Monday, January 14, 2013

Eagle Rock Entertainment's Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium – 25th Anniversary Edition Arrives On Mar. 12


Eagle Rock Entertainment announced this past week that on Mar. 12 the magical 1986 concert at Wembley by the rock group Queen will be re-released as a double-disc DVD SKU titled Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium – 25th Anniversary Edition.    

There were two sold-out concerts (Friday, July 11th and Saturday, July 12th) … for the first time Eagle Rock has re-mastered both performances — a massive 26-song set on Friday, with two additional numbers on Saturday.

In addition to the concerts, there all sorts of bonus goodies, including secret footage of the group in rehearsal, newly prepared interviews with Roger Taylor and Brian May, plus a 2003 film featuring the same two original Queen band members.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
 

Cinema Libre's Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home Debuts On DVD, Mar. 19


DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
“There, but by the grace of God, go I,” is a familiar prayer … often uttered as the windows are rolled up and the doors locked as one encounters a group of homeless.  It is easy to forget that they are people, with names and faces, who once had hopes, families and dreams.

In documentary filmmaker Thomas Napper’s Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home, due out on DVD from Cinema Libre on Mar. 19, eight of the homeless who reside on the streets of Los Angeles have their names and stories put with those faces of despair.   Narration is by Catherine Keener.

Within this structure of introducing us to the broken (almost always by drugs or mental illness … or both) Napper weaves in a history of the long-standing area just to the east of downtown Los Angeles between 3rd and 7th and bounded by Main on the west and Alameda to the east.   

The film can serve as a call to action or as a reminder that these too are people.  Or simply as a history of what is past is future … economic pressures and social failings seem to create an endless stream of new Skid Row citizens regardless of today or 80 years ago. 
 
No matter what you take away from viewing Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home it does get you to thinking … and that’s a good first step.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
 

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Well Go U.S.A.'s Interview With A Hitman On DVD and Blu-ray Mar. 5

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DVD and Blu-ray Release Report
Well Go U.S.A. has tabbed Mar. 5 as the street date for DVD and Blu-ray editions of writer/director Perry Bhandal’s debut flick, Interview With a Hitman.

One doesn’t normally get all that excited about indie filmmakers, working with a small budget and a tight shooting schedule, delivering their first feature film.   Unless there is studio backing or some other reason to sit up and take notice (for example, an A-list actor going behind the camera) these indie first-time efforts largely pass unnoticed. 

That’s not the case with Bhandal, who holds not one, but two master degrees in Film and Creative Writing and formed his own production company in 2009 — after an 18 year hiatus from the business.   It took two years of planning, but his under three week shooting schedule (England and Romania) for his own screenplay paid off in spades … Interview With a Hitman is one slick action flick.

It also doesn’t hurt to have Luke Goss (Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pressed, One Night with the King, Blade II, etc.) as your leading man/action star.   Here he plays Viktor, the son of a deadbeat gambler in debt to the mob … as a kid, rather than cringe in fear while dear old dad gets whacked, he goes over to the dark side and joins a Romanian mob.  Nasty boys … kill or be killed.

Growing up in Bucharest he quickly learned to follow orders.  "Kill that guy" and sure enough Viktor put a bullet in his head, no questions asked.   So when his “family” of killers turn on him, he’s smart enough to know that it’s time to get out of Dodge.   He fakes his own death and heads out to greener pastures in London. 
 
Look, make no mistake about it, Viktor isn’t a nice guy.  He’s a killer.  He’s the type of uber-professional that you would expect to see trading blows with 007 in a Bond thriller.  And sure enough, in no time he finds steady employment with some English chaps of the mob persuasion.   He's a pro ... the work is steady.

But when his old friends come looking for him (seems Viktor popped the boss on his way out of town) he has to go to his fallback position (the reset button, so to speak), which means … KILL or be killed and trust no one.
Interview With a Hitman is non-stop, pedal-to-the-metal action.   Slick and never out of control!   Well Go U.S.A. has a DVD and Blu-ray hit here … and we expect to see more out of Bhandal; this will not be a one-off fluke.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
 



Warner Home Video Adds The Factory To The Feb. 19 Release Calendar

It makes you wonder how some films are released theatrically and others are not.  Have audiences for gore, murder and mayhem become so jaded that a thinking-man’s thriller no longer qualifies for the local multiplex?   

“Give us blood,” they chant.  “Give us gore,” they scream.   It is that twisted?  That simple?   Perhaps if the N-word was used 105 times it would be a hit.

On paper it seemed dead-certain that Aussie actor/filmmaker Morgan O’Neill’s The Factory, starring the always-interesting John Cusack and Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter would certainly get a theatrical break.    

But no, it has been sitting on the shelf for some time and only managed a couple of film fest screenings … now word comes from Warner Home Video that a DVD-only edition (with UltraViolet) will be heading home on Feb. 19.

Cusack and Carpenter are detectives in Buffalo — a dark and dreary Buffalo at that — investigating one sick and twisted case.   The Hooker-Killer (Dallas Roberts — The Walking Dead, The Good Wife, etc.) is a serial killer that specializes in the local ladies of the night … but there’s more going on than meets the eye with this bad boy.   And there are no bodies, they just disappear.

When he unwittingly selects a T-girl for an evening of fun, he does away with the “mistake” quickly and moves onto the next available target, which turns out to be an even bigger mistake for all concerned.   

It seems that the girl he snatched off the street was none other than Cusack’s daughter (Mae Whitman — The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Hope Floats, One Fine Day, etc.), who was looking a little too slutty on that particular street (she had just stepped out for a smoke ... a lesson learned the hard way that smoking is bad for your health).  A simple mistake, but that little slip-up drives Cusack right off the edge.   The clock is ticking and he has to cut corners to save his “baby.”  

DVD and Blu-ray Release Report
So you got a crazed cop chasing a serial killer?   That’s only half of it.  It seems our Hooker-Killer has a little business on the side (no reveals here) and a partner (unwilling) who is complicating the search.  Which of course drives Cusack even crazier!  

Despite arriving on the same day from Warner Home Video as Argo, don’t overlook The Factory … a nice double-bill for the evening: Argo and The Factory, think about it!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Breaking Glass Pictures Sets Gaël Morel's Our Paradise For a Feb. 19 Debut


Breaking Glass Pictures goes over to the dark side of love with Our Paradise on Feb. 19 with the French-language import from actor-turned-writer/director Gaël Morel.

Vassili (Stéphane Rideau — Wild Reeds, Come Undone, etc.) is a “male escort,” who prefers robbery and violence to giving any sort of satisfaction to his customers.  Those days have slipped away.   He’s heading towards 40 and the dark streets of Paris offer neither prospects of a bright future or romance.

Surprise, surprise … after dealing with his latest “conquest” he stumbles across an unconscious young stud and doesn’t something quite unexpected.  He takes him home and tends to his wounds — a possible beating victim.  He was certainly in the right neighborhood for it … the streets can be a dangerous place.

He says is name is Angelo (Dimitri Durdaine in his film debut) and Vassili’s tender mercies turn into a passionate love affair … one that gets him to thinking.   Paris holds no future, so they take to the road to find their “paradise” and escape the sex and violence that permeates their lives.   Their combined attempts at hustling — even a little hi-tech hustling — doesn’t provide the satisfaction that Vassili yearns for … or Angelo appears to need.

Old friends; old acquaintances and an idyllic countryside (filmed in and around Lyon) seems to offer the two a future, but the violence; the frustrations of Vassili’s fading lifestyle are always there, ready to surface and take control.   

Jealousy, sex, frustration, violence and the dark side of love are all on view in Gaël Morel’s in critically-praised Our Paradise.

 To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report