MVD Entertainment Group’s popular Rewind Collection
will be getting a new member on Dec. 17 with the Blu-ray debut of director
Damian Nieman’s 2003 neo-noir
thriller, Shade.
This is a hidden gem — and we’d love to know the
full backstory — that fits right in the MVD Rewind Collection universe. A complete filmmaking unknown by the name of
Damian Nieman, not only wrote the film, but directed it … and managed to
assemble a cast that includes Sylvester Stallone, Jamie Foxx, Gabriel Byrne,
Melanie Griffith, Hal Holbrook and Thandie Newton.
Really?
Well, there’s a little more to it than some film school whiz kid making
one film, with an all-star cast and then calling it quits. He’s actually an accomplished magician — a
regular at the famed Magic Castle, where he learned the ins-and-outs of the
“magic world,” especially slight of hand with cards.
He studied the pros, he saw how cards could be
manipulated for fun … and how cards could be manipulated in the world of
cheating; “card play.”
He wrote a script (he really did attend film school
at Loyola Marymount University) and through various connections he got Merv
Griffin to take an interest in his story — a story about grifters and hustlers
and card cheats (mechanics). Pretty
soon Bo Hopkins was on board as a producer (his only foray into producing) … he
also has a small role in the film.
It steamrolls and pretty soon Stallone is starring
as Stevens, “The Dean” of the high-stakes poker hustle; the realm of
underground gambling is his kingdom … and Gabriel Byrne comes on board as Miller,
a small-timer who wants to move up the food chain.
The queen bee is Tiffany (played by Thandie Newton …
as Maeve Millay in the Westworld
cable series), who can size up the chumps.
Throw in a few more hustlers and card mechanics and you have all the makings
of a neat little thriller where who-is-doing-what-to-whom is never that clear
(hustlers hustling hustlers … if you get the drift).
The film actually opened the film festival circuit
in April of 2003, bounced around the world and then got a very limited
theatrical release in May of 2004 … and then Warner Bros. pushed it to DVD and
that was it.
MVD Entertainment Group to the rescue with their
Rewind Collection focus and now magician/director Damian Nieman’s Shade is
ready for a whole new audience to discover on Blu-ray come Dec. 17.
As to bonus goodies, Nieman provides commentary and
he is joined by actor Stuart Townsend (as Vernon … as Lestat in Queen of
the Damned and Dorian Gray in The
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen),
there is also an extended video session with Nieman, Townsend, Stallone,
Newton, Byrne, Foxx and Melanie Griffith.
Additionally, there are two featurettes — “The Making of Shade” and
“Tricks of the Trade.”
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