DVD Coming Attractions, Part 1

Like Warner and Universal before them, MGM has jumped onto the DVD-R bandwagon, with over thirty titles to be available by the end of the month. They started rolling out films in December, with titles such as Carol Reed's Trapeze (which received a proper DVD release from MGM in the UK), Bruce Beresford's Rich in Love with Albert Finney, Jill Clayburgh, Kyle Maclachlan, Piper Laurie and Alfre Woodard, Robert Wise's Two for the Seesaw with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine and Sidney Lumet's The Group with Candice Bergen. Since then, Gavin Millar's Dreamchild with Ian Holm, Lumt's Garbo Talks with Anne Bancroft, Morgan J. Freeman's Hurricane Streets, Hal Ashby's The Landlord with Beau Bridges and Lee Grant, Lumet's The Offence with Sean Connery and Ken Russell's Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev as Rudolf Valentino have been added. Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron [Człowiek z żelaza], the sequel to his Man of Marble [Człowiek z marmuru] which both star Jerzy Radziwiłowicz and Kystyna Janda, will be available on the 20th. Other titles available for pre-order, though without a date, include François Truffaut's La chambre verte, re-titled The Vanishing Fiancée, which like Man of Iron (which won the Palme d'Or in 1981) and Valentino (mid-range Russell), is more deserving of a proper DVD release.

After a big month in March, the Warner Archive hasn't added anything terribly noteworthy to their collection. However, browsing through Netflix's Instant Watching titles, I noticed a handful of films still unavailable on DVD in the US: Raoul Walsh's Saskatchewan, Richard Brooks' Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Joseph Losey's The Go-Between, Bigas Luna's Chambermaid on the Titanic [La femme de chambre du Titanic] and Margarethe von Trotta's The Promise [Versprechen].

New York Film Festival line-up, 2009

Yesterday the New York Film Festival announced their prestigious line-up, all of which only serves to give the high profile international releases of the year their premiere in the States. This year is heavily populated by European auteurs, and only three American films will screen (Life During Wartime, Don Argott's doc The Art of the Steal, Ilisa Barish and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Sweetgrass and Lee Daniels' Precious, which will have played at nearly every single major festival in 2009 before Lionsgate throws it onto theatres with a giant Oscar push in November). The line-up is listed below:

- 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak [36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup] - d. Jacques Rivette
- Antichrist - d. Lars von Trier
- The Art of the Steal - d. Don Argott
- Bluebeard [La barbe bleue] - d. Catherine Breillat
- Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos] - d. Pedro Almodóvar
- Crossroads of Youth - d. An Jong-hwa (the oldest surviving Korean film)
- Eccentricites of a Blonde [Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loira] - d. Manoel de Oliviera
- Everyone Else [Alle Anderen] - d. Maren Ade
- Ghost Town - d. Zhao Dayong
- Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
- Independencia - d. Raya Martin
- Inferno [L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot] - d. Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea
- Kanikosen - d. Sabu
- Lebanon - d. Samuel Maoz
- Life During Wartime - d. Todd Solondz
- Min Yé - d. Souleymane Cissé
- Mother - d. Bong Joon-ho
- Ne change rien - d. Pedro Costa
- Police, Adjective [Politist, adjectiv] - d. Corneliu Porumboiu
- Precious - d. Lee Daniels
- Room and a Half - d. Andrey Khrzhanovsky
- Sweetgrass - d. Ilisa Barish, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
- Sweet Rush [Tatarak] - d. Andrzej Wajda
- To Die Like a Man [Morrer Como Um Homem] - d. João Pedro Rodrigues
- Vincere - d. Marco Bellocchio
- White Material - d. Claire Denis
- The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] - d. Michael Haneke
- Wild Grass [Les herbes folles] - d. Alain Resnais
- The Wizard of Oz - d. Victor Fleming, 70th Anniversary

8 of the films above are going in with US distribution (I'm not counting The Wizard of Oz, which will receive a special anniversary DVD and Blu-ray release in November): 3 from Sony (Broken Embraces, Wild Grass, The White Ribbon), 3 from IFC (Vincere, Police, Adjective, Antichrist), 1 from Lionsgate (Precious) and 1 from Seagull Films (Room and a Half).

More from Berlin...

New films set for Berlin unfortunately do not include Claire Denis' White Material, which hopefully will see its premiere at Cannes instead, though I doubt in competition seeing as the film stars Isabelle Huppert, the head of this year's jury. The rest include:

Cheri - dir. Stephen Frears - with Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend, Anita Pallenberg, Iben Hjejle
Deutschland 09 - dir. Fatih Akin, Tom Tykwer, Wolfgang Becker, Sylke Enders, Dominik Graf, Romuald Karmaker, Nicolette Krebitz, Isabelle Stever, Hans Steinbichler, Hans Weingartner, Christoph Hochhaeusler, Dani Levy, Angela Schanelec
Eden à l'ouest - dir. Costa-Gavras - with Riccardo Scarmarcio, Juliane Köhler, Ulrich Tukur, Eric Caravaca
Happy Tears - dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein (Teeth) - with Parker Posey, Demi Moore, Rip Torn, Ellen Barkin
Ricky - dir. François Ozon - with Sergi Lopez
Sturm - dir. Hans-Christian Schmid (Requiem) - with Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane
Tatarak - dir. Andrzej Wajda - with Krystyna Janda

Full list at IndieWire and on IFC Daily.

Criterion + Others

Criterion announced their slate for March, which includes Akira Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-den which I thought was the last Kurosawa film to become available in the US (I don't know where I got that information as I know neither The Most Beautiful nor Sanshiro Sugata are available). The other titles include Andrzej Wajda's Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu and Patrice Chéreau, Roberto Rossellini's Il generale della Rovereand with Vittorio De Sica and a new disc for François Truffaut's The Last Metro [Le dernier métro], also starring Depardieu as well as Catherine Deneuve and Andréa Ferréol. The latter will include a short film entitled Une histoire d'eau, "co-directed" by Truffaut and Godard.

Universal has set 17 February for Changeling. Choke will be out from 20th Century Fox on the same day. Hunter Hill and Perry Moore's Lake City is hitting DVD shelves on 3 March from Screen Media Films. The film, which premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, stars Sissy Spacek, Troy Garity, Rebecca Romijn and Drea de Matteo.

Strand Releasing announced Claude Miller's Un secret for 10 March. And finally, Water Bearer Films will have Lior Shamriz's Japan Japan (from Israel) and Rémi Lange's Devotee (from France) on 24 February. I have a much bigger list of UK and French DVDs coming in early 2009, but I'll post that later this week.

Bitch, bitch, moan, moan

I think it's only now hit me the fact that the Academy Awards snubbed the two biggest sure-bets of the foreign film category: 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days from Romania and Persepolis from France. I can let it slide that The Orphanage from Spain didn't make the cut (I've talked to a few that hated it as much as Joshua... ha!), but those two?? I was initially irked by the fact that Mike has taken an unprecedented five point lead against me in our Oscar nominations poll, but it's official: the Academy Award for best foreign film is a complete sham. And I haven't even seen either of the movies that have provoked these feelings! I think I literally gasped when Volver didn't make the final five nominees last year, as not only was it the best of the lot, but it was better than all of the nominees for Best Picture anyway (even last year's winner Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck expressed his befuddlement in Volver's absence when I interviewed him last year, particularly its snub over Pan's Labyrinth). And for that matter, so was Paul Verhoeven's Black Book which wasn't nominated either. As further proof of the Academy's confusion when it comes to foreign language titles, you can look no further than City of God or Y tu mamá también, two films submitted by their respective countries as official entries for the foreign category, not nominated, and then nominated a year later in other categories (as different rules apply based on a US theatrical release). "Well, we fucked up with those ones and gave some awards to movies no one will remember like Nowhere in Africa." Even the film that would otherwise be the frontrunner in the Foreign race, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, couldn't be nominated - as France chose Persepolis as their pick this year instead. Every year something shitty happens in regards to this category and every year we hope that something will change. (The only change that's occurred in the foreign rulings is the allowance of films whose language does not have to be in the official language of the country submitting it, a problem faced with Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-ever from Sweden and averted by Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light from Mexico and Manoel de Oliveira's Belle toujours from Portugal) Perhaps nothing will change, but if 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Persepolis get completely snubbed this year (both are eligible in all the other categories), hopefully someone will speak out.

Here are a bunch of notable films that got snubbed this year:
XXY - dir. Lucía Puenzo - Argentina
The Silly Age [La edad de la peseta] - dir. Pavel Giroud - Cuba
Persepolis - dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi - France
The Edge of Heaven [Auf der anderen Seite] - dir. Fatih Akin - Germany
Exiled - dir. Johnnie To - Hong Kong
Silent Light [Stellet licht] - dir. Carlos Reygadas - Mexico
Belle toujours - dir. Manoel de Oliveira - Portugal
4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days [4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile] - dir. Cristian Mungiu - Romania
King of Fire - dir. Chatrichalerm Yukol - Thailand

Here's the ones that made it:
The Counterfeiters [Die Fälscher] - dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky - Austria
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation [O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias] - dir. Cao Hamburger - Brazil
Days of Darkness [L'âge des ténèbres] - dir. Denys Arcand - Canada
Beaufort - dir. Joseph Cedar - Israel
The Unknown [La sconosciuta] - dir. Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy
Mongol - dir. Sergei Bodrov - Kazakhstan
Katyn - dir. Andrzej Wajda - Poland
12 - dir. Nikita Mikhalkov - Russia
The Trap [Klopka] - dir. Srdan Golubovic - Serbia

Arcand (The Barbarian Invasions), Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, yuuuuck!), Wajda (honorary award) and Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) are all previous Oscar winners.