Vinegar Syndrome Reveals New Partner Label Releases
Posted August 3, 2024 10:46 PM by Webmaster
Vinegar Syndrome has revealed thirteen new partner label releases. They are: Sweet Substitute (1964), Sky Pirates (1986), I Am a Sex Addict (2005), A Fat Wreck: The Punk-U-mentary (2024), Our World Is Drowning and Going to Hell: The Underground Films of Richard Baylor (1989-1993), A Wounded Fawn (2022), Omen (2023), Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles (1987), A Heart of Love (2017), T Blockers (2023), Supersoul Brother & The Films of Rene Martinez Jr. (1973-1978), L'Innocente a.k.a. The Innocent (1976), and Scarlet Diva (2000).
FROM PARTNER LABEL CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES:
Busy navigating his final year of high school, brainy aspiring teacher Tom (Waiting for Caroline's Robert Howay) is determined to land an elusive scholarship, but his hard work is constantly interrupted by his real obsession: pursuing the opposite sex. Before long, he develops a romance with former classmate Elaine (The Boy Who Could Fly's Angela Gann), who persistently declines his sexual advances. This inspires Tom to consider other options, including his good-natured study buddy Kathy (Carol Pastinsky). But when they take their friendship to the next level, shocking complications threaten to derail Tom's future, inspiring his friends to take drastic action.
In the wake of The Bitter Ash and the censorship battles it inspired, director Larry Kent returned with this more playful – but no less provocative – sophomore effort. An intoxicating blend of carefree sex comedy and unsparing coming-of-age drama, Sweet Substitute plays like a hedonistic reimagining of the same year's Nobody Waved Good-bye aimed at the exploitation film market. A surprise success in the U.S. (under the title Caressed), it set the stage for Kent's next leap forward with When Tomorrow Dies, the third and final entry in his celebrated Vancouver Trilogy.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION from the original 16mm A/B camera negatives by Canadian International Pictures with sound transferred from the original 16mm magnetic final mix
New audio commentary featuring Paul Corupe of Canuxploitation.com and film historian Jason Pichonsky
Archival audio commentary featuring film professor David Douglas
New introduction to Sweet Substitute by Larry Kent
Sweet and Sour (2024, 10 min.) – New interview with Kent
Not Quite Liberated (2024, 17 min.) – New interview with Douglas
New audio interview with actor Lanny Beckman (2024, 6 min.)
The Caressed Cut (2024, 6 min.) – All the material added to the American release of Sweet Substitute, including the notorious striptease sequence
Fantasia artist talk (2023, 81 min.) – Conversation with Kent moderated by Douglas
Archival audio interview with Kent (1964, 11 min.)
Booklet featuring a new Motion Picture Purgatory comic strip by Rick Trembles and an interview with graphic artist Sonja Arntzen
In the wake of the success of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, maverick Ozploitation auteurs John D. Lamond (FELICITY) and Colin Eggleston (LONG WEEKEND) joined forces on this breezy, tongue-in-cheek, thrill-a-minute, big screen epic inspired by their love of Republic Pictures' cliffhanger serials.
Boasting exotic location work (including a climactic showdown filmed on Easter Island) and an action-packed, genre-bending plot that includes time warps, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle and the Philadelphia Experiment – not to mention an aerial dogfight and a RAIDERS-style truck chase – SKY PIRATES is the ultimate old fashioned, fast-moving, two-fisted, pulpy B-movie experience! What's not to like?
Umbrella Entertainment proudly presents the worldwide high-def debut of this weird and wild Ozploitation rarity with a new 4K transfer from the original 35mm vault materials supervised by cinematographer Garry Wapshott.
John Hargreaves is Flight Lt. Harris – a wisecracking pilot with an addiction for adventure. He teams up with the feisty daughter of a kidnapped clergyman and they hotfoot it across the globe to rescue her father and locate the separated pieces of a powerful, mystical tablet. In pursuit is arch villain Savage (Max Phipps) hell-bent on getting his mitts on "the ultimate power".
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Audio commentary with producer Michael Hirsh, cinematographer Garry Wapshott, script supervisor Jenni Tosi and stills photographer David Parker moderated by filmmaker Mark Hartley
Extended NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD interviews with writer/producer John D. Lamond and cinematographer Garry Wapshott
Deleted and extended scenes
VFX test footage with commentary by visual effects supervisor Dennis Nicholson
VFX breakdown featurette
Filmbuff's Forecast tribute to John D. Lamond with Michael Hirsh, Alan Finney, Paul Harris and Mark Hartley
On the eve of his third marriage, Caveh Zahedi tells the story of how his attraction to prostitutes and his compulsive honesty combined to destroy each of his past relationships. The genre-bending mix of camera address, re-enactment, and home movie footage make for a strikingly funny and original film.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Tripping With Caveh (Short film with Will Oldham)
Deleted Scenes
Animated Short Film: Unmaking of I Am A Sex Addict
Zahedi's acceptance speech at the Gotham Awards
32-page booklet with essays from Caveh Zahedi, Kathy Joyce and conversations with Caveh and Andrew Bujalski, and Caveh and Lily Lady
Fat Wreck Chords... The influential music label proud to say they've spent the past 25 years "ruining punk rock". A Fat Wreck tells the story of founders Fat Mike (of the legendary punk band NOFX) and his ex-wife Erin Kelly-Burkett, spanning the birth, growth, struggles, and survival of the Fat Wreck Chords label. Half inspirational story of chosen family and community, half debauchery and occasionally involuntary drug use... A Fat Wreck blazes exciting new ground in the cinematic genre of puppet-driven punk rock music documentary filmmaking. If you only see one film featuring a dominatrix spanking a puppet in your lifetime... Make it A Fat Wreck!
Exploring themes of isolation, suicide, voyeurism, murder, sexual aberrations, and the condemnation of organized religion, Michigan born, UK based filmmaker and provocateur Richard Baylor sent shockwaves throughout the repressive and censorious '90s British film scene with his subversive and button-pushing underground video works. Drawing inspiration from the short and shocking films of Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, and their contemporaries from New York's Cinema of Transgression scene, Baylor became an honorary member of the movement by creating similarly insurgent works on video in his native Ipswich, England, culling collaborators from the local punk rock and industrial noise communities and employing acting performances and soundtrack contributions from members of Extreme Noise Terror, Whiteslug, and Optimum Wound Profile.
After decades in the ether, Saturn's Core is proud to finally unleash the complete works of Richard Baylor. Preserved and presented under the supervision of Baylor himself and marking their disc debut and long-awaited return to physical media since the tape trading and mail order VHS days of the 1990s. The collection combines early unseen work (Our Own Personal Hell), Baylor's award-winning video anthologies (You Made Your Bed...Now Die in It, The Holy Trinity), and culminates with his magnum opus; the notorious serial killer rumination Cirsium Delectus, inspired by the real life case of California's Sunset Strip Killers Doug Clark and Carol Bundy. Accompanied by hours of special features, audio commentaries, a new 45 minute documentary, and a 28 page booklet, Our World is Drowning and Going to Hell: The Underground Films of Richard Baylor is the ultimate descent into the disturbing milieu of one of the '90s most provocative and formerly uncharted video agitators.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Audio commentary throughout the entire Richard Baylor filmography by film writer & publisher David Flint
Audio commentary on Cirsium Delectus by film writer Heather Drain
"Staring Into the Abyss" - A new 2024 retrospective documentary featuring interviews with filmmaker Richard Baylor and collaborators Sophie Baylor, Lisa Corell, Jason Whittaker, & Richard Munn
Music video collection (featuring clips from Extreme Noise Terror, Earth Mother Fucker, The Brackish Edge, & The Brothers of Hope and Despair)
"Sins of the Flesh" - a 28-page booklet featuring writings by David Flint, Heather Drain, Ross Snyder, Hugh Gallagher, & Vincent Albarano
Meredith Tanning, a local museum curator, is dipping her toe back into the dating pool, only to be targeted by a charming serial killer. When a fateful romantic getaway between the two becomes a tense game of cat and mouse, both must confront the madness within him.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
"Conversations" - Interviews with sculptor Charlie Becker, Composer Vaaal, Makeup Artist Ashely Thomas, and Makeup Effects Designer Dan Martin
Following Koffi's return to his birthplace after he has been ostracized by his family, 'Omen' explores the weight of beliefs on one's destiny through four characters accused of being witches and sorcerers, all of them intertwined and guiding each other into the phantasmagoria of Africa.
"Nuestro Señor de los Milagros Our Lord of the Miracles, is the name of a swamp-glittering prison colony in the remote Peruvian jungle on the Rio Sepa. This is the dumping ground where the worst prisons in the country send their toughest of the tough. A bizarre island of freedom where tragedy and absurdity create a close-in world seemingly invented from feverish dreams. Here are murderers who survived the taking of hostages and the subsequent massacre at Lurigancho prison (documented in the film), and prisoners who have done 8 years extra time simply because their release papers were lost; there is one who fought his way from the highlands on foot, taking weeks to get here to serve his sentence. There is also a headhunter, a drug boss and 'el Invisible', the invisible one. The 65 year old, half deaf prison director, Don Elias, in tropical clothing, and wearing a straw hat, calls them all 'mis angelitos', my little angels." -Werner Herzog
Having languished in a closet for more than 30 years, this newly rediscovered film is a unique documentary record of a bold and troubling experiment in criminal justice. A collaboration in between Walter Saxer, the producer of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, and the Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles observes an open-air penal colony of the same name, created in 1951 by the Peruvian government in the Amazonian jungle. Tasked with growing crops on these colonized lands, the inmates were permitted to roam freely, commune with their families, and dance and cook together, yet they soon found themselves in despair, abandoned and forgotten by their country and the world at large.
Restored in 4K by Cinematheque Suisse and Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with the Ministerio de Cultura del Peru at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory starting from the original 16mm camera negative and the sound preserved at Yacumama Films.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION BY CINETECA DI BOLOGNA
2 Audience Q&As with filmmaker Walter Saxer and daughter Micaela Saxer at Metrograph, New York, NY, October 2022
New interview with filmmaker Water Saxar recorded at Casa Fitzcaraldo, Iquitos, Peru
Inspired by the lives of Warsaw based artists, Wojtek Bakowski and Zuzanna Bartoszek, two emblematic figures of the contemporary art scene, this romance examines the relationship between narcissism and love.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Introduction from Director Łukasz Ronduda
Commentary from Director Łukasz Ronduda
Polish Artist Wojciech Bakowski work:
Analysis 1& 2
Sound of my Soul
Construction of a Day
Times
Waiting and Remembering
Finding Oneself (2013)
The Interval of Remembering
Standby Map
The Big Wanting/Presure on the Wiev
Wojciech Bakowski Early Animations (Spoken Movies 1 to 6)
In small-town Australia, a nightmare is brewing. Sophie is a young filmmaker obsessed with finding a thought-to-be long-lost film. Meanwhile, an earthquake unleashes ancient parasites in the area that thrive on hatred, causing outbursts of violence. Now Sophie and her friends, struggling with dating and their undesirable jobs, must also face off against an ancient evil that spreads like wildfire.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Bonus Feature Film: Bad Girl Boogey with optional commentary
Conversation with director Alice Maio Mackay
Short Films
Trailers
English SDH subtitles
REIGON-A "LOCKED"
FROM PARTNER LABEL AMERICAN GENRE FILM ARCHIVE (AGFA):
Let's get w-i-i-ild! SUPER SOUL BROTHER AND THE FILMS OF RENE MARTINEZ, JR. collects the anti-dimensional filmography of enigmatic, Miami-based DIY filmmaker Martinez for the first time on home video. In SUPER SOUL BROTHER (1978), naive wino Steve ("Wildman" Steve Gallon, PETEY WHEATSTRAW) is injected with a serum that gives him superhuman strength, a catch phrase ("I'm w-i-i-ild!"), and a quest to battle the mad scientists and crooks who made it all possible. THE GUY FROM HARLEM (1977) finds gritty private investigator Al Connors (Loye Hawkins) locked in mortal combat with crime kingpin Big Daddy in an explosion of cocaine, kung-fu, and funk jams. Finally, ROAD OF DEATH (1973) follows local rockers the Joe Banana Band and friends (including Carol Conners and Jack Birch, future parents of Thora "GHOST WORLD" Birch) as they seek revenge against a biker gang for their hideous crimes—complete with a shocking climax that predicts the final scene in Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF. Only in Florida.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
SUPER SOUL BROTHER (1978, 74 mins): Preserved from AGFA's 35mm theatrical print, the only known elements in existence
THE GUY FROM HARLEM (1977, 90 mins): Preserved from AGFA's 35mm theatrical print
ROAD OF DEATH (1973, 70 mins): Preserved from Something Weird's35mm theatrical print, the only known elements in existence
Gabrielle d'Annunzio's passionate novel is brought to life in the final masterpiece from acclaimed director Luchino Visconti. In late-nineteenth century Italy, Tullio (Giancarlo Giannini), an insatiable aristocrat, grows bored with his timid wife Giuliana (Laura Antonelli) and neglects her for his more exciting mistress, the wealthy widow Countess Teresa Raffo (Jennifer O'Neill). After learning that Giuliana is having a torrid affair of her own, he becomes tormented by her infidelity and descends into madness.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Reframing L'Innocente video essay by author Ivo Blom
In her stunning, semi-autobiographical directorial feature debut, Asia Argento plays Anna Battista, a rising young actress who, despite her popularity and success, experiences despair and degradation at the hands of an abusive industry. Her harrowing journey towards redemption leads her on a sordid spree of excess across American and Europe while trying to recapture her innocence and find true love. Newly restored in HD, SCARLET DIVA has been rediscovered by audiences and critics alike in the wake of the "Time's Up" movement for its "full-throated rage against the international filmmaking machine" and is credited as "perhaps the earliest #MeToo film" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Two audio commentaries by Asia Argento - the original commentary from 2002 and a new commentary recorded exclusively for the 2018 re-release
Looking into the Eye of the Cyclops featurette with Joe Coleman
Asia Argento interview
The Making Of Scarlet Diva featurette
2018 theatrical trailer; and original theatrical release promos