Paramount Home Media Targets Dec. 01 For The Blu-ray Release Of Director Robert Altman's Popeye: 40th Anniversary Edition

Paramount Home Media is prepping a 40^th Anniversary edition of auteur director Robert Altman’s Popeye, starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall, for the Blu-ray debut (with Digital Copy) on Dec. 1.

One of the legends of Hollywood, the late Robert Evans, who, during his time as the head of Paramount produced such films as Rosemary’s Baby, True Grit, Love Story, Godfather, Godfather: Part II, Chinatown and more, noticed one day — as legend has it — that the theme song spawned by the Popeye cartoons, earned a lot money each year in royalties.    Hmmmm.   Why not make a live-action movie and take advantage of all that interest??

So, he approached King Features, which owned the Popeye character, and cut a deal for the movie rights.    During the next two years just about every director that had worked at Paramount, including Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude) and Mike Nichols (Catch-22) were considered for the film, but it ultimately went to Robert Altman, whose Nashville in 1975 (also at Paramount) had been nominated for Best Picture and Altman for Best Director.

Parallel to this search for the director, were the trade reports that various actors were being considered for the parts of Popeye and Olive Oyl.   Lilly Tomlin (from Altman’s Nashville) was a strong contender and Dustin Hoffman was recruited for the lead, but he had a dispute with Robert Evans over the script and was let go. 

Hot on ABC television at the time was the Emmy-nominated comedy show, Mork & Mindy (also a Paramount production), which starred a stand-up comedian by the name of Robin Williams.   Inspired casting … Robin Williams as Popeye!!

Oops, Lilly Tomlin walks … there goes Olive Oyl.   Gilda Radnor was recruited, but conflicts with her Saturday Night Live schedule caused her to drop … there goes another Olive Oyl!!   The problem was solved when Shelly Duvall (also of Altman’s Nashville) got the gig.  

You’ve got the cast, the director and now shooting the film.   It was going to be too expensive to film it in the United States, so Altman found the Island of Malta to be the perfect spot.   An elaborate set — the town of “Sweethaven” — was built, which was saved and is now a popular tourist attraction on Malta.

The rest, as they say, is history!!

As to bonus goodies, there are four featurettes included — “Return to Sweethaven: A Look Back with Robin and the Altmans,” “The Popeye Company Players,” “Popeye’s Premiere” and “The Sailor Man Medleys.”

Also added to the release calendar this week from Paramount Home Media is the DVD debut of writer/director Brian Duffield’s film adaptation of Aaron Starmer’s whimsical coming-of-age novel, Spontaneous, which will be available on Nov. 10.

Strange, high school has never been quite like the one that Mara Carlyle (Katherine Langford — Knives Out) attends.   Right in the middle of class, BOMB, a fellow student explodes!!  

How does one date, explore a possible relationship with a fellow student, in this case, Dylan (Charlie Plummer — Boardwalk Empire, All the Money in the World), if he could explode at any moment?   Students are popping here and there … oops, there goes another. 

Students are rounded up, hauled off to be examined.   The school is shutdown, classes canceled.   No senior prom.   But it’s high school and life has to go on.

Spontaneous is a wild comedy ride, filled with social commentary and certainly it is like no other high school “coming-of-age” film ever made.  Period!!   Nov. 10, be sure to check it out when it arrives on DVD from Paramount Home Media.

 

 

 

Documentary Filmmaker Jerri Sher's Quiet Explosions: Healing The Brain On DVD From Cinema Libre On Nov. 10

Cinema Libre announced this past week that Nov. 10 will be the DVD debut date for documentary filmmaker Jerri Sher’s Quiet Explosions: Healing the Brain.

The issue of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the subject of Sher’s film, which begins with the obvious point of impact, combat vets, and key that is the experiences of former Special Forces Green Beret and explosives expert Andrew Marr, who returned home from his last deployment in Afghanistan suffering from the effects of countless explosions and head trauma.  

The pattern set in, drugs — at one point 13 different drugs — and drinking just to cope; just to get through the day.   Marr was in a hopeless situation, a place where a lot of combat vets end up, keep going with this pattern … or kill themselves.    And then he got help.

Sher explores the over two million head-traumas that occur annually, not just combat veterans, but in sports — Super Bowl MVD Mark Rypien relates his experiences — and, of course, traumatic accidents; first responders … it’s a long list.   What can be done?   Well, as it turns, much is being done to treat TBI that doesn’t involve pain killers.

Enter the likes of Dr. Bob Sammons, the chief medical officer for TMS Solutions, and Dr. Mark Gordon, who are interviewed in Sher’s film, and who have explored cutting solutions to the problem.    Andrew Marr, for example, went from the verge of taking his own life, a life dependent on drugs and alcohol, to being “normal” and functional once again … he got his life back thanks to the research of these researchers.

Quiet Explosions: Healing the Brain from Cinema Libre on Nov. 10 is a DVD release that offers hope and direction; insights in the issue of TBI …

Bonus features include extended interview sessions with Dr. Gordon and Andrew Marr and separate video sessions with filmmaker Jerri Sher and Jerri Sher with Dr. H. William Song. 

 

 

 

 

Mill Creek Entertainment Picks Nov. 03 For The DVD Debut Of Director Chris Ethridge's Haven's End

Mill Creek Entertainment will be bringing director Chris Ethridge’s sci-fi/horror thriller, Haven’s End, to the DVD marketplace on Nov. 3.   And that can’t come soon enough.

If you like chillers, things that go bump in the night and haunted house thrillers (set in the spooky woods), then you are absolutely going to love Chris Etheridge’s Haven’s End.   He reels you in, introduces the character, the set-up, the retreat to safety and then, at about the mid-point, when you are totally invested in what “might” be going on, he brings the horror hammer down!!

OK, let’s start with the set-up.   Out of the blue, cities start exploding, not like nuclear explosives, but more like random “Mother of All Bombs” (MOABs) going off.   The action begins in Atlanta, wham, downtown in a fireball, and another, and another … the same thing is happening all over the country.   What’s going on … that’s a mystery.

Next, the characters.   We have Alison (played by talented voice actress Catherine Taber, whose last on-screen film was also by Chris Ethridge back in 2014, Attack of the Morningside Monster), she’s a doctor, who is engaged to a combat vet by the name of Derek (Anthony Nguyen) and she also has her good friend Jessi (Megan Hayes).  

They decide to flee Atlanta before a MOAB falls on them … they are hurried along by things spiraling rapidly out of control.   That leads them to her friend Harry’s place (Robert Pralgo — Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, American Made, Unravelled), who is a little edgy.   Pretty soon looters arrive, Jessi is shot and it’s time to go.

As it turns out, Alison has “family” property somewhere in rural Georgia (filming took place in Appling, about 15 miles from Augusta) and so they head there and before you can say, “hello,” Harry is shot by Hannah (Hannah Fierman — Evil Little Things, The Secret Garden, American Hell), the sketchy girlfriend of Alison’s next-to-worthless brother, Kevin (Alex Zuko), who has already set up shop.

Harry will succumb to his wounds, tension will grow … and then the real horror begins.   There are creepy things in the wood.  Tension grows.  The things get closer.   And then … not so fast.   Nov. 3, Haven’s End (with Digital Copy) on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment to find out.

 

 

 

The Adventures Of Modern Art On DVD From Icarus Films On Nov. 10

Now that’s cool.   You get a lot of movie release announcements each week for the home entertainment package media marketplace — all sorts, genre, classic foreign language — so it is always a treat when there is something unique that comes along.  

Such is the case this week with the latest announcement from Icarus Films.   The perfect holiday gift for art lovers, The Adventures of Modern Art, will be available on Nov. 10 as double-disc DVD presentation.  

Produced by France’s Silex Films and backed by a $3.3 million production budget, three documentary filmmakers joined forces for this six-part series using Dan Franck’s book anthology, “Bohemes: Les Aventures de l’Art,”as the backbone for the presentation … a look at the lives and the work of the artists living in Paris during the first half of the 20^th Century.

Filmmakers Amélie Harrault (Kiki of Montparnasse), Pauline Gaillard and Valérie Loiseleux (the latter two are both César Awards-winning film editors) blend animation and archival footage to present the world, works and influences of the Picasso, Max Jacob, Stein, Apollinaire, Hemingway, Matisse, and Cocteau.  

We even get a glimpse of the art world from a dealer’s prospective — the commercial aspects.   And, without saying, the various influences from Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism to Surrealism that defined the Parisian world of Modern Art.

The Adventures of Modern Art is presented in a combination of French, German and English, with English subtitles … narration is by Amira Casar (Call Me by Your Name, The Last Summer of the Rich, Saint Laurent, etc.).

 

 

 

 

Cleopatra Entertainment Targets Nov. 06 For The Release Of Blu-ray And DVD Editions Of Mean Man: The Story Of Chris Holmes

Cleopatra Entertainment, with sales and distribution support from MVD Entertainment Group, has selected Friday, Nov. 6, as the street date for both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the documentary filmmaking team of Antoine De Montremy and Laurent Hart’s Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes.

Heavy metal rocker Chris Holmes, who was lead and rhythm guitarist for W.A.S.P. during their glory years in the 1980s, gets a career retrospective from French filmmaker Antoine De Montremy when he asked Holmes if he’d be interested while working on music videos in Cannes … Holmes said, sure, why not and here we are.

Beginning with the footage filmed in France of Holmes current concerts and then combining archival footage and wide-ranging interviews that include former band members, music pros and family members, Montremy and Hart have assembled a thorough look at Holmes’ career.   It’s not always pretty.

Bonus features include behind-the-scenes footage, a slide show … and more (still in the works)!!

For fans, especially heavy metal and W.A.S.P. fans, be sure to tune in on Nov. 6 for Cleopatra’s Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes.

 

 

 

 

Kit Parker Films Restores Director Norman Foster's Navajo For Release On DVD On Oct. 13

Kit Parker Films, working closely with the film archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has completed a 2K digital scan — from the original 35mm negative — of writer/director Norman Foster’s 1952 Oscar-nominated Navajo.   The film will be available on DVD this coming Oct. 13.

Producer Hall Bartlett was a Yale graduate, member of Phi Beta Kappa, who did a little acting work after World War II, drifted into screenwriting and at the behest of his friend, Stanley Kramer, he should think about becoming a film producer. 

So, he got together with director Norman Foster, who had directed and wrote a whole string of Mr. Moto films, plus was the director of some Charlie Chan films as well (and a whole lot more), before going down something of a rabbit hole with Orson Welles during World War II (the It’s All True filming debacle in Brazil … but that’s another story).  Foster came back to Hollywood and directed Journey Into Fear (produced by Welles) and then right after the war, for some odd reason, made a few Spanish-language films in Mexico.

He had returned to Hollywood, directed both Rachel and the Stranger and Kiss the Blood Off My Hands in 1948 and seemed to have settled back into the Hollywood scene.  The guy was a pro, been around forever as an actor, a writer and a director.   Bartlett, who had made friends with Foster, talked him to directing a film (he needed to start somewhere), which Foster wrote, with a total budget of just $25,000 … Foster even agreed to work without a fee.

You can’t make this stuff up.   They go off to the Navajo Indian Reservation, recruit members of the Navajo Nation to be in the film and get approval to shoot on location at Canyon de Chelly, a small trading post in Chinlee and in Death Canyon.   Foster and Bartlett then got cinematographer Virgil Miller to come out of retirement to film their production … he was a long-time pro, with over 150 credits dating all the way back to the silent era, even did the camera work on such popular “B” movies as The Woman in Green, The Mummy’s Curse, The Pearl of Death and Castle in the Desert.

The star of this little project, which was being filmed under the working title of The Voice of the Wind, is a seven-year boy by the name of Francis Kee Teller, who speaks no English and has never seen a movie in his life!! 

So, you’ve got a veteran sound stage cinematographer, working on location with a minimal set-up, a new-producer, a long-time director and a bunch of amateur actors, including a kid who doesn’t even know what a movie is.   That’s how Bartlett becomes a film producer.

The story is simple, Son of the Hunter (Teller) tends sheep and one day tells his “grandfather,” Grey Singer (Navajo by the name of John Mitchell), what signs he has seen (an owl, hooting during the day) and this gives Grey Singer the opportunity to give Son of the Hunter lessons in Navajo history.   And lessons in not killing snakes and animals as well … be at one with the land.

However, the signs that Son of the Hunter have related to Grey Singer, mean that they must move to a new place.   During this trip, which includes Son of the Hunter’s mother and sisters, Grey Singer realizes that he is dying and goes off to do so in the Navajo tradition.   When Son of the Hunter arrives at the local trading post, the authorities take him into custody and haul him off to school … he runs away, learns that his mother has died and is now alone in the wilderness and suspicious of the whites who have changed his life all around. 

The finished film is a blend between a documentary about Navajo traditions and the adventures — and learning process — of a young Navajo boy.   Simple, clean.

Navajo, gets a theatrical release through Lippert Pictures and when the Oscars were announced, Bartlett, Foster and Miller were shocked to find that they were nominated … Best Documentary and Best Cinematography (Foster ended up losing to Robert Surtees for The Bad and the Beautiful).   Reviewers declared Navajo a work of art, mesmerizing … and Francis Kee Teller received a Golden Globe for his performance.

Bonus features include, are you ready for this, commentary from Francis Kee Teller … Kit Parker tracked him down and found that after 70 years he was still alive and agreed to the commentary for his only film appearance.   If you are a film buff, the commentary alone should be priceless!!!  

Other bonus goodies include John F. Jennings’ 1952 documentary, Our Navajo Neighbors, footage of the publicity tour featuring Francis Kee Teller from 1952, The Canyon Matters by Genny Yazzie and Deborah Lem’s “Canyon de Chelly” photo-essay.

And lastly, all of the profits from the DVD release of Navajo are going to charities within the Navajo Nation.   Mark it down, Oct. 13 on DVD from Kit Parker Films, Navajo.

 

The Criterion Collection Announces Its December 2020 Film Restoration Calendar

The past week, the Criterion Collection announced its year-end slate of new film restorations that will be heading home as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings during the month of December.

Kicking of the four-film parade on Dec. 1 is director David Cronenberg’s 1997 film adaptation of the 1973 controversial “symphorophiliac” novel by J.G. Ballard, Crash.

The signal from the beginning was that Crash was an arthouse film.   His remake of The Fly was a huge hit, Naked Lunch is still being talked about today and his films with Viggo Mortensen — A History of Violence and Eastern Promises — are commercial action flicks.   He has made some terrific horror and sci-fi film as well … Rabid, Scanners, The Dead Zone, Videodrome.

But Crash opened at the Cannes Film Festival (May, 1996), an arthouse-signal to be sure.  It captured the Jury Special Prize for Cronenberg, played some addition festival dates and rolled out theatrically in the domestic market in 1997.   Pulled in about $3.3 million in ticket sales … and of note, this new 4K restoration marks the Blu-ray debut of Crash (it will also be available as a double-disc DVD edition from Criterion).

Crash is, by any standard, a strange movie.   You have James Spader living a meaningless life with his wife, played by Deborah Kara Unger (Silent Hill: Revelation, Between Strangers, Salton Sea, etc.), and then gets into a car crash, where he meets Holly Hunter — they strike up a relationship.   However, it is the cult-like influence of Bob Vaughan (played by Elias Koteas), who “recruits” scarred and disfigured crash survivors as his “followers,” that brings Spader’s character to the edge of insanity.

Bonus goodies include a vintage commentary with David Cronenberg (circa 1997) and the 1996 Cannes Film Festival press roundtable (featuring Cronenberg, writer J. G. Ballard and members of the cast … Holly Hunter, James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette and Elias Koteas.   There are also Behind-the-Scenes footage of Crash (unspecified).

Rounding out the December-end-of-the-year slate from the Criterion Collection are French New Wave director Robert Bresson’s 1967 film, Mouchette (4K film restoration, Dec. 8 … double-disc DVD), Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes by William Greaves (also Dec. 8 … also a double-disc DVD release) and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s 2000 Best Foreign Language nominee, Amores Perros (new 4K restoration … double-disc DVD release).