New Releases for April 27!

It’s New Release Tuesday! This week we’ve got your latest Best Picture winner, Dave Chappelle, a batch of Laurel (and/or) Hardy, some Criterion riffs on the French New Wave, grit and grime from Vinegar Syndrome, and more.

LAUREL OR HARDY: EARLY SOLO FILMS OF STAN LAUREL AND OLIVER HARDY (1926) (2 DISKS)

Laurel or Hardy: Early Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy traces the roots of the legendary comedy duo by offering fans a two-disc set of 35 newly restored films starring either Stan Laurel or Oliver Hardy-all produced before the two genius talents ever joined forces. Laurel and Hardy became cinematic legends together, but before they were ever hauling pianos or throwing pies as a hilarious and unforgettable comedic duo, each had to develop as an individual artist and performer. Laurel or Hardy: Early Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as proudly presented by Flicker Alley, the Library of Congress, and Blackhawk Films®, offers fans new and old the rare opportunity to track the early solo careers of two comedy icons. Featuring all new 2K restorations sourced from materials contributed by archives and collectors around the world, this comprehensive 2-disc Blu-ray collection features 35 films and includes new scores from some of the best silent film composers working today. Arthur Stanley Jefferson comes from the British vaudeville scene, and was at one time Chaplin’s understudy. Oliver Norvell Hardy, a comedian born on film, worked steadily for years in Hollywood and built his notoriety in over 300 roles. Although the two had different styles and came from distinct backgrounds, they followed similar creative paths, each marked with trials, errors, successes, and the occasional strokes of genius. Along the way, they made millions of people laugh, offering ample evidence of the incredible individual talents that would eventually merge together to create one of the greatest comedy duos in all of film history.

Stan Laurel Films: Bears and Bad Men (1918); The Egg (1922); A Weak-End Party (1922); The Pest (1922); When Knights Were Cold (1923); The Handy Man (1923); Pick and Shovel (1923); Collars and Cuffs (1923); Gas and Air (1923); A Man About Town (1923); The Whole Truth (1923); Brothers Under the Chin (1924); Zeb Vs. Paprika (1924); Wide Open Spaces (1924); Detained (1924); Twins (1925); Pie-Eyed (1925)

Oliver Hardy Films: Mother’s Baby Boy (1914); The Servant Girl’s Legacy (1914); An Expensive Visit (1915); A Lucky Strike (1915); The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford: The Lilac Splash (1915); The Serenade (1916); Hungry Hearts (1916); The Candy Trail (1916); The Chief Cook (1917); Hello Trouble (1918); Married to Order (1918); He’s In Again (1918); The Rent Collector (1921); The Bakery (1921); The Show (1922); Rivals (1925); Wandering Papas (1926); Say It With Babies (1926)

(BLU-RAY)

ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939) (WARNER ARCHIVE)

Dum-Dum, Wacky, Creeps, Fingers: They’re just a few of the hoodlums in the world of amateur sleuths and professional bon vivants Nick and Nora Charles. And now theres a new hood: parenthood. A birthday make that “boithday” party that some of da boys hold for infant Nick Jr. is part of the fun in this third film in the witty series. The case begins when the Charles family arrives for a weekend with a Long Island industrialist who fears someone wants to kill him. Sure enough, his fears come true. Nick (William Powell) is among the suspects. Asta scrams with what may be the murder weapon. And Nora (Myrna Loy) has her own ideas about the case and sneaks off to a nightclub to ferret out a clue. Madam, how long have you been leading this double life? Nick asks. Just since weve been married, she replies. (BLU-RAY)

BATTLE HYMN (1957)

From Douglas Sirk, the legendary director of All I Desire, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and The Tarnished Angels, comes this classic Korean War drama starring screen great Rock Hudson (The Last Sunset). As a WWII fighter pilot, Colonel Dean Hess (Hudson) accidentally bombed a German orphanage, killing thirty-seven children. After entering the ministry to atone for the tragedy, Hess eventually rejoins the Air Force to train pilots in South Korea, while devoting his spare time to building a shelter for orphans. But now, to protect these children in a territory fraught with danger, he must fight… and face the past once again. Hudson gives an unforgettable performance as a one-man crusade to right the war s wrongs. Martha Hyer (House of 1,000 Dolls), Dan Duryea (Thunder Bay), Don DeFore (Too Late for Tears) and Jock Mahoney (The Land Unknown) co-star in this compelling drama based on actual events. (BLU-RAY)

CAST A DARK SHADOW / WANTED FOR MURDER (1957)

Death and seduction are the themes of these newly-restored thrillers from the golden age of British noir. In Cast a Dark Shadow, Dirk Bogarde (The Servant, The Damned) stars as Teddy Bare, a smooth-talking cad who maintains a life of leisure by preying on a series of lonely, wealthy women. But the headstrong sister (Kay Walsh) of one of his late wives is determined to bring Teddy’s killing streak to an end. In Wanted for Murder, the polished exterior of a refined gentleman (Eric Portman) conceals the heart of a strangler. A young record shop clerk (Dulcie Gray) holds the key to his capture, which puts her at the head of the queue to become his next victim. (BLU-RAY)

COWBOYS (2020)

A troubled but well-intentioned father who has recently separated from his wife runs off with his trans son into the Montana wilderness after his ex-wife’s refusal to let their son live as his authentic self. (DVD)

DAVE CHAPPELLE’S BLOCK PARTY (2005)

Actor, writer and comic Dave Chappelle loads up a bus with residents of his Ohio hometown and takes them to Brooklyn, N.Y. Once there, the travelers enjoy a concert featuring Kanye West, the Fugees, Big Daddy Kane and others. Rehearsal footage and Chappelle’s brand of comedy enliven the proceedings. (BLU-RAY)

DEATH PROMISE (1978)

The residents of a dilapidated New York tenement building are being harassed and threatened by Iguana Realty, the dummy corporation which owns the land, in an effort to force them out of their homes. But when karate master Charley’s father is murdered by a group of thugs hired by the landlords, he decides to take matters into his own hands. Enlisting the help of his best friend, fellow fighter Speedy, and driven by a desire for vengeance, they soon develop a plan to murder each board member of Iguana Realty. However, what they don’t realize is that their final target is someone much closer to home… (BLU-RAY)

DEEP BLOOD (1990)

In a career that forever raised the bar for everything from hookers, cannibals and necrophiles to Ator, Emanuelle and Caligula, this long-unseen chum bucket from producer/director/EuroSleaze master Joe D’Amato may be his most bizarrely entertaining anomaly ever. Shot on location in Florida surf and Rome swimming pools, D’Amato combines ’80s teen movie clichés and Native American mysticism with stupefying dialogue, over-the-top performances and shark footage that Bruno Mattei would later swipe for CRUEL JAWS to create what Oh, The Horror! calls ”a weird, demented experience that begs to be discovered and embraced.” A cast of local unknowns – along with, inexplicably, the ’60s comedy team of Charlie Brill & Mitzi McCall – star in this last word in Italian Sharksploitation, now scanned in 2K from the original negative for the first time ever. (DVD and BLU-RAY)

EACH DAWN I DIE (1939) (WARNER ARCHIVE)

Framed for manslaughter after he breaks a story about city corruption, reporter Frank Ross is sure hell prove his innocence and walk out of prison a free man. But thats not how the system works at Rocky Point Penitentiary. There, cellblock guards are vicious, the jute-mill labor is endless, and the powers Ross fought on the outside conspire to keep him in. Franks hope is turned to hopelessness. And hes starting to crack. Two of the screens famed tough guys star in this prison movie that casts a reform-minded eye on the brutalizing effects of life in the slammer. James Cagney hits a white-hot peak as [Ross,] the embittered, stir-crazy fall guy (Leonard Maltins Movie Guide). And George Raft (Cagneys friend since their vaudeville days) portrays racketeer Hood Stacey, who may hold the key to springing Ross. (BLU-RAY)

FAGARA (2019)

In the wake of her father’s death, a woman discovers two distant sisters she knows little about. But with her own relationship uncertain and the future of her departed father’s hot pot restaurant in question, she reaches out to them. She finds that while their upbringing is different, they too have experienced similar trials and tribulations in their past. Her sister from the Mainland is pressured by her elderly grandmother to get married; her sister from Taiwan is plagued by a toxic relationship with her mother. Together, they’ll strive to find happiness, love and peace in their father’s death that he was unable to provide during his life. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (DVD)

HAPPY TIMES (2019)

A boorish Israeli-American couple plan a Sabbath dinner party for a group of fellow ex-pat friends and family in their Hollywood Hills mansion. What could possibly go wrong? Well, start with a deadly mix of alcohol, add inflated egos, some inappropriate lust and top with raging jealousy and the result is of cauldron of murderous mayhem. A shot gun, garden sheers, kitchen knives and even a garbage disposal are used as weapons of choice as these deranged guests turn on each other in director Michael (“Out in the Dark”) Mayer’s outrageous and bloody comedy. Think “Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” meets “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” (DVD)

HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS (2002)

Sometimes, a documentary filmmaker is present at precisely the right moment to capture lightning in a bottle. It happened with Bob Dylan in Don t Look Back, Chet Baker in Let s Get Lost, and it happened with 1976’s Heartworn Highways. This iconic outlaw country documentary saw filmmaker James Szalapski travel to Texas and Tennessee to capture the radical artists reclaiming the genre by rejecting the mainstream Nashville machine. Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Young, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and many others provide musical highlights including Clark’s brilliant Desperados Waiting For a Train, Young’s stirring Alabama Highways and Van Zandt s emotional Waiting Around To Die. The hard living and hard partying lifestyles of outlaw country’s figureheads are played out on screen as we visit Van Zandt s Austin trailer, see Coe play in Tennessee State Prison, join the gang in Nashville s notorious Wig Wam Tavern and witness a liquor-fueled Christmas at Clark s house. No wonder the film s original tagline read: The best music and the best whiskey come from the same part of the country . Outside of a couple festival screenings, the movie remained unreleased for five years after its completion, finally hitting screens in 1981. It has been building a cult audience ever since. (BLU-RAY)

IRMA VEP (1997) (CRITERION/2 DISKS)

Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action-movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic silent crime serial Les vampires. What she finds is a behind-the-scenes tangle of barely controlled chaos as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director (a cannily cast Jean-Pierre Léaud) drives himself to the brink to realize his vision. Blending blasts of silent cinema, martial-arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Luna into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Assayas composes in Irma Vep a witty critique of the nineties French film industry and the perennial tension between art and commercial entertainment. (DVD and BLU-RAY)

LAST GASP (1995)

Leslie Chase will do anything it takes to push through his mega real estate development, even if it includes arranging the massacre of a Mexican native tribe to clear a patch of land. But no bad deed goes unpunished as, after murdering the tribe’s chief in cold blood, Leslie’s body and mind are taken over by the chief’s vengeful spirit. Forced into committing a series of heinous murders Leslie’s life is thrown into greater peril when a private detective, who has been hired to investigate the disappearance of one of his victims, begins to suspect that the elusive real estate tycoon is harboring a deadly secret… (BLU-RAY)

LOVELY WAY TO DIE (1968)

A Lovely Way to Die stars screen legend Kirk Douglas (Lonely Are the Brave, The Vikings) as Schuyler, a hard-boiled police detective who turns in his badge after charges of brutality are made against him. Hired by a prominent attorney (Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), Schuyler is assigned to protect Rena Westabrook (Sylva Koscina, The Secret War of Harry Frigg), a beautiful young woman who is accused of murdering her wealthy husband. While trying to uncover more information about the murder, Schuyler falls for his lovely client and gets embroiled in a murderous scheme of blackmail, deadly secrets and lies. David Lowell Rich (Madame X) wonderfully directed this colorful sixties caper featuring early unbilled screen appearances by Ali MacGraw (The Getaway), Doris Roberts (TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond) and John P. Ryan (Runaway Train). (BLU-RAY)

MASCULIN FEMININ (1966) (CRITERION)

With Masculin féminin, ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard introduces the world to “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,” through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and one another. French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud stars as Paul, an idealistic would-be intellectual struggling to forge a relationship with the adorable pop star Madeleine (real-life yé-yé girl Chantal Goya). Through their tempestuous affair, Godard fashions a candid and wildly funny free-form examination of youth culture in pulsating 1960s Paris, mixing satire and tragedy as only Godard can. (BLU-RAY)

NAMIYA (2017)

Based on Keigo Higashino’s international bestseller ”The Miracles of the Namiya General Store” comes Shanghai Film Festival Award-winning director Han Jie’s take on the fantastical novel. TFBoys’ Karry Wang stars as Xiao Bo, one of three orphans on the run who take refuge in a derelict corner store. Once there, they find a mysterious letter seeking advice, ending up in adventure in time and finding unexpected connections with their own past. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (DVD)

NOMADLAND (2020)

Your newest Best Picture Winner! After losing everything in the Great Recession, an old woman embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad. (BLU-RAY)

OFFICE (2015)

Based on the hit play ‘Design for Living’ by star and producer Sylvia Chang, Johnnie To’s Office is a movie musical spectacular revolving around corporate maneuvering and romantic intrigue. Hong Kong legend Johnnie To delivers a biting takedown of capitalism, detailing the financial crisis following the Lehman Brothers collapse and what one company has to do to fight to stay alive — all in a lavishly detailed, wholly original musical production. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (DVD)

OTTOLENGHI AND THE CAKES OF VERSAILLES (2020)

Via London, Versailles, and Instagram, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles follows famous chef Yotam Ottolenghi on his quest to bring the sumptuous art and decadence of Versailles to life in cake form at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He assembles a team—a veritable who’s who of the dessert world, including Dominique Ansel and Dinara Kasko—to help bring his vision to life. The pastry chefs create a true feast of Versailles complete with a cocktail whirlpool and posh jello shots, architectural mousse cakes, chocolate sculptures, swan pastries, and an edible garden. Ottolenghi acts as our guide throughout, disassembling pastries to give us the history of ingredients that we now take for granted, like sugar and chocolate. Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles perfectly captures the heights of human achievement and the frailty of decadence, adding taste as one more sense with which to experience the Met. (DVD)

RUSH WEEK (1989)

Toni Daniels is an ambitious young journalist working for her college newspaper. Tired of covering the same boring stories as her peers, Toni becomes intrigued by the recent disappearances of several female students and believes that they may be linked to an on-campus murder that happened the previous year during the college’s raucous Rush Week. Despite being certain that something terrible has been happening on campus, no one she talks to is willing to admit that the disappearances are cause for concern. Undeterred, Tori decides to investigate the mystery on her own, but before long finds herself becoming embroiled in a twist filled saga of deeply buried, and bloody secrets which attract the attention of a sadistic killer who will stop at nothing to hide the truth… (BLU-RAY)

SALT OF TEARS (2020)

Veteran filmmaker Philippe Garrel once again fashions a pinpoint precise and economical study of young love and its prevarications, whichever so gradually blossoms into an emotionally resonant moral tale. Handsome Luc (Logann Antuofermo), following in his aging father’s footsteps to study the craft of furniture joining doesn’t appear to have any trouble meeting and dating women; as the film opens he’s aggressively courting Djemila (Oulaya Amamra) at a Paris bus stop. Skeptical yet ultimately trusting, Djemila will not be Luc’s one and only. Constructed and composed with crystalline austerity, and co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and Arlette Langmann―who collaborated on Garrel’s last two films, In the Shadow of Women and Lover for a Day. (DVD)

TAP ROOTS (1948)

Van Heflin, Susan Hayward, and Boris Karloff star in the critically acclaimed Tap Roots directed by George Marshall. Morna Darby (Hayward) finds true love as she is in the midst of heartbreak and chaos. When Morna’s fiance runs off with her sister after Morna is left with an injury that will last a lifetime, she is absolutely devastated. As Morna tries to accept her injury she soon finds comfort in the arms of Keith Alexander (Heflin), a well-respected journalist. (BLU-RAY)

TWO FOR JOY (2018)

As Aisha descends into depression after her husband’s death, her 15-year old daughter Violet finds herself in the role of carer. Aisha’s son Troy is excluded from school and increasingly cut off from the rest of the family. But there, an unexpected tragedy will either make or break this already fractured family. (DVD)

VANQUISH (2021)

A mother, Victoria, is trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her, but retired cop Damon forces Victoria to do his bidding by holding her daughter hostage. (DVD)

WHEN THE BEAT DROPS (2018)

Drop into the electric and subversive underground dance scene known as bucking. As voguing exploded out of the ballroom scene of NYC, bucking was boldly pioneered in the clubs of the Deep South as a new form of self-expression. When the Beat Drops presents a fresh glimpse into the magnetic artistry and flair behind this emerging dance culture. In his feature debut, famed choreographer and filmmaker Jamal Sims, who has worked with the likes of Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, and RuPaul’s Drag Race, illuminates the warm-hearted and fierce queer black performers who make up one of the leading bucking groups in the city of Atlanta. As they train for their biggest competition yet, they face the risk of losing their jobs and family to compete at the top levels of this dance scene. Jamal Sims calls dance a super power, and with this film he crafts a vision of the power of dance to bring movement to new heights and elevate the queer community. (DVD)

WISTING: SEASON 1 (2019) (3 DISKS)

This acclaimed series follows a homicide detective (Sven Nordin, Valkyrien) tracking an American serial killer hiding in his community, with the help of an FBI agent (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix). When an old case comes back to haunt Wisting, how will he save others when he finds himself suspended and fighting for his reputation, career, and life? (DVD)

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