Independent distributors Olive Films have announced that they will add ten new titles to their Blu-ray catalog in April. Amongst them are acclaimed director Costa-Gavras'
Betrayed, Carl Reiner's
Sibling Rivalry, and Sam Fuller's
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street.
What's the Worst That Could Happen?
When ace thief Kevin Caffery (Martin Lawrence, Bad Boys) has his prized ring stolen by the rich and infamous Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito, Romancing the Stone) during a break-in at the Fairbanks estate, it's a comedy free-for-all in the Sam Weisman (George of the Jungle) directed What's the Worst That Could Happen?
Kevin, in hot pursuit of the ring given to him by a beautiful young woman (Carmen Ejogo, Selma) may have met his match when he locks horns with the unscrupulous and lecherous Max. Adding to the comedy hijinks are John Leguizamo (Fugly!) and Bernie Mac (The Origina lKings of Comedy) as Kevin's partners-in-crime; Larry Miller (The Nutty Professor) as Earl, Max's assistant; Nora Dunn (TV's Saturday Night Live) as Lutetia, Max's social butterfly wife; and Glenne Headly (Making Mr.Right) as Gloria, Max's secretary.
Written for the screen by Matthew Chapman (based on the novel by Donald E. Westlake), What's the Worst That Could Happen? co-stars Richard Schiff (TV's The West Wing), William Fichtner (The Lone Ranger) and Ana Gasteyer (TV's Saturday Night Live).
Special Features:
- "Scene Stealers" Featurette
- "Music" by Erick Sermon ft. Marvin Gaye - Music Video
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street
Samuel Fuller (Pickup on South Street) brings his eclectic and often oddball cinematic directorial vision (think The Naked Kiss) to this satirical detective thriller with more twists and turns than any average film fan would expect, presented in the complete director's cut.
Set in present day Germany (and by present day we're talking 1972), Sandy (Glenn Corbett, Homicidal, Chisum) is an American private eye searching for the person who killed his partner.
A fish-out-of-water detective story, Fuller's Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street navigates the shadows of the great crime dramas, filling the viewer's imagination with memories of the classic "private dick" stories bringing to life the likes of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Peter Gunn.
In a film filled with double-crosses, several red herrings, and the quintessential femme fatale, Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street is a treat for any Samuel Fuller fan, as well as the uninitiated.
Special Features:
- Return to Beethoven Street: Sam Fuller in Germany, a documentary by Robert Fischer featuring interviews with Christa Lang-Fuller, Eric P. Caspar, Wim Wenders, Dominik Graf, Janet Bergstrom and more
- Essay by Lisa Dombrowski, author of The Films of Samuel Fuller
- Essay by Samuel B. Prime
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Betrayed
Academy Award winning director Costa-Gavras (sharing the Best Screenplay award for Missing) directs three-time Academy Award nominee Debra Winger (Best Actress, Shadowlands, Terms of Endearment, An Officer and a Gentleman) and Academy Award nominee Tom Berenger (Best Supporting Actor, Platoon) in the thriller Betrayed.
Director Costa-Gavras (Missing) weaves an intricate tale of deception in the Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) scripted thriller Betrayed. Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment) stars as FBI agent Cathy Weaver, an undercover agent assigned to weed out a right-wing terrorist group suspected of murdering a high profile, left-leaning talk show host.
The conflicted Weaver, who's gone undercover as an itinerant farm worker, sees her loyalties tested when she falls in love with Gary Simmons (Tom Berenger, Platoon), a farmer who may be complicit in the murder.
Betrayed also stars John Heard (Big), John Mahoney (Eight Men Out), Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs), Betsy Blair (Marty), David Clennon (Gone Girl) and Richard Libertini (Days of Heaven).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Sibling Rivalry
ibling Rivalry, director Carl Reiner's (Fatal Instinct) homage to the classic slapstick crime comedy genre, stars Kirstie Alley (Madhouse) as Marjorie Turner, the dissatisfied wife of Harry Turner (Scott Bakula, TV's Quantum Leap), a workaholic doctor more invested in medical charts than in his beautiful wife.
Encouraged by her sister Jeanine (Jami Gertz, Twister) that an affair might be just the thing to break the monotony, a clandestine tryst with a handsome stranger (Sam Elliott, The Big Lebowski) ends on a low note when he dies from a heart attack. The comic twists and turns are just beginning when hotel guest Nicholas Meany (Bill Pullman, Spaceballs,) who thinks that he may have accidentally killed said stranger, looks to Marjorie for help after finding her driver's license at the scene of the crime.
Sibling Rivalry, written for the screen by Martha Goldhirsh, co-stars Carrie Fisher (Star Wars), Ed O'Neill (TV's Modern Family), Frances Sternhagen (TV's The Closer), Bill Macy (Serial) and Paul Benedict (Mandingo).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Fatal Beauty
Enter Mike Marshak (Elliott), a drug cartel bodyguard and an unlikely ally in Rizzoli's quest to bring the responsible drug czar to justice. Fatal Beauty allows Goldberg the opportunity to stretch her comedic and dramatic acting muscles. In his film review Roger Ebert said "Fatal Beauty is first and foremost an action movie ... but it is also Goldberg's best work since The Color Purple."
Directed by Tom Holland (Fright Night) from a screenplay by Hilary Henkin and Dean Riesner based on a story by Bill Svanoe, Fatal Beauty co-stars Harris Yulin (Another Woman), Jennifer Warren (Slap Shot), Brad Dourif (Amos & Andrew) and James Le Gros (Point Break).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Uptown Girls
Molly Gunn (Brittany Murphy, Clueless) is a poor little rich girl forced to do the unimaginable, work for a living after her accountant absconds with her inheritance. Becoming the nanny for the precocious and wise beyond her years eight-year-old Ray Schleine (Dakota Fanning, Man on Fire) starts off bad and gets worse. But Molly, seeing herself in Ray, seeks to bond with her young charge not as her employee, but as her friend in the dramatic comedy Uptown Girls.
Directed by Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans) and written by Julia Dahl, Mo Ogrodnik and Lisa Davidowitz from a story by Allison Jacobs, Uptown Girls co-stars Heather Locklear (TV's Melrose Place) as Roma, Ray's distant mother, and Jesse Spencer (TV's Chicago Fire) as Molly's boyfriend Neal; along with Donald Faison (Clueless) and Austin Pendleton (A Beautiful Mind).
Special Features:
- "The Lowdown on Uptown" Featurette
- "Rockin' Style" Featurette
- Deleted Scenes
- "Time" by Chantal Kreviazuk - Music Video
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
The Fool
From director Yury Bykov (TheMajor), The Fool has garnered multiple awards including the Locarno International Film Festival's prizes for Best Actor and First Prize & Special Mention of the Junior Jury.
A dramatic tale worthy of Dostoyevsky, The Fool tells the story of one man's fight against a corrupt political system. Dima (Artyom Bystrov, Break Loose) is a young man eking out a living in modern day Russia as a plumber's assistant while working to finish college. Called out late one night to inspect a leak at a derelict housing community, he discovers a major structural problem and a building on the verge of collapse. In his attempt to save the lives of the eight hundred residents, Dima will find himself drawn into a world of dark secrets and cancerous corruption, where politicians and power players live by their own code and where tragic consequences are but a grim afterthought.
The Fool, written and directed by Yury Bykov (The Major, Live!), features Artyom Bystrov (Break Loose), Natalya Surkova (Our Own), Boris Nevzorov (The Major) and Yury Tsurilo (Hard to Be a God).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
The Major
the Major premiered in Critic's Week at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and garnered three prizes at the 2013 Shanghai International Film Festival.
A modern day drama, The Major is a riveting tale of treachery, morality and the consequences of conscience.
Set against Russia's bleak, bitter winter landscape, Sergey Sobolev (Denis Shvedov, Live!), a police major driving recklessly across an icy stretch of highway, hits and kills a young boy. The boy's mother Irina (Irina Nizina, The Fool) finds her already unbearable pain and anguish compounded when a cover-up is set in motion to protect Sergey.
Events soon spin out of control with double-crosses, betrayals and duplicity at every turn. The Major is not for the faint of heart. It's a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat drama that draws the viewer deeper and deeper into the action, leading to an unexpected and heart-pounding climax.
The Major, written, directed and co-starring Yury Bykov, features Denis Shvedov (Live!), Irinia Nizina (Love Journal), Dmitry Kulichkov (The Fool), Kirill Polukhin (The Fool), and Boris Nevzorov (The Fool).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Try and Get Me! a.k.a. The Sound of Fury
A crime film in the tradition of the great Fritz Lang (Fury) and Anthony Mann (Strangers in the Night), Try And Get Me is a taut tale directed by Cyril Endfield (Sands of the Kalahari) inspired by actual events.
Based on the Jo Pagano novel The Condemned (itself co-opting the real-life Brooke Hart kidnapping and murder case), Try and Get Me stars Lloyd Bridges (TV's Sea Hunt) as the deranged, cold-as-ice Jerry Slocum, and Frank Lovejoy (In a Lonely Place) as Howard Tyler, Jerry's unwitting accomplice.
Howard's life begins to spiral out of control when he's sucked into a kidnapping plot that turns tragic. Richard Carlson (Creature from the Black Lagoon) portrays Gil Stanton, a gung-ho journalist who may have crossed ethical boundaries when his series of newspaper articles leads to even further tragedy.
Try And Get Me is a first-rate noir with more on its mind than thrills – which there are plenty of – as it navigates heady themes such as journalistic ethics and vigilante justice. The film also stars Kathleen Ryan (Captain Lightfoot), Katherine Locke (The Snake Pit), Adele Jergens (Day the World Ended) and Art Smith (Letter From An Unknown Woman).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.
Unlikely Heroes
Sabine (Esther Gemsch, High Street) is experiencing a mid-life crisis. Her husband of many years has recently left her, her children are going away on vacation, her friends have abandoned her, work life is unfulfilling, and she'll be alone for the holidays. Sabine is just plain lonely.
Volunteer work may be just what she needs to pull her out of her slump. Offering her time at the local immigration detention center teaching immigrants to speak German, Sabine soon inhabits the director's chair in a theater activities class where the center's residents will stage a multi-national version of the William Tell tale.
Sabine will find her life changed for the better as she's able to make a positive difference in the lives of those she's come to love and respect.
Unlikely Heroes, a film co-written and directed by Peter Luigi (Boys Are Us, Vitus), stars Esther Gemsch (Leo Sonnyboy, Tell), Komi Mizarjim Togbonou (Speed Racer, A GoodBoy), Karim Rahoma (Taximdermia, The Good Guy) and Elvis Clausen (Coming In).
STREET DATE: APRIL 19.