Arrow Video, with
domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group,
has a new hi-def transfer of actor-turned-filmmaker Steve Buscemi’s 2000 film
adaptation of Eddie Bunker’s 1977 semi-autobiographical novel, Animal
Factory, planned for release as a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack on Nov.
21.
Bunker, who served time
at San Quentin in the early 1950s, where he met Caryl Chessman, author of “Cell
2455 Death Row.” This crossing of paths
proved to be an important turning point in Bunker’s life as he too took to
writing … it would be, however, something like 18 years of being in-and-out of
prison before he finally got the hang of it.
Animal Factory was his second novel and its publication opened
up an acting career that began with a bit part in Dustin Hoffman’s 1978 film Straight
Time (which was adapted from Bunker’s first novel, “No Beast So Fierce”)
… other films included Runaway Train, The Running Man and his
role as Mr. Blue in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs.
Which brings us back to Animal
Factory and its production history, where, if you’ll recall, Steve
Buscemi was Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs. And that connection with Bunker eventually
led to Buscemi producing and directing Animal Factory on a micro budget,
but his show biz connections earned him a cast — well beyond the film’s budget
— that included William Defoe and Edward Furlong, plus Danny Trejo (who also
co-produced), John Heard, Seymour Cassel, Mickey Rourke and Tom Arnold (among
others).
The story is about a new
fish at San Quentin, played by Furlong, who is taken under the wing of Defoe —
a shrewd manipulator — and a run-in with a prison predator (Tom Arnold) that
results in a stabbing and eventually a murder.
The gritty prison drama
earned solid reviews, but failed to find major studio distribution and ended up
with a very limited theatrical break in the autumn of 2000.
Bonus features include a
vintage commentary track featuring Eddie Bunker (who passed in 2005) and Danny
Trejo and video session with author and critic Barry Forshaw (“The Rough Guide
to Crime Fiction,” “British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia,” etc.), who
discusses the checkered career of Eddie Bunker.
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