New Release Tuesday! Vikings, Squatches, smoke jumpers, RoboCops, gas-spewing zombies, and the glory of Stunt Rock!

AFRICA

When retired 68 year-old Meir discovers that his 30 years of planning the annual village celebration have been summarily discarded and the job has been given to inexperienced local teens instead, the ground beneath his feet begins to give way. In his effort to restore a sense of meaning and vitality, Meir begins to rebel against the inevitable: the betrayal of his physical body, the growing distance from his children, and the loss of relevance. Reconstructing fiction from real life, AFRICA is the cinematic journey of an aging parent crafted by the hands of his loving son, in this deeply personal story on reinventing oneself, as years go by. (DVD)

ALIENS CLOWNS & GEEKS

Out-of-work actor Eddy Pine stumbles upon the key to the universe and is drawn into an intergalactic conflict between killer clowns and sneaky green aliens–the fate of the planet hangs on the outcome. And thus begins a “wild, wacky comedy” (Horror Buzz) filled with hilarious twists and turns in this “fantastical sci-fi adventure!” (Bloody Disgusting (DVD)

BELLINGCAT

Follows the revolutionary rise of the citizen investigative journalist collective known as Bellingcat, a group of online researchers dedicated to exposing the truth of impenetrable news stories from around the world from the MH17 disaster to the Syrian Civil War to the mysterious poisoning of a Russian spy in the United Kingdom. From his Leicester home, de facto leader Eliot and his team of truth-seekers put newspapers, networks and governments to the test. (DVD)

CATCH THE FAIR ONE

CLOCK, THE

COMPARTMENT NO. 6

CONTRACTOR

Chris Pine stars in the action-packed thriller as Special Forces Sergeant James Harper, who is involuntarily discharged from the Army and cut-off from his pension. In debt, out of options and desperate to provide for his family, Harper contracts with a private underground military force. When the very first assignment goes awry, the elite soldier finds himself hunted and on the run, caught in a dangerous conspiracy and fighting to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover the true motives of those who betrayed him. (BLU-RAY/DVD)

DEFINING MOMENTS

DETECTIVE MONTALBANO EPISODES 35 & 36

• EPISODE 35: DEAR LIVIA
  A gifted young researcher suffers a brutal death in a municipal archive but the leads don’t add up: Montalbano discovers a complicated personal life but finds no enemies. It’s a heartbreaking case because the young woman was Livia’s personal friend and beloved by her parents and the immigrant orphans she worked with.
  EPISODE 36: THE SAFETY NET
  Montalbano tries to figure out the story behind some odd home movies a man brings in, while a break-in at an elementary school reveals the darker side of social media. In the middle of it all, a Swedish TV production creates buzz and brings disruptions for Vigata residents and for Mimì at home. (DVD)

DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

ERASER: REBORN

MASON POLLARD is a U.S. Marshal working in its high-stakes, highly classified witness protection program. RINA KIMURA is the wife of an international crime syndicate boss, who’s agreed to testify against her husband in a desperate move to escape his criminal world. When there’s an attempt on Rina’s life, Pollard is brought in as a next level, last resort to “erase” her—fake her death and move her off the grid, deep into hiding across the world in Cape Town, South Africa. Pollard isn’t sure he can trust Rina, Rina isn’t sure that life in a government program is much better than life as a mob wife. In fact, she has a secret plan to carve out a whole new future for herself. Pollard must now keep himself and Rina alive against all odds. They must work together–and trust each other—to save themselves and stop an even larger criminal plot from unfolding. (DVD)

FEAST

FILM NOIR – THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA VOL. VII

This collection features three film Noir classics. THE BOSS (1956) – Noir and sci-fi specialist Byron Haskin (I Walk Alone, The War of the Worlds) takes on The Boss in this gritty crime classic. Following World War I, ruthless veteran Matt Brady (John Payne, 99 River Street) inherits the clout of his political kingpin brother and climbs the ladder of corruption all the way to the top of the state. His amoral practices and sheer arrogance lead to broken friendships (William Bishop, The Redhead from Wyoming) and romances (model-turned-actress Doe Avedon and Gloria McGehee, A Child Is Waiting) along the way. Based on the real-life scandal of Kansas City politico Tom Pendergast, The Boss is celluloid dynamite from the pen of Dalton Trumbo (Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave), originally uncredited due to Hollywood’s blacklisting. CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL (1957) – In the fast-paced, suspense-drenched Chicago Confidential, Brian Keith (The Rare Breed) battles corruption as hard-nosed State’s Attorney Jim Fremont. When union crooks in collaboration with a gambling syndicate try to pin a murder rap on uncooperative union leader Blane (Dick Foran, The Fearmakers), Fremont smells a set-up. Together with his co-worker fiancée Laura (Beverly Garland, D.O.A.), he launches an investigation to prove Blane’s innocence and to punish the true villains. Noir favorite Elisha Cook Jr. (The Killing) co-stars in this Windy City noir directed by Sidney Salkow (The Last Man on Earth) from the bestselling pulp novel by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer (New York Confidential). THE FEARMAKERS (1958) – Directed by master of noir Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past), The Fearmakers is a potent parable about the power of people who control our ideas. Dana Andrews (The Ox-Bow Incident, Boomerang) stars as Alan Eaton, a Korean War veteran who returns home after being tortured and brainwashed as a P.O.W. and resumes work at a public relations firm in Washington, D.C. He finds that things aren’t quite as he left them, as he uncovers a hotbed of political manipulation that ensnares him in a web of suspicion. Communism and corruption run rampant in this riveting Cold War thriller co-starring Dick Foran (Chicago Confidential), Marilee Earle (Terror in a Texas Town) and Mel Tormé (The Big Operator). (BLU-RAY)

FIRST FAREWELL

GORE IN VENICE

HIGHBALL

Diane and Travis throw great parties. This year they are throwing three: a birthday bash for Felix, a Halloween masquerade, and a New Year’s celebration. Whether it’s the faulty pyrotechnics of a “recovering” magician… Travis’ struggle to turn Diane’s kitchen into a micro-brewery… the imagined death of Phillip’s Ethiopian son… Fletcher’s attempt to bed a celebrity… or Diane’s drunken attempt at seduction… something is always out of place and someone is definitely going to get hurt! (BLU-RAY)

HOUSE SQUATCH

The legend comes to a home near you! The small town of Shadyville is plagued by sightings of a hairy creature known as the House Squatch. Locals are panicked and the area’s powerful real estate firm is pressuring the local sheriff to stop the creature, who has taken up residence in one of their homes for sale. It’s a battle of wits and wackiness as the town mobilizes to drive the creature back to the forest (DVD)

HOW THEY GOT OVER

How They Got Over celebrates the spirit of gospel performers and how they helped usher in a musical revolution. Their music was infectious, wrecking many a house on the chittlin’ circuit, then graduating to the Apollo and other major auditoriums across the country. The success of gospel quartets inspired record labels to form doo-wop groups that enticed gospel singers like Sam Cooke, Lou Rawls and Wilson Pickett to cross over to greater fame. How They Got Over features classic performance footage of the Soul Stirrers, Dixie Hummingbirds, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Boys of Mississippee, Sensational Nightingales, the Davis Sisters and many more. Some of the greatest names in quartet music are interviewed in the film, giving vivid accounts of how they “got over” in their performances: shouting, bending over backwards, dancing, jumping off the stage: what came to be known as “gospel drama” – and a huge influence on future rock ‘n’ rollers. (DVD)

HUMAN LANTERNS

Though featuring the Shaw Brothers custom brand of martial arts mayhem, HUMAN LANTERNS also taps into the early 80s craze for the American slasher film and the earlier Hammer horrors by providing a grisly take on the serial killer feature in an inimitable Hong Kong style. When an unbalanced craftsman decides to get revenge on two Kung Fu masters by creating special lanterns constructed from the human skin of their dead relatives, all hell breaks loose in this gruesome tale of bloody retribution. Taking its inspiration from movies like Psycho and real cases like Ed Gein, HUMAN LANTERNS is clearly not for the faint-hearted with its over the top gore and sadistic qualities but this slice of darker than dark fantasy still manages to be both wonderfully horrible and impressively entertaining. (BLU-RAY)

IN FULL BLOOM: TRANSCENDING GENDER

In Full Bloom follows the courageous journey of thirteen transgender and two gay actors as they transform their lives through the use of monologue, dialogue and performance art while preparing for the world premiere of an original stage play. Behind-the-scenes, rehearsal and performance footage are interwoven with candid personal interviews with the cast, who talk about how they deal with family, inner conflicts, discrimination, coming out, surgery, hormones and the complexities of sexual identity and orientation. By sharing their own journeys, the actors transcend transgender and challenge us to move past stereotypes and see what we all have in common as human beings. (DVD)

KILL IT AND LEAVE THIS TOWN

Fleeing from despair after losing those dearest to him, the hero hides in a safe land of memories, where time stands still and all those dear to him are alive. Over the years, a city grows in his imagination. One day, literary heroes and cartoon childhood idols, who in the consciousness of the successive generations are forever young and wearing short pants, come to live there, uninvited. When our hero discovers they have all grown old and that eternal youth does not exist, he decides to return to real life and the amazing characters living in his imagination lead him back to the real world. (DVD)

LA BREA – SEASON 1

An epic adventure begins in La Brea: Season One when a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people and buildings into its depths. Those who fell in find themselves in a mysterious and dangerous primeval land, where they have no choice but to band together to survive. In the search for answers, one family torn apart by this disaster will have to unlock the secrets of this inexplicable event to find a way back to each other. (DVD)

LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE

A strange twist of fate brings two young travelers, George (Ray Lovelock, The Cassandra Crossing) and Edna (Christine Galbo, The House That Screamed), to a small town where an experimental agricultural machine may be bringing the dead back to life! As zombies infest the area and attack the living, a bullheaded detective (Academy Award® nominee Arthur Kennedy, Peyton Place) thinks the couple are Satanists responsible for the local killings. George and Edna have to fight for their lives, and prove their innocence, as they try and stop the impending zombie apocalypse! (BLU-RAY)

MARVELOUS AND THE BLACK HOLE

A teenage delinquent (Miya Cech) befriends a surly magician (Rhea Perlman) who helps her navigate her inner demons and dysfunctional family with sleight of hand magic. A coming-of-age comedy that touches on unlikely friendships, grief and finding hope in the darkest moments. (DVD)

MAU

MAU is the first-ever, feature-length documentary about the design visionary Bruce Mau. The film explores his unlikely creative journey and ever-optimistic push to tackle the world’s biggest problems with design. Over the span of his career, this creative dark horse has completed the transformation from world-class graphic designer to designer of the world. He has gone from advising global brands like Coca-Cola and Disney to rethinking a 1000-year plan for Mecca, Islam’s holiest site. And from working with the greatest living architects (Rem Koolhaas & Frank Gehry) on books and museums to rebranding nations such as Guatemala and Denmark. Bruce Mau is a pioneer of transformation design and the belief that design can be used to create positive change in our world. (DVD)

MEXICAN, THE

A man tries to transport an ancient gun called The Mexican, believed to carry a curse, back across the border, while his girlfriend pressures him to give up his criminal ways. (BLU-RAY)

MIDNIGHT

Kyung-mi is out late with her mother when she stumbles upon a young woman bleeding out in a dark alley. A ruthless serial killer, (Squid Games star, Wi Ha-Joon), is hunting for victims on the streets of South Korea. Now a witness, Kyung-mi, is caught in a life-threatening chase in deadly silence. Will she survive or become his prey? (BLU-RAY)

MYTH OF A COLORBLIND FRANCE

For more than a century, African American artists, authors, musicians and others have traveled to Paris to liberate themselves from the racism of the United States. What made these African Americans choose France? Why were the French fascinated by African Americans? And to what extent was and is France truly colorblind? (DVD)

NEW FRONTIER

NORTHMAN, THE

ONLY THE BRAVE

Only the Brave, based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, is the heroic story of a team of local firefighters who – through hope, determination and sacrifice – become one of the most elite firefighting teams in the nation. Starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Taylor Kitsch, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale and Jennifer Connelly, the firefighters forge a unique brotherhood that comes into focus as they fight a fateful fire to protect our lives, our homes and everything we hold dear. (BLU-RAY)

PEMINI ORGANISATION (1972-1974)

In the early 1970s, three ambitious friends – Peter Crane, Michael Sloan and Nigel Hodgson – combined the first letters of each of their names and set up the Pemini Organisation, a young and vital independent British film production company. Active between 1972 and 1974, Pemini produced one mid-length film, Hunted, a high-suspense thriller starring Edward Woodward and June Ritchie, and two feature films: Assassin, a grimly realistic spy film starring Ian Hendry, Edward Judd, Frank Windsor, Ray Brooks and Mike Pratt; and Moments, an enigmatic romantic mystery starring Keith Michell and Angharad Rees. When Pemini disbanded, the films disappeared into the ether… (BLU-RAY)

ROBOCOP: THE SERIES

”Delta City” (the project OCP is trying to complete in the films) is now complete. Robocop/Alex Murphy (Eden) is now working for the Metro South Police Precinct along with his partner, Lisa Madigan (Yvette Nipar ”21 Jump Street”) and a new set of supporting characters, including precinct head Sgt. Stan Parks (Blu Mankuma, 2012), technician Charlie Lippencott (Ed Sahely, Maximum Risk) and an adopted orphan named Gadget (Sarah Campbell, Body Parts). (BLU-RAY)

SAVAGE SISTERS

A corrupt General plans on smuggling one million US dollars out of the Banana Republic he dominates. Local revolutionaries plan on stealing the cash but are thwarted when a bandit leader they are working with double crosses them. A tough cop and her boyfriend help two of the female revolutionaries escape from prison hoping that they will lead them to the cash, which they plan on keeping for themselves. (BLU-RAY)

SHES HAVING A BABY

Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. (BLU-RAY)

STUNT ROCK

Take the thrill of insane stunts and the excitement of rock ’n’ roll, fuse them together and you get Stunt Rock! The madness starts when real-life Australian stuntman Grant Page (Mad Max) goes to L.A. and meets up with a theatrical rock band called Sorcery, and Page impresses the rockers so much with his daredevil antics that they hire him for their act. While his first stunt lands him in the hospital, the reckless Page defies his doctors’ orders, escaping out of the ward’s fifth-story window to get back to the band. Page soon finds himself the focus of the ladies, attracting both a newspaper reporter (Margaret Gerard, The Siege of Firebase Gloria) and a television star (Monique van de Ven, Turkish Delight), much to the annoyance of her manager (Richard Blackburn, Eating Raoul). Featuring non-stop action, a killer soundtrack and pedal-to-the-metal direction by Ozploitation king Brian Trenchard-Smith (The Man from Hong Kong, The Quest), Stunt Rock is an adrenaline-fueled cult classic that’s a death wish at 120 decibels! (BLU-RAY/DVD)

TALES OF HOFMANN (Criterion Collection)

ULTRASOUND

After his car breaks down, Glen spends one hell of an odd night with a married couple, setting into motion a chain of events that alter their lives plus those of several random strangers. (DVD)

WEATHER MAN

Dave Spritz is a local weatherman in his home town of Chicago, where his career is going well while his personal life — his relationship with his perfectionist writer father, his neurotic ex-wife, and his now-separated children — is spiraling downward. Despite being both loathed and loved by the local masses, Dave is a guy who doesn’t seem to have it all together, and in this film, he begins to feel it. An attractive job offer presents Dave with a major question: to pursue his career in New York City, or to remain at home with his family. (BLU-RAY)

WYRMWOOD: APOCALYPSE

Rhys is a soldier and a hunter who lives in the zombie infested wasteland. His job is to capture civilians and deliver them to what’s left of the military and the brutal Surgeon General. When Rhys captures a half-zombie-half-human named Grace, he comes to believe she is the key to ending the apocalypse. Working with her sister, Maxi, he works to free Grace before she is subjected to horrible experiments. (BLU-RAY)

YOU GO TO MY HEAD

This award-winning, critically lauded thriller begins in a desolate stretch of the Sahara, where a mysterious car accident leaves a young woman lost and alone. Jake, a reclusive architect, finds her unconscious, suffering from post-traumatic amnesia. Intoxicated by the woman’s beauty, Jake claims to be her husband. He names her Kitty and takes her to his remote desert home to recuperate. (DVD)

ZIEGFELD GIRL

 

NEW ADDITIONS

HEAP, IMOGEN: EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN – THE STORY OF ELLIPSE

Following the success of 2005 s Grammy nominated album Speak For Yourself, British musical phenomenon Imogen Heap decamped to Maui, Hawaii in spring 2007 to start writing her third solo album. With only a video camera for company, she began recording her adventures, thoughts and song ideas, and when she returned to the UK nine weeks later found that she had not only the start of an album, but the beginnings of a captivating film about its making. She invited friend and film maker Justine Pearsall to continue documenting everything that followed: from her return to live in the house where she grew up; building a state of the art studio in her childhood playroom; the evolution of the songs; the excitement of recording a myriad of bizarre sounds and noises, to the tears, frustration and late nights trying to piece them together into the magical songs she hears in her head, and from the isolation of her studio to the frantic activity of video shoots and rehearsing for the accompanying tour, every inch of Ellipse is here. (DVD)

AUDREY DELUXE BURLESQUE EXTRAVAGANZA

INVISIBLE DAD

Doug Baily’s dad was already weird, but now a mysterious machine from the garage has made him invisible too! As he vanishes into thin air Mr. Baily discovers that his secret powers can help him defeat a co-worker with evil plans. But invisibility has its drawbacks when he reappears at embarrassing and inopportune moments. It’s a rollercoaster ride of fun, adventure and hijinks as Doug does all in his power to turn his father back to normal before it’s too late! (DVD)

WTF!

Barely surviving a brutal massacre, that left her friends in pieces, Rachel has moved on with her life. She and her friends decide to into a secluded house for the best spring break of their lives, but as Rachel’s biggest fears become a reality once again, only one of them will be alive to post about it. Will Rachel survive another bloody massacre? (DVD)

ASARO: A RETROSPECTIVE

This recent retrospective contains over 100 paintings by artist John Asaro based on his art from 1992 to 2002. (DVD)

STEWART, ROD: SPECIAL EDITION EP

This 4-track video EP collects performances by the the rock superstar from an early 1980s German television appearance. Tracks include “Baby Jane,” “Passion,” “What Am I Gonna Do,” “Tonight’s the Night.” (DVD)