Kino Lorber revealed its
July DVD and Blu-ray product line up this past week.
Of course film is always
a subjective thing, but most would, I think, agree that Oscar-nominated New
Zealand actor-turned filmmaker Taika Waititi’s Boy is at the front of
the Kino Lorber July packaged media release parade.
Slated for both DVD and
Blu-ray on July 9, the ARR for Boy works out to 494 days and
domestic ticker sales were $256,211.
Do you call it a black
comedy if your mother is dead and your father spends as much time in prison as
he does on the outside? Off-kilter
comedy? Black comedy? What’s the difference? Boy is definitely an off-kilter
black comedy!
Set in New Zealand in 1984,
Boy (James Rolleston) has a younger brother named Rocky (Te Aho Aho
Eketone-Whitu), lives with his grandmother and hopes someday that his father,
Alamein (played by Waititi) will get out of prison and be, well, his father. In the meantime he is hooked on the latest
pop sensation out of the United States, Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Unexpectedly, that’s
exactly what happens. Dad shows up and
hopes to salvage what is left of his family.
Boy is overjoyed at the prospects, but we quickly learn that his father
has a hidden agenda that become all too obvious as the landscape around their home
becomes peppered with holes.
Writer/director Taika
Waititi burst upon the international film stage with Eagle vs. Shark back in
2007 and Boy proves that it was no fluke.
Also on the release
calendar in July from Kino Lorber is documentary filmmaker Andrei Ujica’s The
Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. A
DVD edition of this unique look (using only archive footage) at Romanian
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu will street on July 2.
Presented in Romanian,
with English subtitles, the ARR is a leisurely 662 days and the domestic
arthouse box office take was $33,292.
Making a DVD and Blu-ray
debut (from the RaroVideo USA label) on July 23 is writer/director Sergio Garrone’s 1969 Spaghetti Western, Hanging
for Django, starring Anthony Steffen as Django and William Berger as
the equally legendary Sartana.
On July 16 look for
iconic filmmaker Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath: Standard Edition Remastered. Boris Karloff starred in this
Italian-language horror tail, which was cut and dubbed in English for the
domestic market in 1963. Kino Lorber has
the original Italian-language version (with English subtitles) … uncut!
Also from writer/director
Mario Bava on July 16 is Kidnapped: Standard Edition Remastered. This is the original version of Rabid
Dogs (recut and dubbed for domestic consumption) and is presented in
Italian, uncut, with English subtitles.
Lastly, July 30 marks the
Blu-ray debut of director Erich von Stroheim’s 1922 silent film classic, Foolish
Wives. Bonus features include
the feature-length documentary titled The Man You Loved To Hate.
.jpg "Wolfe Video's White Frog Jumps To DVD On July 16")
.jpg "Mill Creek Entertainment Sets July 16 Priced-To-Sell Release Package")
