For the period ending February 22, 2019 ... New DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD selections added to the DVD & Blu-ray Release Report's database

DVD New Additions:

 

Acorn Media

02/12/19 — Released Ackley Bridge: Series 2 (3 disc set)

Cinedigm Entertainment

02/19/19 — Released Sgt. Will Gardner

Cleopatra Music & Films

05/14/19 — Sets Kiss Kiss

Corinth Films

02/05/19 — Released Rising Sun (German) and Time for Dying

Film Movement

02/12/19 — Released Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco (ARR of 151 days; box office: $43,169) and Narcissister Organ Player (ARR of 95 days; box office: $15,319)

02/19/19 — Released Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (French)

03/05/19 — Sets Marquise (French) (ARR of 7,844 days; box office: $71,384)

03/12/19 — Sets Over the Limit (Russian) (ARR of 151 days; box office: $3,243)

04/02/19 — Sets Nazi Junkies

04/09/19 — Sets The Charmer (Danish) (ARR of 123 days; box office: $25,176)

FUNimation

04/16/19 — Sets Dragon Ball Super: Broly (with Digital Copy) (ARR of 88 days; box office: $30,031,318)

Gravitas Ventures (MOD)

02/19/19 — Released Antidote, Bible Bees, Duke and Memphis Majic

Indican Pictures

03/22/19 — Sets Virginia Minnesota

InFuse Releasing

02/12/19 — Released Nearly Married (aka: Where Are You, Bobby Browning?)

MPI Home Video

02/12/19 — Released Possum

Mill Creek Entertainment

04/16/19 — Sets Ivana Trump's For Love Alone (with Digital Copy)

National Geographic

02/12/19 — Released Paris to Pittsburgh

Oscilloscope Laboratories

04/02/19 — Sets Hal (ARR of 207 days; box office: $48,579)

PBS Direct

02/05/19 — Released 20 Incredible Tales (2 disc set), Berenstain Bears: Adventures in Bear Country, Decoding Watson, Letters from Baghdad, NOVA: Last B-24, NOVA: Thai Cave Rescue and We'll Meet Again: Season Two (2 disc set)

02/12/19 — Released Documenting Hate and Swamp

02/19/19 — Released NOVA: Operation Rescue Bridge and Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me

PCN Productions (MOD)

02/12/19 — Released PA Books: Remembering Lattimer

02/19/19 — Released PCN Tours: Elsner Engineering

Paramount Home Media

04/16/19 — Sets Escape at Dannemora (3 disc set)

Pride & Joy Music

02/19/19 — Released Echoes: Live from the Dark Side

Red Cathedral Productions (MOD)

02/19/19 — Released M4M: Measure for Measure

Smart Mark Video (MOD)

02/19/19 — Released Glory Pro Wrestling: Best of 2018

20^th Century-Fox Home Ent.

04/02/19 — Sets Vice (ARR of 95 days; box office: $46,093,166)

VCI Entertainment

05/28/19 — Sets Red Rider (15 chapter serial) (2 disc set)

VIZ Media

02/19/19 — Released Mazinger Z Infinity

Well Go U.S.A.

02/19/19 — Released Iceman: The Time Traveler (Cantonese)

Blu-ray New Additions:

 

BBC Home Entertainment

02/19/19 — Released Doctor Who: Resolution

Cinedigm Entertainment

02/19/19 — Released Sgt. Will Gardner

Film Movement

02/19/19 — Released Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (French)

03/05/19 — Sets Marquise (French)

Frontier Records

02/19/19 — Released FM: The Italian Job

FUNimation

02/19/19 — Released Dagashi Kashi: Season 1 (2 disc set) (with Digital Copy), Prince of Stride Alternative (2 disc set) (with Digital Copy), Teasing Master Takagi-san (2 disc set) (with Digital Copy) and Touken Ranbu Hanamaru, Season 2 (2 Blu-ray/2 DVD Combo Pack) (with Digital Copy)

Grasshopper Film

02/19/19 — Released Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (German)

Gravitas Ventures (MOD)

02/19/19 — Released Antidote, Bible Bees, Duke and Memphis Majic

Kino Lorber

02/19/19 — Released Dracula's Fiancee (French)/Lost in New York (French), Mad Dog and Glory and Youngblood

Kitty Media

02/19/19 — Released Hentai Heaven, Collection 4

Lionsgate Home Entertainment

02/19/19 — Released Backtrace (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack) (with Digital Copy)

Oscilloscope Laboratories

04/02/19 — Sets Hal

PCN Productions (MOD)

02/12/19 — Released PA Books: Remembering Lattimer

02/19/19 — Released PCN Tours: Elsner Engineering

Pride & Joy Music

03/12/19 — Sets Echoes: Live from the Dark Side (Blu-ray/2 CD Combo Pack)

Shout! Factory

02/19/19 — Released Backbeat and Return of the Vampire

Smart Mark Video (MOD)

02/19/19 — Released Game Changer Wrestling: They Said it Couldn't be Done - Atlantic City, NJ

Troma

02/19/19 — Released Revenge of the Spacemen

20^th Century-Fox Home Ent.

04/02/19 — Sets Vice (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack) (with Digital Copy)

Universal Pictures Home Ent.

02/19/19 — Released Admission, As Above So Below, Blackhat,  Boy Next Door,  Buck Privates, Five-Year Engagement,  Haunted House, Identity Thief, Man with the Iron Fists 2: The Sting of the Scorpion and Silent Hill: Revelation

VIZ Media

02/19/19 — Released Mazinger Z: Infinity

WEA/ADA – Warner Music

02/12/19 — Released Thomas Adès: The Exterminating Angel

Warner Bros. Home Ent.

04/16/19 — Sets Justice League vs The Fatal Five (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack) (with Digital Copy)

Warner Bros. Home Ent. (MOD)

03/12/19 — Sets Man from Atlantis

03/19/19 — Sets Cleopatra Jones and Jazz Singer

03/26/19 — Sets Glass Bottom Boat

Well Go U.S.A.

02/19/19 — Released Iceman: The Time Traveler (Cantonese) (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack)

Wild Eye Releasing

05/14/19 — Sets American Mummy 3D/2D (Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack)

Zima Entertainment

02/19/19 — Released Perfectos Desconocidos (Spanish)

4K Ultra HD New Additions:

Warner Bros. Home Ent.

04/16/19 — Sets Justice League vs The Fatal Five (4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack) (with Digital Copy)

 

 

Oscilloscope Laboratories Picks Apr. 2 For The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray Editions Of Documentary Filmmaker Amy Scott's Hal

Oscilloscope Laboratories will be bringing documentary filmmaker Amy Scott’s Hal to the home entertainment marketplace on Apr. 2 as both DVD and Blu-ray production offerings.

This tribute to legendary auteur filmmaker Hal Ashby opened at the Sundance early last year, played the film festival circuit and then had a brief arthouse theatrical pop right after Labor Day.   

Unless you were lucky enough to catch Hal at one of these venues, Apr. 2 will be the next window of availability when it arrives on DVD and Blu-ray … if you enjoy the movies — even casually — then this one is a must-have come the first of April.   If you have a film library, then it is likely that you have one or more of his cinematic gems in your collection.   Harold and Maude!   Being There!   Coming Home!  Bound for Glory!   If so, Hal needs to be a companion piece.

For the record, the ARR works out to 207 days and its limited (10 screen) theatrical run produced revenues of $48,579.

Hal Ashby made absolutely brilliant films in the 1970s.   Without college or a film school education, Ashby arrived in Hollywood in 1956 and learned the craft of film editing (as an assistant) on such films as Friendly Persuasion, The Big Country and The Diary of Anne Frank.   

By the mid-60s he had advanced from assistant film editor to editor and cut such films as The Loved One and then four films for his mentor, Norman Jewison — The Cincinnati Kid (1965), The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966, nominated for an Oscar), In the Heat of the Night (1967, he won the Oscar for Best Film Editing) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

Over ten years learning the craft — it served him well as a filmmaker in his own right.   It is said that he could see and assemble the film that he was directing in his head; he knew where to set up and what to shoot.

Amy Scott’s Hal covers his early film industry history and then hits its stride with a loving look back at his films, with “comments” from Ashby — drawn from tapes, letters and memos from the period — which is blended nicely  with interviews and remembrances from many of those who worked with him — Louis Gossett Jr. (The Land Lord), Jon Voight (Coming Home), Norman Jewison … it is a long and impressive list.

In May of 1970 his first film as a director hit theatres, it was the film adaptation of the Kristin Hunter’s 1966 novel, The Land Lord, which earned Lee Grant an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and starred Beau Bridges.   

The film starts off one way, a comedy about Elgar Enders, a privileged white kid (actually 29, but still a “kid” in so many ways), who impulsively buys an apartment house in the middle of Harlem.   He plans to “gentrify” it, which lends itself to sort of a sitcom-feeling (you can imagine a television comedy spinning off of the first act of the film).   

But then Hal Ashby, takes the film in an entirely different direction come the second act.   The Land Lord becomes as an insightful look at race relationships, class and literally the attitudes of “limousine liberals.” 

 

During the Christmas season of 1971, one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time opened theatrically.   It was a strange love story blessed with a knock-your-socks-off soundtrack … and many, many laugh-out-loud scenes.   Off course we are talking about Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude.   Brilliant!

Hal Ashby had hit his stride and in the next eight years he delivered The Last Detail (Jack Nicholson nominated Best Actor), Shampoo (Lee Grant wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress), Bound for Glory (six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, with Haskell Wexler winning for Best Cinematography), Coming Home (eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, with Best Actor and Best Actress wins for Jon Voight and Jane Fonda) and one of the most amazing political satirical comedies ever made, Being There, complete with a genius performance by Peter Sellars as Chance (nominated Best Actor). 

Then came the “studio wars” and the decline in Ashby’s career … two days after Christmas in 1988, at just 59 years of age, he was gone.

Amy Scott’s Hal captures it all, the man, the filmmaker, the films … a must for cinephiles.

Bonus features included with Hal are commentary with filmmaker Amy Scott, who is joined by producers Christine Beebe, Brian Morrow, Jonathan Lynch and Lisa Janssen, plus a behind-the-scenes reel and the featurette titled “The Cutting Room Floor.”

Paramount Home Media To Release Escape At Dannemora On DVD On Apr. 16

On June 6, 2015, The Shawshank Redemption played out in the real world.   A tunnel had been dug … and dug … and dug for over 150 yards from inside the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York to the outside world.   

On the loose was convicted murderer Richard Matt, who had murdered his boss, dismembered the body and fled to Mexico, where he murdered another man.  After being sentenced to a lengthy prison stay by Mexican authorities, he was eventually extradited to the United States, convicted of murder and given a 25 year-to-life sentence to be served at the Clinton Correctional Facility.

Running with him was a fellow by the name of David Sweat, who was no Boy Scout either.  He was serving a life sentence for the murder of a sheriff’s deputy in Broome County, New York 13 years earlier.

Two convicted murderers, with life sentences, on the run.   Pretty scary stuff, but backtrack for a second … how on earth did they manage to dig a tunnel that long without some sort of help?    

If you didn’t follow the story back in 2015, that question will be answered for you in director Ben Stiller’s seven-part mini-series, Escape at Dannemora, which will be making its DVD debut on Apr. 16.

The answer to the question of how did Richard Matt (played in the mini-series by Benicio Del Toro) and David Sweat (Paul Dano — There Will be Blood, Little Miss Sunshine) escape from prison is … they had help.   

The first of these was Tilly Mitchell (an amazing performance by Patricia Arquette, who has already won the Golden Globe for her work here), a prison employee who was intimate with Richard Matt and worked out a scheme with him to have her husband murdered.   At the last minute she panic, failed to show-up to pick the two escapees up and ended up in the hospital with a panic attack.

But, as it turned out, she wasn’t the only one on the inside to aid Matt and Sweat. A prison guard by the name of Gene Palmer (David Morse) also helped out with the escape.  

The first four episodes of Escape at Dannemora deal with the inside the prison goings on, the plans, the “indiscretions,” while the final three installments in the mini-series detail the escape and subsequent manhunt.  

Of note, the Emmy nominations will take place at the end of the traditional broadcast season on July 16, with the awards handed out on Sept. 22 … expect to see a number of nods to Escape at Dannemora, with Patricia Arquette the clear frontrunner for her performance as the dimwitted Tilly Mitchell.

Bonus features include episode commentary by filmmaker Ben Stiller, who is joined by various members of the cast and crew and two production featurettes — “Primary Sources” and “The Making of Sweat’s Run.”

Cleopatra Music And Film Tabs May 14 For The DVD Debut Of Director Dallas King's KIss Kiss

Producer/director Dallas King’s highly anticipated sexploitation action flick, Kiss Kiss, has been acquired by Cleopatra Music & Film for the domestic home entertainment marketplace.   And they’ve wasted no time in assigning what could be the most controversial film of the year both a theatrical release date and a DVD debut date.  

A limited arthouse run will begin in early March — to further raise awareness — which will be followed on May 14 by the DVD rollout … MVD Entertainment Group will be providing the sales and distribution expertise.

This is a horror film deftly blended with sexploitation and MMA action.  Kiss Kiss is going to generate a lot of buzz when it opens theatrically and Cleopatra was whip-smart to pick it up when they did.   Why you ask … because it pushes a lot of white-hot buttons!

Natascha Hopkins, stunt woman-turned-actress — her film work, as a stunt woman, includes: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Call, Django Unchained, etc., plus acting gigs in such films as Straight Outta Compton, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Vicious Circle — stars as exotic dancer, Kiss.   She and her three friends, Treasure (Tamra Dae), Kurious (Janey Bolina) and Promise (Nathalia Castellon) have been invited for an exclusive “tasting” party, but it turns out to be an elaborate ruse staged by a shifty former Army vet by the name of Gibson (Robert Wagner).

They are taken prisoner, drugged with an experimental cocktail that is designed to increase fighting ability and aggressiveness and put on display for an eager, high-paying, high-profile clientele — the rich out for a night of fun and “games,” so to speak.

The four are to be meat for the grinder.   Strippers, with no formal combat training, are matched against Fortune (Kylie Rae), Dream (Kiersten Hall) and their experienced cohorts in what will be one-on-one MMA combat fighting.   Gibson cautions them that not all will survive the ordeal.   

Once the action begins it is a to-the-death “girl fight” like none other.   A horror tale to be sure, with our outmatched “exotic dance” ladies trying to survive and figure out a way to extract a measure of revenge on Gibson and his fellow “fight club promoters.”

Like we said, Kiss Kiss, could be one of the most controversial films released during 2019 — Gladiator meets Friday the 13^th, Halloween, or any other psycho film with a large “victim” pool that comes to mind!   Violence, horror elements, women in danger and the super rich will to spend the bucks to enjoy watching other suffer and die.

  

Mill Creek Entertainment To Release Ivana Trump’s For Love Alone On DVD This Coming Apr. 14

Mill Creek Entertainment announced this past week that director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1996 made-for-TV adaptation of Ivana Trump’s 1992 best-selling novel, For Love Alone, will be available on Apr. 14 on DVD …  complete with Digital Copy!

Part-fiction, part-fact and based upon Ivana’s (played by Sanna Vraa) life growing up in Czechoslovakia, her marriage to business tycoon “Adam Graham” (Stephen Collins) and their rocky divorce — which filled the New York newspapers in 1992 with day after day headlines — plays out like a fairytale.  From nothing to athlete, beauty queen, businesswoman and a “royal” marriage … it is the kind of stuff that the Hallmark Channel runs as fables 24/7, but here it is in all its glory.

Who would have guessed that 20 years after its television airing Ivana’s ex-husband would become the president of the United States … and their children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump would be players on the world stage in their own right.   Ivana Trump’s For Love Along, a fairytale in everyway and Mill Creek Entertainment has it priced to collect come Apr. 14.

Arrow Video Preps She-Devils On Wheels For A Blu-ray Release On May 14

The Godfather of Gore!   That is all the introduction necessary for genre fans to identify Herschell Gordon Lewis.   Showman and filmmaker, he made films by the score in the 1960s and into the early ‘70s and then walked away from the business … later, he became a legend.

While most of his renowned films are low-budget splatter gems — Two Thousand Maniacs!, Blood Feast, Color Me Blood Red, A Taste of Blood, etc. — Lewis also tinkered with other “exploitative” genres and did a bang up job with his 1968 “biker-chick-flick,” She-Devils on Wheels.

Word arrived this past week that Arrow Films, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has tabbed May 14 as the street for the stand-alone Blu-ray presentation of the film (previously out in the October of 2016 17-disc/14-film box set, The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast).

Filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis correctly guessed that there was a theatrical market for a “biker film” with a twist.   After all, The Wild Angels, Hells Angels on Wheels and more were pulling in bucks, especially on the drive-in circuit, so why not one featuring a female gang that was every bit as vicious as their male counterparts.   It worked.

As to bonus goodies, there’s a vintage commentary with Lewis and Something Weird’s Mike Vraney, a pair of featurettes — “The Shocking Truth!” and “Garage Punk Gore” — and filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis’ juvenile delinquency film, Just for the Hell of It! thrown in for good measure.