Hardware<\/a>‘) tried to mount an adaptation of the famed H.G. Wells’ sci-fi story. The production was terribly troubled (largely due to the difficulties of working with star Marlon Brando). Stanley was ousted after just four days of shooting and replaced by John Frankenheimer. The film that resulted from this was a notorious bomb that has been ridiculed endlessly in the years since. Finally, Stanley gets to tell his side of the story in this documentary about the project he wanted to make. <\/p>\n‘Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police<\/strong>‘ \u2013 Considering everything going on in the world over the past year, a documentary called “Surviving the Police” might seem to be about something a little more topical. But no, this is about the band The Police, and is comprised primarily of home movies from guitarist Andy Summers. It seems to be a glorified VH-1 special, but might be worth a watch if you’re a fan of the group. <\/p>\n‘The Salt of the Earth<\/strong>‘ \u2013 Our third new documentary of the week scored an Oscar nomination. Director Wim Wenders profiles photographer Sabasti\u00e3o Salgado. Being who he is, Wenders decided to take a more poetic approach than the usual talking-head interview format.<\/p>\nCatalog Titles<\/h2>\n
New inductees into Criterion’s high-def collection include Carroll Ballard’s visually sumptuous family film ‘The Black Stallion<\/strong>‘, the late Alain Resnais’ meditation on truth and memory ‘Hiroshima mon amour<\/strong>‘, and Swedish director Jan Troell’s coming-of-age period piece epic ‘Here Is Your Life<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\nMeanwhile, Twilight Time has another batch of limited editions. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a sexy chanteuse who comes between real brothers Jeff and Beau Bridges in ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys<\/strong>‘. Sally Field struggles to keep her family together through the Great Depression in ‘Places in the Heart<\/strong>‘. Peter Sellers is a nutty concert pianist who inspires the obsession of two schoolgirls in ‘The World of Henry Orient<\/strong>‘. Joan Crawford does a sort of prototype ‘Devil Wears Prada’ as a ball-busting career woman in the melodrama ‘The Best of Everything<\/strong>‘. Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh play a pair of WWI veterans who spend ‘A Month in the Country<\/strong>‘ to recover from the horrors of war. <\/p>\nUnrelated to the similarly-titled Wim Wenders documentary mentioned above (though its release seems timed to create some confusion), the 1959 political drama ‘Salt of the Earth<\/strong>‘ concerns the plight of Mexican immigrants struggling against prejudice and inequality. Sadly, that theme still sounds equally relevant today.<\/p>\nUniversal unleashes ‘The Andromeda Strain<\/strong>‘, Robert Wise’s nail-bitingly suspenseful adaptation of the Michael Crichton bestseller about a deadly epidemic of extraterrestrial origins.<\/p>\nWould you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Jason Patric plays an undercover narcotics detective in\u2026 no, not ‘Narc’, that came later. First he did it in 1991’s ‘Rush<\/strong>‘, opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh. While the movie itself isn’t very good, it remains notable for introducing the world to Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” <\/p>\nAfter that, Kino stays stuck in the early 1990s for the dopey bomb squad thriller ‘Blown Away<\/strong>‘ and Mel Brooks’ aptly-titled attempt at social satire ‘Life Stinks<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\nOlive Films flashes back from the early 1980s to the late 1960s for John Sayle’s delicate period piece romance ‘Baby It’s You<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\nI’m ashamed to admit that, back in the day, I watched the terribly campy ‘Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong>‘ more than a few times on Cinemax just to catch a glimpse of Sybil Danning’s furry werewolf boobs. Yes, before the internet made porn so easily available, this is what a desperate teenager had to do to see something naughty. <\/p>\nIn other cult properties, Arrow offers a box set compilation of the Japanese exploitation series ‘Stray Cat Rock<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\nTelevision<\/h2>\n
Big TV releases for the week include the fifth season of ‘Adventure Time<\/strong>‘, the sixth season of the classic ‘Little House on the Prairie<\/strong>‘, and the first season of the PlayStation Network’s original superhero drama ‘Powers<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\nMy $.02<\/h2>\n
I’m certainly not going to be able to afford everything I might like this week. Among the titles I’ll have to choose from are ‘Hiroshima mon amour’, ‘The Black Stallion’, ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys’, and the Rogue Cut of ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. (I already have the ‘Andromeda Strain’ disc.) On top of that, certainly worthy of at least rentals are ‘Ex Machina’, ‘It Follows’, and the ‘Lost Soul’ and ‘The Salt of the Earth’ documentaries.<\/p>\n
This seems like a pretty damn good week to me. Do you agree?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whoa, nellie! A whole lotta new Blu-rays hit store shelves his week. Unlike the last several weeks, quite a few of them actually look interesting. This could be a wallet-buster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":71206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[5866,657,3840,5064,7247,67,6375,8141,666,2545,8096,2932,8307,8048,7260,8095,6542,194,8281,8088,4029,6332,273],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71203"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71220,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71203\/revisions\/71220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}