The Usual Suspects

 

release date: 6th january 2024

Amidst the wave of neo-noir thrillers that swept American cinema in the 1990s, few films made as much impact as The Usual Suspects, which revolutionised the genre, won two Academy Awards® and is still regarded as one of the greatest crime films ever made. After a brutal massacre on a cargo ship off the coast of Los Angeles leaves 27 men dead, Special Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) interrogates one of the only two survivors, small-time con artist Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). During the interview, Kint tells Kujan of how he was recruited by the fearsome crime lord Keyser Söze to commit a series of daring heists with four other crooked misfits: Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Mike McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro) and Todd Hockey (Kevin Pollak). But as Kint’s account of the events leading up to the massacre becomes more convoluted, Kujan becomes increasingly sceptical and determined to discover the identity of the elusive Keyser Söze.

 

• 4K restoration from the original negative approved by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel 

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation

• Original lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Audio commentary with director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie

• Audio commentary with editor and composer John Ottman 

• The Devil in the Details, an archival interview with Newton Thomas Sigel 

• Archival interview with John Ottman 

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket 

• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Barry Forshaw 

• Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket

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Inglourious basterds

 

release date: 13th january 2024

One of the most celebrated filmmakers of our time harnesses the power of cinema itself to rewrite history in this electrifying WWII thriller. Brim-filled with shocking violence, thrilling action and excruciating suspense, Inglourious Basterds was a box office smash around the world garnering eight Academy Award™ (2009) nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, with Christoph Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor for his star-making turn as the chilling SS Col. Hans Landa. Witness the war as it might have been in stunning 4K Ultra HD, packed with explosive extras! 

 

• Double-sided fold-out poster

• Replica Nation’s Pride Premiere programme booklet  

• La Louisianne beermat  

• 3 postcard sized double-sided art cards

• Strudel recipe card 

• Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Dare Creative 

• Limited edition ‘Operation Kino’ packaging with new art by Dare Creative 

• 60-page ‘Films & Filmmakers’ collector’s book with writing by film critics Dennis Cozzalio and Bill Ryan  

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Jo Jo Dancer: Your Life Is Calling

 

release date: 27th january 2024

One of the greatest comedians of all time, Richard Pryor gets raw and real in this brutally funny and lacerating self-portrait. Following the notorious incident in which he caught on fire while high on cocaine, nearly losing his life, Pryor exorcised his inner demons by writing, producing, directing, and starring in this dizzying hall-of-mirrors biopic and backstage drama, which traces a young comedian’s rise to fame, from his childhood growing up in a brothel to the colorful experiences that shaped his edgy comic voice to the addiction struggles that brought him to the brink of death. As he did in his legendary stand-up sets, here Pryor fearlessly turns his soul inside out, revealing the deep vulnerability that made his art so compelling.

 

• New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New interview on the film with filmmaker Robert Townsend

• Interview with director Richard Pryor from a 1985 episode of The Cavett Show

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An appreciation by critic Hilton Als

• New cover by Matt Small

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Weak Spot

 

release date: 27th january 2024

Ugo Tognazzi (La grande bouffe) is an innocent playboy holiday rep in Greece who is picked up by two secret agents (Michel Piccoli, Le Mépris and Mario Adorf, The Italian Connection). Suspected of being part of an underground resistance, he is to be transported by the agents to Athens where he will be interrogated by superior officers. Their journey is the start of a cat-and-mouse game that beautifully plays on Tognazzi’s screen persona with the thrilling tension of Costa-Gavras’ Z. Newly restored in 4K by Studio Canal, Peter Fleischmann’s paranoid thriller is made available on Blu-ray for the first time.  

 

• New 4K restoration from the original negative by Studio Canal

• Uncompressed mono PCM audio

• Audio commentary by critic Travis Woods (2024)

• Archival TV interview with Michel Piccoli discussing Weak Spot (1975, 5 mins)

• Soundtrack expert Lovely Jon discusses the Ennio Morricone score (2024, 26 mins)

• Newly improved English subtitle translation

• Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters

• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Kat Ellinger. Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

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Love and Crime

 

release date: 20th january 2024

Japan’s legendary “King of Cult” Teruo Ishii (Horrors of Malformed Men, Shogun’s Joy of Torture) delivers four dramatized tales of real-life crimes of passion involving women across the ages in this grotesque anthology featuring the stories of the “Hotel Nihonkaku Murders”, the notorious “poison wife” and last woman in Japan to be executed by beheading, Oden Takahashi, the brutal serial killer Yoshio Kodaira and the story of Sada Abe, the infamous castratice featured in Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses. 88 Films is proud to present this unflinching look at female pathology drawn from Japan’s criminal casebooks for the very first time outside Japan.

 

• Bonus Footage

• Commentary: Jasper Sharp and Amber T.

• Image Gallery

• Introduction by Mark Schilling

• Original and newly commissioned artwork by Ilan Sheady

• Trailers

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Mikey and Nicky

 

release date: 13th january 2024

Elaine May crafted a gangster film like no other in the nocturnal odyssey Mikey and Nicky, capitalizing on the chemistry between frequent collaborators John Cassavetes and Peter Falk by casting them together as small-time mobsters whose lifelong relationship has turned sour. Set over the course of one night, this restless drama finds Nicky (Cassavetes) holed up in a hotel after the boss he stole money from puts a hit out on him. Terrified, he calls on Mikey (Falk), the one person he thinks can save him. Scripted to match the live-wire energy of its stars – alongside supporting players Ned Beatty, Joyce Van Patten, and Carol Grace – and inspired by real-life characters from May’s own childhood, this unbridled portrait of male friendship turned tragic is an unsung masterpiece of American cinema.

 

• Bonus Footage

• Interviews: Peter Falk (actor), Richard Brody (critic), Carrie Rickey (critic), Julian Schlossberg (distributor), Joyce Van Patten (actor)

• Making of Documentary

• Essay by Nathan Rabin (critic)

• New cover by Connor Willumsen

• Trailers

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Il Posto/I Fidanzati

 

release date: 27th january 2024

Domenico is thrust into the big city by his family to find a job for life. He’s up for an exam to secure a post along with many hopefuls. There he meets Antonietta (played by Olmi’s then wife Loredana Detto) and the two strike up a friendship and experience the world of work for the first time together. Stunningly shot on the streets of Milan, Ermanno Olmi’s (The Tree of Wooden Clogs) touching and often funny portrait of modern life and work won numerous awards on release and is recognised as a classic of world cinema. Giovanni works in a manufacturing plant and takes a promotion that will send him to Sicily. His transfer causes him to leave his fiancee, Liliana, his father and friends behind. Once in Sicily he begins to wonder if he made the right choice. Stunningly shot, I fidanazati channels the industrial isolation of Antonioni with a dreamy and heartfelt lyricism.

 

• Booklet

• Bonus Footage

• Interviews: Lamberto Caimi (cinematographer), Richard Dyer (author), Ehsan Khoshbakht (programmer)

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

• Appreciation by Maurizio Zaccaro (filmmaker)

• Trailers

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The Cell

 

release date: 20th january 2024

Sublime, grotesque and visually ravishing, Tarsem Singh’s debut feature delivers on the extraordinary artistry of his work in music video and commercials as it takes the audience on a journey through the bizarre worlds inside the mind of a killer. When serial murderer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma with his latest victim still trapped in an unknown location and waiting to die, the FBI turn to psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) for help. Using an experimental technology she enters the dark dreamscape of Stargher’s mind, attempting to learn his secrets before it’s too late. But his unconscious is a twisted nightmare, a labyrinth that threatens to trap her inside his terrifying world forever. To save a life, she’ll have to risk her own. 

 

• Brand new 4K restorations of both the 107-minute Theatrical Cut and the 109-minute Director’s Cut by Arrow Films, approved by director Tarsem Singh 

• Includes bonus disc containing a previously unseen version of the film with alternate aspect ratio and alternate grading created by director of photography Paul Laufer 

• Original lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio 

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing 

• Illustrated collector’s book containing new writing on the film by critics Heather Drain, Marc Edward Heuck, Josh Hurtado, and Virat Nehru 

• Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Savieri 

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The Mother and the Whore

 

release date: 20th january 2024

After the French New Wave, the sexual revolution, and the upheavals of May 1968 came the near religiously revered magnum opus by Jean Eustache. In his long-unavailable body of work, ranging from documentaries about his native village to closely autobiographical narrative films, Eustache pioneered a forthright and fearless brand of realism. The pinnacle of this innovative style, The Mother and the Whore follows Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Leaud), a Parisian pseudo-intellectual who lives with his tempestuous girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette Lafont), even as he begins a dalliance with the sexually liberated Veronika (Francoise Lebrun), leading the three into an emotionally turbulent love triangle. Through daringly sustained long takes and confessional dialogue, Eustache captures a generation navigating the disillusionment of the 1970s, and in the process achieves an intimacy so deep it cuts.

 

• Interview: Françoise Lebrun (actor)

• Conversation with Jean-Pierre Gorin (filmmaker) and Rachel Kushner (writer)

• Program on the film’s restoration

• Segment from the French television series Pour le cinéma featuring: Françoise Lebrun, Jean Eustache (director), Bernadette Lafont (actor), Jean-Pierre Léaud (actor)

• Essay by Lucy Sante (critic)

• Introduction to the film by Jean Eustache

• New cover by Eric Skillman

• Trailers

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Rouge

 

release date: 20th january 2024

The ghost of 1930’s nightclub hostess Fleur (Anita Mui) appears in a modern day Hong Kong newspaper office to place an ad looking for her long-lost lover. Fifty years before, Fleur had made a suicide pact with Chan (Leslie Cheung), the heir to a chain of chemists, only to find herself arriving in the afterlife alone. She tells her story to a newspaper employee (Alex Man) and his girlfriend (Emily Chu) who are soon captivated by the tale. This film was winner of an unprecedented seven Hong Kong Film Awards in 1989.

 

• Bonus Footage

• Image Gallery

• Interviews:

• Stanley Kwan (director)

• Reversible sleeve featuring:

• Brand-new artwork by Yu-Ming Huang

• Original Hong Kong poster artwork

• Trailers

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