Despite living in an age where thousands of films are available at the touch of a button, there’re still far too many films that are either difficult-bordering-on-impossible to stream, thereby making physical media the best way to access what you… Read More ›
restoration
Cult Epics offers a world premiere 4K UHD restoration of Tinto Brass’s erotic dramedy “All Ladies Do It.”
Despite the push in the United States to regulate it in order to promote a very specific agenda tied to faith, sex is not a bad thing. It can be awkward, messy, and silly, but when it’s between consenting adults,… Read More ›
Violent, spaghetti-Western-inspired “The Bounty Hunter Trilogy” gets a first time Blu-ray release by Radiance Films.
The lone wolf archetype is a figure that has lived on in many samurai and action spectacles — the man who walks alone and walks a fine line of morals and principles, fighting for the common good, and the common… Read More ›
88 Films continues its restoration of the action comedy “Inspector Wears Skirts” series with the 1989 second entry.
In December 2023, 88 Films released a 2K restoration of director Wellson Chin Sing-Wai’s 1988 female-led action comedy The Inspector Wears Skirts, produced by Jackie Chan (Gorgeous) with stunt production by Jackie Chan’s stunt team. For U.S. audiences, the film… Read More ›
Radiance Films releases director Yasuharu Hasebe’s debut film, the spy spoof “Black Tight Killers,” in resplendent HD.
A war photographer, a stewardess, and a chance meeting set the stage for an 87-minute technicolor adventure of crime, mystery, and romance in director Yasuharu Hasebe’s (Retaliation) 1966 caper Black Tight Killers (俺にさわると危ないぜ). The first of several collaborations with lead… Read More ›
Radiance Films brings a forgotten “Great” back with “Allonsanfàn” on Blu-ray.
If you’ve never heard of the Italian Napoleonic drama Allonsanfàn before today, don’t worry, almost no one has. I had not heard of it until Radiance Films announced this Blu-ray release, and one of Vulture’s film critics Bilge Ebiri quote… Read More ›
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releases a first-time 4K UHD edition of Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika” worthy of the film’s reputation.
In the world of animation, there are well-known names like Walt Disney (Steamboat Willie) and Matt Groening (The Simpsons; Futurama), niche names like Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), and then there are names so large that they crafted entire houses around… Read More ›
Arrow Video elevates the look and sound of “The Shaolin Plot,” now in 2K.
You gotta love ‘70s Kung-Fu cinema. Within the first 15 minutes of Huang Feng’s The Shaolin Plot, a man is killed with a chicken leg, an assassination attempt is flawlessly averted, and a disobedient guest’s head is cut off by… Read More ›
Radiance Films welcome a new Damiano Damiani-directed film to their collection, the spy thriller “Goodbye & Amen.”
During the debut year for physical media boutique Radiance Films, a distributor interested in lesser-available/known international cinema, they released a wonderful three-film collection of director Damiano Damiani’s film dubbed “Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in three Mafia Tales by Damiano Damiani.”… Read More ›
Kino Lorber re-issues the 50th anniversary 4K Blu-ray restoration of Norman Jewison’s crime caper “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer 56 years ago, the writer of Bullitt, Alan Trustman, and the director of In the Heat of the Night, Norman Jewison, released their sexy crime thriller The… Read More ›
The first two entries in “The Long Arm of the Law Saga” join the Asia Collection of 88 Films via a collector’s edition.
Restorations are a great way to not only preserve cinema history, they are also a way for films that may have been lost, forgotten, or otherwise kept to a region or country to find new audiences. For 88 Films, specifically… Read More ›
Criterion brings French cinema to the children with “The Red Balloon and Other Stories: Five Films by Albert Lamorisse” collector’s set.
Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956) is a contender for the greatest short film of all time. Lamorisse is often overlooked in discussions of the French New Wave, including by his peers, and his other, sparse works, Bim, the Little… Read More ›
“The Inspector Wears Skirts” joins the ranks of the 88 Asia Collection in 2K.
First hitting Hong Kong theaters with 1986’s action comedy Naughty Boys (扭計雜牌軍), filmmaker Wellson Chin Sing-Wai’s follow up is that of the female-led The Inspector Wears Skirts (霸王花), released as Top Squad in the U.S., has Sibelle Hu (The Seventh… Read More ›
Yūzō Kawashima’s grifter dramedy “Elegant Beast” receives the restoration treatment from Radiance Films.
There have always been stories about grifters, liars, and thieves for about as long as there have been heroes and heroines. Sometimes they’re lovable arbiters of chaos, sometimes always in it for themselves. Each time, though, they are often thought… Read More ›
The “Messiah of Evil” devours the screen with Radiance Films’s special edition release.
Featuring not one but two of the great film prologues of the 1970s New Hollywood era, the high-minded horror classic Messiah of Evil (1973) is the latest release from independent Blu-ray distributor Radiance Films. Earlier this year a limited edition… Read More ›
Regulators! Mount up for this 35th anniversary first-time HD and 4K UHD edition of “Young Guns.”
“We regulate any stealing of his property. We’re daaaamn good, too. Mr. Tunstall’s got a soft-spot for runaways, derelicts, vagrant types. But you can’t be any geek off the street. You gotta be handy with the steel, if you know… Read More ›
Chose to raise or call on VCI Entertainment’s Blu-ray restoration of dramedy “The Gamblers.”
You never count your money When you’re sittin’ at the table There’ll be time enough for countin’ When the dealin’s done – “The Gambler,” made famous by singer Kenny Rogers. When it comes to gambling, there aren’t many songs as… Read More ›
Enjoy the 1996 Graboids in all their 4K glory in Arrow Video’s restoration of “Tremors 2: Aftershocks.”
There can be an argument made that since the beginning of film there was always going to be the inherent other side of prestige and relative opposite of the term “good” because there is always an audience for something dumb… Read More ›
The Criterion Collection adds Nicolas Roeg’s “Don’t Look Now,” an affecting, spooky, and atmospheric meditation on grief.
The horror genre has had an interesting trajectory over the course of cinema. The 1970s was one of its most interesting periods. Films like Halloween (1978), The Wicker Man (1973), and The Exorcist (1973) helped define the genre. There was… Read More ›
Cult Epics releases Marleen Gorris’s “The Last Island” on home video with a first-time 2K HD restoration.
It’s the hope that kills you. – Mae Green, Ted Lasso In her debut feature film, writer/director Marleen Gorris confronted gender expectations and equity with psychological crime thriller A Question of Silence (1982), only to follow it up with a… Read More ›