MVD Entertainment Group Bestows "Rewind Collection" Status On The Jan. 24 Blu-ray Release Of Men At Work

There’s a new “Rewind Collection” on its way to the Blu-ray marketplace in the New Year.    This popular promotional line from MVD Entertainment Group will get this new family member on Jan. 24 in the form of actor/director Emilio Estevez’s summer of 1990 action/comedy, Men at Work, which co-stars his younger brother, Charlie Sheen.

The concept of the film, a story about trash collectors who spend as much time doing their job as they do goofing-off, was all put together by Estevez.  The production actually started filming in the spring of 1989, but ended up with retakes and fine-tuning taking over six-months to complete.   Of course, when your brother is your co-star its sort of all in the family thing … taking the extra time paid off.

James (Estevez) and Carl (Sheen) end up getting involved with the cover-up of a toxic-wasting dumping operation, which includes murder — and the police figure them for the crime!!   They have to not only bring the real culprits to justice, but stay alive — and have fun — doing it.

Leslie Hope (Talk Radio, It Takes Two, Love Streams), Keith David (The Thing, They Live, Nope, Road House), Dean Cameron (Summer School) and Cameron Dye (Valley Girl, The Last Starfighter) co-star.

 

 

 

Writer/Director Skip Shea's Seeds Heads To Blu-ray On Jan. 31 Courtesy Of Bayview Entertainment

It’s the film acquisition deal that keeps on giving.  

Back in August, Bayview Entertainment acquired the UK’s noted horror and cult-cinema distributor Vipco … that move is paying huge dividends during the first quarter of 2023 (and likely beyond).

News arrived this past week that producer/writer/director Skip Shea’s “small world” horror thriller, Seeds, will be making its Blu-ray debut on Jan. 31.

Andrew (Patrick Bracken) is a professor who is noted for his expertise on ancient (obscure) cults.   So you can imagine his surprise when an uncle — who is something of a mystery to him (how ironic) — dies and bequeaths him material on (have you guessed it?) an ancient New England cult.

The good professor is a book-learned “expert” and has very little “real world” (or is that “unreal world”) experience, so this is something of a godsent.   Off he goes to investigate, and with the help of his dead uncle’s “friend,” Barbara (played by Barbara Magnolfi — for genre fans, she played Olga in Dario Argento’s Suspiria and was Ursula in Enzo Milioni’s The Sister of Ursula), he is gives something of a task to carry out by her when he reaches his dead uncle’s remote island village … she gives him seeds to be given to the first person he meets who is “worthy.”

Oh boy, a reasonable person would be headed back home.  This is just too creepy.

Especially so, when Andrew’s wife, Macha (Emma MacKenzie — Lazarus, Night of the Naked Dead) is absolutely furious that her starry-eyed husband would undertake such a fool-hearty quest!!   She’s having none of this pagan nonsense!

About this point in filmmaker Skip Shea’s tasty horror tale, you are likely thinking that Andrew is going to be the center of things in some remote, out-of-the-way place … to be carved up, sacrificed and never seen again.   Perhaps.    

But, there is a wicked twist involving the devout Macha, who decides to follow her husband!  No spoilers here!!

Seeds is not a routine horror entry.  It worked the festival circuit for two solid years for genre fans to enjoy … stops along the way leading up to its Blu-ray launch from Bayview Entertainment on Jan. 31 included the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival (2020), the Fright Night International Horror Film Festival (2020), iHorrordb Horror Film Festival (2021) and many more.   

 

 

Darkside Releasing Looks To Jan. 24 For The "Darkside Collection" Blu-ray Release Of Writer/Director Chris Alexander's Blood Dynasty

Darkside Releasing, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a “Darkside Collection” edition of writer/director Chris Alexander’s Blood Dynasty — the third film in the “Irina” vampire film series (Blood for Irina, Queen of Blood) — ready for the Blu-ray marketplace on Jan. 24.

The alluring — etherical, surreal (pick your favorite) — Irina (Shauna Henry) is back, having been summoned by a woman (played by Cheryl Singleton — who also appeared with Shauna Henry in Alexander’s 2015 film, Female Werewolf) who we know little about.   We see her leave her motel room, wander the city streets and then she comes to lake where we last saw Irina … and inexplicably calls forth the vampire.

Erotic, almost soothing, Irina returns with her to the motel room and seduces the beautiful young woman, creating a new vampire … a sharing of blood.   Now bonded, they will seek out other victims.

Bonus features include commentary from Chris Alexander.

 

 

 

Sunrise's Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer Heads To Blu-ray On Jan. 17

Japan’s premiere film and anime production company, Sunrise, Inc., with domestic sales and distribution support provided by Bayview Entertainment, has selected Jan. 17 as the street date for a Blu-ray edition of director Susumu Nishizawa’s anime feature film, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer.

Envisioned as a side-story spin-off to the popular television series, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, we jump straight into the chaos following the demise of Junius Seven as engineer Selene McGriff (voiced by Sayaka Ôhara) and the Deputy Security Director, Edmond Duclos, are hard at work on the GSX-401FW Stargazer.   It falls to McGriff to get this advance mobile suit into space while Duclos offers to stay and provide a line of defense.

Meanwhile, the Earth Alliance has their sights set on the Stargazer … it’s all or nothing!!

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer is presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

 

 

 

The Original Green Hornet Serial Gets 2K Film Restoration From VCI Entertainment For Release On Blu-ray On Feb. 21

VCI Entertainment has set Feb. 21, 2023 as the street date for a new 2K film restoration of the directing team of Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor’s 1940 serial adaptation of the popular radio series, The Green Hornet.

Beginning in 1936 at WXYZ radio (Detroit), producers George W. Trendle and Fran Striker launched “The Green Hornet” radio series featuring crime-fighter Britt Reid (played by Al Hodge) and his sidekick Kato, which would eventually go national in 1938 when the Mutual Broadcasting System picked it up.

So popular was the series that it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would come calling.   Universal Pictures acquired the production rights and recruited Gordon Jones (Pride of the Navy, My Sister Eileen, Flying Tigers, etc.) for the role of Britt Reid (aka: The Green Hornet) and none other than Charlie Chan-film series favorite, Keye Luke, to be Kato.

Reid, by day is a newspaper publisher, who becomes a mysterious masked figure in order to take on the criminal element.  But, the police think that the Green Hornet is actually a criminal in his own right, which works to Reid’s benefit …

13-thrill-packed cliffhanger-episodes involving insurance fraud, a crooked flying school, an auto-theft ring and more … which ultimately leads Reid to the discovery that there is just one mastermind behind all of these operations!!   The mystery is … who is the underworld mastermind?

 

 

 

Kit Parker Films Has A New 2K Film Restoration Of Director Francis D. Lyon's Crazylegs Ready For DVD Release On Feb. 07

Kit Parker Films, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that director Francis D. Lyon’s 1953 sports biopic, Crazylegs, starring football legend Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch, Lloyd Nolan (Airport, Michael Shayne: Private Detective, Bataan, Guadalcanal Diary, etc.) and Joan Vohs (Lure of the Swamp, Vice Squad, Girls’ School), will be making its long over-due DVD debut on Feb. 07, 2023.

This is a new 2K film restoration and, as near as we can document, this is the first home entertainment (including VHS) exposure for the film.

It is rare that a college football player gains fame at two rival universities in the Big 10, but that’s exactly what Elroy Hirsch did at both Wisconsin in 1942 and the following year at Michigan.   From 1944 until 1946 he was a U.S. Marine … and then made the transition to professional football, where he became a legend.

The film opens with Crazylegs Hirsch leading the Los Angeles Rams to the 1951 championship and after all depart the stadium, Hirsch joins his former high school coach, Win "Brock" Brockmeyer (played by Lloyd Nolan), on the field where they go back in time through a series of flashback sequences and we learn of Hirsch life (he married his high school sweetheart, Ruth — played by Vohs) and his sports career.

All of the action scenes are from real games and feature Hirsch — for the clever use of footage, editor Cotton Warburton would receive the first of two Oscar nominations … he would win in 1965 for his work on Mary Poppins.  Indeed, Warburton after his nomination for Crazylegs became a Disney fixture, editing such classics as The Absent Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, That Darn Cat!, The Love Bug and many more.

Bonus features included with this DVD debut of Crazylegs from Kit Parker Film on Feb. 07 are two featurettes — “Hall Bartlett and the Power of Film” and “Haller and Forty” — plus four vintage football programs: Frank Leahy and His Football Forecasts (1955), Football Parade of 1948, Touchdown Thrills of 1948 and Touchdown Thrills of 1949.

 

 

Director Catherine Meyburgh's Kentridge And Dumas In Conversation On DVD From Icarus Films On Jan. 31

Icarus Films announced this past week that documentary filmmaker Catherine Meyburgh’s 2009 art world-themed film, Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation, will make its long-overdue DVD debut on Jan. 31.

Meyburgh, who is an award-winning sound designer and film editor by trade, had the very good fortune of capturing an intimate discussion of Marlene Dumas and William Kentridge featuring their works, from drawings, paintings and their respective involvement in the world of film.

Marlene Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in the world of apartheid, and found expression of the inequities she witnessed through her art.  Most notably “Evil is Banal” (1984), “The Painter” (1994), “Dorothy D-Lite” (1998), the Yoko Ono-inspired “Jen” as well as the controversial “The Neighbor” (2005) are among her celebrated works.  

Her conversation mate, William Kentridge, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and took a somewhat different route to fame in the art world.  While, Dumas was immersed, educationally, in the art culture in both South Africa and The Netherlands, Kentridge’s formal education was in Politics and African studies, before abruptly changing direction and studying fire arts at the Johannesburg Art Foundation … thus setting him on a course of blending history and politics with his art.

He is noted for such eclectic works as “Arc/Procession: Develop, Catch Up, Even Surpass” (1990), the animated short film titled Felix in Exile (1994), the visually-impressive, “Sleeper-Red” (1997) and the avant-garde film exhibition in 2008 titled I am not me, the horse is not mine. 

Two very different artists — in both approach and style — Meyburgh captured them on film discussing their works, their respective backgrounds and the process/inspirations that have brought both of them to international fame.

Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation on DVD this coming Jan. 31 from Icarus Films also includes footage of both artists at work in their respective studios.