Drive, He Said, Husbands and Fuller from Sony (plus Jeanne Dielman and more)

Partially due to my weekend cold and also in hopes they'd throw an additional something exciting our way today, I'm a little late in posting the August Criterions. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, starring Delphine Seyrig, will make its home video debut in the US on DVD 25 August. Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco, with Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale, hits on the same date, as well as Blu-rays of Kurosawa's Kagemusha (18 Aug) and Tati's Playtime (18 Aug). The Eclipse set for August sounds promising, a collection of five Nikkatsu noirs (25 Aug): Koreyoshi Kurahara's I Am Waiting, Toshio Masuda's Rusty Knife, Seijun Suzuki's Take Aim at the Police Van, Takumi Furukawa's Cruel Gun Story and Takashi Nomura's A Colt Is My Passport. Eric has a few other titles that might be part of a later Nikkatsu set from Eclipse.

Sony's got a huge line-up for the late-summer and fall, which Eric has already pointed out. A Sam Fuller box set (29 Sep) which includes Crimson Kimono, Underworld USA and Scandal Sheet; Cassaevetes' Husbands (18 Aug), which doesn't appear to be part of their "Martini Movies" set any more; 2 film noir sets, one with a re-release of The Big Heat, and a Rita Hayworth box (all 3 November).

Not mentioned on Filmbo's blog are a few other Sony releases. They've got a set called The New Hollywood Box Set for 15 September. The set includes Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said, with Karen Black, Robert Towne, Bruce Dern and Henry Jaglom; Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces; Rafelson's The King of Marvin Gardens with Nicholson, Dern and Ellen Burstyn; Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show; Jaglom's A Safe Place, with Tuesday Weld, Nicholson and Orson Welles; Rafelson's Head with The Monkees; and Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider. This is the R1 debut of both Drive, He Said and A Safe Place. Sony also has Fred Dekker's Night of the Creeps (20 October) and James Hill's A Study in Terror (10 November) premiering on DVD.

Strand is releasing Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's Born in 68 [Nés en 68], with Laetitia Casta, Yannick Renier and Yann Trégouët, on 11 August. Facets' website has been doing a remodel for the past few weeks, so I've only been able to uncover one of their August releases, another Ning Ying film For Fun on the 25th. PeaceArch has the supposedly dreadful Mysteries of Pittsburgh on 4 August.

Water Bearer is releasing two films in July. Christian Moris Müller's Four Windows [Vier Fenster] and Alessandro Avellis' Ma saison super 8 premiered at the 2006 Berlinale and will street on the 7th. If 80s T&A is your cup-of-tea, Severin will have Screwballs out on 25 August on DVD and Blu-ray, and Anchor Bay is releasing Spring Break, which I talked about in a previous blog about the films available on iTunes.

And finally, here are a few Blu-ray titles coming soon: Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (28 July, Universal); John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (4 August, Fox); Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (21 July, Sony); George A. Romero's Creepshow (8 September, Warner); Jim Henson and Franz Oz's The Dark Crystal (1 September, Sony); Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (8 September, Warner); Peter Yates' The Deep (7 July, Sony); Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer (11 August, Tokyo Shock); Henson's Labyrinth (1 Septmber, Sony); Alan Parker's Midnight Express (21 July, Sony); Patty Jenkins' Monster (1 September, First Look); Jonathan Lynn's My Cousin Vinny (4 August, Fox); the director's cut of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (25 August, Warner); the extended cut of Terrence Malick's The New World (8 September, New Line); John Carpenter's Starman (11 August, Sony); Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap (14 July, MGM); and Irwin Allen and John Guillermin's The Towering Inferno (14 July, Fox). The UK update should be coming at you later this week.

A few DVD updates, Some Acquisitions, 5 May

Nothing terribly exciting has been announced for DVD in the US lately, but here are a few. Lionsgate is releasing a Special Edition of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, HBO has the second season of Flight of the Conchords on 4 August (though I don't know anyone who especially liked this season), Focus is releasing Coraline on 21 July while parent Universal will have Duplicity out on 28 July, and finally Synapse has a special edition of The Stepfather 2 on 29 September, though for some strange reason the first installment has never been released in the US (I suppose in the same way Phantasm II hasn't either, despite 1, 3 and 4 being readily available).

In acquisition deals, Benten/Watchmaker Films landed Wei Zheng's Fish Eyes, which premiered at Tribeca. Cinema Guild picked up Andrew Bujalski's Beeswax, and Film Movement nabbed Adrián Biniez's Gigante, which won the Silver Bear at Berlin earlier this year. And finally, Warner has added 40 more titles to the original 150 in their Archive Collection. Check this link for all of the titles.

Also, Eric's informed us of a number of planned DVD releases from Sony and theatrical releases from The Film Desk. A Sam Fuller box-set and Husbands are reportedly coming from Sony, the latter part of their Martini Movies series. And The Film Desk is releasing a resorted print of Alain Cavalier's Le combat dans l'île [Fire and Ice], with Romy Schneider and Jean-Louis Trintignant, as well as a first-run release of Alexander Olch's The Windmill Movie.