By I’m continuing my idiocy abroad, which included a brief rush through Hong Kong last week. Soon it’s back to California for a few days before returning to New York, jetlagged and poorer. I’ve included some recreations of my adventures in Hong Kong after the cut, starring Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, Cynthia Rothrock, and Yuen Biao as me. All of this is completely true, I swear — I even fought myself like in Superman III.
This week’s big batch of new releases include two of my favorite documentaries of 2012, Searching for Sugar Man and The Imposter. There’s also the acclaimed End of Watch, the execrable Lee Daniels film The Paperboy, the all right Tai Chi Zero, Takashi Miike’s remake Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, and a Criterion release for Wim Wenders’s gorgeous bit of dance magic Pina. And for all of you adults out there (pronounced “AD-ults” to emphasize age), there’s Kamasutra – Sexual Positions for Lovers, an hour-long erotic how-to that you’ll only watch for about five minutes at a time.
On the re-release front, Olive Films is putting out a beautiful remastered edition of John Ford’s Oscar-winning The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Though not quite flawless, it’s the best the movie’s ever looked. I’ll have a piece tomorrow on The Quiet Man, and for now I’ll just say this: I really like it, but man do I have some problems with it too. Other major re-releases this week include Criterion’s edition of Ivan’s Childhood by Andrei Tarkovsky, the fun Sherlock Holmes yarn The Seven-Per-Cent Solution on Blu-ray, a new edition of Cujo, and Deported Women Of the SS Special Section, which sounds like a trashier cousin of the Ilsa films.
See what new on DVD/Blu-ray and what I’ve been doing overseas after the cut.
New Releases
Abel’s Field (Blu-ray)
Barrio Tales (Cuentos de Barrio) (DVD)
Beauty is Embarrassing: The Wayne White Story (DVD)
Bikini Bloodbath Shakespeare (DVD)
Birders: The Central Park Effect (DVD)
Bleak Night (or Pasuggun) (DVD)
Bleeding Through (DVD)
Breathing (DVD)
Chris Hardwick: Mandroid (DVD)
Claustrophobia (DVD)
Crowsnest (DVD)
Dead Sushi (DVD)
Death Race 3: Inferno (DVD, Blu-ray)
Derby Dogs (DVD)
Dirty Energy (DVD)
End of Animal (DVD)
End of Watch (DVD, Blu-ray)
Fat Kid Rules the World (DVD)
For a Good Time, Call… (DVD, Blu-ray)
Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft (DVD)
Hansel & Gretel Witch Slayers (DVD)
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (DVD)
Hard Romanticker (DVD)
Hold Your Breath (DVD, Blu-ray)
The Hounds (DVD)
The Imposter (DVD)
Kamasutra – Sexual Positions for Lovers (DVD, Blu-ray)
Keep the Lights On (DVD, Blu-ray)
The Men Who Built America (DVD, Blu-ray)
Nature Calls (DVD, Blu-ray)
Night of Templar (DVD)
Night Of the Tentacles (DVD)
Nobody Walks (DVD, Blu-ray)
Officer Down (DVD, Blu-ray)
The Paperboy (DVD, Blu-ray)
Pina [Criterion Collection] (DVD, Blu-ray)
Searching for Sugar Man (DVD, Blu-ray)
Tai Chi Zero (DVD, Blu-ray)
Taiji on 23rd Street (DVD)
A Thousand Cuts (DVD, Blu-ray)
Three Days of Hamlet (DVD)
True Nature (DVD)
Tunnel Vision (DVD)
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (DVD, Blu-ray)
Witch’s Brew (DVD)
Re-releases
Arcade (DVD)
Blonde in the Blue Movie (DVD)
Cujo (DVD, Blu-ray)
Deadly Blessing – Collector’s Edition (DVD, Blu-ray)v
Deported Women Of the SS Special Section (DVD)
Frontier Horizon (DVD, Blu-ray)
Ghost of Rashmon Hall (DVD)
The Incubus (DVD)
Indiscreet (DVD, Blu-ray)
It’s in the Bag (DVD, Blu-ray)
Ivan’s Childhood [Criterion Collection] (DVD, Blu-ray)
King of the Pecos (DVD, Blu-ray)
Linnea Quigley Grindhouse Triple Feature (Murder Weapon | Deadly Embrace | Nightmare Sisters) (DVD)
Lurking Fear (DVD)
Morella’s Blood Vision – 3 Bone Chilling Chillers (Zombies aka I Eat Your Skin | The Blood Seekers | Blood Stalkers) (DVD)
The New Frontier (DVD, Blu-ray)
The Quiet Man – 60th Anniversary Special Edition (DVD, Blu-ray)
Sci-Fi Trash-O-Rama – 3 Sci-Fi “Epics” (Creature of Destruction | The Flying Saucer Mystery | UFO: Target Earth) (DVD)
Seedpeople (DVD)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Blu-ray)
The Sex Thief: Remastered Edition (DVD, Blu-ray)
Shakugan no Shana: The Movie (DVD, Blu-ray)
Tarzeena: Queen of Kong Island (DVD)
Tomboys (DVD)
Ticks (DVD, Blu-ray)
Trancers (DVD)
Trust (DVD, Blu-ray)
