The Naked Prey (1965) DVD9 (2007 edition) and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Although he directed and produced eight feature films during his career, Cornel Wilde was better known to movie audiences as an actor who excelled in swashbucklers (At Sword's Point, 1952) and athletic action roles (The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952). Only now, almost thirty years after his death, is his work as a director being reappraised as some of the most original and compelling work in the American cinema with his fifth feature, The Naked Prey, regarded as possibly his finest achievement.

Bearing similarities to the 1932 film version of Richard Edward Connell's short story, The Most Dangerous Game, a movie that had a profound effect on Wilde as a young boy, The Naked Prey follows a safari guide as he leads his party through the South African jungle. When the arrogant ivory hunter, who is financing the safari, refuses to pay homage to a group of tribesmen for entering their territory, there is bloody retribution. Only the safari guide is allowed to live...if he can outrun a group of armed warriors in pursuit. He is given a brief head start and then the chase begins, one which will test his strength, endurance and cunning repeatedly as he attempts to reach safety...

Director: Cornel Wilde
Cast: Cornel Wilde, Gert van den Bergh, Ken Gampu
Country: South Africa, USA
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller
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Babyface (1977) Blu-Ray Vinegar Syndrome

Babyface is a great film to have come from the golden age of adult films and director Alex de Renzy.

Dan (Dan Roberts) is a dockworker in heaps of trouble after seducing Priscilla (Lyn Cuddles Malone), a sexed up teen looking for a little trouble to upset her uptight mother, Molly (Molly Seagrim). Nearly killed during a police chase, Dan hopes to reinvent himself as a male prostitute working in a brothel that services an exclusively female clientele, joining a stable of studs (including Joey Silvera and Paul Thomas). Initially overwhelmed by the job and its intimidating customers, Dan soon finds himself in deeper trouble when Molly zeroes in on his location, looking for revenge.

BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:45:43 | 23.2 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none

Director: Alex de Renzy (as Alex deRenzy)
Cast: Rudy Graham, Blair Harris, Carla Harwood
Country: USA
Genre: Adult, Comedy
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Corruption (1983), The Last House on Dead End Street (1977) Blu-Ray Vinegar Syndrome

Directed by Roger Watkins (under the pseudonym of Richard Mahler), Corruption is one of those films that blends hardcore pornography with arthouse style to create something unique.

The dirty underbelly of business, sexual fantasy and the deprivation of love and sexual gratification collide in this unique offering from director Roger Watkins.

Corruption is a Faustian like tale where the protagonist sells his soul to a mysterious organization, who in return promise him power and fortune. From there things start too go awry in the protagonists personal and professional lives.

Overall Corruption is an extraordinary film that stands out as one of adult cinema's most unique cinematic experiences.

Director: Roger Watkins (as Richard Mahler)
Cast: Jamie Gillis, Michael Gaunt, Tiffany Clark, Milton Ingley (as Michael Morrison), Samantha Fox, George Payne
Country: USA
Genre: Adult, Crime; Horror

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Dead Man (1995) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

The films of Jim Jarmusch are generally multi-layered reflections of differing aspects of humanity. His films have a subtle and gentle humour that seem to ride well with his philosophical tales and poetic visions. The deliberate pacing and ambiguity of his films are generally not embraced by mainstream audiences, but are devoured by lovers of arthouse cinema.

The fact that Jarmusch had ventured into the western genre surprised many in 1995, with the release of Dead Man, although upon viewing the film, you realise quickly that Dead Man is much more than a simple stereotypical western. This tragic tale of a young man's decent into personal oblivion is rich in black humour, visually stunning and is highly intelligent filmmaking.

Johnny Depp plays William Blake, a Cleveland accountant who arrives in a frontier town ready to start a new life only to find out that the job he was promised has been given to another man.

While he is spending the night with a woman, her lover shows up and kills her. In self defense, Blake shoots the man and flees with a bullet in his chest. Nobody (Gary Farmer), an outcast Native American who was educated in England, looks after Blake and dispenses his spiritual vision of life. They have to elude various lawmen and bounty hunters who are on his trail.

Nobody is convinced that Blake is the reincarnation of the famous English poet and sees it as his mission to usher him back to the spirit world.

Neil Young's electric guitar score punctuates this imaginative Western which includes interesting meditations upon the myth of the frontier, violence, artistic outlaws, and the plight of mistreated Native Americans. Blake's arduous journey toward death is a wonder to behold.
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Verbotene Filme / Forbidden Films: The Hidden Legacy of Nazi Film (2014) DVD9

The documentary Forbidden Films opens with a familiar metaphor for cinephiles. As Felix Moeller's camera tours a Berlin archive of 1,200 German films made between 1933 and 1945, a guide mentions that the nitro-celluloid filmstrips are highly flammable. In both the literal and figurative sense, these Nazi propaganda movies are explosive.

Though most of the tamer Nazi films are available in edited versions that snip out the swastikas, 40 remain banned from public consumption in Germany because their ideology has been deemed too dangerous. These 40 are the ones that interest Moeller.

The film raises the question: Should these films – some of which, crude as they are, are still poisonous – be made available to the general public without restriction?

DVD9 | NTSC 16:9 | 01:37:57 | 5.09 Gb + 3% rec
Language: German
Subtitles: English

Director: Felix Moeller
Country: Germany
Genre: Documentary
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No Way Out (1950), All About Mankiewicz (1983) Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

No Way Out sees Poitier play Luther Brooks, a newly qualified doctor who's assigned to cover in the prison ward on his first night. There he treats two of the notorious Biddle brothers who are brought in after being shot and caught by the police. One of them, Johnny (Dick Paxton), looks considerably worse off than his leg injury suggests and Brooks thinks he may actually have a brain tumour. The doctor decides to take action straight away, but it's too late and Johnny dies. Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark), a violent racist, blames Brooks for his brother's death and vows to take revenge once he's on his feet, not only on Brooks, but on the local black community as a whole. On top of this pressure, Brooks is worried that perhaps he was to blame for the patient's death, so wants an autopsy to define the cause. This requires consent from Johnny's closest family though and Ray of course would never allow it...

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier, Harry Bellaver
Country: USA
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
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Le gang (1977) Blu-Ray

After the enormous popularity of Borsalino and its sequel Borsalino et Co. in the early 1970s, director Jacques Deray and actor/producer Alain Delon hoped to repeat their success with Le Gang, a similar kind of period gangster action film. The film was based on a novel by Roger Borniche, which recounted the real-life story of a notorious gangster boss, Pierre Loutrel (known as "Pierrot le Fou").

In Le Gang (1976), set in 1945 when the French police are somewhat disorganised while trying to root out Nazi collaborators from their ranks, Delon (in a curly wig) assembles a gang which embarks on a series of daring robberies. The story is told in flashbacks from the point of view of Delon's mistress as his mournful gang gather round his deathbed.

BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:43:41 | 21.7 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English, Japanese

Director: Jacques Deray
Cast: Alain Delon, Laura Betti, Xavier Depraz
Country: Italy, France
Genre: Crime, Drama
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