Wolfe Selects Aug. 22 For The DVD Debut Of Documentary Filmmaker Sara Jordenö’s Kiki

Wolfe announced this past week that documentary filmmaker Sara Jordenö’s Kiki, the award-winning look at the New York City vogue scene some 26 years after Jennie Livingston’s landmark film, Paris is Burning, will be making its DVD debut on Aug. 22.

The film opened at Sundance in January of 2016 and has spent the last 18 months on the road, working the festival circuit to rave reviews and more awards than you can shake a stick — including Best Documentary at the Berlin International Film Festival.   

Teaming with Twiggy Pucci Garcon, an LGBT advocate familiar with the culture and issues, specifically the Kiki ballroom scene, Jordenö gives an insider’s view of the New York City world of “Kiki” dance-offs and competition.   

As with the documentary filmmaking team of Anne De Mare and Kirsten Kelly’s The Homestretch (available on DVD from Icarus Films) many of the “youth of color” homeless have been rejected from their socially conservative families for the sin of being gay.   They would, sadly, rather see their teenage son or daughter on the street, fending for themselves (and all that goes with that), then to accept them for who they are.

Such is the case with Jordenö subjects, who find acceptance and purpose in the “club” competitions among the various “houses.”  It is among these “houses” that Kiki dance and ballroom events are staged, which allows the participants an opportunity to express themselves that they might not otherwise have available. 

In the end, Kiki is a celebration of life … full of vibrant images and a marvelous soundtrack that includes selections from MikeQ (DJ and founder of the Qween Beat recording label), Amorpheus, Byrell The Great (DJ and producer for the NOTORIOUS Underground Dance Scene of New York City) and Divoli S'vere (over ten years as a dancer and visual artist in the ball scene).

VCI Entertainment Selects Sept.12 For The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Release Of The 2K Film Storation Of Director Curtis Harrington's Ruby

VCI Entertainment has tabbed Sept. 12 for the release of a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack — featuring a new 2K film restoration from the original 35mm negative — of director Curtis Harrington’s summer of 1977 horror cult film, Ruby.   This is the restored director’s cut of the film.

This also marks the launch of a new promotional line from VCI Entertainment that is title VCI Retro Elite, which will cover re-mastered genre classics that contain loads of special features.

Ruby and this new Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack is great news, but the backstory of the original theatrical release of the film is actually more interesting than the film itself, and that’s not to slight Ruby as a horror entry one little bit.  

Curtis Harrington was the director, but Steve Krantz was the producer, and he was riding high at the time from the success of the adult-themed animation collaborations he had done with Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat) and decided to tinker with Harrington’s final product (and the subsequent TV airing).   

Of course theatre-goers at the time had no idea about such internecine warfare related to the final cut of the film, they simply went to the movies and enjoyed it.  It wasn’t until later, when David Del Valle did his two-part “Sinister Image” interview with filmmaker Curtis Harrington in 1988, that the details of the intrigue about the final cut of the film — and the film’s star, Piper Laurie’s refusal to participate in any reshoots — came to light.

As for the film itself, we have mobster’s lover, Ruby Claire (Piper Laurie), witnessing the murder of her paramour, Nicky Rocco (Sal Vecchio) by members of his own Dade County Gang.   Later the same evening she gives birth to Leslie.   This prologue all takes place in 1935.

We then jump ahead to 1951 and Ruby lives in a large house — a converted roadhouse, complete with a stage — with her mute daughter, who is played by Janit Baldwin, who just happened to play Violet, one of the “girls” in director Michael Ritchie’s 1972 film release of Prime Cut.  

For fans of that film, you know immediately that Sissy Spacek was Poppy, another one of the “girls” in the illicit sex trade scheme that Mary Ann (Gene Hackman) was running out his Kansas City area meatpacking plant.  Spacek would go on to star in Carrie (1976), with Piper Laurie as her demented mother.   Baldwin gets that honor in Ruby, only the twist is she is the demented one, not her mother (although mom has a few loose screws herself).

Anyway, with that six degrees of Kevin Bacon connection aside, Ruby and her daughter live in this big house next door to Ruby’s drive-in theatre, which she owns.   She employs the former members of the Dade County Gang, who are “down on their luck” after serving long stretches in prison.   These are Vince (Stuart Whitman), Jess (Eddy Donno), Louie (Paul Kent) and Barney (Len Lesser), who pretty much run everything from the box office to the concession stand to the projection of the films.   

They are soon to be dead former members of the Dade Country Gang as Leslie becomes possessed by the spirit of her father, Nicky, who has come to avenge his own murder.   The projectionist (Jess) gets strangled by film (a nice touch) and the lecherous Louie is impaled on a tree branch while trying to have his way with one of the customers (played by Crystin Sinclaire).   Vince and Ruby have to dispose of the bodies in the nearby swamp and Vince, the rational one, decides it is time to call in his old prison psychologist (Roger Davis) to help sort things out.   

Ruby is great fun, the horror touches are nice — especially in the setting of the drive-in theatre — and you get elements of Carrie and The Exorcist, in addition to a good-old mob hit, as the major plot elements. 

Bonus goodies include the vintage commentary track with Curtis Harrington and Piper Laurie and a newly-prepared commentary track teaming David Del Valle and Adjunct Professor Nathaniel Bell, whose master’s thesis (Editor’s Note: from my alma mater, Chapman University) was on the filmmaking career of none other than Curtis Harrington (Bell also does the liner notes).

There are the two Sinister Image interviews with Harrington conducted by David Del Valle in 1988 and a 2001 video session with Harrington and Del Valle.

Mill Creek Entertainment Sets 21-Disc Mega-Set Of Coach: The Complete Series For Release On Sept. 12

It was a TV-on-DVD celebration at Mill Creek Entertainment this past week with the announcement of not one, but three new priced-to-own releases that will be heading to retailers nationwide on Sept. 12.

And it is a big celebration indeed, as the first of the trio is the 21-disc mega-set of Coach: The Complete Series, starring Emmy-winner Craig T. Nelson as Coach Fox of the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles football team (and later the NFL expansion team, the Orlando Breakers), with Clare Carey as his fast-growing daughter, plus Shelley Fabares (as girlfriend and future wife) and Jerry Van Dyke and Bill Fagerbakke as his coaching assistants.

The release of all 200 episodes from the nine seasons that the program ran (1989 to 1997) marks the first time that episodes from seasons five through nine will be available for fans to enjoy!!!

Also heading home on Sept. 12 is the Juliette Lewis detective thriller, Secrets and Lies: Season One — a double-disc set featuring all ten episodes.   

Lewis plays Detective Andrea Cornell and is assigned a case involving a man by the name of Ben Crawford (played by Ryan Phillippe), who is suspected of murdering a five-year old boy.  It seems, on the surface, an open and shut case, but it is anything but routine, as post-mortem tests reveal that the boy was Crawford’s illegitimate son!   

It’s a real whodunit and Detective Cornell has to solve the mystery … if Crawford didn’t do it, who did?

Also available on Sept. 15 is the double-disc release of Astronaut Wives Club: The Complete Series.   Based on Lily Koppel's best-selling novel of the same name, this ten-part mini-series follows the wives of the Mercury Seven astronauts … all the way through the landing of Apollo 11 on Moon.

Icarus Films Announces The DVD Release Of Chantal Akerman By Chantal Akerman For Delivery On Aug. 8

Icarus Films announced this past week that Aug. 8 will be the street date for the DVD debut of Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman.   

The cinematic works of the late filmmaker have been showcased in such Icarus Films releases as I Don't Belong Here: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman and Chantal Akerman, From Here and so it is only fitting that we here from Akerman herself and that is what this “time capsule” release does for her admirers.   

Back in 1996 she was asked to do a segment for the France’s long-running filmmaker series Cinéma, de Notre Temps (Cinema, of Our Time), so she assembled a series of clips from her films to that point and submitted them to the producers of the show … who said, no, no, no, we want to here from you as well!  And so they did … the first half of the presentation is filmmaker Chantal Akerman describing her work, some of the challenges and what she has learned along the way, and the second half of the program is the aforementioned film clips.   This is indeed a moment captured in time that is to be savored.

This new digital transfer of Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman is presented in French with English subtitles.

The Film Detective Preps Five New Restorations For DVD On July — Roger Corman's She Gods Of Shark Reef Included In The Mix

The Film Detective announced five new film restorations for the collectible DVD market place over the July 4^th holiday week … street date for these will be on July 11.   

Legendary filmmaker — director, writer and producer – Roger Corman is in the lead position with one of his early directing assignments, She Gods of Shark Reef.   The production was the second half a month-long gig in Hawaii in 1956 that saw Corman deliver Naked Paradise (with Beverly Garland and Richard Denning) and Shark Reef, starring Bill Cord and Don Durant as brothers on lam, who get shipwrecked on an island full of beautiful women (Lisa Montell among them).

The former, Naked Paradise, was released theatrically in 1957, but Shark Reef found no takers.  In the meantime, Corman delivered a string of hits, which included It Conquered the World, Not of this Earth (once again with the incredible Beverly Garland), Attack of the Crab Monsters and Machine-Gun Kelly (with a young Charles Bronson) and then in 1958 Nicholson and Arkoff over at American International Pictures needed a second feature to go with director Bernard L. Kowalski’s Night of the Blood Beast (produced by Corman) and so they bought Shark Reef and spiced it up a tad by adding “She Gods” to the title.   

She Gods of Shark Reef is born, arrives in theatres (mainly drive-ins) in the summer of 1958 and gets tagged for all time as something of a horror film, but it’s actually an adventure film with scantily clad women.  For Corman fans, this is a keeper.

Also heading to the collector’s market on July 11 is director Albert Parker’s 1927 silent film, The Love of Sunya, produced and starring Gloria Swanson as Sunya Ashling, as a dead Egyptian maiden, whose soul inhabits a young woman faced with many choices … the priest (John Boles), who wronged her, is reincarnated as something of a footloose and fancy free fortune teller, who finds her in the present day and grants her three visions of her future (each choice that she is faced with).

It is an interesting film in the lexicon of Swanson’s starring roles — not really a financial success — in that the troubles with the production aspects of The Love of Sunya proved to be far more valuable — something like a doctorate-level education — to the aspiring producer and film star.   Her next film was director Raoul Walsh’s Sadie Thompson, which earned her first of three Best Actress nominations (The Trespasser and Sunset Blvd.).

Rounding out the July 11 quintet of film restorations heading to the DVD marketplace from The Film Detective are director Christy Cabanne’s 1932 film release of Hearts of Humanity (starring Jean Hersholt), Lucky Ghost (1942 with Mantan Moreland) and Randy Rides Alone (1934 John Wayne B-Western, directed by Harry Fraser and co-starring Gabby Hayes, Yakima Canutt and Alberta Vaughn).

VCI Entertainment Preps Restored Topper For Blu-ray Release On Aug. 22 — Topper Collection On DVD Ready On Aug. 22 As Well

VCI Entertainment announced this past week that Thorne Smith’s 1926 creations, Cosmo Topper, Marion Kerby and her husband, George Kerby, will be the focus of the fun and merriment on Aug. 22.   

On that date a new restoration of director Norman Z. McLeod’s 1937 film adaption of Smith’s novel, Topper, starring Constance Bennett as ghost Marion Kerby, Cary Grant as her husband, George (a ghost, sadly, as well), and Roland Young, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance here as the long-suffering banker Cosmo Topper, will be available as a Blu-ray release.

This laugh-out-loud comedy will also be included in a three-film DVD collection on the same date that is titled The Topper Collection.  The collection features the aforementioned Topper and the two film sequels that followed — Topper Takes a Trip (1938) and Topper Returns (1941).

Warner Bros. Home Entertainent Readies King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Aug. 8) And Everything Everything (Aug. 15) For The Home Entertainment Marketplace

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment had a pair of new theatrical-to-home entertainment product announcements ready for street date assignments on the run-up to the long July 4^th holiday weekend … so let’s get right to them.

With a short window for retail order placement, director Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has been slotted into the Aug. 8 calendar spot for a four-SKU release blitz.

The ARR for that date works out to just 88 days from the film’s theatrical opening to its subsequent arrival in the home entertainment marketplace.  Domestic box office receipts currently stand at $38.7 million.  

With a reported production budget in excess of $170 million, this sort of box office result can’t be good news for the studio (foreign markets did produce better returns, but that still may not be enough to wash away the red ink).

We’d comment on the ever-shrinking digital windows that the Hollywood Studios have become enamored with these days and how it is affecting the theatrical experience, but those observations have long sense fallen on deaf ears.   The home entertainment group will do what they can to stem some of these production losses.

To that point, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is offering up the following for consumers to choose from — a stand-alone DVD edition, a pair of Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs (one with a 3D viewing option … the premium is nine bucks) and a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack (SRP is the same as the 3D Combo Pack).

As to the bonus features for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which, by the way, abandons the traditional “legend” of Arthur, Camelot, etc. in favor of CGI-generated warlocks and such (Richard Harris is likely spinning in his grave over this one; et tu David Hemmings), we have no less than eight production featurettes.  These are: “Arthur with Swagger,” “Sword from the Stone,” “Parry and Bleed,” “Building on the Past,” “Inside the Cut: The Action of King Arthur.” “Camelot in 93 Days,” “Legend of Excalibur” and “Scenic Scotland.”

Up next, and heading to home entertainment the following week, Aug. 15, is director Stella Meghi’s film adaptation of the J. Mills Goodloe best-selling novel, Everything, Everything.

The ARR is also just 88 days from its theatrical launch and box office receipts are $33.6

million.

Planned for release are a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a stand-alone DVD edition.

Maddy Whittier (played by Amandla Stenberg — as Rue in The Hunger Games) is living a lie, but we, the audience, don’t know it (yet).  Nor does she.  She’s 18-years old and cannot go outside her home … she will die if she does so as she is allergic to everything (if you thought peanut butter was a problem, you don’t know the half of it with her).   

Her mother (Anika Noni Rose), a doctor, says that she has SDIC (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) and can never leave the sanctuary of her climate controlled home … her only contact with the outside world comes in the form of Carla (Ana de la Reguera), her nurse.

This all changes when a new family moves in next door and the teenage son, Olly (Nick Robinson — The Fifth Wave, Jurassic World), spots Maddy in her class cage and begins texting her … a friendship builds and he convinces her to join him on an adventure in Hawaii (so she can walk on the beach), where she will surely die.   End of story, poor Maddy.

Except she doesn’t die … her mother, for personal reasons, has kept Maddy a prisoner all of her life.   The film, wisely, foregoes this aspect of the story and instead focuses on the puppy-love elements of Maddy and Olly’s budding relationship (think about just how sick Maddy’s mother is, but that’s a different story; that’s a horror story). 

Bonus goodies include deleted scenes and the featurette titled “Trapped in Love: The Story of Everything, Everything.”