Severin Films To Release VIXEN Trilogy (Russ Meyer's Vixen, Russ Meyer's Ultravixens, Russ Meyer's Beneath The Valley Of The Ultravixens) As 4K Ultra HD Editions On Jan. 28

Not all auteur filmmakers are the likes of Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Roman Polanski or Francois Truffaut.   Auteur doesn’t have to mean arthouse.  An auteur can also be marked by a body of work that clearly represents the filmmaker without even mentioning that filmmaker’s name.

For example, you say “Toxic Avenger” and you immediately think of the body of film work by Lloyd Kaufman … Class of Nuke’em High, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., Tromeo and Juliet and more!  

If you say “Vixen,” the auteur that springs to mind is of course Russ Meyer!   

To celebrate three of his greatest film treasures, Severin Films — with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group — has not one, but three new 4K film restorations of his “Vixen Trilogy” for film fans to enjoy in the New Year.   

Yes, you read that right … Russ Meyer’s Vixen, Russ Meyer’s Supervixens and Russ Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens will all be available as newly-minted 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Packs on Jan. 28.

Each film is lovingly restored from the original camera negatives and these landmark classics come loaded with extras.

Kicking off with Meyer’s 1968 groundbreaking adult cinema gem, Russ Meyer’s Vixen, starring Erica Gavin (as Roxanne in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and as Erika in Erika’s Hot Summer) as Vixen Palmer, a woman with insatiable sexual desires (a seductress).   

Bonus features two commentary options — an archival commentary with Russ Meyer and the second with the film’s star, Erica Gavin.

There are also video sessions with Gavin and co-star Harrison Page (as Niles) and two featurettes — “David Del Valle’s The Sinister Image” and “Entertainment … or Obscenity?”

Next up is the 1975 film release of Russ Meyer’s Supervixens, starring Shari Eubank in the dual role of SuperAngel and SuperVixen (opposites — one super bad and the other a “good girl” with all the right equipment).   

Others in the cast are murderer and stalker “Harry Sledge” (played by Charles Napier … as Harry in Cherry, Harry & Raquel! and Baxter Wolfe in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, plus such films as The Blues Brothers, Swing Shift, Rambo: First Blood Part II and The Grifters), Charles Pitts and “Super Girls” Christy Hartburg (SuperLorna), Deborah McGuire (SuperEula) and Colleen Brennan as SuperCherry.

Bonus goodies include an archival commentary with Russ Meyer and a trio of featurettes — “Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters,” “The Return Of Harry Sledge” and “The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer.”

Rounding this inspired trio of films is the 1979 cinematic treasure, Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens, co-written by legendary film critic Roger Ebert and starring Meyer’s long-time “associate,” Kitten Natividad.

Bonuses include an archival commentary by Meyer and three featurettes — “The Latin Brünhilde,” “Talk It Over” and “Still Talking It Over.”

Writer/Director Park Finn's Smile 2 Arrives In The Physical Media Marketplace On Jan. 21 From Paramount Home Entertainment

Paramount Home Entertainment just made its first announcement for the New Year.   This is a DVD and a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack presentation of writer/director Parker Finn’s Smile 2.

How odd?   Reading through the press release — and looking at retail websites — there is no mention of a Blu-ray edition (and yet one is being produced for the 4K Ultra HD SKU).   

The street date is Jan. 21, which yields an ARR of 95 days.   The domestic box office take currently stands at $65.9 million.

A Premium VOD window opened up on Nov. 19, which will give the “Helper” community nine weeks to move Blu-ray (their favorite format for bandwidth, not HD) editions of their own making to unsuspecting genre fans.

As to bonus features, writer/director Parker Finn provides commentary, plus there are deleted and extended scenes and seven production featurettes — “Ear to Ear,” “The Rise and Fall of Skye Riley,” “Behind the Music,” “A New Smile,” “Smiler: A New Monster,” “Turn that Frown Upside Down” and “Show Me Your Teeth.”

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Opens The New Year With The 4K Ultra HD Debut On Jan. 7 Of Director David Fincher's Se7en

At the dawn of DVD, one of the earliest releases had a running time that required the viewer to eject the disc and “flip” it over to see the thrilling conclusion to the film.   The DVD-9 configuration hadn’t been perfected quite yet, so a DVD-10 (two DVD-5s glued back-to-back) was pressed into service.   This was commonly referred to as a “flipper” disc.

The film in question is director David Fincher’s Se7en, which clocked in at 127 minutes.

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment announced this past week that a new 4K restoration of Se7en (from the original camera negative) will be available on Jan. 7 as a new 4K Ultra HD edition — two buying options will be available (Limited Edition SteelBook and standard packaging).

Bonus features included with this 4K Ultra HD launch are all archival elements.  These include four separate commentary options, deleted scenes, alternate endings and featurettes, including “Production Design” and “Mastering for the Home Theatre.”

Early Works Of Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy Feb. 18) And Nicolas Roeg (Performance Feb. 25) Topline The Criterion Collection's February 4K Ultra HD Product Offerings

The Criterion Collection announced its February slate of new film restorations this past week.   There will five new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack heading home during the month.

There are two — again, always a subjective call — films getting the 4K treatment that are of special interest during the month of February.   Both films have something in common — new directors, rejections by Hollywood, who emerge as cinematic “rock stars” as their film careers bloomed!

The first of these arrives on Feb. 18 and this would be writer/director Gun Van Sant’s October of 1989 film release (Toronto International Film Festival debut in September), Drugstore Cowboy, starring Matt Dillion, Kelly Lynch, James Remar and Heather Graham.

In 1998, Van Sant failed again and again to find any studio interest in his script for Drugstore Cowboy and so he abandoned the Hollywood scene and set up an indie operation in Portland, Oregon.    It took him a full year to get his film shot, thru post-production and ready for the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 1989.   

He was a relatively unknown quantity, but after this indie film hit the theatrical circuit that all changed (Best Director Oscar nominations would follow for Good Will Hunting in 1998 and Milk in 2009) … National Society of Film Critics gave him wins for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Drugstore Cowboy.

Drugstore Cowboy, not only launched Van Sant’s film career, but it remains an important indie film to this day … and now a new 4K digital restoration (supervised and approved by both Van Sant and his director of photography Robert Yeoman).

Bonus features include commentary by Van Sant and actor Matt Dillon, newly minted video sessions with Yeoman and actor Kelly Lynch, deleted scenes and the featurette titled “The Making of Drugstore Cowboy.”

Arriving the following week, Feb. 25, is auteur filmmaker Nicolas Roeg’s directorial debut, Performance (one year before Walkabout), teaming Mick Jagger with James Fox.

Following World War II, Roeg learned the film production business from the ground up … finally getting a big break in the early 1960s as the second-unit cinematographer on director David Lean’s film masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia.   

Despite his falling out with Lean, his work was noticed by none other than Roger Corman, who gave him the assignment of cinematographer for the Masque of the Red Death in 1964 and Francois Truffaut followed with Fahrenheit 451 in 1966.

By the time he got around to directing Performance in 1968 (he also acted as the cinematographer) he was a well-grounded filmmaker … in other words, he knew his stuff!
The film was completed, but when Warner Bros. (domestically) got a look at it there was panic.   No, no, no … not releasing this.   Too violent, too sexual and all that drug use … no, no, no.   But you do have The Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger as the star, so that’s something.

The film was “re-worked” ... that’s Hollywood double-speak for other hands being laid upon the film before it finally got a theatrical release in the summer of 1970.   

Not only was it something of a surprise to the studio when it finally got a theatrical run, but the film became a staple of arthouse and repertory venues throughout the 1970s.

Bonus features included the documentary filmmaking team of Kevin Macdonald and Chris Rodley’s 1998 feature length documentary, Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance, Greg Carson’s 2007 short film titled Influence and Controversy: Making Performance and three featurettes — “The True Story of David Litvinoff,” “Performers on Performance” and “The Two Cockneys of Harry Flowers.”

Also on the 4K Ultra HD release calendar from the Criterion Collection in February are writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (Feb. 4), director Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey (Feb. 18) and writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (Feb. 25).

Dec. 10 Is The Street Date For Shout! Studios' 45th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD Edition Of Director Allan Arkush's Rock 'N Roll High School

Shout! Studios rocks out this Dec. 10 with the 45th anniversary celebration of the theatrical launch of Rock ‘n Roll High School with a new 4K Ultra HD/2 Blu-ray Combo Pack release. 

The vision of Roger Corman as the executive producer and the talents of director Allan Arkush (from the “Corman School” of filmmaking — Deathsport in 1978), filmmaker Joe Dante (a longtime associate and writing partner of Arkush … who handled some of the directing to keep the film on-budget and on-time) and a dream cast that includes “Corman School” film talents Paul Bartel and his filmmaking cohort, Mary Woronov — genius, pure genius having these two in the cast.   

But it doesn’t end there … other Dante/Arkush/Corman members of the cast include Dick Miller and Clint Howard, plus the star of the show, who was on a roll (pun intended) with scene-stealing performances in both Carrie and Halloween, P. J. Soles.

This Corman production didn’t start out as a rock ‘n roll musical, but rather something along the lines of a cheerleader movie that Dante and Arkush had sketched out.  However, according to trade reports and other sources, the film underwent as many five re-writes before finally reaching its final form.

The rest, they say is history!

Bonus goodies include (and this must be a record) five different commentary options.   There are four archival commentaries that have been produced over the years … these are: Arkush with producer Mike Finnell (The Howling, Gremlins) and re-write screenwriter Richard Whitley; Arkush with actors P.J. Soles and Clint Howard; Whitley with his co-writer Russ Dvonch and the late Roger Corman with actor Dey Young (in her film debut).  

There is also a new commentary included here with author Stephen B. Armstrong (“I Want You Around: The Ramones And The Making Of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”).

Additional bonus goodies can found on one of the companion Blu-ray discs … these include a new video session with Ramones drummer, Marky Ramone, vintage video session with Corman (conduced by Leonard Maltin) and Arkush, audio outtakes, a vintage intro by Arkush and a trio of featurettes — “Class of ’79: 40 Years of Rock ‘n Roll High School,” “Back to School: A Retrospective” and “Staying After Class.”

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Tabs Dec. 10 As The Street Date For A 4K Ultra HD Edition Of Director Ron Howard's Willow

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has selected Dec. 10 as the street date for a newly-minted Limited Edition SteelBook 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack of director Ron Howard’s Willow.

Bonus features (archival) include commentary by Warwick Davis, deleted scenes, a trio of featurettes — “The Making of an Adventure,” “From Morf to Morphing” and “Willow: An Unlikely Hero” — and more.

Also added to the 4K Ultra HD release calendar (all arriving on Dec. 3 as double-disc product offerings) are: Hawkeye: The Complete First Season, Loki: The Complete Second Season, Mandalorian: The Complete Third Season and Star Wars: Ahsoka - The Complete First Season.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Looks To Dec. 3 For The Release Of The 12-Film DVD Collection Titled The Swan Princess: The Royal Collection

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has a nice Christmas-season surprise on Dec. 3.   This would be the DVD gift set titled The Swan Princess: The Royal Collection.

This magnificent twelve-movie collection (on six DVDs) includes the entire series, plus a limited edition Swan Prince Music Jewelry Box.

This animated franchise was launched during the Thanksgiving season of 1994 with writer/director (and producer) Richard Rich’s adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name.  

The theatrical rollout was the victim of the famous (or infamous) Disney spiteful sabotage reissue of The Lion King (animated movies belong to us … so there) at the same time, which took a massive bite out of the box office of The Swan Princess.

That might have been the end of it, but Rich was not to be denied … he made a beautiful film (classic animation) and knew that Disney had undercut his release.   He returned in the summer of 1997 with The Swan Princess: Secrets of the Castle and then found a home (literally) in building a direct-to-video franchise for the fans who had subsequently “discovered” his The Swan Princess.

Ten more films, all included here, followed!!