New Blu-ray Reviews

Deadly Eyes Blu-ray Movie  

The Rats / Scream Factory / Blu-ray + DVD

Shout Factory | 1982 | 90 min | Rated R | Jul 15, 2014 | Jeffrey Kauffman

Corn grain contaminated with steroids produces large rats the size of small dogs who begin feeding on the residents of Toronto. Paul, a college basketball coach, teams up with Kelly, a local health inspector, to uncover the source of the mysterious rat attacks and they eventually try to prevent the opening of a new subway line as well as find the mutant rats nest quickly, or there will be a huge massacre of the entire city!

Horror / Sci-Fi

Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie  

Blu-ray + DVD

B2MP | 1972 | 103 min | Not rated | May 13, 2014 | Michael Reuben

A lonely farmer takes in a pregnant woman and looks after her. After she gives birth, tragedy strikes.

Drama

Shogun Blu-ray Movie  

James Clavell's Shōgun

Paramount Pictures | 1980 | 549 min | Not rated | Jul 22, 2014 | Kenneth Brown

John Blackthorne, a 17th Century English navigator shipwrecked off the coast of Japan, becomes an eyewitness to a deadly struggle involving Toranaga, a feuding warlord intent on becoming Shōgun - the supreme military dictator. Irresistibly drawn into the turmoil, Blackthorne finds himself vying to become the first-ever gai-jin (foreigner) to be made a samurai warrior.

Adventure / Drama / History / War / Martial arts / Period

Le Bonheur Blu-ray Movie    

Blu-ray + DVD

Pathe Distribution | 1935 | 111 min | Rated U Tous publics | Mar 27, 2014 | Dr. Svet Atanasov

Philippe Lutcher, an anarchist, fires a shot at Clara Stuart, a famous stage and screen actress, but only wounds her. The star, through affectation and curiosity to know his motives, pleads in his favor at his trial, but he rebuffs her pity. After he has served 18 months in prison, they meet and fall in love.

Comedy / Drama / Romance / Foreign

Armored Attack! Blu-ray Movie  

The North Star

Olive Films | 1943 | 1 Movie, 2 Cuts | 106 min | Not rated | Jul 15, 2014 | Jeffrey Kauffman

When the school year ends, five friends from a small Ukrainian village decide to travel to Kiev. Their trip is cut short when German aircraft attack and their town falls under occupation. While many escape to the hills to form an anti-Nazi resistance group, a German doctor, Dr. Otto Von Harden (Erich von Stroheim), begins to use the children for medical experiments and as sources of blood transfusions for wounded German soldiers. Directed by Lewis Milestone, this story of valiant resistance stars Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter and Walter Huston as the Russian doctor who discovers the nefarious German plot. THE NORTH STAR was re-released in the midst of the Cold War as ARMORED ATTACK! The original references to the allied Russian military were excised and an overtly anti-Communist narration track was added.

Drama / Musical / Romance / War

Blue Ruin Blu-ray Movie  

Starz / Anchor Bay | 2013 | 90 min | Rated R | Jul 22, 2014 | Martin Liebman

Mysterious outsider Dwight's quietly itinerant lifestyle is changed forever when he returns to his hometown in Virginia to exact vengeance for a brutal crime once committed against his family. Proving to be an inexperienced assassin, he finds himself caught in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.

Crime / Thriller

Midsomer Murders, Set 24 Blu-ray Movie  

Acorn Media | 2013 | 279 min | Not rated | Jul 29, 2014 | Michael Reuben

Homicide, blackmail, greed, and betrayal: just a taste of what goes on behind the well-trimmed hedges of Midsomer County. Inspired by the novels of Caroline Graham.

Crime / Drama / Mystery / Foreign

The Suspect Blu-ray Movie  

Image Entertainment | 2013 | 98 min | Not rated | Apr 22, 2014 | Michael Reuben

An African-American stranger in an all-white small town is arrested for a brazen local bank robbery. But, unbeknownst to law enforcement, another African-American stranger is in town at the same time. Is it a coincidence, or is something else happening?

Thriller

Insomnia Blu-ray Movie  

Blu-ray + DVD

Criterion | 1997 | 96 min | Not rated | Jul 22, 2014 | Dr. Svet Atanasov

An enigmatic Swedish detective with a checkered past arrives in a small town in northern Norway to investigate the death of a teenage girl. As he digs deeper into the facts surrounding the heinous killing, his own demons and the tyrannical midnight sun begin to take a toll.

Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller / Psychological thriller / Foreign

Herzog: The Collection Blu-ray Movie  

Even Dwarfs Started Small / Land of Silence and Darkness / Fata Morgana / Aguirre, the Wrath of God / The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser / Heart of Glass / Stroszek / Woyzeck / Nosferatu the Vampyre / Fitzcarraldo / Ballad of the Little Soldier / Where the Green Ants Dream / Cobra Verde / Lessons of Darkness / Little Dieter Needs to Fly / My Best Fiend

Shout Factory | 1970-1999 | 16 Movies | 1500 min | Rated R | Jul 29, 2014 | Jeffrey Kauffman

No synopsis for this title.

Adventure / Biography / Comedy / Documentary / Drama / History / Horror / Sci-Fi / War / Foreign / Period

My Best Fiend Blu-ray Movie  

Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski

Shout Factory | 1999 | 95 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

In the 1950s, a teenage Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, 48 hour fit of rage, Kinski completely destroyed the bathroom. From this chaos, a violent, love-hate, profoundly creative partnership was born. In 1972, Herzog cast Kinski in Aguirre, Wrath of God. Four more films would follow. In this personal documentary, Herzog traces the often violent ups and downs of their relationship, revisiting the various locations of their films and talking to the people they worked with.

Biography / Documentary

Little Dieter Needs to Fly Blu-ray Movie  

Shout Factory | 1997 | 80 min | Unrated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot, surviving monsoons, leeches, and machete-wielding villagers, he was rescued. Now, near 60, living on Mt. Tamalpais, Dengler tells his story: a German lad surviving Allied bombings in World War II, postwar poverty, apprenticed to a smith, beaten regularly. At 18, he emigrates and peels potatoes in the U.S. Air Force. He leaves for California and college, then enlistment in the Navy to learn to fly. A quiet man of sorrows tells his story: war, capture, harrowing conditions, escape, and miraculous rescue. Where did he find the strength; how does he now live with his memories?

Biography / Documentary / Drama

Lessons of Darkness Blu-ray Movie  

Lektionen in Finsternis

Shout Factory | 1992 | 54 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

This film shows the disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames. In contrast to the common documentary film there are no comments and few interviews. What must have been the hell itself is presented to the viewer in such beautiful sights and beautiful music that one has to be fascinated by it. The German title translates 'lessons in darkness'.

Documentary / Sci-Fi / War

Cobra Verde Blu-ray Movie  

Shout Factory | 1987 | 111 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

The feared bandit Cobra Verde is hired by a plantation owner to supervise his slaves. After the owner suspects Cobra Verde of consorting with his young daughters, the owner wishes him gone. Rather than kill him,the owner sends Cobra Verde to Africa. The only white man in the area, Cobra Verde finds himself the victim of torture and humiliation. Later, he trains soldiers in a rebel army. Far from home, Cobra Verde is on the edge of madness.

Adventure / Drama / Foreign

Where the Green Ants Dream Blu-ray Movie  

Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen

Shout Factory | 1984 | 101 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

The geologist Lance Hackett is employed by an Australian mining company to map the subsoil of a desert area covered with ant hills prior to a possible uranium extraction. His work is impeded by some aborigines who explain that this is the place where the green ants dream. Disturbing their dreaming will destroy humanity they claim. Hackett informs the company which offers various "solutions" such as a large amount of money or a percentage of a possible revenue. Invited on a trip to a city some of the aborigines sees a military aeroplane and express the wish to own it. The company buys it and gives it to the aborigines as a sign of good will. A runway is made in the desert and the plane is flown to the location.

Drama

Ballad of the Little Soldier Blu-ray Movie  

Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten

Shout Factory | 1984 | 46 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

Ballad of the Little Soldier is a 1984 documentary film about children soldiers in Nicaragua, and focuses on a group of Miskito Indians who used children soldiers in their resistance against the Sandinistas.

Documentary

Fitzcarraldo Blu-ray Movie  

Shout Factory | 1982 | 158 min | Rated PG | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

Fitzcarraldo is an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera in the jungle. To accomplish this he first has to make a fortune in the rubber business, and his cunning plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across a small mountain with aid from the local Indians.

Adventure / Biography / Drama / History / Foreign

Woyzeck Blu-ray Movie  

Shout Factory | 1979 | 74 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

Everything in town appears calm, placid, lovely. But Woyzeck, a rifleman assigned as an orderly, hears voices -- the times are out of joint, at least in his cosmos. To his captain, Woyzeck is a comic marvel: ignorant but courageous, full of energy to little purpose. To a local doctor, Woyzeck is a curiosity, the object of cruel study. Woyzeck, 40, has a young wife, Marie, and a small child. He dotes on them, but Marie, even though she has periods of guilt and remorse, carries on affairs and flirtations. When the captain lets drop broad hints of Woyzeck's being a cuckold, his inner demons and the voices of the spheres take over. Will madness bring action? Of what sort?

Drama / Foreign

Stroszek Blu-ray Movie  

Shout Factory | 1977 | 104 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck. After they are harried and beaten by the thugs who have been Eva's pimps, they join Bruno's neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin. In that winter bound, barren prairie, Bruno works as a mechanic, Eva as a waitress. They buy a trailer. Then, bills mount, the bank threatens to repossess the trailer, Eva wants privacy, and inexorably, the promise of a new life deserts Bruno.

Comedy / Drama / Foreign

Heart of Glass Blu-ray Movie  

Herz aus Glas

Shout Factory | 1976 | 94 min | Not rated | No Release Date | Jeffrey Kauffman

A small village is renowned for its "Ruby Glass" glass blowing works. When the foreman of the works dies suddenly without revealing the secret of the Ruby Glass, the town slides into a deep depression, and the owner of the glassworks becomes obssessed with the lost secret.

Drama / Foreign