What a week for new releases it is!
Best known for his work on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, director Robert Aldrich takes the spotlight in this week’s new releases, with two of his other classics now hitting home video. Elsewhere, you’ll find everything from Warner Archives and Criterion Collection releases, early work from Leonardo DiCaprio and Angela Bassett, gripping period dramas, film classics, and laugh-packed trips to the Satellite of Love. Let’s take a look at what great flicks are now available!
Veteran British actress June Buckridge (Beryl Reid) had grown smugly complacent about her longtime TV soap opera stint, as well as her domineering relationship with dependent younger lover Alice (Susannah York). A liquor-fueled public scandal, however, gives cutthroat network exec Mercy Croft (Coral Browne) the leverage to terminate the former…and horn in on the latter. Groundbreaking, powerful effort from director Robert Aldrich co-stars Ronald Fraser, Patricia Medina, Cyril Delevanti.
Director Robert Aldrich’s offbeat blend of violence, suspense, and romance, based on James Hadley Chase’s novel “No Orchids for Miss Blandish,” stars Kim Darby as Barbara Blandish, a 1930s heiress who is kidnapped by a group of low-level outlaws. And when her abductors are killed by the much more dangerous and depraved Grissom Gang, tensions mount as one of Barbara’s new captors (Scott Wilson) falls in love with her. Tony Musante, Connie Stevens, Robert Lansing co-star.
Mrs. Topper (Billie Burke)–convinced by her friend Mrs. Parkhurst that her spook-seeing husband, Cosmo (Roland Young), is as nutty as a fruitcake–flees to Europe in search of a divorce, sending the otherworldly Marion (Constance Bennett) on a hilarious quest to win her back, in this riotous sequel. Alan Mowbray, Verree Teasdale, Franklin Pangborn co-star.
The Magnificent Ambersons (Criterion Collection)
Orson Welles’ second film is a daring study of the decline of a wealthy family in the late 19th-century Midwest and the relationship between an arrogant son and his family’s matriarch. Initially ill-received and edited at RKO’s insistence, the film has gone on to become a landmark drama. Based on Booth Tarkington’s novel; Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, and Agnes Moorehead star.
mall-town newspaperman Charles Conway (Edward Arnold) wasn’t happy that his community was now hosting an Army base. Disagreeing spouse Lucille (Ann Harding) chose to invite Pfc. Dick Lawrence (Robert Hutton) to their home as an example of a gentleman soldier…and sparks immediately flew between the recruit and their flighty teenage daughter Janie (Joyce Reynolds)! Wartime comedy adapted from a Broadway favorite co-stars Robert Benchley, Alan Hale. Joan Leslie takes over the title role in Janie Gets Married, as Dick (Hutton) returns from overseas to a job on the family paper…but can Janie cope when the service buddy he wants to help out turns out to be a pretty WAC (Dorothy Malone)? Arnold, Harding, Benchley also return.
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…Brewster McCloud? Robert Altman’s kooky cult comedy focuses on a shy, nerdy young man who lives inside the Houston Astrodome where he plans to realize his dreams of flight via a set of homemade wings. But why are so many people Brewster comes in contact with turning up dead? And why are they covered in bird droppings? Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Shelley Duvall, Stacy Keach, Michael Murphy star.
In 1940, Corky Jones (Dennis Morgan) came to Burbank looking for work…and after signing on with Lockheed, he cadged lodging from old pal Brad Maple (Jack Carson) and his wife Roma (Ann Sheridan). His daily toils at the aircraft plant as the threat of war ramps up production–and as he becomes a point of contention for the Maples’ fraying marriage–fuel this earnest Warner flag-waver; first Morgan-Carson screen pairing also stars George Tobias, Don DeFore, Russell Arms, John Ridgley.
Having to beat it out of town when a dice game turned deadly, gambler Steve Maddux (Zachary Scott) had to leave nightclub thrush girlfriend Georgia King (Janis Paige) behind. Now settled in Miami and running his mobster brother-in-law’s bistro, he comes looking to reclaim her…but romantically interested reporter Don Corwin (Dane Clark) isn’t inclined to let her go. Crackling crime melodrama co-stars Faye Emerson, George Tobias, Sheldon Leonard, Harry Lewis.
Lucille Ball coaxes the blues right out of the horn in this brassy, big-screen musical extravaganza. She stars as an eccentric woman who becomes guardian to her 9-year-old nephew (Kirby Furlong) and takes it upon herself to teach the young man how to have fun and live life to the fullest. With Bea Arthur, Robert Preston, Bruce Davison, Joyce Van Patten. Songs include the title tune, “We Need a Little Christmas,” “The Man in the Moon,” “My Best Girl.”
True Stories (The Criterion Collection)
A New Wave “Our Town,” courtesy of co-scripter/director/narrator David Byrne, as the Talking Heads frontman takes us on a sojourn through the tiny hamlet of Virgil, Texas, while its quirky inhabitants–whose bizarre travails were all inspired by supermarket tabloid stories–prepare for the burg’s corporate-sponsored sesquicentennial. John Goodman, Spalding Gray, Swoosie Kurtz, Pops Staples, Tito Larriva also star; Byrne/Talking Heads score includes “Wild Wild Life,” “Love for Sale.”
They’re back and ready to devour your Blu-ray player! The terrifying and tiny menaces are out in full force with this four-film collection packed with enough Special Features to make any fan’s mouth water!
In Critters, the terrified Brown family are trapped in a deadly nightmare and must fight for their lives against a litter of extraterrestrial, bloodthirsty monsters. But it’s a losing battle until two intergalactic bounty hunters arrive, determined to blow the creatures off the planet! In Critters 2: The Main Course, some eggs have survived and are popping open, bringing another horde of the little creatures! Brad Brown (Scott Grimes) returns to fight them along with three bounty hunters. Critters 3 stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Josh, a beleaguered Angelino who must lead the fight against the little monsters as they invade an L.A. apartment building. In the final film, Critters 4, a super strain of genetically engineered monsters are designed to take over the universe. This time, Brad Dourif and Angela Bassett must battle the little bloodthirsty hairballs.
First, in Munchies, archeologist Simon Watterman (Harvey Korman) discovers the creatures while on an expedition in Peru. But Simon’s evil twin, food entrepreneur Cecil Watterman (also Korman), won’t let him enjoy his achievement. The snack food tycoon tries to abduct the Munchies to destroy his brother’s career and take over his property. These junk food junkies prove to be too much to handle as they begin to menace the residents of a small town in any way they can. Move over ghoulies, ghosties and things that go bump in the night! The Munchies are here and they are bringing the fun with them!
Then, in Munchie, life looks pretty bleak to ten-year-old Gage (Jaime McEnnan) when suddenly, into his world pops the magical Munchie (Dom DeLuise). Munchie is the ever-hungry and hilarious mysterious creature from another world who delivers flying pizzas and brings on the parties! With the help of Munchie and loony Professor Cruikshank (Arte Johnson), Gage evens the score on his school’s bullies as well as his mom’s boyfriend and has the greatest summer ever! With Loni Anderson.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: IX
It’s the 30th anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000, America’s only show that makes fun of really bad B-movies from the comfort of a spaceship floating above Earth. – To celebrate, Volume XI returns, with long out-of-print classics Women of the Prehistoric Planet, Wild Rebels, and The Sinister. Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett star.
Includes Trespass, Bad Lieutenant, and Stolen.
With his teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La) gone missing–and the efforts of local authorities earnest but ineffective–widower David Kim (John Cho) opened the laptop that she never went anywhere without. As he canvases her browsing history and social media footprint in the hopes of uncovering leads, he comes to the devastating understanding that he didn’t know his little girl as well as he thought. Inventive digital-age thriller co-stars Debra Messing, Sara Sohn, Joseph Lee.
Britain, 1948: Country doctor Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson) is summoned to the estate where his mother had once been a servant to attend an ailing maid. Finding both the mansion and the occupying Ayres family in a state of decline, the physician begins to insinuate himself into their affairs…and learns that their troubles might stem from an unholy cause. Chilling take on the Sarah Waters gothic opus from Lenny Abrahamson co-stars Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, Charlotte Rampling, Josh Dylan, Kate Phillips.