Wolfe Video revisits BIG EDEN (review)

Arye Gross, Eric Schweig, Tim DeKay, and Louise Fletcher star in the celebrated gay love story BIG EDEN getting its fifteenth anniversary release on Blu-ray from Wolfe Video.  When NYC artist Henry Hart learns that his grandfather has had a stroke, he drops everything and heads home to Montana and confronts old baggage and new love.

REVIEW LINK: Wolfe Video (US) Region A Blu-ray (DVDCompare)

BIG EDEN Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Audio Commentary by director Tom Bezucha
• "BIG EDEN: A Look Back" featurette with Tom Bezucha and actors Arye Gross, Eric Schweig, Tim DeKay, and Louise Fletcher
• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Arrow Films peers through FOG AND CRIMES: SEASON 3 (review)

In the third and final season of FOG AND CRIMES, Luca Barbareschi's cop finds himself solving high profile murders in Turin while dealing with his troubled relationship with lawyer Angela, a runaway child, and a nest of murders and lies among the elite.

REVIEW LINK: Arrow Films (UK) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

FOG AND CRIMES: SEASON THREE DVD specs:

• Four feature-length episodes on two dual-layer DVDs
• 4:3 non-anamorphic 1.78:1 letterbox
• Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Optional English subtitles 

Wolfe Video cruises IN THE GRAYSCALE (review)

Driven by a gnawing feeling of something not working in his life, a thirty-something architect moves away from his wife and child.  When he accepts a challenging job to build a landmark in Santiago, Chile, he is paired with a quirky gay historian and finds himself questioning his sexual identity.

REVIEW: Wolfe Video (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDBeaver)

IN THE GRAYSCALE DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo
• Burnt-in English subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Simply Media revisits MY WIFE NEXT DOOR (review)

In the seventies Britcom co-created by Brian Clemens (THE AVENGERS) MY WIFE NEXT DOOR, George and Suzy have divorced after two years living apart and both have realized they need a change.  When they end up moving in to neighboring country cottages, they engage in a standoff to make the other move, to make each other jealous, and to keep each other out of their lives... but love is always lovelier the second time around.

REVIEW LINK: Simply Media (UK) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

MY WIFE NEXT DOOR DVD specs:

• Thirteen episodes on two dual-layer DVDs
• 4:3 non-anamorphic 1.33:1 fullscreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles

Acorn Media and RLJ learn NEW TRICKS: SERIES 12 (review)

The crew of the Unsolved and Open Case squad bid farewell after twelve years in the final ten episodes.  As new evidence is discovered and new tips are sent in, the squad re-opens cases from the past decades to solve a series of murders while dealing with their troubled personal lives and police and government politics.  Larry Lamb, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, and Dennis Waterman star.

REVIEW LINK: Acorn Media/RLJ Entertainment (US) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

NEW TRICKS: SERIES 12 DVD specs:

• Ten episodes on three dual-layer discs
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Optional English HoH subtitles
• Top Ten Series Moments
• Cast Filmographies
• Picture Gallery

Big World Pictures presents REBELS OF THE NEON GOD (Review)

A young man quits school for the bright lights of Taipei and falls in with a small time thief in this HD restoration of Tsai Ming-Liang's 1992 masterpiece.

REVIEW LINK: Big World Pictures (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVDBeaver)

REBELS OF THE NEON GOD DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen
• Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Burnt-in English subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Arrow Video pets EDGAR ALLAN POE'S BLACK CATS (review)

Two giallo-tinged adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's classic story "The Black Cat" get the HD overhaul on Arrow Video's Blu-ray set.  In Lucio Fulci's "The Black Cat" (1981), a photographer in an English village becomes involved in the investigation of a series of freak deaths she comes to believe are the work of a black cat belonging to a medium conducting experiments with the dead.  David Warbeck, Mimsy Farmer, and Patrick Magee star.  In Sergio Martino's "Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key" (1972), a series of murders in a small Padua village have a drunken author and his mentally fragile wife believing his is responsible.  Luigi Pistilli, Anita Strindberg, and Edwige Fenech star.

REVIEW LINK: Arrow Video USA (US) Region A/B Blu-ray/Region 1/2 DVD combo (DVD Drive-in)

EDGAR ALLAN POE'S BLACK CATS Blu-ray/DVD combo:

• The Black Cat (1981):
• Blu-ray:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen
• English and Italian LPCM 1.0 mono
• DVD:
• 16:9 anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen
• English and Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Italian audio
• Audio Commentary by Fangoria's Chris Alexander
• "Poe Into Fulci" featurette with Stephen Thrower
• "In the Paw-Prints of the Black Cat" visit to the locations
• "Frightened Dagmar" inteview with actress Dagmar Lassander
• "At Home with David Warbeck" 70 minute interview from 1995
• Theatrical Trailer
• Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972):
• Blu-ray:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen
• English and Italian LPCM 1.0 mono
• DVD:
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen
• English and Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Italian track
• "Through the Keyhole" an interview with Sergio Martino
• "Unveiling the Vice" featurette with Sergio Martino, actress Edwige Fenech, and writer Ernesto Gastaldi
• "Dolls of Flesh and Blood" video essay by Michael Mackenzie on Martino's giallo films
• "The Strange Vice of Ms Fenech" tribute to actress Edwige Fenech
• "Eli Roth on YOUR VICE" featurette on the filmmaker
• Limited Edition with eighty-page booklet
• Reversible Covers

Kino Lorber unmasks THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (review)

Lon Chaney's classic horror role as THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA hits Blu-ray from Kino Lorber in its 1925 original and 1929 reissue versions with wealth of extras including four music score choices and a commentary explaining the differences between the two cuts of the film and the problems that plagued the production and its critical reception.

REVIEW LINK: Kino Lorber (US) Region A Blu-ray (DVDBeaver)

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Blu-ray specs:

• Disc One:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 fullscreen
• 1929 cut (24fps)
• Alloy Orchestra score LPCM 2.0 stereo
• Gaylord Carter score LPCM 2.0 stereo
• 1929 cut (20fps, 1080i) 
• Gabriel Thibaudeau orchestral score LPCM 2.0 mono
• Audio commentary by film historian/Lon Chaney expert Dr. Jon Mirsalis 
• Disc Two:
• 1925 cut (SD)
• Frederick Hodges score LPCM 2.0 stereo
• Excerpts of the Sound Edition
• Original Screenplay - scrolling text
• Theatrical Trailer
• Gabriel Thibaudeau Interview
• Burton Holmes Travel Pictures:
• "Paris from a Motor"
• "A Trip on the Seine" (3:30)

LionsGate reveals WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAY (review)

David Tennant, Rosamund Pike, Billy Connolly, and Ben Miller star in this outrageous, hilarious, and heartwarming family drama.  Doug and Abi are taking their kids to Scotland for their grandfather's birthday.  Among the topics not to be discussed is their impending divorce, but the kids inadvertently reveal a lot more and their grandfather's death sparks a media firestorm when the kids attempt to deal with it themselves so their parents will not fight.

REVIEW LINK: LionsGate (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDCompare)

WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAY DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles
• Audio Commentary by directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin
• "Creating Dysfuction: Making What We Did On Our Holiday"
• Deleted Scenes
• Previews

Synapse Films gets bitten by MOSQUITO (review)

From the producer of PRINCE OF DARKNESS, THEY LIVE, and THE BLOB comes this Michigan-lensed big bug exploitation classic.  When a spaceship crashes in a swamp, the woods are soon filled with giant mosquitoes sucking fisherman and campers dry.  A forest ranger, a park officer, her boyfriend, a meteor chaser, and a pair of bank robbers may be humanities only hope.

REVIEW LINK: Synapse Films (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

MOSQUITO Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 and 2.0 stereo
• Optional English, French, German, and Spanish subtitles
• Audio Commentary with Director Gary Jones, Director of Photography and Co-Writer Tom Chaney, and Producer David Thiry
• "Bugging Out! The Making of Mosquito" documentary (75 minutes)
• Deleted & Extended Scenes with Optional Director Commentary
• Behind-the-Scenes Footage with Optional Director Commentary (40 minutes)
• Still Gallery
• Theatrical Trailer

LionsGate gets munched by EATERS (Review)

When one of their number goes missing, a quintet of young road-trippers faces off against a drug-running biker gang, but none of them are prepared for what they find when they seek help in a ghost town that turns out to be just as much of a tourist trap!

REVIEW LINK: LionsGate (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDCompare)

EATERS DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles
• Trailer
• Previews

Vinegar Syndrome digs up FRIGHTMARE (review)

Vinegar Syndrome resurrects the much-maligned Troma pickup FRIGHTMARE aka THE HORROR STAR.  Conrad Ragzoff is the last of the great horror stars, now reduced to appearing as a vampire in TV commercials.  When he dies, a local horror film society steals his corpse for a celebration, but you can't keep a good star down and he is soon up and taking his revenge on those who disturbed his eternal slumber.

REVIEW LINK: Vinegar Syndrome (US) Region ALL Blu-ray/Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVD Drive-in)

FRIGHTMARE Blu-ray/DVD combo specs:

• Blu-ray:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono
• DVD:
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Audio Commentary by The Hysteria Continues
• Audio Interview with director Norman Thaddeus Vane
• Audio Commentary by film historians David De Coteau and David Del Valle
• Interview with cinematographer Joel E. King
• Theatrical Trailer
• Artwork Gallery 

Vinegar Syndrome battles DEMONOID (review)

Samantha Eggar and Stuart Whitman pursue the devil's hand in the Mexican/American production DEMONOID.  A curse is unleashed from an ancient temple deep within a Mexican mine and makes its way to Vegas and then to California in search of its rightful owner.

REVIEW LINK: Vinegar Syndrome (US) Region ALL Blu-ray/Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVD Drive-in)

DEMONOID Blu-ray/DVD combo specs:

• Blu-ray:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono
• DVD: 
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Optional English subtitles
• U.S. version DEMONOID with additional prologue and alternate gore scenes (79 minutes) and longer international version MACABRA (90 minutes) with alternate score and additional scenes
• Interview with director Alfredo Zacharias
• Theatrical Trailer and TV spot for MACABRA
• Theatrical Trailer for DEMONOID
• Artwork Gallery

Scorpion Releasing rings up LISA (review)

MY TWO DADS' Staci Keanan, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' D.W. Moffett, and Cheryl Ladd star in this underrated late eighties thriller.  Schoolgirl Lisa has a game in which she stalks attractive guys and teases them over the phone.  Unfortunately, the man of her dreams may be "The Candlelight Killer" who has been stalking and killing women all over the city, and Lisa may be next.

REVIEW LINK: Scorpion Releasing/Kino Lorber (US) Region A Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

LISA Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo
• Audio Commentary by director Gary Sherman
• Interview with actor D.W. Moffett
• Interview with director Gary Sherman and editor Ross Albert
• Theatrical Trailer

Arrow Video USA gorges itself at LA GRANDE BOUFFE (review)

Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi, and Michel Piccoli star in Marco Ferreri's outrageous excercise in bad taste and male friendships.  In LA GRANDE BOUFFE, four middle-aged men shut themselves away from the world in a suburban villa with the goal of eating themselves to death with the help of a trio of prostitutes and an angelic schoolteacher who can match them in all of their various appetites.

REVIEW LINK: Arrow Video USA (US) Region AB Blu-ray/Region 1/2 DVD (DVD Drive-in)

LA GRANDE BOUFFE Blu-ray/DVD combo specs:

• Blu-ray:
• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen
• French/Italian LPCM 1.0 mono
• DVD:
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen
• French/Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Optional English subtitles
• Selected Scenes Commentary by Italian film expert Pasquale Iannone
• Behind the Scenes
• Vintage Marco Ferreri Interview from MOMENTS OF BRAVURA
• Cannes Panel Excerpt
• Cannes Film Festival Report
• "Forming Ferreri" featurette with Pasquale Iannone on the director's early works
• Reversible Cover
• Booklet

IndiePix catches a FALLING STAR (review)

This provocative avant-garde Catalan drama focuses fancifully on the very brief reign of Amadeo of Savoy as King of Spain.  Unwanted by parliament, the bankers, and the church, and cloistered in the palace for his safety, Amadeo embraces a life of pleasure and beauty and forgets his ideals of freedom and progress.

REVIEW LINK: IndiePix (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVDCompare)

FALLING STAR DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen
• Catalan Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Burnt-in English subtitles
• "Behind the Walls" making of featurette

Midnight Releasing delivers a BLOOD PUNCH (review)

An original horror comedy combines elements of film noir as unrepentant meth head Skyler meets chemistry wiz Milton in rehab, seduces him into cooking one big score for her and boyfriend Russell in an isolated hunting lodge.  When she reveals that Russell plans to kill him after he delivers the goods, they turn on Russell and kill him only for him to show up alive and uninjured the next day with no memory of what happened before.  They find themselves having to kill Russell again and again as they realize they are trapped in a hellish repeating cycle of betrayal and murder.

REVIEW LINK: Midnight Releasing (US) Region 1 NTSC (DVDCompare)

BLOOD PUNCH DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.95:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Deleted Scenes
• Test Footage
• Outtakes

Strand Releasing is FINDING NEIGHBORS (reviews)

With his glory days long behind him, graphic novel artist Sam is hopelessly blocked in suburbia working on a new creation with his not-so-supportive wife as the only income and his neighbors providing distraction.  Soon, he finds that the people around him an inspiration to re-examine his own fears and insecurities and move beyond them.

REVIEW LINK: Strand Releasing (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDBeaver)

FINDING NEIGHBORS DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Audio Commentary by director Ron Judkins
• Cast Interviews
• Director's Breakdown of a Scene
• Animation Backstory
• "Women on the Set" featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Arrow Films bequeaths THE LEGACY: SEASON TWO (review)

Denmark's most dysfunctional family comes together a year after the court case that tore them apart in the second season of THE LEGACY.  Having inherited the family home, illegitimate Signe becomes increasingly ruthless as she tries to grow hemp on the land, spending more money that she is bringing in.  Frederick is in therapy but finds his rage at his siblings hard to contain.  Gro and her boyfriend have conspired to market fake works of supposedly discovered art by her mother in order to pay the legal fees and bribes to get younger brother Emil out of a Thai jail.  Sixty-eight year old Thomas goes to war with the father of his unstable younger girlfriend over custody of their newborn child.

REVIEW LINK: Arrow Films (UK) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

THE LEGACY: SEASON TWO DVD specs:

• Seven episodes on three dual-layer disc
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• Danish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Optional English subtitles

Simply Media is an EYEWITNESS to murder (review)

Foster kid Philip's first time with motocross hopeful Henning in a quarry shack is interrupted when they become eyewitnesses to the murder of four bikers by a single man.  Barely escaping with their lives, they vow to keep what they saw a secret because Henning does not want to be labeled gay.  As the weight of the secret drives a wedge between them, Henning starts to suffer from insomnia while Philip realizes that the killer is still at large.  Unable to tell his foster mother, who is also the sheriff, Philip and Henning become entangled in a crimewave that expands from their country village to Oslo and a war between bikers and the Balkan mob.

REVIEW LINK: Simply Media (UK) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

EYEWITNESS DVD specs:

• Six episodes on two dual-layer DVDs
• 16:9 anamorphic 2.19:1 widescreen
• Norwegian/English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo
• Optional English subtitles

Strand Releasing scores with VOLLEY (review)

Womanizing Nico has seduction and conquest on his mind when a beautiful newcomer joins him and his friends (and friends with benefits) for a New Year's celebration at his grandparents riverside home in this Argentinian sex comedy.

REVIEW LINK: Strand Releasing (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDBeaver)

VOLLEY DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 2.20:1 widescreen
• Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Optional English Subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Simply Media haunts THE GREEN MAN (review)

Albert Finney stars in a very atypical British ghost story as Maurice, the lecherous proprietor of The Green Man inn who seduces single and married women alike and regales his guests with tales of the inn's ghost: a seventeenth-century cleric who practiced the black arts.  A lifelong alcoholic, Maurice is already prone to hallucinations, but The Green Man's resident ghost is making himself more and more apparent and offering Maurice a diabolic deal.  Michael Hordern, Nicky Hensen, Nickolas Grace, and Linda Marlowe also star.

REVIEW LINK: Simply Media (UK) Region 2 PAL DVD (DVDBeaver)

THE GREEN MAN DVD specs:

• Three episodes on one dual-layer DVD
• 4:3 non-anamorphic 1.33:1 fullscreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
• Optional English HoH subtitles

Paramount Pictures bids BON VOYAGE, CHARLIE BROWN (AND DON'T COME BACK!!) (review)

The Peanuts gang head to Europe for a foreign exchange program and Charlie Brown gets a mysterious invite to a French Chateau with Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock tagging along in the last of the four theatrical Peanuts films, finally on DVD.


REVIEW LINK: Paramount Pictures (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD (DVDCompare)

BON VOYAGE, CHARLIE BROWN (AND DON'T COME BACK!) DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio tracks
• Optional English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles
• English Closed Captioning
• "Travels with Charlie" featurette
• Theatrical Trailer

Vinegar Syndrome exposes THE SENSUALLY LIBERATED FEMALE to HE AND SHE (review)

When Matt Cimber came to Los Angeles to make a career in film, his first work was Jayne Mansfield's last film SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED.  He followed up this tragic film with a handful of early hardcore efforts with pornographic publisher Marvin Miller.  In THE SENSUALLY LIBERATED FEMALE, repressed American women learn to awaken their bodies to sensual pleasures.  HE AND SHE follows the sexual exploits of a happily-married hippie couple in between romps around Los Angeles and nude in the countryside.

REVIEW LINK: Vinegar Syndrome (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVD Drive-in)

THE SENSUALLY-LIBERATED FEMALE/HE AN SHE DVD specs:

• 2K scans of an archival 35mm print (THE SENSUALLY LIBERATED FEMALE) and 35mm interpositive (HE AND SHE)
• 4:3 non-anamorphic 1.33:1 fullscreen
• English Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
• Interview with director Matt Cimber

Vinegar Syndrome works up a LUST INFERNO MARATHON (review)

Carlos Tobalina takes on televangelists with LUST INFERNO in which William Margold plays a TV preacher with kinky tastes who does not realize how horny his repressed wife and daughters really are until he commits an act that will consign him to hell.  In MARATHON, Jamie Gillis throws a party and everybody comes!  Ron Jeremy, John Holmes, Herschel Savage, Sharon Mitchell, and Drea also star.

REVIEW LINK: Vinegar Syndrome (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVD Drive-in)

LUST INFERNO/MARATHON DVD specs:

• Mastered from 2K scans of the original 35mm negatives
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 1.0
• Audio Commentary by actor William Margold on LUST INFERNO

Well Go USA scales THE TIMBER (review)

KIDS' James Ransone and RED DAWN's Josh Peck star in this psychological western about two brothers who are forced to track down their father to collect the bounty on him in order to save their family home.

REVIEW LINK: Well Go USA (US) Region A Blu-ray (DVDCompare)

THE TIMBER Blu-ray specs: 

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Audio Commentary by director Anthony O'Brien
• Behind the Scenes
• Trailer
• Previews