable socialite Lady Helena Scarlett. During her stay at the casino resort of Deauville, the latter succeeds in making the naive lawyer a willing accomplice in her nefarious exploits, with the result that Antonin soon risks being mistaken for Mister Flow...

Siodmak makes a reasonable fist at juggling the contrasting comedic and dramatic elements of this quirky Jekyll-and-Hyde film, although he is clearly more interested in atmospherics than narrative, happily playing with lighting and camera angles in a way that clearly anticipates the full-bodied noir masterpieces he would go on to make in the following decade.
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La leggenda del santo bevitore / The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988) Blu-Ray, DVD9

Rutger Hauer portrays a downtrodden alcoholic who gets a chance for redemption in this 1988 drama, one of Italian director Ermanno Olmi's few studio ventures, adapted from the last novella by Austrian-Jewish writer Joseph Roth.

Andreas (Hauer), a bum who sleeps under the bridges of the Seine, is given 200 francs one day by a mysterious old man (Anthony Quayle) who asks only that he put the same amount in the poor box of a local chapel as soon as he can afford to. Andreas finds temporary work, then sets out to return the money, only to be sidetracked by assorted temptations and memories of his tormented past as a miner in Poland. Yet his wallet is always miraculously replenished. Andreas can't believe his luck, but his determination to follow through on his promise to pay back Therese proves more challenging than he expected.

Director: Ermanno Olmi
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Anthony Quayle, Sandrine Dumas, Dominique Pinon
Country: Italy, France
Genre: Drama
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L’authentique proces de Carl-Emmanuel Jung / The Authentic Trial of Carl Emmanuel Jung (1966, 1977) DVD5

20 years later, the recreation of the trial of a simple man that confesses himself as a war criminal, Carl Emmanuel Jung..

Hanoun used a near documentary style to portray the imaginary trial of the title character, cast in the film as the former commandant of a Nazi concentration camp, finally called to account for his actions. The "real" Carl Jung, of course, held no such position, but his close association with a number of official Nazi organizations, and his implicit approval of Hitler's regime through most of the war, remains deeply problematic for most observers. In this film, Hanoun suggests that "his" Jung has been seduced by a life of postwar luxury, and is all too willing to forget his past, even as he is directly confronted with it.

Shot in stark black and white 35mm, the film is by turns abrasive, seductive, and damning, ultimately leaving any "moral judgments" entirely up to the viewer, thus making the spectator, in a sense, the co-creator of the film.

Director: Marcel Hanoun
Cast: Maurice Poullenot, Ellen Bernsen, Raymond Jourdan
Country: France
Genre: Drama
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Bridgend (2015) Blu-Ray

Between 2009 and 2012, a rash of suicides occurred in the county of Bridgend in Wales. About 79 people killed themselves, most of them teenagers. Danish documentary filmmaker Jeppe Ronde uses this real-life event as the basis for a haunting, ethereal film that offers clues and theories but ultimately no explanations for this tragic phenomenon. Bridgend is Ronde's fiction film debut. It is entirely shot on location in Wales, with many of the local teenagers casted as actors.

Sarah (Hannah Murray) arrives in town with her detective father Dave (Steven Waddington). He has been hired to investigate these suicides, all of which seem to be staged so the parents are the first ones to discover their child. Sarah starts off protective of her widowed father, but as she meets the fellow teens of the town, she is drawn in by their closeness, their strange rituals, and their intensity. One sensitive boy in particular, Jamie (Josh O'Connor), catches her eye. Before long, Sarah joins the teens in tromping nightly through the woods, partying at a lake, drinking, skinny-dipping, play-fighting, and screaming the names of the recently dead at the top of their lungs in a sort of tribute. Hannah's loneliness abates as she is slowly accepted by the group. Her father, however, becomes understandably concerned as the suicides have not abated and he seems powerless to stop them.
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Lost in America (1985) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

The film begins in sunny Los Angeles where successful advertising executive David Howard (Brooks) and his wife Linda (Julie Hagerty) are on the verge of relocating to a much bigger and more expensive home, even though they are both secretly dreaming of living a life on the road, a lot like the main characters in one of their all-time favorite films, Easy Rider. So they are visibly tense and occasionally even openly blame each other for not being brave enough to follow their hearts. On the day when David is supposed to get the crucial promotion that would make the purchase of their new home possible, however, things go terribly wrong and he gets fired. Barely able to contain his anger, David then rushes into Linda's office and with a short but very passionate speech convinces her to quit her miserable job. A few days later the two sell all of their possessions, then combine their financial assets, buy a Winnebago and hit the road. For the first time in years David and Linda feel truly free and even blessed that they have been able to escape the corporate world. But when Linda foolishly loses all of their savings in a casino in Las Vegas, their American Dream very quickly evolves into an American Nightmare.

Director: Albert Brooks
Cast: Albert Brooks, Julie Hagerty, Sylvia Farrel
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy
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Sullivan’s Travels (1941) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection 2015 Edition

After years of shooting comedies, influential Hollywood director John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) decides that it is time for him to make a serious film about poverty in America. But the two studio bosses that greenlight his projects are concerned – Sullivan was born rich and his success in Hollywood has made him even richer, so what does he know about poverty?

Determined to prove that he can direct serious films just as well as he does comedies, Sullivan dresses as a hobo and leaves Hollywood.

On his travels Sullivan befriends a penniless but big-hearted girl (a luminous Veronica Lake) who shares his experiences and wins his love. Their madcap misadventures take a much darker turn before Sullivan finally sees the light.

Director: Preston Sturges
Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn
Country: USA
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Romance
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