Noticias

Genre-hopping maverick Elio Petri’s half-mod, half-madcap ’60s mindbender is set in a dystopian society obsessed with a government-sponsored game known as “The Big Hunt” that pits volunteer hunters against victims in mortal combat. Based on a Robert Sheckley sci-fi short story, Elio Petri’s social satire, co-written by the director and frequent Michelangelo Antonioni collaborator Tonino Guerra, takes aim at consumer capitalism and the “society of the spectacle,” five years before Guy Debord popularized the term in his Situationist manifesto.

Among its targets, the film draws a bead on ageism, with Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) having to hide his elderly parents from government search and seizure. It spoofs corporate-media domination through the machinations of Marcello and Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress), the wily American trying to track him down, arranging to have their kills broadcast on live TV. And The 10th Victim takes on New Age cultism, with Marcello serving...

Once upon a time, survival games weren’t about districts or flaming dresses, they were a deadly spectator sport engulfed in swinging ‘60s style. In other words, beforeThe Hunger Games made battle-to-the-death competitions a pop culture phenomenon, The 10th Victim ironed out the formula by combining satire and a wardrobe that could kill — literally. The Italian sci-fi cult classic puts forward a story where society has found a “solution” to war. It’s a globally sanctioned game where “hunters” and “victims” take turns trying to kill each other all for fame and fortune. The rules of the game are as simple as they are straightforward — you survive ten rounds, you win big. If you don’t… well, let’s just say the house always wins.

Like the early works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Rudolf Thome’s films owe a significant debt to the French New Wave, particularly Jean-Luc Godard’s penchant for irreverent genre deconstruction. In that vein, Thome’s Red Sun is an exercise in keeping things “medium cool,” holding both its erratic narrative and characters’ motivations at a Brechtian distance. The violence, when it comes, is perfunctory and decidedly nondramatic, paving the way for The American Friend, Wim Wenders’s abstract and stylized adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game.

After drifting into Munich, Thomas (Marquard Bohm) heads straight for the Take Five nightclub, where he renews his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Peggy (Uschi Obermaier). Little does this rambling man realize that, by crashing at her pad, he’s stumbled into a truly bizarre living arrangement. Peggy and her three roommates—statuesque Christine (Diana Körner), redheaded Sylvie (Sylvia Kekulé), and sprightly Isolde (Gaby Go...

I'd thought, going into Assassin Club, that the tale of a hitman who discovers that he has to kill seven others before he gets killed himself might be riffing on Robert Sheckley's The Seventh Victim (filmed as The 10th Victim) or The Running Man or Fight Club or the latter John Wick films or almost anything else. In part that's because one doesn't expect a startling amount of originality from a film that seems to be named after a homicidal chocolate bar.

In retrospect it was wrong to hope for even that much. If it has a saving grace it's that it's not two hours long, and one hopes that those involved had some nice evenings out in Turin while filming. That's Turin which is called upon to double for other cities, albeit with the aid of some stock establishing footage. While Glasgow might often be Gotham or New York,...

Exclusive: Cardinal Trio Pictures principals –actor/filmmaker Chasen Parker, former Universal executive John C. Hall, and Lokal Media co-founder Nick Scherma– have secured a financing deal with Bakrr Media Group.

Cardinal Trio Pictures will be receiving up to €15 million a year ($17.3M) for projects for a five-year term.

“We’re incredibly grateful to be aligning with the wonderful team at Bakrr who have been in full support of our creative vision,” said Parker, Partner at Cardinal Trio Pictures. “Through this new partnership we will create an environment where artists are supported and encouraged to challenge themselves.”

“Teaming up with Zach and Luis at Bakrr is a huge move forward for us as we continue to infuse capital into our company and look for potential output deals and meaningful partners for our titles” added Hall, Partner at Cardinal Trio Pictures.

“We feel this alliance with Cardinal Trio will be to the advantage of both companies.

Slave of the Cannibal God

Blu ray

Code Red

1978/ 99 min.

Starring Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach

Cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando

Directed by Sergio Martino

At the same moment the Korean War was ending and Eisenhower entered the White House, illustrator Samson Pollen found his niche; illuminating the fever dreams of suburban dads for action magazines from Man’s World to Stag. He enjoyed a long career and in 1978 he was handed an assignment right up his alley, a garish montage of anacondas, he-men and nearly-naked women. But his art for Slave of the Cannibal God turned out to be far from his best work. Blandly composed and indifferently executed, Pollen’s movie poster works best as a critique of the film itself.

Directed by Sergio Martino, this travelogue-cum-horror movie stars Ursula Andress, a paragon of beauty who built her brand on a supernatural physique and a come-hither gaze that might have inspired...

Arrow Video resurrects another Lee Van Cleef headliner with 1972’s The Grand Duel, the debut of Giancarlo Santi, who had previously been the assistant director on Sergio Leone’s celebrated The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Notably, the film was scripted by Ernesto Gastaldi, a noted genre writer (who also directed a handful of titles), responsible for Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim (1965) and Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body (1963). Like Gastaldi’s other spaghetti western treatment featuring Van Cleef, 1967’s Day of Anger, recycled themes popularized by Leone provide the narrative backbone of a title which supplies exactly what it promises, a climactic showdown, with little to run on between its opening and closing acts.…...

Italian actress Elsa Martinelli, known to U.S. audiences her breakout role in 1955’s The Indian Fighter opposite Kirk Douglas, died Saturday in Rome at the age of 82, according to Italian media.

Born in Tuscany, Martinelli began her career as a model — appearing in the pages of Vogue and on the cover of Life. She then began taking on smaller roles in films, becoming one of the first models to make the crossover into film and paving the way for stars like Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vergara, and Charlize Theron.

A role in 1954’s Le Rouge et le Noir — the French...

Writer-director Elio Petri scores big in his first feature, the story of a heel suspected of murder. Is he a killer, or just an average guy trying to get ahead, who uses women to his advantage? Marcello Mastroianni impresses as well in a serious role, with Salvo Randone shining as the police inspector trying to pry a confession from him. Beautifully restored in HD; the show is from a time when Italian film was at its zenith.

The Assassin

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / L’Assassino / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle, Cristina Gaioni, Salvo Randone, Andrea Checchi, Francesco Grandjacquet, Marco Mariani, Franco Ressel.

Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Piero Piccione

Written by Tonino (Antonio) Guerra, Elio Petri, Pasquale Fest Campanile, Massimo Franciosa

Produced by Franco Cristaldi

Directed by Elio Petri

Fans of Elio Petri...

Can radical theater make a good movie? Elio Petri continues his string of biting social comment movies with a black comedy about rich people, thieves, and the notion of ownership — it’s a caustic position paper but also a funny satire, with quirky yet believable characters. Ugo Tognazzi is terrific as scheming capitalist, as much a prisoner of his wealth as a poor clerk is of his poverty.

Property is No Longer a Theft

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 126 min. / Street Date March 28, 2017 / La proprietà non è più un furto / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Ugo Tognazzi, Flavio Bucci, Daria Nicolodi, Mario Scaccia, Orazio Orlando, Julien Guiomar, Cecilia Polizzi, Jacques Herlin, Ada Pometti, Salvo Randone.

Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Production design / Costume design: Gianni Polidori

Written by Elio Petri, Ugo Pirro

Produced by Claudio Mancini

Directed by Elio Petri

Essere o Avere?...

Two of director Philippe de Broca’s earliest renowned titles get new restorations and are available for the first time on Blu-ray, That Man From Rio (1964) and Up to His Ears (1965), the first two titles from a loose James Bond spoof trilogy featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Certainly ahead of his time, de Broca’s amusing adventure films are much more than the kind of lowbrow entertainment that would come to typify the genre known as spoof, and this became a notable inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, particularly 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Inspired by the adventures of Belgian cartoonist Herge’s Tintin adventures (which also provided the basis for a 2011 Steven Spielberg adaptation), a prized Amazonian statue is stolen from a Parisian museum. Three such statues left South American on an expedition that involved the late father of Agnes (Francoise Dorleac) and and two colleagues. Professor Catalan...

Hi, Lee. In his DVD review in issue #30, Adrian Smith writes that The 10th Victim “prefigures Death Race 2000, Rollerball, The Running Man and even The Hunger Games in its idea of murder as mass entertainment, and [director/co-writer Elio] Petri deserves to receive some credit.” How about giving some to Robert Sheckley, upon whose 1953 short story “The Seventh Victim” the film was based, and whose name is nowhere mentioned? Sheckley (1928-2005) may not have been in Bradbury’s class, but he was a Hugo and Nebula nominee, named author emeritus by Sfwa in 2001. He even published a tie-in novelization of the film and, in the 1980s, two sequels, Victim Prime and Hunter/Victim. Sheckley’s work was also adapted into more than a dozen other films and television episodes, the best-known of which—for better or worse—is probably Freejack, based on his novel Immortality Inc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 21, 2014

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg take a dip in the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita.

The biggest hit from the most popular Italian filmmaker of all time, 1960’s La Dolce Vita rocketed Federico Fellini (The Clowns) to international mainstream success—ironically, by offering a damning critique of the culture of stardom.

A look at the darkness beneath the seductive lifestyles of Rome’s rich and glamorous, the film follows a notorious celebrity journalist—played by a sublimely cool Marcello Mastroianni (The 10th Victim)—during a hectic week spent on the peripheries of the spotlight.

La Dolce Vita was an incisive commentary on the deepening decadence of the European 1960s, and it provided a prescient glimpse of just how gossip- and fame-obsessed our society would become.

Presented in Italian with English subtitles, Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions contain the...

To mark the release of L’Assassino on 21st July, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray and DVD combo.

Released within months of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Antonioni’s La Notte, Elio Petri’s dazzling first feature L’Assassino also stars Marcello Mastroianni, this time as dandyish thirty-something antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli, arrested on suspicion of murdering his older, far wealthier lover Adalgisa (Micheline Presle). But as the increasingly Kafkaesque police investigation proceeds, it becomes less and less important whether Martelli actually committed the crime as his entire lifestyle is effectively put on trial.

Best known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and The Tenth Victim, Petri was one of the finest and yet most underrated Italian directors of the 1960s and 70s. Highly acclaimed on its original UK release but unjustly neglected since, L’Assassino is a remarkably assured debut from one...

After finally securing 1961’s La Notte as part of the Criterion line-up, we’re treated to a new restoration and Blu-ray transfer of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, which originally graced the collection back in 2005. The final chapter of the unofficial “Incommunicability Trilogy,” it is, perhaps, the most ‘sex positive’ chapter of the erotomania that partially defines the crumbling of the troubling social orders at hand, and it certainly has a more vibrant energy than the previous films, beginning with 1960’s L’Avventura. As far as narrative goes, however, this may possibly be the most oblique of the three films, meandering through possibilities before delivering a confounding final seven minutes that are as strikingly at odds with the rest of the feature as well as confoundingly, maddeningly riveting.

A beautiful woman, Vittoria (Monica Vitti), tiredly pads back and forth in her lover’s (Fernando Rabal) apartment, a fan providing the...

Raro Video continues remastering rare and obscure Italian titles with the long unavailable 1970 curio from Duccio Tessari, Death Occurred Last Night. A rare hybrid of police thriller and giallo, this fascinating title is a definite highlight in the little known Tessari’s varied filmography. Most noted for his work in spaghetti westerns, those unfamiliar with his work will surely be interested in seeking out other available titles. As seedy and ridiculous as it is intriguing and unfailingly amusing, its attention to character and narrative development sets it apart from similar titles of the time period, preceding comparable American fare such as Paul Schrader’s 1979 Hardcore.

A self-controlled yet increasingly desperate father (Raf Vallone) informs Detective Duca Lamberti (Frank Wolff) at the police station in Milan that his girl is missing. As he answers a round of questions, we discover his girl is actually a mentally handicapped twenty five year old...

Arrow Video, the world's leading cult video label, has announced their Q2 line-up for 2014 and it is amazing as usual. In addition to titles that geeks already knew were coming, like Joe Dante's The 'Burbs, Brian De Palma's, Sisters, and the hotly anticipated artrotica and groundbreaking animation of Walerian Borowczyk, we also get some classic 70's Aip Vincent Price films, Chuck Norris's calling card, The Delta Force, '80s sex comedy classic, Porky's, Fernando Dileo's Milano Calibro 9, and lesser known werewolf feature, The Beast Within. In addition, Arrow continues beefing up their Academy line with Elio Petri's (The 10th Victim) L'AssassinoJust sign me up for an automatic bank draft already, because I need this discs like I need the air that I breathe. Take...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Blu-ray Release Date: Feb. 11, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

George Peppard prepares to take to the skies in The Blue Max.

John Guillermin’s 1966 aerial war epic The Blue Max makes its Blu-ray debut from Twilight Time.

The film stars George Peppard (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) as Lt. Bruno Stachel, an ambitious young German soldier who, from the muck of the World War I trenches, becomes determined to join the aristocratic ranks of his country’s heroic fliers. The film details his journey as he moves up the ladder and into the skies, providing along the way some of the most thrilling sequences of aerial combat ever committed to the screen.

Also starring James Mason (Bigger Than Life) and Ursula Andress (The 10th Victim), the sumptuous-looking movie is based upon Jack Hunter’s 1964 novel and features music by Jerry Goldsmith, which is featured on this Twilight Time release as an isolated track.

Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film in 1970, as well as the Grand Jury and Fipresci Prize Winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Italian auteur Elio Petri’s Investigation Of a Citizen Above Suspicion gets a splendorous digital transfer from Criterion this month, a notable title that remains one of the director’s finest works, as absurdly surreal as it is bafflingly realistic in its depiction of Italy’s actual political situation during the time period. And, perhaps due to this depiction, but also in part due to Petri’s own left wing siding, its protagonist’s paranoia towards liberalism seems to unmask the evils allowed by a democracy as merely a pretty euphemism for fascism. But whatever Petri’s own political agenda may or may not be with this darkly comedic tale of a grotesque abuse of power, it certainly would be apt to describe the film as Kafkaesque...

Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games book series has often been compared with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels, primarily because both center on a young female protagonist and have become phenomenons for their shared young-adult demo. This is arguably an insult to the novel and the big-screen adaptations, since The Hunger Games is leagues above Twilight in artistic credibility. The sense of familiarity of The Hunger Games goes much further back, recalling everything from William Golding to Phillip K. Dick to even Stephen King. Here are 12 films that come highly recommended, and should be essential viewing for any fan of the Hunger Games franchise.

****

1. Battle Royale

Written and directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Japan, 2000

The concept of The Hunger Games owes much to Koushun Takami’s cult novel Battle Royale, adapted for the cinema in 2000 by Kinji Fukasaku. The film is set in a dystopian alternate-universe, in Japan, with the nation utterly collapsed,...

Just when you thought Robert Rodriguez had gone too far, you realize he hasn't gone too far enough.

A new character poster (via Entertainment Weekly) for his sequel "Machete Kills" features the lovely and vivacious Sofía Vergara strutting her stuff with… wait, are those Gatling guns on her bazongas? Holy hell.

Looks like Robert Rod's outdone himself again, possibly topping Rose McGowan's leg-stump rocket launcher in "Planet Terror," but we'll have to wait and see what else is in store for Danny Trejo's chopping block. Any movie with Mel Gibson, Lady Gaga, and Charlie Sheen (as the President) is bound to have a few more aces up its sleeve.

As for the bullet brassiere, that has a whole history unto itself. Ursula Andress did it first during a sexy dance routine in the famous opening of Italian media satire "The Tenth Victim," then Mike Meyers parodied it with...

DVD Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Kim Rossi-Stuart (l.) and Inés Sastre enjoy each other's company in Beyond the Clouds.

Legendary filmmakers Michelangelo Antonioni (I Vinti) and Wim Wenders (Pina) teamed up to create the 1995 drama-romance film Beyond the Clouds.

Co-written by Antonioni, Wenders and Tonino Guerra and directed by Antonioni, Beyond the Clouds, told from the dreamlike perspective of a wandering film director (portrayed by Secretariat‘s John Malkovich), weaves together four stories of love and lust, inspired by Antonioni’s book about the enigmatic power of modern relationships.

Taking place in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris, each story–which always has a woman at its center–turns inwards in its examination of love. Or, as the late Antonioni put it, the stories turn “towards the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that nobody will ever see.” Er, okay….

Featuring music from Van Morrison,...

6- The 10th Victim (La Decima vittima) (The Tenth Victim)

Directed by Elio Petri

Written by Tonino Guerra, Giorgio Salvioni, Ennio Flaiano and Elio Petri

Italy,1965

The 10th Victim was the first film to offer up the concept of a TV show wherein people hunt and kill one another for sport and to expand the idea into a satire on gameshows. Set in the 21st Century, the government and the private sector have joined forces to create a solution to crime by giving it a profitable outlet titled “The Big Hunt,” a popular worldwide game show in which contestants are chosen at random to chase one another around the world in a kill or be killed scenario. The winner of the first round moves on to the next. After ten wins, a player is retired from the game and gets a cash prize of one million dollars, but very few make it that far.

R Kurt Osenlund gives Gary Ross's The Hunger Games three out of four stars, which is a fairly solid endorsement, coming from Slant. That's nice and all, but The Hunger Games as a film is really only half the story. The other half has to do with marketing and the impact the film will have on the industry, aspects of a movie we don't usually pay all that much attention to around here, but in this case, they cannot be ignored.

According to Bloomberg's Michael White, when it opens on Friday, The Hunger Games may pull in between $115 million and $270 million during the first three days of its run. "It will also transform Lions Gate, an independent filmmaker known for horror movies, Tyler Perry comedies and a long takeover fight with Carl Icahn. With The Hunger Games, Twilight and two more projects with sequel potential, Vancouver-based Lions Gate has...

Like so much of contemporary pop culture, “The Hunger Games” ravenously consumes ideas from other books and movies and repurposes them for its own needs. Not much digging is required to find plot elements from “The 10th Victim,” “Battle Royale,” “The Truman Show,” “Lord of the Flies,” “The Running Man,” and “Series 7: The Contenders,” alongside design ideas from “A Clockwork Orange” and even the infamously ridiculous “The Apple.” It’s easy to forgive this kind of thievery, however, when the perp actually does something with the stolen goods, and for whatever...

As The Hunger Games arrives in the UK, we look back at a few other future sports movies, and try to decide which, if any, would be a hit with TV audiences…

If sci-fi tells us nothing else about the future, it’s this: decades hence, football will have fallen out of fashion. Tennis will seem passé. Baseball? Horrendously archaic. Instead, the sports of the future will be violent tools of oppression, used by totalitarian governments to keep people off the streets and glued to their televisions.

This is the premise for numerous movies, books and videogames – including Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy of novels, in which teen gladiators (or ‘tributes’) are chosen at random and forced to fight to the death on television. The first book, of course, is now a well-received movie, and is the latest entry in a future sports subgenre that appears to have its seeds...

0:00 - Intro 5:25 - Headlines: Sacha Baron Cohen Banned from Oscars?, Tugg, The Raid Title Change, Dwayne Johnson to Star in Hercules, Edgar Wright to Direct The Night Stalker, Jai Courtney is John McClane's Son, Weinsteins Boycott MPAA Over Bully Rating 24:00 - Review: Goon 53:40 - Other Stuff We Watched: Midnight in Paris, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, Wet Hot American Summer, Firecracker, Nightwish, Charley Varrick, Matinee, The Woman in Black, The 10th Victim, Willow, Life's Too Short 1:31:05 - Junk Mail: Reviewing Bad Movies, Letterboxd for Video Games, Interpreting Director's Intentions, Involuntary Audible Reactions to Movies, Africa Addio, Nostalgia and The Sandlot vs. Mighty Ducks, Mixing DVDs and Blu-rays from Different Regions 2:00:50 - This Week's DVD Releases 2:01:30 - Outro

Film Junk Podcast Episode #359: Goon by Filmjunk on Mixcloud

» Download the MP3 (57 Mb) » View the...

Everyone's favorite bit of news of the past 24 hours or so has to be the casting of Werner Herzog as the bad guy in Christopher McQuarrie's upcoming Tom Cruise vehicle, One Shot. Also on board: Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Alexia Fast and Jai Courtney. At this point, there are only a few more details to know, but the Playlist's Kevin Jagernauth's got them.

Fox has greenlit an hour-long single-camera comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen and screenwriter Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids). Lesley Goldberg in the Hollywood Reporter: "The Imagine TV project, the brothers' first foray into television, revolves around a touchy Los Angeles private investigator — and his deadbeat friends in El Segundo — whose cases frequently force him to cross paths with a who's who of Hollywood."

"Paramount is on board to co-finance Darren Aronofsky's Noah with New Regency, and shooting is set to kick...

DVD Playhouse—October 2011

By Allen Gardner

Terri (20th Century Fox) An awkward, obese teen (Jacob Wysocki) finds himself forming an odd friendship with his equally left-of-center vice-principal (John C. Reilly), who decides to help the boy navigate his way through adolescence’s rocky road. Low key film is filled with pathos and humor, but is ultimately too laid back for its own good (not to mention too long). Worth seeing for young Wysocki’s amazing, completely natural performance, and Reilly’s goofy charm. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurette; Deleted scenes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

Mr. Nice (Mpi) Rhys Ifans stars in the true story of Howard Marks, a Welsh-born Oxford grad who gained the most notoriety in his life for being the UK’s biggest hashish smuggler during the ‘70s and ‘80s, when he wasn’t busy spying for Her Majesty’s government, hanging out with a...

Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray - Not surprisingly the reviews for this Blu-ray package have been strong. Yes Lucas has made even more alterations to the film in his ongoing attempt to link the trilogies together and make them feel like they weren't made 30 years apart, but it's apparently a fairly stunning viewing and listening experience. You already know if you're getting this I guess, so enjoy for what it is: The best visual presentation of Star Wars available.

Hesher - "Loud music. Pornography. Lighting fires. These are a few of Hesher's favorite things." And with that, I'm dying to see this headbanger coming-of-ager with a stellar cast in Joseph Gordon Levitt, Natalie Portman and Rainn Wilson.

Exterminator - the a kick-ass, cult revenge flick has been lovingly resurrected on this Blu-ray from Synapse Films. Thank you Synapse. It comes in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack so everyone can enjoy the carnage!

Blue Underground:It is the 21st Century, and society's lust for violence is satisfied by The Big Hunt, an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport's two top assassins are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th Victim? The 10th Victim is the international cult classic whose wild action and sexy style has influenced a generation of movies, from The Running Man to the Austin Powers series. Now this outrageous satire has been newly remastered from the original negative and is presented here in groovy High Definition! From the opening chase sequence all the way through to the ultra-pop bizarro finale, The 10th...

Rank the week of September 13th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Thor

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #227

Win Percentage: 58%

Times Ranked: 18033

Top-20 Rankings: 90

Directed By: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Chris Hemsworth • Natalie Portman • Anthony Hopkins • Jeremy Renner • Kat Dennings

Genres: Action • Adventure • Based-on-Comics • Comic-Book Superhero Film • Fantasy • Fantasy Adventure

Rank This Movie

Conan O’Brien Can’T Stop

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #5260

Win Percentage: 54%

Times Ranked: 719

Top-20 Rankings: 5

Directed By: Rodman Flender

Starring: Conan O’Brien

Genres: Comedy • Documentary

Rank This Movie

Incendies

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #4296

Win Percentage: 51%

Times Ranked: 947

Top-20 Rankings: 8

Directed By: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Lubna Azabal • Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin • Maxim Gaudette • Rémy Girard • Abdelghafour Elaaziz

Genres: Drama • Foreign Language Film

Rank This Movie

The Tempest

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #7784

Win Percentage: 37%

Times Ranked: 385

Top-20 Rankings: 2

Directed By: Julie Taymor

Starring: Helen Mirren • Djimon Hounsou • Alfred Molina...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

The 10th Victim (1965)

Synopsis: It is the 21st Century, and society’s lust for violence is satisfied by “The Big Hunt,” an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport’s two top assassins (Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th Victim? The 10th Victim is the international cult classic whose wild action and sexy style has influenced a generation of movies, from The Running Man to the Austin Powers series. Remastered from original archival negative materials, this outrageous satire is presented here in its original Italian language with optional English subtitles. — highdefdigest.com

Special Features:

Marcello: A Sweet Life (2006) (102 Mins.) Theatrical Trailer

3 Women: The Criterion Collection (1977)

Synopsis: In a dusty,...

DVD Playhouse—September 2011

By Allen Gardner

In A Better World (Sony) Winner of last year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, this Danish export looks at two fractured families and the effect that the adult world dysfunction has on their two sons, who form an immediate and potentially deadly bond. Director Susanne Bier delivers another powerful work that maintains its drive during the films’ first 2/3, then falters somewhat during the last act. Still, well-worth seeing, and beautifully made. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Commentary by Bier and editor Pernille Bech Christensen; Interview with Bier. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

X-men First Class (20th Century Fox) “Origins” film set in the early 1960s, traces the beginnings of Magento and Professor X (played ably here by Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy), and how the once-close friends and colleagues became bitter enemies. First half is slam-bang entertainment at its stylish best,...

This is something I only missed because I wasn't in contact with Blue Underground until very recently.  They are releasing two very entertaining Italian films on Blu-ray this August 30th [new dates below].  First up is Elio Petri's The 10th Victim, a low-budget futuristic sci-fi comedy starring the legendary Marcello Mastroianni and the beautiful Ursula Andress.The Original Sexy '60s Cult Classic Is Back!It is the 21st Century, and society's lust for violence is satisfied by "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport's two top assassins (Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th...

This is something I only missed because I wasn't in contact with Blue Underground until very recently.  They are releasing two very entertaining Italian films on Blu-ray this August 30th.  First up is Elio Petri's The 10th Victim, a low-budget futuristic sci-fi comedy starring the legendary Marcello Mastroianni and the beautiful Ursula Andress.The Original Sexy '60s Cult Classic Is Back!It is the 21st Century, and society's lust for violence is satisfied by "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport's two top assassins (Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th Victim?The 10th Victim...

It's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight as Junk Food Dinner #62 bursts forth from Hell itself.

We start things off with a rage filled review of Todd Farmer's (Jason X) and Patrick Lussier's (My Bloody Valentine 3D) southern-fried-revenge-from-beyond-the-grave-2D-"masterpiece" Drive Angry 3D from 2011.

Next, we find time to indulge in our favorite sport- hunting humans as we take a look at the 1965 Italian satire The 10th Victim, starring Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni.

Finally, it's back to fire and brimstone as we wrap things up with some familiar faces (Dana Ashbrook, Liane Curtis, James Karen, and more) in the often overlooked horror-comedy Girlfriend From Hell from 1989.

Also, we have Nerds News, this week's DVD and Blu-Ray releases and much more!

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A bona fide Sixties cult classic—and it’s got the cool cast, funky fashions and sizzling soundtrack to prove it—the science fiction action thriller comedy The 10th Victim will make its Blu-ray debut from Blue Underground on Aug. 30.

Ursula Andress unwinds after a killing in The 10th Victim.

It will carry a list price of$29.98.

Directed by Elio Petri and starring Marcello Mastroianni (8 1/2) and Ursula Andress (Dr. No), the 1965 movie is set in the 21st Century, a time when society’s lust for violence is satisfied by “The Big Hunt,” an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport’s two top assassins—Marcello Pollette (Mastroianni) and Caroline Meredith (Andress, sporting a booby-trapped brassiere) are pitted against each other, it appears that love might just be the most dangerous game of all. As the whole world watches via futuristic “closed-circuit” TV to see which assassin will win...

Cult and fan-friendly label Blue Underground has announced on August 30th, that they are releasing director Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim (La decima vittima, 1965) to Blu-ray for the first time. Some people like violence so much, that they decide to create a club in which human hunts are organized – members being alternately hunters, and prey, until they end up dead.

The film’s been described as a campy futuristic tale where people hunt one another for sport serving as inspiration for such genre films like The Running Man to even Austin Powers: The International Man of Mystery, while starring the first Bond Girl – Ursula Andress (Dr. No). No word on extras yet.

Source: Blu-ray...

Based on its title, and a one-line synopsis in Halliwell's Film Guide, this movie (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Elio Petri, 1970), had long been a movie I'd wanted to see. Observe:

"A successful police inspector kills his mistress and, paranoiacally considering himself to be above suspicion, plants clues leading to himself and even [spoiler deleted]."

The fact that Leslie Halliwell seemed only mildly impressed by the film didn't put me off: the fact that he saw any virtue in a movie made after 1960 strongly suggested that this was a triumph. Often, the value of a movie could be judged by how much it annoyed Mr. Halliwell.

Director Elio Petri is probably best-known for directing The Tenth Victim, a pop-art sci-fi classic which anticipates the murderous horrors of reality TV and gave us the original bullet-bra fembots who later plagued Austin Powers, but the man was a lot more than a merchant of slick kitsch.

It's not difficult to let yourself get carried away by full-bore dystopian satires like "Death Race 2000" (1975), for a landfill full of reasons. Two immediately pop into mind: on one hand, unsavory poppycock like Roger Corman and Paul Bartel's infamous film make plain the simple fact that science fiction, when it's done properly, isn't about thrills. It's about ideas and social speculation, and is therefore a far closer cousin to pure satire than it's ever been to horror films (the genre with which sci-fi is usually clumped).

You could argue it a dozen ways pro or con, but sorry, without the twisted birth imagery and post-industrial wage-slavery context and equation between commerce and rabid predation, "Alien" (for one example) would be just a horror film and also not worth remembering. With it, it's a scalpel taken to the thorax of our socioeconomic Manifest Destiny.

Examples are everywhere, and once you grow up,...