Here's the latest Class of 1984 giveaway. To reiterate: we've got 5 copies of Anchor Bay's upcoming Special Edition of Mark L. Lester's exploitation classic to unload, courtesy of Total Assault. This is the second of five mini-contests (one per copy) I will hold here at the blog.If you've never seen Class of 1984, it's basically a remake of The Blackboard Jungle with the flamboyant gangbangers of The Warriors replacing the original's Wild One-style delinquents. One of the last Canadian tax-shelter pics, it features rare live footage of Toronto punk band Teenage Head, an early performance by Michael J. Fox, and an ending that will have you asking how something so wrong can feel so right. Due out on February 21st, the DVD features commentary from Lester, a retrospective documentary, and beautifully remastered picture and sound. We'll have a full review at the mother site in the coming weeks.
To win the second copy, correctly identify the movie to which the below frame-grab belongs. (Since this a frame-grab and not a production still, be sure to take note of things like aspect ratio.) As we're only allowed to give these discs away to North American residents, I must ask that our international readers refrain from placing any guesses. Sorry.
Saw Ryan's Daughter for the first time today and I think I'm going to expand my review of Dune to include this other "David L." folly. Both movies swat flies with Buicks and of course Lynch is quite the fan of Lean, but more than anything I think they're mutually due for a renaissance, these singular acts of hubris. No review I'd read of Ryan's Daughter prepared me for a primordial Straw Dogs (trim the roadshow fat off it and that's essentially what you're left with), and Robert Mitchum isn't miscast so much as ironically cast, like Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West. The DVD restoration is, I might add, stunning--too bad no theatrical re-release is planned.
Here's Walter's long-awaited review of Caché. Alex's Sundance coverage continues with Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That!. (Beastie Boys fans beware.) And speaking of Lynch, check out the new Special Edition of Dead Poets Society for an unlikely appreciation of sound designer Alan Splet courtesy of Lynch and Peter Weir. Actually, it's an inexplicable release all-around, with Weir providing his first DVD commentary for what is arguably the only one of his films that doesn't deserve it.
7 comments:
I saw Cache last week, and while it is certainly a good film I wasn't really excited about it. The opening and first half is brilliant, but the political allegories which emerge in the second half were just too obvious and not convincing to me. But maybe I am just tired of Haneke holding up the mirror and performing his litmus tests for the audience (I was annoyed to no end when I read that he said about his "Funny Games" that "anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does".) By the way, I completely missed the last shot, I was lucky my girl friend told me afterwards what I should have seen there. :-) But still, a good movie and also a good review!
Unforgiven?
First shot-in-the-dark guess: Leone's My Name is Nobody.
Congrats, Kerry! It is R.G. Armstrong, who delivers my all-time favourite screen threat in that scene: "I'll spread you out like a crazy woman's quilt!" E-mail me your shipping address - billc@filmfreakcentral.net - and we'll scoot out a copy to you asap.
Anyone have any thoughts on Memoirs of a Geisha being officially banned from release in China by the Chinese government? I haven't seen the film myself. Is it offensive?
Anon:
Yeah, it's offensive. I suspect it has a lot more to do with the casting of it than with the inherent stupidity of it, though.
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