MVD Entertainment Group Sets Writer/Director Stephen Kay's The Last Time I Committed Suicide For Its Blu-ray Debut On July 6

MVD Entertainment Group announced this past week that writer/director Stephen Kay’s 1997 film release of The Last Time I Committed Suicide will be making its long-overdue Blu-ray debut on July 6.

Way, way back in 1950, future “Beat Generation” guru Neal Cassady, who was an associate of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, wrote a letter to his mentor, Jack Kerouac, who he had met a few years earlier, and that letter became the basis for playwright Stephen Kay’s script (it was his first directing and writing effort). 

 The Last Time I Committed Suicide follows the life — the real-life “adventures” — of Cassady during his formative years.  He would become Jack Kerouac’s “voice” in his novel, “On the Road,” and this letter — which came to be known as “The Great Sex Letter” — was Kay’s inspiration. 

Thomas Jane (Face/Off, Boogie Nights, Deep Blue Sea, The Mist, Into the Grizzly Maze), in a very early role for him, plays Cassady, and others in the cast include the likes of Keanu Reeves, Adrien Brody and Gretchen Mol.    

The film by Stephen Kay (Get Carter, Boogeyman, Yellowstone, etc.) is presented very much like an arthouse entry, with the narrative moving freely backwards and forwards in time touching upon a series of pivotal points in Cassady’s life.

The film itself, was released theatrically by Multicom, an indie production company, very briefly in the summer of 1997, it arrived on DVD eight years later and is now being made available by MVD Entertainment Group on Blu-ray for the first time.   For most, this will be the first chance to see Kay’s early film.

 

 

 

Bayview Entertainment Selects June 29 For The DVD Debut Of HNN Presents: Everybody Gets Stabbed

Bayview Entertainment travels Downunder for the next addition to its popular “HNN Presents” line of horror films (genre gems from all points of the compass) on DVD.   This would be the June 29 debut of writer/director Levon Polinelli’s Perth-based horror tale, HNN Presents: Everybody Gets Stabbed.

Before we get into the storyline of the film itself, there is a bit of a backstory to the production of the film itself that should be noted.   Polinelli had completed the shooting of his film for the most part, the actors had moved on, just post work and then festival screenings, but one afternoon he parked his car in the wrong place — just for a moment while he took care of some business — and when he returned  the hard drive containing the work product was gone; stolen!!  

The fact that it is making its domestic DVD debut on June 29 means that there was a happy ending.  

The “#Me-Too” movement collides with the dense forces of Desmond Sawyer (David Buckle — An Ideal Host) and Clive Dickinson (Nick Pages-Oliver — Two People, Weekend Healer) in the western regions of Australia.  

By slacker standards, Desmond and Clive are pretty much at the bottom of the barrel.  The problem is, they are completely oblivious to two things … how dumb they are, and more importantly, how their circle of friends doesn’t give a kangaroo’s rip about anything they have to contribute to things.

To this later point, the indifference that certain of their friends show, because they have lives of their own — and “issues” of their own — sets Clive off.   He has the hots for Lauren (Alice Wrobel), but she is in a relationship with Tom (Jayden Arts), and her indifference is just too much.  

The plan is simple, Clive, with Desmond’s help, will start killing off their friends and do it in such a way as to pin the murders on Tom.   Desmond is willing to go along with this insane plan because he is secretly in love with Clive and by assisting he figures that Clive will “see the light.”

Stupid they are, but no one seems to be able to figure out why their friends are being murdered.   They might just get away with this, but one of their “friends” (who hasn’t reached the top of the kill list just yet), Brenda (Elise Wilson — in her film debut), puts two and two together and confronts Clive and Desmond.   Here’s the twist, she’s not going to rat them out … she wants in on the action!!

Bayview Entertainment’s “HNN Presents” DVD promotional label gets a black comedy entry that is certainly wildly different — in a good way — from your traditional horror/slasher/serial killer(s) flick.   June 29, from Downunder, HNN Presents: Everybody Gets Stabbed. 

 

 

 

Blue Underground Preps 4K Ultra HD Edition Of Two Evil Eyes For Release On Aug. 24

Blue Underground, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 4K restoration (from the original camera negative) of the 1990 collaboration of horror filmmaking icons, George A. Romero and Dario Argento, Two Evil Eyes.

This Edgar Allan Poe collaboration arrives as a 4K Ultra HD edition on Aug. 24, and includes a bonus Blu-ray disc packed with extras (more on that in a bit).

This wasn’t the first time that Argento and Romero had worked together, 12 years earlier they collaborated on Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, with Argento taking on editing duties for an “international” cut of the film, which was titled Zombie (not to be confused with Fulci’s film of the same name … also available from Blue Underground).

With Two Evil Eyes, each filmmaker adapted an Edgar Allan Poe, with Romero directing an adaptation of Poe’s 1845 short story, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” featuring Bingo O’Malley (local Pittsburgh talent who appeared in Romero’s Knightriders and Creepshow) as the dying Ernest Valdemar, Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Escape from New York, Swamp Thing) as his scheming wife and Rama Zada as her partner in crime.   It does not end well for all involved.

Argento did an adaptation of Poe’s 1843 classic short story, “The Black Cat,” with Harvey Keitel as Usher and Madeleine Potter (Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns) as Annabel.

The entire production was filmed in Pittsburgh, with Giuseppe “Beppe” Maccari as the cinematographer for “The Black Cat” and Peter Reniers doing similar duties for Romero’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” … with make-up and f/x whiz Tom Savini (Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, etc.) leading the make-up team.

As to bonus features, the 4K Ultra HD disc features commentary from writer Troy Howarth (“Murder by Design: The Unsane Cinema of Dario Argento,” “The Haunted World of Mario Bava,” “So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films,” etc.).

The companion Blu-ray disc is packed with bonus features.   Counted among these are no less than eleven featurettes, including “Two Masters’ Eyes,” “At Home with Tom Savini,” “Adrienne Barbeau on George Romero” and “Before I Wake.”

 

 

 

Wolfe's Ahead Of The Curve Makes It DVD Debut On June 01

Wolfe announced this past week that the documentary filmmaking team of Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow’s Ahead of the Curve, an award-winning look at the career of activist/publisher Frances “Franco” Stevens and the founding of first Deneuve and then Curve Magazine, will be making its DVD debut on June 01.

Born of privilege, Frances Rene Goldberg had it all.   A Jewish princess, she got an elaborate wedding — an event — at just 18-years of age.   The marriage last about three years and then she came out of the closet in 1989.   That did not sit well with her family, who cut her off … in no time, she was living on the streets of San Francisco, homeless.  

It is 1990 and Frances had an idea.   It doesn’t matter how down on your luck you are, if you have an idea in the right place, at the right time, it can become a force of nature.  

You can’t make this stuff up, this is true-life documentary on her life, and once you’ve gone from Jewish princess to being divorced to coming out as gay and to being disowned by your family, you get creative in order to survive.  

First thing, get off the streets, get moving.   She landed a job at The Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco and began to network with the local writers and it was at this time that she came up with the idea for the first out-and-out Lesbian-themed magazine.

There was just one problem.  The idea that she had come up with needed funding and no one would step up.    However, Frances had a gift, a way with the ponies and that would be her ticket to financing her start-up operation.  

It was a simple plan, apply for every credit card she could think of, max them out and head to the track … Deneuve, the magazine, was born!!

A self-style promoter, street-smarts and with a relentless drive, Frances/Franco took to the road … if there was a festival, she was there, if there was an interview opportunity, she took it … she was making a go of it.

Now, if you know a little of the history, you know what came next.   Does the name Catherine Deneuve ring any bells?   She used her celebrity, along with a fleet of high-powered lawyers to body-slam Franco and her Deneuve magazine.   She rolled with the punches and reinvented herself once again … a survivor, surviving.

In this well-crafted documentary, filmmakers Rainin and Medow give us the backstory and bring us up to the present day where new challenges face Franco … tough times, touch choices, but considering how far she has come and how much she has accomplished, you can’t help but get the feeling that this is just one more challenge to overcome.

Bonus features include extended interviews with Franco Stevens, along with activists and supports, Melissa Etheridge, Lea DeLaria and Jewelle Gomez.

 

 

 

 

Director Wolfgang Petersen's In The Line Of Fire Gets A 4K Ultra HD Push From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment On June 15

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced this past week that director Wolfgang Petersen’s 1993 Secret Service thriller, In the Line of Fire, starring Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich, will be getting a remaster 4K Ultra HD launch on June 15.  

This marks the first time since Feb. of 2016, when Sony Pictures released its first wave of 4K Ultra HD titles that a Combo Pack (with Blu-ray) presentation is not being offered.  

As to bonus goodies, director Wolfgang Petersen provides commentary, plus there are five deleted scenes and four featurettes — “The Ultimate Sacrifice,” “Catching the Counterfeiters,” “How’d They Do That” and “Behind the Scenes with the Secret Service.”

 

The Criterion Collection Announces It July 2021 Slate Of New Film Restorations

The Criterion Collection announced its film restoration slate for the month of July and there is no better place to start than director Howard Hawks’ 1938 “Screwball” comedy, Bringing Up Baby, teaming Cary Grant with Katharine Hepburn.

This new 4K restoration will be available on July 6 as both Blu-ray and double-disc DVD product offerings.

The Hollywood trade press back then made two points that have sort of become legend over time.   First, Cary Grant was not locked in as paleontologist Dr. David Huxley and so speculation was rampant as to who the lead would be for this “big budget” RKO production.   Everyone from Leslie Howard, Ray Milland, Robert Montgomery, Ronald Colman and even Fredric March appeared in the trades as possible lead actors during the run-up to the start of production in 1937.

The other trade press thing that helped make this film a legend was the list published by the Independent Theatre Owners Association in the fall of 1937 while the film was still in production.   They declared that Katharine Hepburn was, are you ready for this, “box office poison.”

That was it for RKO.   Despite the filming being completed, the studio decided to shut it down (no post-production work, editing, sound, etc.) and there would be no theatrical release for Bringing Up Baby.

Enter Katharine Hepburn’s lover at the time, Howard Hughes, who purchased the film outright from RKO, had the post work completed and then cut a deal with MGM to have the film exhibited in its Loew’s Theatre chain.  It opened in February of 1938, and, as they say, “the rest is history.”  

Bonus goodies include a vintage commentary from filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (circa 2005), a new “video essay” with author Scott Eyman (“Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise”) on the film’s star, Cary Grant, another newly-minted video session with cinematographer John Bailey on the work of cinematographer Russell Metty (Oscar-winner for Spartacus) and a newly-prepared “selected scene” commentary by historian Shelly Foote on the work of costume designer Howard Greer in Bringing Up Baby.

Additional bonus features include German documentary filmmaker Hans-Christoph Blumenberg’s 1977 feature-length documentary, Howard Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life, and vintage audio sessions. 

Rounding out the July film restoration calendar from the Criterion Collection are: A double-disc helping of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1975 (1980, domestic) Mirror (July 6, in Russian with English subtitles and accompanied by three separate documentaries); director Bill Duke’s under-appreciated 1992 neo-noir thriller, Deep Cover (July 13 with Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum), director Lizzie Borden’s 1987 film, Working Girls (July 13) and on July 20 French filmmaker Jacques Deray’s 1969 (1970, domestic) film release of La Piscine starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider.

 

 

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Picks Apr. 27 As The Street Date For Both DVD And Blu-ray Editions Of Director Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland

As the 20^th Century-Fox brand fades into the great abyss, word has arrived that Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will be rushing home its Best Picture candidate on Apr. 27.

With this year’s Oscar telecast slated for Sunday, Apr. 25 (not that anyone cares) the street date for both stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray editions of the Fox Searchlight Pictures production of director Chloé Zhao’s film adaptation of the Jessica Bruder novel, “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” — which was shortened for its film festival and subsequent theatrical run to just Nomadland — seems almost like an afterthought.   “Oh, is that one of ours?”

Nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Frances McDormand (her sixth acting nomination, with two wins — Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — and, as a kicker, she also shares in the Best Picture producing honors).  The other nominations for Nomadland are for filmmaker Chloé Zhao — Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing and she too was a co-producer and up for the Best Picture award.

The film premiered simultaneously at the Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and the virtual Telluride Film Festival in September of last year … and then played the festival circuit throughout the rest of 2020.   The film didn’t open theatrically until February of this year, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has so many new rules that Zhao’s film qualifies for 2020 Oscar consideration.   And, will likely win.

For the record, the ARR is 67 days and domestic box office receipts are a dismal $2.1 million, which means Nomadland might end up being the first Best Picture-winner that virtually no one saw theatrically.

Bonus goodies are deleted scenes, a Q&A session with Frances McDormand and Chloé Zhao from Telluride and the featurette titled “The Forgotten America”