New titles, June, 'The Artist', 'Contraband', 'Woman in the Fifth'

1920s California for a loving – and silent – recreation of Hollywood on the verge of sound. ‘The Artist’ is shot in exactly the same speechless, monochrome style as the movies in which our tragic hero, actor George Valentin (Dujardin), employs a canny arched eyebrow or breaks out into a rip-roaring tap-dancing routine to woo his adoring audience.

It’s 1927, Valentin is a star, but, oh no, is that the sound of… sound, on the horizon? Valentin is an insufferable ham. He laps up the adoration at a premiere, ignoring his co-stars and hogging the stage with a trusty performing dog (a constant, cute presence in the film). His domestic life is shaky, and his wife isn’t impressed when he’s snapped outside the premiere with an unknown woman and they both appear on the cover of Variety. The woman is young, beautiful Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who turns up as an extra on George’s next picture, ‘The German Affair’.
 

Other New Titles

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) CRITERION

BUCK (2011)

CONTRABAND (2012)

LATE BLOOMERS (2011)

WOMAN IN THE FIFTH, THE (2011)

BORGIAS, THE (2012) SEASON ONE

WALKING DEAD, THE (2012) SEASON 2

MY NIGHT WITH MARILYN (2011)

NIGHTBIRDS (1970)
LAUREL & HARDY: SWISS MISS, ETC. (1938)
CHRONICLE (2012)
FASTEST (2011)
SUNSET LIMITED, THE (2011)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011) BLU-RAY
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2011) SEASON 8

UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN (1946)
DESIRE (1936)
WOMAN OF THE LAKE (1966)
MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (2010)
SAFE HOUSE (2012)
SHAME (2011)
WEEKEND (2011)
WOMAN, THE (2011)
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK (2010)

Top 10 films featuring Queens

As one wealthy unelected dictator celebrates avoiding being deposed for more than half a century, we look back at some of the other queens in cinema history.

The African Queen

In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn star in John Huston's Technicolour comedy about an odd couple aboard a boat in times of war. Rent $4.40

The Bandit Queen

Phoolan Devi, the Goddess of Flowers, India's Bandit Queen, surrendered with her gang on her own terms, negotiating with a police force that was unable to capture her. Shekhar Kapur's film captures the cheering crowds of ten thousand, who considered her an avenging angel, the scourge of the high castes and the rich, and protector of the low caste and poor. Rent $4.40

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

A teenage girl is convinced that her home city revolves around her until her family packs up and moves to the suburbs, where she finds herself competing for attention. Rent $4.40

Kings And Queen

Nora is in her thirties and has loved four men - her son Elias, Elias's deceased father, her own father, and Ismael, a musician given to odd behavior with whom she lived seven years. Faced with her father's death, Nora seeks out Ismael to ask that he reconnect with Elias. Rent $4.40

Queen Of Spades

An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards... Thorold Dickinson's horror comedy with Edith Evans just pre-dates our glorious Queen's reign, but she might have watched it on her honeymoon. Rent $4.40

Nine Queens

Marcos observes Juan successfully pulling off a bill-changing scam on a cashier, and then getting caught as he attempts to pull the same trick on the next shift. Marcos steps in, claiming to be a policeman, and drags Juan out of the store. Once they are back on the street, Marcos reveals himself to be a fellow swindler with a game of much higher stakes in mind, and he invites Juan to be his partner in crime. Rent $4.40

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert

Australia's triumphant riposte to the accusation that it is a land without high culture. Homophobia is solved by ambitious actors dressing in provocative frocks and touring the set of 'Wake In Fright', meeting the extras and being attacked with table-tennis balls. Painful, unfunny but impossible to delete from the national psyche. Rent $4.40

Queen Margot

Young Queen Margot finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with a new lover, but finds herself imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family. Rent $4.40

Virgin Queen

Sir Walter Raleigh overcomes court intrigue to win favor with Queen Bette Davis in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World in Henry Koster's magnificent treatment made in Year Three of our supreme commander's glorious reign.

Queen Christina

Young Christina ascends to the Swedish throne at age 5. While she is queen, Sweden becomes a dominant European power at the end of the Thirty Years War. Like England's Elizabeth I, Christina (Greta Garbo) is pressured into a politically correct marriage (her cousin) but she falls in love with an emissary from Spain (John Gilbert). Rent $4.40

New Titles, June, 'Hugo', 'The Skin I Live In'

STORY OF FILM, THE: AN ODYSSEY (2011)

Mark Cousins' enormously comprehensive history of cinema was a great book and now he's turned it into a highly enjoyable series, with interviews and linking segments shot by himself on DV that visit the locations of some of cinema's greatest moments and turns a still, melancholy eye on them as they are today. His global approach gives fair space to Iranian, Indian and Japanese cinema, as much as to American and British approaches of storytelling, though his low-key, worldweary Irish accented narration may irk with some. All ten one-hour episodes are included on 5 disks.

Other new stuff this week

HUGO (2011)

SKIN I LIVE IN, THE (2011)

DEVILS, THE (1971)

ALBERT NOBBS (2011)

DARKEST HOUR, THE (2011)

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE, THE (2011)

Q (2011)

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012)

KILLING, THE: SERIES 2 (2009)

STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUMS, THE (1939)

ALAMBRISTA! (1977) CRITERION

ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959) CRITERION

ORGANIZER, THE (1963) CRITERION

EDWARD SAID: TWO FILMS (2004/2005)

STROMBOLI (1950)

UNE SI JOLIE PETITE PLAGE (1949)

TOOMELAH (2011)

WELL-DIGGER'S DAUGHTER, THE (2011)

X (2011)

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE (2011)

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE (2011) BLU-RAY

BIG LOVE SEASON 5 (2011) DISCS 1-2

BIG LOVE SEASON 5 (2011) DISCS 3-4

TRUE BLOOD SEASON 4 (2011) DISCS 1-3

TRUE BLOOD SEASON 4 (2011) DISCS 4-6

New Titles, May, 'Young Adult' 'Tinker Tailor...' 'Muppets'

Here’s a new comedy from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, the writer/director duo behind ‘Juno’. But don’t go expecting another happy, warm hug of a movie: YOUNG ADULT is much less of a charmer, trailing a juicy waft of sourness behind it. Charlize Theron gives her best performance in years; she’s properly funny (who knew?) as Mavis Gary, a train-wreck who crashes into her hometown to reclaim her high-school sweetheart, Buddy. What, Buddy’s happily married? Devoted to his new baby? Like Mavis gives a damn. She’s angry, self-obsessed, immature, stalkerish, possibly alcoholic… and we’re kinda gunning for her.


Other new stuff this week


TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)
MUPPETS, THE (2011)
FORBIDDEN LEGEND, THE: SEX & CHOPSTICKS 1&2 (2008)
WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR, THE (2010)

ON THE ECSTASY OF SKI-FLYING (2008)

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER (2003)

A SEPARATION (2011)

FRY'S PLANET WORD (2011)
COLORADO TERRITORY (1949)
GREED (1924)
WAYS OF SEEING (1972)

New Titles, May, 'We Bought A Zoo' 'War Horse' 'Iron Lady'

It’s not often we get to see Matt Damon in civvy emotions – these days he’s more likely to wear the dead-eyed stare of a man with too many deaths on his conscience. Here he is, though, with a soulful, tender performance as recently widowed dad-of-two Benjamin, anchoring another happy-sad feelgood drama from Cameron Crowe.

The film is based on British journalist Benjamin Mee’s account of buying Dartmoor Zoo, transplanted by Crowe to California, where even grief is dappled in warm sunlight and mellowed by Cat Stevens. Benjamin buys the tumbledown menagerie on a whim, to the delight of his seven-year-old daughter (Maggie Elizabeth Jones, the cutest kid actor since Drew Barrymore) and the horror of his teenage son. Among its quirky residents, on two legs and four, is zoo keeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson, too smouldering by half). Crowe, to his credit, is more concerned with insights about family than romance – and some of these are heart-on-sleeve touching if you’ve got a sweet tooth for the stickier stuff.

Other new stuff

LIFE AT THE TOP (1965)

A BIGGER SPLASH (1973)

A BIGGER SPLASH (1973) BLU-RAY

PEEP SHOW (2010) SEASON 7

HER PRIVATE HELL (1968)

HER PRIVATE HELL (1968) BLU-RAY

MARWENCOL (2010)

CLOSE TO EDEN (1991)

WE HAVE A POPE (2011)

LETTER NEVER SENT (1959) CRITERION

WAR ROOM, THE (1993)

PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD) (2012)

EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS (2011)

FACE TO FACE (2011)

TITANIC (2012) TV SERIES

WAR HORSE (2011)

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (2011)

THIS IS NOT A FILM (2011)

LUNACY (2005)

ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, THE (2011)

EYE OF THE STORM, THE (2011)

HAPPY FEET 2 (2011)

IRON LADY, THE (2011)

TOWER HEIST (2011)

MARTYRS (2008)

RESTLESS (2011)

DEEP BLUE SEA, THE (2011)

AGES OF LOVE, THE (2011)

BURNING MAN (2011)

MACHINE GUN PREACHER (2011)

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (2011)

MELANCHOLIA (2011) BLU-RAY

New Titles, April, 'Once Upon A Time In Anatolia'

The new film from Nuri Bilge Ceylan follows a group of men driving across the Turkish steppe, hunting for the body of a murder victim. The murderer is in the car. The men are cops, escorting him to the site where he has buried the remains. The film is a cop procedural, with a difference. For the director is Turkey's answer to Andrei Tarkovsky, Bela Tarr, Angelopoulos and Sokurov. The great bores of modern cinema. This is Tarantino for film studies PhD's.

Murder mysteries rarely run as deep as this long, dark night of the soul from Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, director of ‘Uzak’ and ‘Three Monkeys’. Ceylan is a master of brooding stories defined by their wry questioning of human nature and often focused on men in crisis. He has an unflinching eye for the worst in all of us and for the black comedy and absurd banalities of everyday life.

For his sixth film, Ceylan has chosen his bleakest canvas yet: a murder investigation that begins in the dark wilds of the great Anatolian outdoors and ends in the cold light of an autopsy room. In tone, it’s Ceylan’s most epic and talky film yet. But don’t be fooled – it’s also his most mysterious and meditative.

Other New Stuff This Week

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (2010)

DREAM HOUSE (2011)

PUSS IN BOOTS (2011)

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN (2011)

SHAMELESS (US) SEASON 1 (2011)

FIRST GRADER, THE (2010)

JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER (2011)

SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS, THE (2010)

IDES OF MARCH, THE (2011)

IDES OF MARCH, THE (2011) BLU-RAY

TREME SEASON 2 (2011) DISC 1-2

TREME SEASON 2 (2011) DISC 3-4

BURNT BY THE SUN (1994)

ANNA: FROM 6 TILL 18 (1994)

DARK EYES (1987)

New Titles, March, 'Vanya On 42nd St', 'Moneyball', 'My Week With Marilyn'

A great list of titles for the month of March. Best of all, it's good to see 'Vanya On 42nd Street' from Criterion. If you want to see other versions of Chekhov's play, check out the 'Anton Chekhov' set for the Olivier, Ian Holm & Anthony Hopkins versions.

We also changed our Rent By Mail policy. Now you can rent one title at a time for only $7.70 a time, and keep it for up to one month. (4 titles still costs $19.95). We also repeated our popular special so members can pay $20 and get $50 of rental credits on their account.

ATTENBERG (2010)

MONEYBALL (2011)

MYSTERIES OF LISBON (2010)

RED STATE (2011)

TRANSIT (2012)

IMMORTALS (2011)

PROJECT NIM (2011)

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (2011)

THE DESCENDANTS (2011)

HIGHER GROUND (2011)

MARGIN CALL (2011)

GILIAP (1975)

AMARCORD (1973) BLU-RAY CRITERION

RECONSTRUCTION, THE (1970)

DAYS OF '36 (1972)

TRAVELLING PLAYERS, THE (1975)

HUNTERS, THE (1977)

DEBT, THE (2010)

GUILTY OF ROMANCE (2011)

KNUCKLE (2011)

REAL STEEL (2011)

SHOCK DOCTRINE, THE (2009)

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2011)

BREAKING BAD SEASON 4

DESK SET (1957)

STATE OF THE UNION (1948)

RUM DIARY, THE (2011)

VANYA ON 42ND STREET (1994) CRITERION

PORTRAIT D'UNE ENFANT DECHUE (1970)

PROVIDENCE (1977)

STRUCTURE OF CRYSTAL, THE (1969)

WALKING DEAD, THE SEASON 1 (2010)

J. EDGAR (2011)

DAYS OF THE ECLIPSE (1988)

IL DONO (2003)

ILLUMINATION (1973)

ILLUSION TRAVELS BY STREETCAR (1954)

L'AMOUR FOU (1969)

THE MIRROR (1997)

THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (1973)

OUT 1 (1971)

THE QUINCE TREE SUN (1992)

SUMMER IN THE CITY (1970)

SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1988)

VISITOR OF A MUSEUM (1989)

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (2011)

OUR IDIOT BROTHER (2011)

PERFECT SENSE (2011)

TAKE SHELTER (2011)

DRIVE (2011) REGION 4

TT: CLOSER TO THE EDGE (2011)

HUGO (2011)

TINY FURNITURE (2010) CRITERION

THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (1964) CRITERION

LES GIRLS (1957)

GODZILLA (1954) CRITERION

POTO AND CABENGO (1980) CRITERION

ROUTINE PLEASURES (1986)

MY CRASY LIFE (1992)

WARP VISION: THE VIDEOS 1989-2004

BELLE DE JOUR (1967) Criterion

XALA (1974)

A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE (1996)

MOMENT OF TRUTH, THE (1965) CRITERION

3 BY THEO (1994, 1996, 2003) 3 X DVD SET

BEST MAN, THE (1964)

DROLE DE DRAME (1937)

TAKEN (2008)

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)

BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (2010)

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 1 (2011)

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 1 (2011) BLU-RAY

MILDRED PIERCE (2011)

THE WHISTLEBLOWER (2010)

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH (2009)

ANOTHER EARTH

ANONYMOUS (2011)

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2: FULL SEQUENCE (2011)

IN TIME (2011)

BELLFLOWER (2011)

PINA (2011) BLU-RAY

ANOTHER EARTH (2011) BLU-RAY