Home Media Magazine - November 4-10, 2007 - (Page 21)

www.homemediamagazine.com PIPELINE The Rocky Horror Picture Show Cary Grant Set Due From Lionsgate By Billy Gil CLASSIC There are leading men, and then there is Cary Grant. The actor deﬁned suave, bantering with such leading ladies as Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock thrillers as well as starring in a string of light comedies. The Cary Grant Collector’s Set, out Jan. 8, 2008, (prebook Dec. 12) from Lionsgate, touches on the latter part of the actor’s body of work. The four-DVD set ($34.98) includes Indiscreet, Operation Petticoat, The Grass Is Greener and That Touch of Mink. Indiscreet (1958) is about an actress scorned by her lying lover. The ﬁlm is notable for pairing Grant with another ﬁlm legend, Ingrid Bergman. Operation Petticoat (1959) is a comedic romp starring Grant and Tony Curtis as U.S. Navy ofﬁcers whose crew picks up a group of stranded U.S. Army nurses, and whose submarine ends up being painted pink. The ﬁlm received an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay and was brieﬂy adapted into a TV show. The Grass Is Greener (1960) placed Grant, Robert Mitchum and the late Deborah Kerr in a love triangle. The ﬁlm was nominated for two Golden Globes. That Touch of Mink (1962) co-starred Doris Day in an old-fashioned love story about a businessman who falls for a country girl. The problem is he doesn’t want to get married, and she won’t settle for anything less. The ﬁlm was nominated for three Oscars. At the ‘Midnight Movies’ Documentary chronicles late-night film phenomenon By Billy Gil C U LT It may be hard to picture, but there was a time before Quentin Tarantino, before 28 Days Later, before even Star Wars. In 1970, a film called El Topo screened at the nowdefunct Elgin Theater in New York at midnight. Within weeks, the violent, surreal Western was selling out every night. Thus began the “midnight movie” era, roughly between 1970 and 1977, in which hip audiences flocked to left-ofcenter movie houses at midnight to see things they couldn’t in the multiplexes. Film scholar and documentary filmmaker Stuart Samuels focuses on six of the most notable of these films in his documentary Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream, out on DVD Nov. 13 from Starz Home Entertainment at $19.97. Samuels, a former professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was teaching pop culture and film history classes when the phenomenon popped up. He was introduced to the films by his students. Subsequently he wrote a book on the subject, Midnight Movies, published in 1983. Twenty-five years later, Samuels’ film on the subject includes interviews with the directors of the famed films, as well as industry players such as Ben Barenholtz, film exhibitor at the Elgin Theater; and Bob Shaye, co-CEO and co-chairman of New Line Cinema. “The moviegoing experience, I think, has lost its ability to make people rethink ideas,” Samuels said. “It has just become more, ‘which one do I go see this weekend?’ Midnight movies were symbolic of something other than the movie — a point of view, an attitude.” Films that followed in the edgy footsteps of El Topo were John Waters’ exercise in bad taste Pink Flamingos (1972); Perry Henzel’s landmark reggae film The Harder They Come (1972), starring Jimmy Cliff; immortal glam-rock musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975); and David Lynch’s disturbing, paranoid Eraserhead (1977). Midnight Movies covers these films, plus the original Night of the Living Dead (1968), which, after initially disappointing reviews, lived on for years at midnight screenings. “There were some movies that were successful at midnight … but what was unique about these particular six is that they I More Midnight While not all midnight movies created the kind of fervor of films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, plenty garnered sizable cult followings. Here are a few more of Stuart Samuels’ picks: I King of Hearts (Le Roi de Coeur) – Fox/MGM. 1966. Starring Alan Bates. I Performance – Warner. 1970. Starring Mick Jagger. I Harold and Maude – Paramount. 1971. Starring Ruth Gordon. GENIUS BOWS IFC’S ‘INDIE SEX’ By Kyra Kudick INDIE Genius Products will release on DVD Indie Sex, the controversial miniseries from the Independent Film Channel (IFC). The series investigates sex in cinema and looks at how indie movies have provided a forum to explore society’s sexual fantasies on film. The two-DVD set ($29.95) streets Jan. 1, 2008 (prebook Nov. 20). The documentary is divided into three parts: “Censored” looks at the history of censorship from the silent era to today; “Teens” examines the evolution of the teen genre from beach romps in the 1960s to today; and “Extremes” explores fetishism from Bettie Page bondage photos of the 1950s to today’s boundary-pushing films. Filmmakers Lisa Ades and Lesli Klainberg tell the story using provocative film clips and on-camera interviews with some of the industry’s leading players, including John Waters, Tatum O’Neal, Ally Sheedy, Piper Perabo, Peter Sarsgaard, Miranda July, John Cameron Mitchell, Rosanna Arquette and burlesque icon Dita Von Teese. Bonus features include director’s cut “Taboos” (originally aired as a fourth part in the series on IFC), an extended stag film and sex in cinema milestones. generated a whole kind of commitment in terms of fans and followers,” Samuels said. “It wasn’t the studios or the critics, it was the fans that discovered these movies themselves and made it part of their lifestyles and social environments.” Many of the titles Samuels explores in his film are available on DVD. The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis/El Topo/The Holy Mountain), as well as El Topo on a solo disc, are available from Starz. Starz also has a 30th Anniversary Edition of Night of the Living Dead; several other versions are available, both in the original blackand-white and colorized, including a Millennium Edition from Elite Entertainment. Pink Flamingos is available from New Line Home Entertainment; The Harder They Come is available from Xenon Pictures; The Rocky Horror Picture Show is available from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment; and Eraserhead is available from Paramount Home Entertainment. November 4–10, 2007 Home Media Magazine 21 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - November 4-10, 2007

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