Gamera: The Complete Collection

Gamera: The Complete Collection 

Limited Edition Blu-ray Boxset 

coming 8/18 (North America) and 8/17 (UK)

For the first time ever worldwide, all twelve tales of the adventures of everyone's favorite titanic terrapin are collected together in one deluxe Blu-ray boxset

PRE-ORDER HERE 

This limited edition collectors' set traces the decades-long evolution of Gamera, from the "friend of all children" in his more light-hearted earlier films, to the Guardian of the Universe in the groundbreaking 1990s reboot series, often hailed as three of the best kaiju films ever made.

COLLECTOR'S EDITION BOX SET CONTENTS

• Limited collectors' edition packaging, housed in a large-format rigid box, fully illustrated by Matt Frank
• Casebound, fully-illustrated disc book containing eight Blu-ray discs
• High Definition (1080p) versions of all twelve films, with lossless original Japanese audio and a complete collection of English dub tracks, including classic American International dubs on the Showa-era films remastered from original MGM elements
• Hardback 130-page comic book including a full-colour reprint of the four-issue Gamera comic series originally released by Dark Horse Comics in 1996, and the first-ever English-language printing of the prequel comic The Last Hope by Matt Frank and Joshua Bugosh
• Perfect-bound 80-page book including a new retrospective on the series by Patrick Macias, an archive interview with Noriaki Yuasa by David Milner, kaiju X-ray illustrations by Jolyon Yates, Fangoria set reports on the Heisei trilogy by Norman England, and a viewers' guide to the English-dubbed versions of the films
• Double-sided four-panel poster of "Gamera's Map of Japan" in both Japanese and English
• Collectors' artcards for each film, featuring new artwork by Matt Frank  

Flamin' Groovies

FLAMIN' GROOVIES To Reissue

"Now" and "Jumpin' In the Night" This Summer

The band that played a major role in the evolution of power pop and are considered a forerunner of punk rock readies two of their most popular albums

 This summer they will reissue two classic albums: "Now" on July 10th and "Jumpin' In the Night" on August 7th.

NOW (CD, July 10th)

While it took a long and torturous five years for the Flamin' Groovies to find their way back to an American record deal with Shake Some Action, a year and a half later the band had a follow-up ready, and while 1978's Flamin' Groovies Now isn't quite as cohesive as the album that preceded it, in many respects the band sounds at once tighter and more relaxed, with some time on the road firming up the rhythm section while giving the songs a bit more room to swing (which wasn't one of the strong suits of the British Invasion bands that provided their aural template). The band lost guitarist James Ferrell during the post-Shake Some Action tour, but former Charlatans picker Mike Wilhelm proved to be a more than simpatico replacement on these sessions, and while leader Cyril Jordan didn't come up with another new song as transcendent as "Shake Some Action," "All I Wanted" comes pretty close. But it's significant that most of the songs on Flamin' Groovies Now are covers, and while all of them are played with love, enthusiasm, and the right period flair (especially the Beatles' "There's a Place," Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Ups and Downs," and "Move It," an early U.K. hit for Cliff Richard), they give the album a feeling of being padded, and just because covering the Rolling Stones rarity "Blue Turns to Grey" was a good idea didn't mean the Flamin' Groovies had any business tackling "Paint It Black." All in all, Flamin' Groovies Now is a terrific-sounding record that captures a fine band when it was in great form, but it also makes clear that the gremlins that often dogged the Groovies in the studio (namely their inability to make a 100 percent satisfying album) hadn't gone away.

JUMPIN' IN THE NIGHT (CD, August 7th)

The third and last of the Flamin' Groovies late-'70s albums for Sire, Jumpin' in the Night storms out of the gate with the title song, a top-shelf rocker that brings the muscle of the Flamingo-era lineup of the Groovies to the more style-conscious British Invasion sonics of Cyril Jordan's version. Though Jumpin' in the Night never rocks that hard or that well again, it does sound decidedly tighter and tougher than 1978's Flamin' Groovies Now, and guitarist Mike Wilhelm, a new addition to the Now lineup, is much better integrated into their wall of guitars, with the Groovies sounding more solid than they did a year before. But while Jumpin' in the Night finds the Flamin' Groovies sounding better than ever, the material unfortunately lets them down. It's no wonder why the Flamin' Groovies loved the Byrds -- both were American bands who fell in love with the sounds of British rock and crafted their own variation on the style -- but three Byrds covers on this album is about two too many (especially given how clunky David Wright's drumming sounds on "5D"), and though having the Groovies tackle "Absolutely Sweet Marie" and "Please Please Me" sounds good on paper, the audible results are a bit underwhelming. (On the other hand, their cover of "Werewolves of London" is better than anyone had a right to expect.) The production and engineering by Roger Bechirian is crisp and flattering to the guitars, but lacks the resonance of Dave Edmunds' more layered approach on Shake Some Action and Now. A great band, the Flamin' Groovies often seemed to have a hard time reconciling their best qualities with the record-making process, and Jumpin' in the Night is probably the best example of this dilemma, though it has more than enough worthwhile moments to compensate. 

Sunday Sinema: The Woman

Not a creature was stirring except "The Woman"

Almost a decade after Lucky McKee burst upon the indie horror scene and became a 'Master of Horror' in the making thanks to his directorial debut May, he teamed up with legendary cult author Jack Ketchum for his most shocking and brutal film to date: The Woman, an instant cause célèbre on its Sundance premiere. The Woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, The Walking Dead) is the last surviving member of a deadly clan of feral cannibals that has roamed the American wilderness for decades. When successful country lawyer Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers, Room) stumbles upon her whilst hunting in the woods, he decides to capture and "civilize" her with the help of his seemingly perfect all-American family, including his wife Belle (Angela Bettis, May) and daughter Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter, Darling). The Cleeks will soon learn, however, that hell hath no fury like The Woman scorned... Experience McKee and Ketchum's uncompromisingly twisted vision of the dark side of the American family in a definitive new edition, including a 4K remaster and brand new bonus features.

Bonus Materials

• New 4K restoration supervised and approved by Lucky McKee
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New commentary with director Lucky McKee, editor Zach Passero, sound designer Andrew Smetek and composer Sean Spillane
• New commentary by star Pollyanna McIntosh
• New commentary by critic Scott Weinberg
• Archive commentary with director Lucky McKee
• Dad on the Wall, a brand new 75-minute fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes documentary filmed by the director's father Mike McKee
• Being Peggy Cleek, a newly filmed interview with star Lauren Ashley Carter
• Malam Domesticam, an archive making-of featurette
• Meet The Makers, a short featurette on the making of the film
• Deleted Scenes
• Mi Burro, a short film by editor Zach Passero
• “Distracted” music video by Sean Spillane
• Frightfest Total Film Panel Discussion, a 2011 onstage chat about the future of American indie horror at the popular horror film festival, featuring Lucky McKee, Andrew van den Houten, Larry Fessenden, Adam Green, Joe Lynch and Ti West
• Theatrical trailers
• Image galleries
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Blyth, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Kevin KovelantsudY

Order Here: https://mvdb2b.com/b2b/s/AV273

Saturday Sinema: Goldstone

GOLDSTONE

From the director of Mystery Road, film noir meets  Great American Western in the Outback Available on September 11th via Lightyear Entertainment  "Riveting. Goldstone is the next great Western. You don't wanna miss this one." - The Daily Beast And now for something totally different head.... Lightyear Entertainment presents the Australian production Goldstone, a noir thriller set in the Outback. The film was written, directed, shot, edited and composed by Ivan Sen. Indigenous Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen, Mystery Road) arrives in the frontier town of Goldstone on a missing persons inquiry. What seems like a simple investigation opens a web of crime, corruption, trampling of indigenous people's land rights, and human trafficking. Jay must pull his life together and bury his differences with young local cop Josh (Alex Russell, SWAT), so together they can bring justice to Goldstone.  Also starring 2-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook) as the corrupt mayor, David Wenham (Lord of the Rings) as the greedy mine director, David Gulpilil (Crocodile Dundee) as the indigenous man who can't be bought, and Cheng Pei-Pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as the unscrupulous madam. Goldstone was nominated for five Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Production Design.   Pre-order: https://mvdshop.com/search?q=goldstone  Trailer: https://vimeo.com/253173915  Website: http://www.goldstonefilm.com

Anna Nicole Smith "American Myth"

Guitar Hero
Margaret Cho
Photo: Dusti Cunningham

Today I chatted with Margaret Cho about her CD American Myth which will drop on April 29th, yes you will have to wait another week before you get to eavesdrop on the fun we had, so there!

Margaret released the video for the song Anna Nicole from the upcoming album this week. Cho appeared on Smith's E! series, The Anna Nicole Show, and was friends with the starlet, whom she's praised in the past — as well as on this song — for changing the perception of bigger women in the beauty industry. Here is what she has to say about the late bombshell:

"American Myth is a lyric from the song, 'Anna Nicole,' about the American myth that certain people are too beautiful for this world," Cho told A Plus. "They die young because they are too good for it. That is Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, the 27 Club — this is the same with Anna Nicole. I knew her and her death struck me very hard, and still does."

Jump down to the video.

                                                                      Anna Nicole

In Margaret We Trust at: 

http://margaretcho.com/

Got Chicken Wings? "The Great Chicken Wing Hunt"

When I saw this I laughed so hard the glass of water I was drinking came out my nose. Chicken Wing enthusiasts, uh, I like chicken wings, but I'm just sayin'...

Perhaps A&E can do a new series called "Wing-Hunters" ?

The brand new documentary and film festival favorite The Great Chicken Wing Hunt will be released on January 14, 2014 in select theaters and, in partnership with digital entertainment curator FilmBuff, across all leading Video On Demand

platforms.

Celebrating the wing's rise from lowly bar food from Western New York to one of America's (and the world's) most popular foods, the documentary directed by Matt Reynolds follows a group of self-proclaimed wing enthusiasts on a journey through America's 'Wing Belt' as they attempt to find the world's best Buffalo wing. Over the course of their journey the 'Wing-Hunters' stop at 72 bars and restaurants, travel 2,627 miles and try 270 types of wings. After 16 days on the road, and a contentious two-day deliberation, the judges finally settle on one winner, declared the greatest of all.

"The film celebrates the Buffalo wing as a uniquely American creation," Reynolds said, noting that 2014 will mark the 50th anniversary of its invention. "Experts in Wing Hunt make the case that the Buffalo wing may in fact be the first purely American food to have conquered the globe (hot dogs, hamburgers, etc, having roots abroad)."

Wing Hunt comes out just two weeks ahead of the Super Bowl, when Americans will eat more than 1.2 billion chicken wings.

In addition to Reynolds, the film's colorful cast of characters includes fellow judges Ben Beavers, a semi-pro eater, Ron Wieszczyk, an amateur sauce-maker, and Ric Kealoha, a Hawaiian chef based in Prague, as well as a befuddled Slovak film crew and Reynolds ever patient girlfriend Lucie.

Along the trip, the 'Wing-Hunters' visit Anchor Bar, in Buffalo, NY, where the hot wing was invented 50 years ago on March 4, 1964, and where the Hunters meet Dom Zanghi, the last living witness to the events of that fateful night that changed culinary history forever. The Great Chicken Wing Hunt marks the first time this story has been told on film.

The film is already available for pre-order on iTunes: http://bit.ly/18zyIYy

Grab yourself some wings on Video On Demand platforms in the U.S. on January 14, 2014, including Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Xbox Video, Sony Playstation, Cinemanow and Vudu.

Wing Hunt was an audience favorite at dozens of festivals in 2013, including Woodstock, STARZ Denver and Austin, winning awards at Indie Spirit, Memphis, Big Apple and Williamsburg. 

Soylent Green is Chicken Wings at: http://chickenwinghunt.com/