Film Buff Friday: Cruising

In keeping with Pride Month I present to you a divisive film from the annals of the history of queer cinema, Cruising. No matter what your take on it, it is a culturally relevant film...

A crime thriller set against the backdrop of the 1970s leather scene, Cruising is a polarizing film with a complicated legacy. When it came out in 1980, mainstream audiences and gay rights activists alike were scandalized—the former due to the graphic sexuality and the latter on the grounds that it portrayed the LGBTQ community in a bad light. (By contrast, director William Friedkin alleges that much of New York’s leather/S&M community actively supported the film and participated en masse as extras.) In recent years, though, the film—which features Al Pacino as a New York cop who goes undercover in the city’s S&M scene to investigate a serial killer targeting gay men—has been reevaluated and is now considered by many as a classic. Love it or hate it, Cruising is a touchstone of queer cinema history.

Cruising on Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(film)  

"Cruising"

The controversial thriller hits Blu-ray August 20th...!

Academy Award-winner William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) directs Al Pacino as an undercover cop pitched into New York's seedy underbelly in Cruising - available for the first time on Blu-ray in a brand new director-approved transfer. New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who is preying on the patrons of the city's underground bars. Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) tasks young rookie Steve Burns (Pacino) with infiltrating the S&M subculture to try and lure the killer out of the shadows - but as he immerses himself deeper and deeper into the underworld, Steve risks losing his own identity in the process. Taking the premise and title from reporter Gerald Walker's novel, Cruising was the subject of great controversy at the time of its release and remains a challenging and remarkable movie to this day, with Pacino's haunted lead performance as its magnetic centerpiece.

Bonus Materials

• Brand new restoration from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, supervised and approved by writer-director William Friedkin
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Newly remastered 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio supervised by William Friedkin
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Archival audio commentary by William Friedkin
• The History of Cruising – archival featurette looking at the film’s origins and production
• Exorcizing Cruising – archival featurette looking at the controversy surrounding the film and its enduring legacy
• Original Theatrical Trailer

Order Here - https://mvdb2b.com/b2b/s/AV219