The Last Hurrah: Seminal Physical Media Box Sets – Indicator’s MARLENE DIETRICH 6 film Boxset!

Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] [2019]

 

 

I’ve had this boxset for a year or so, but am just now finishing all the films and all the special features. I really had no interest in Marlene Dietrich or Joseph Von Sternberg, or this boxset.

Just as an art object, I thought it was one of the most beautiful looking boxsets I had seen, but I had a hard time spending money on 6 romance films, that I likely wasn’t going to like, based just on the boxart.

So I did not buy it when it first came out, or for the first few sales over the following year. What got me to finally decide to purchase was I picked up a movie from Joseph Von Sternberg, not starring Dietrich, called THE LAST COMMAND.

And I was BLOWN AWAY.

This was from frame one, a master Director, his composition of shots, use of camera movements, beauty of the frame. I felt watching that film, the way I felt discovering Welles’ CITIZEN KANE or David Lean’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS or The Hugh’s Brothers MENACE 2 SOCIETY, it made me LOVE cinema.

Each time. Each film.

They made me a lover of cinema, and a devotee of that director.

So following up on THE LAST COMMAND, Indicator’s MARLENE DIETRICH & JOSEPH VON STERNBERG Boxset became a must buy.

Now having lived with this Boxset for over a year, seen the films and the special features, and I can confidently say it is one of my favorite purchases of the last couple of years. And the films, are not what I thought. They are about romance yes, but they are about more… they are about drama, and war and intrigue and loss and hope and sacrifice.

Small Melodramas, of the pangs of love, told against the backdrop of events great and small. But more the film is a showcase of a passionate union between a star a director and a costume designer, and together they created glamour, in the original definition of the word, a sorcery– a construct of beauty, for an age that needed it.

Together they moved the needle, they defined iconic.

This Boxset from Indicator, likewise moves the needle now, and is iconic and a must own.

Click the images for more info, or to pick up a boxset of your own. Criterion has a region A boxset of its own, the content with the exception of some of the special features is largely the same. The difference is the quality of the box part of the boxset.

 

The Criterion release sports boring, uninspired stock photo with not especially interesting typography for the box art, and a really cheap, thin cardboard box, Whereas Indicator commissions lavish, stunning painted artwork for their boxset, and the quality of the box is a durable, thick solid, not easily dented or warped box.

One is a work of art made to endure and be worthy container for the films within, one is not.

But if you just want to watch the films, and are not concerned with quality of the box part or the boxet, or want the features that are not on the Indicator set, than by all means pick up the Criterion set as well.

However if you can only get one, Indicator is the one to get.

For another, and more comprehensive view on the boxset check out SOLITARY RONIN”S simply essential coverage at the link below. If you are not subscribed to SOLITARY RONIN you are missing out on what I genuinely consider, one of the most informed and most informing channels on film you can find not just on Youtube, but anywhere. He and a handful of other channels are a film-school in a box. So definitely do yourselves a favor, subscribe to him and check him out. 

Hope you found this post of interest, and if you did please like, subscribe and email/comment.

Till next time… be well.

 

“But I think it’s safe to say the six films they (Director Joseph Von Sternberg, Star Malene Dietrich and Paramount’s Lead Costume Designer Travis Banton) made together during this five year period produced some of the most remarkable images, most stunning costumes and iconic moments of cinema history.”–Nathalie Morris in the Sarah Appleton helmed and Samm Dunn and John Morrissey produced 2019 Indicator Special Feature, STYLING THE STARS (can be found on the Indicator DEVIL IS A WOMAN Blu-ray, part of the Marlene Boxset)

Own a scarce Golden Age SHADOW Comic Book (CGC GRADED) for only $1???? Oct 9th Auction!!!

 

A hard book to pick up in ANY grade. Pick up a graded issue for a steal!!! Click on image above!

Kickstarter Discovery of the Day!!!! & Jim Rugg on John Siuntres Podcast!

 

Click here for the Kickstarter!!

An entire Blacklight Comic Book?? Count me in!!!!

Plus Jim Rugg did the excellent AFRODISIAC. (And if you like that try out the excellent BLACK DYNAMITE by Brian Ash. However if looking for something that is not a parody, but just a straightforward bit of 70s inspired action and grittiness, I highly recommend the brilliant WORLD OF HURT : THRILL SEEKERS by Jay Potts.)

The Three Greatest Werewolf Films of All Time!

The Three Greatest Werewolf Films of All Time all came out the same year, 1981. Talk about the zeitgeist in action.

The films are:

 

THE HOWLING (1981) – Don’t hold the awful sequels against this original, the original is justifiably lauded for a reason.  Like AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, this was a movie made by kids, who believed there were still worlds to conquer. A talented young Joe Dante as director, a brilliant young John Sayles as Screenwriter, a gifted 19 year old Rob Boteen, coming off of assisting Rick Baker, creating one of the greatest special effect, transformation sequences in the history of film… and in front the camera a legendary cast of character and veteran actors, led by Dee Wallace’s brilliant performance; all come together to create one of the most beloved and brilliant films of its kind, or any kind.

 

AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) – No one remembers or continually goes back to the ‘serious’ A-films of 1981, but this little thought of and hard fought and continually enjoyable B-picture, by a young maverick director John Landis and young makeup/special effects artist Rick Baker, remains now almost 40years later, the stuff that careers and legends are made of. An academy award for its makeup effects, it is forever the standard by which all such films are judged.

 

WOLFEN (1981) – Is the oft overlooked 3rd film , that makes up the holy trinity of great werewolf films released in 1981. it lacks the transformation and special effects that immortalize THE HOWLING and AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and perhaps that accounts for its under the radar status.

Also it is not a showy, flashy horror film, it is something a lot darker and more dire. WOLFEN is a slow, brooding, unnerving, and genuinely frightening study and indictment, not so much of monsters… as of men. It is a brilliant film, the first and only dramatic feature film by director Michael Wadleigh, whose only other credits included documentaries. With a director that was nearly 40, this was (unlike HOWLING and AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON) not a film done by talented, optimistic kids; instead there is a more mature, pensive, jaundiced eye at work here.

While a disappointment in the box office, largely because it was a more thoughtful film than the advertising promised, this film is a masterpiece. It ended Wadleigh’s career before it had a chance to grow, and that is a shame. This first film leaves us to only wonder, what subsequent dramatic films from him, could have been.

WOLFEN has so many strengths. Albert Finney delivers one of his great performances, buoyed by other talented actors… Gregory Hines, Edward Olmos, the script is captivating, the James Horner score haunting, and it is a truly frightening film, in ways that has nothing to do with what you see. Of the three great Werewolf films, it is the one that I think has the most to say. It is just a phenomenal, unjustly forgotten film. And if you do pick up the film via Bluray or streaming, I also STRONGLY urge you to pick up the Whitley Strieber audio-book performed by the late, great Roddy McDowall. That is equally a masterpiece.

 

Well hope you found that little look at the three greatest Werewolf films, enjoyable and informative. If you did, please subscribe, and patronize the links below. Your purchases help earn a few needed pennies for this blog, to keep the proverbial doors open. Much appreciated!

 

Till next time… be well!

WOLFEN Blu-Ray

I hope one of the Blu-Ray labels finally releases a worthy, feature filled director’s commentary. This movie deserves it.

WOLFEN Audio Book performed by Roddy McDowell

AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

THE HOWLING

and

Stuck at home Item of the Day!

Currently Listening To – SICARIO and THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING by Johann Johannsson

I am currently listening to the score of the late, great, ‘left us way too soon’ Johann Johannsson.

I absolutely adore the compulsive and propulsive score to SICARIO, and currently listening to his completely different but completely as mesmerizing score for THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

What amazes about his score is it does not tread water, it does not overstay its welcome, or pad out the running time with filler. The score gets in, delivers its moments to you, and gets out.

Not a wasted chord, which is incredibly rare. These days a lot of scores feel like they are trying to make a minimum length, they feel padded. Not so with SICARIO or what I’m hearing on THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. There does not feel to be an extraneous or tired chord,

His style in its surety, and experimentation and power, is reminiscent of the film scores of Quincy Jones at his best, most notably Quincy Jones phenomenal score for his ground breaking IN COLD THE BLOOD, which hands down is one of the greatest scores ever made. And why the EFF almost 60 years later that score is not available on CD, (akin to the way the best films of Ousmane Sembene, CAMP DE THIAROYE etc, are not availanle on DVD or Blu-Ray – I’m looking at you ARROW and CRITERION) is not an oversight, that is a crime.

 

Click on the image to pick up the album, the only way to hear Quincy Jones seminal work. It is a MUST OWN. 

 

But getting back to the scores of Johann Johannsson, which thankfully are available on CD, if you don’t own his CDs, forget just streaming compressed MP3s, buy a quality $50 portable player, get some decent headphones, enjoy the music as close to the way the artist intended as possible.

Use the links below… and put aside witch hunts and social media bs posing as law, and politicians using fear to further grab power and disenfranchise the masses.

Put aside social media weaponized to remove and demonize those who actually stood up to oligarchs, and fought for you the people.

You, the people, who are so easily stampeded by hashtags and twitter and face-book into eating your own (you butcher the dogs that defend the flock…for being dogs, unaware that they were the only things that kept the wolves at bay)…

 

Let’s put all that on the back-burner for now, and embrace music, that may just help us…think better, in a world where so few of us think at all.

Enjoy these marvels,  from a marvel of a composer. Use Spotify or Amazon Music to try before you buy, then Click on the images to order it in still the best format… CD.

 

 

 

Come back for future installments where we cover the below albums, and much more. And till then subscribe, comment, email, like, and support the links.

It all helps to keep this blog going, and a voice that is perhaps a little different…. out there.

 

Thanks in advance for your support!

 

Today’s Deal of the Day – Please click and Support!!!

 

Today’s 2nd Deal of the Day – Please click and Support!!!

 

 

• Black Panther 2018- I hate the fact they only offer the compressed MP3 version on CD, and not a full , wave, uncompressed CD of Goransson’s award winning music. The closest they offer is an LP, and I am not an LP fan, LP does not offer the dynamic range of CD and is a degradation prone medium. I’ll get it for now, but I want a full uncompressed CD! Just for longevity sake. More on this in an upcoming installment.

• The Crow

1994

• Love Jones

1997

• The Sheltering Sky

1990

• Apocalypse Now

1979

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

1968

• The Harder They Come

1972

• Super Fly

1972

Under The Skin
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Score by Mica Levi

 

Artbook of the Day : REBUS by James Jean! – One of 15 Best Artbooks of All Time?!!!

If my house, god forbid, was being evacuated, and after family, pets and other essentials, they told me “here is a box you have room to bring 15 of your artbooks” ; REBUS by James Jean, would be one of those books.

Now to clarify, I have a lot of artbooks, and if I do say so myself I only own what I consider GREAT and ESSENTIAL artbooks, so to narrow that down to 15… is difficult.

But here for your list reading pleasure, is one of those 15!

REBUS by James Jean

I actually love the design and construction of this book, more than the actual content. Don’t get me wrong, the artwork is great, very beautiful, and I like it quite a bit, but I do not love it. It is not quite my style, but the stunning construction of the book, with the red gilded pages, makes it such an art object in and of itself. It is the only James Jean book I own, and it is because of the beatiful construction and design of the book itself.

 

You can get your copy of REBUS here!