Kino Lorber has unveiled some of the details of their February and March 2021 Blu-Ray and DVD releases from their Kino Lorber, Kino Classics, Cohen Media Group, Greenwich Entertainment, Scorpion Releasing, Code Red, Virgil Films and Good Deed Entertainment imprints. Get all the details on this incredibly packed lineup below:
Street Date: 2/2/21
Synopsis: Best known for his avant-garde meta documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, William Greaves (1926–2014) was also the director of over 100 documentary films, the majority focused on African American history, politics, and culture. Nationtime is a report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Betty Shabazz, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, Isaac Hayes, Richard Roundtree and H. Carl McCall. Narrated by Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, the film was considered too militant for television broadcast at the time and has since circulated only in an edited 58-minute version. This new 4K restoration from IndieCollect, with funding from Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, returns the film to its original 80-minute length and visual quality.
Bonus Features: Booklet with essay by American history scholar and author Leonard Moore, PhD, and note on the restoration by Sandra Schulberg | Audio commentary by David Greaves | Interview with Louise Graves | Interview with David Graves | Trailer
THE GREAT ALLIGATOR AKA IL FIUME DEL GRANDE CAIMANO
Street Date: 2/2/21
Synopsis: Meaner than Jaws… More bloodthirsty than Piranha… Here comes The Great Alligator, a blood-soaked tale of jungle greed and just desserts from cult director Sergio Martino (Torso). Barbara Bach (The Unseen, The Spy Who Loved Me) and Claudio Cassinelli (Screamers, Slave of the Cannibal God, Hands of Steel) head into the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia where construction for an exclusive resort is treading onto territory that the Kuma natives hold sacred… and their alligator god Kroona takes personally. Paradise turns into an unrelenting nightmare in this outrageous giant creature feast also starring Mel Ferrer (The Visitor, Eaten Alive), Richard Johnson (The Haunting, Beyond the Door), Bobby Rhodes (Demons, Demons 2), Romano Puppo (After the Fall of New York, Street Law) and child actress Silvia Collatina (Murderock), with a screenplay co-written by the legendary Ernesto Gastaldi (All the Colors of the Dark, The Grand Duel) and a pounding score by the great Stelvio Cipriani (Bay of Blood, Tentacles). Find out who lives and who dies in this essential ‘70s shocker, now remastered from the original negative for the first time in HD!
Bonus Features: 2016 HD Master | Interview with Underwater Camera Operator Gianlorenzo Battaglia | Round Table Discussion with SFX Paolo Ricci, Cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando and Art Director Massimo Antonello Geleng | Interview with Camera Operator Claudio Morabito | In the Crocodiles Nest: Interview with Director Sergio Martino and Art Director Massimo Antonello Geleng | Original Trailer | Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
Street Date: 2/2/21 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Survival Skills is a wildly creative black comedy that imitates the style of a lost police training video from the 1980s. The Narrator (Stacy Keach, Nebraska) introduces us to Jim (Vayu O’Donnell), the perfect policeman in a perfect relationship in a perfect community, who gets in over his head when he tries to resolve a domestic violence case. Before long, the ugly underbelly of the “Good Guys in Blue” begins to expose itself and Jim decides to take matters into his own hands.
Bonus Features: Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement Today | Getting the VHS Look | Survival Skills (short film) | Training Videos | Trailer
Synopsis: Filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island and directed by world-renowned photographer Bert Stern, Jazz on a Summer’s Day features intimate performances by an all-star line-up of musical legends including Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O’Day, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, and closes with a beautiful rendition of The Lord’s Prayer by Mahalia Jackson at midnight to usher in Sunday morning.
Bonus Features:”Bert Stern: Original Madman” (2011 documentary by Shannah Laumeister Stern) | Archival interviews with director Bert Stern |Bern Stern photo galleries | Booklet essay by Nate Chinen, author of “Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century” | Audio commentary by music journalist Natalie Weiner | Trailer
Street Date: 2/9/21
Synopsis: Five children crawl from the wreckage of a deadly van accident in a snowy canyon. The juvenile survivors (including teen heartthrob Leif Garrett) seek shelter at a secluded mountaintop winter home occupied by a rich businessman (Gene Evans, The Steel Helmet) and his friends (including Sorrell Booke, Boss Hogg from TV’s Dukes of Hazzard and Shelley Morrison of Will & Grace). Soon, strange mishaps occur and the group is stranded without electricity and telephones. One by one, the adults begin to fall prey to a series of shocking and violent deaths! By the time the few surviving adults suspect the demented delinquents it may be too late! Called “one of the best entries in the killer kiddie horror sub-genre” by Screem Magazine, Code Red proudly presents this cult classic on Blu-ray, from a brand new 2K scan off the original camera negatives!
Bonus Features: 2K Scan from the Original Negatives | Audio Commentary by Actors Joan McCall and Dawn Lynn with Producers Mickey Blowitz and David Sheldon, Moderated by Darren Gross | Featurette with Actors Tierre Turner, Joan McCall, Dawn Lynn and Producer David Sheldon | Original Trailer | Bonus Interviews | Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
Street Date: 2/9/21
Synopsis: New York Master Martial Artist Luke (Warhawk Tanzania) goes to Hong Kong to earn his next level in the Martial Arts world and convinces his student Rodan (Wilfredo Roldan) to accompany him. Once they arrive, they come across an ancient burial site and find an amulet that holds a horrific demon creature in its power. Not knowing what the amulet was for, Rodan steals it and takes it back to gang infested New York City, unknowingly releasing the demon. The demon travels through the New York city subway tunnels as it preys on its victims, including Rodan himself. The police think all the killings are a result of gang wars, but Luke soon finds out the terrifying truth and seeks out to avenge the death of his student. Luke must confront the horrifying demon face to face and do battle in the underground subways, where the only train that runs that late is the Devil’s Express! This gritty action, grindhouse, martial-arts, horror classic has finally arrived at the Code Red station! When the film The Warriors was released theatrically, the distributor of DEVIL’S EXPRESS re-titled it as GANG WARS to make it look like a gang fight movie. It took CODE RED many, many years to locate the camera negatives and the film is now fully restored in HD. Also starring Brother Theodore Gottlieb and writer/director David E. Durston (I Drink Your Blood). Co-written and Directed by Barry Rosen (The Yum Yum Girls).
Bonus Features: 2016 2K Scan Of The Original Negatives | Trailers
Street Date: 2/9/21 (DVD Only)
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 2/16/21
Synopsis: One of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era, Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera utilizes rapid editing and innumerable other cinematic effects to create a work of amazing modernity and power. This dawn-to-dusk view of urban Soviet life shows people at work, at play, and at the machines that endlessly whirl to keep the metropolis alive. It was Vertov’s first full-length film, and it employs all the cinematic techniques at the director’s disposal—dissolves, split-screens, slow-motion, and freeze-frames—to produce a work that is as exhilarating as it is intellectually brilliant. Restored by the British Film Institute, this edition features an orchestral score composed and conducted by Michael Nyman (The Piano), first performed on May 17, 2002 at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Adrian Martin | The Life and Times of Dziga Vertov: An Interview with Ian Christie (46 Min.) | Dziga Vertov: Non-Fiction Film Thing, a video essay by David Cairns (20 Min.)
Synopsis: A TV reporter (Barbara Bach) and two friends head to Solvang, California, to cover a Danish festival. When a mix-up at the hotel leaves them stranded without hotel rooms, the girls accept the invitation of a friendly museum owner to board at his farmhouse. But what the women don’t know is that something is living in the basement of that farmhouse. Something unspeakable. And their stay soon becomes a horrific nightmare when they encounter the “unseen”. From an original story by make up legends Stan Winston (PUMPKINHEAD) & Tom Burman, written by Kim Henkel of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE fame and directed by Danny Steinmann of SAVAGE STREETS. now witness the horror from a brand new HD master from the original negatives which is two minutes longer than the previous release!
Bonus Features: 2K Scan of the Original Negatives with Over 45 Hours of Color Correction | Audio Commentary with Producer Anthony B. Unger and Actor Stephen Furst | On Camera Interview with Editor Jon Braun | Kats Eyes: On Camera Interview with Producer Tony Unger | Interviews with Actors Stephen Furst and Doug Barr with Make-Up Designers Craig Reardon and Tom Burman | Make-Up Test Slides, Sketches and Behind-The-Scenes Stills from Craig Reardon’s Personal Collection | Watch this in “Katarina’s Nightmare Theater” with Hostess Katarina Leigh Waters | Theatrical Trailer | Dual-Layered BD50 Disc | Optional English Subtitles
Synopsis: In Season 2 of the Finnish Nordic Noir hit Bordertown, chief investigator Kari Sorjonen of the Serious Crimes Unit deals with a variety of harrowing homicides on the border between Finland and Russia. Each of these murder cases takes the viewer on a journey into humanity’s dark underbelly, in which no one will be able to escape their past.
Bonus Features: Trailers
SLITHIS – AKA SPAWN OF THE SLITHIS
Synopsis: Finally, nature unleashes its revenge! From the pollution of our nuclear waste came the killer we cannot destroy. Our worst nightmares come to life with the terrifying, scaly monster – SILTHIS! First this nuclear mutant killed household pets near the canals of Venice, California. Now it preys on old couples and a homeless rotund man sleeping in the public men’s room! In the tradition of JAWS, two outcasts, a teacher and a Jamaican sea-hunter, will take on the horrific monster to stop the slaughter! This mud monster creature is something out of those 50’s classics we love!
Bonus Features: 2017 2K SCAN OF THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVES | THEATRICAL TRAILER
YOU NEVER HAD IT: AN EVENING WITH BUKOWSKI
Synopsis: Producer and journalist Silvia Bizio introduces an evening with writer Charles Bukowski by recounting her time with the author and the discovery of an extraordinary time capsule that lead to the documentary’s creation. This short documentary is based on a video interview conducted by Bizio in January of 1981 with Bukowski at his home in San Pedro, California. It was a long night of smoking cigarettes and drinking wine with Bukowski and his soon to be wife, Linda Lee Beighle, talking about all kinds of subjects, from writers to sex, love and humanity. The interview was shot on Umatic tapes which have been digitized and edited along with new shots in Super8 of scenes of Los Angeles today and poems read by the same Bukowski.
Bonus Features: Extended interview with Silvia Bizio | Trailer
7 YARDS: THE CHRIS NORTON STORY
Street Date: 2/23/21 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: 7 Yards: The Chris Norton Story is a documentary that explores the resilience and perspective of Chris Norton. In October 2010 at age 18, Chris suffered a debilitating spinal cord injury during a college football game. Doctors gave him just a 3 percent chance to ever move again. But he defied that diagnosis. After years of physical therapy and training, Chris’ story went viral in 2015 when he successfully walked across the college graduation stage with the help of his fiancée Emily. Video of Chris walking to get his diploma touched the world and has received over 300 million views. Soon after, Chris and Emily set an ambitious new goal: walk seven yards side-by-side down their wedding aisle. The film features powerful interviews, emotional reenactments and real footage from their 2018 wedding. It’s the inspirational comeback story of Chris and his journey from college athlete to medical miracle to viral inspiration and now adoptive father.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 2/23/21
Synopsis: Under the direction of Helmut Käutner (Black Gravel), German heartthrob Hans Albers stars as Hannes, a former sailor who now works as an entertainer, playing his accordion in the streets and cabarets of the garish red light district of Hamburg. When he meets a headstrong young farmgirl (Ilse Werner), Hannes’s passions are reawakened, and he is torn between his love for Gisa and the beckoning call of the sea. Produced in Germany in the final years of World War II, Port of Freedom (Grosse Freiheit Nr. 7) demonstrates how independent-minded artists were able to circumvent the demands of state-run film industry under the Third Reich. Rather than a propagandistic celebration of German might, it is a melancholy ode to lost love and happier times, lavishly photographed by Werner Krien in the rich warmth of Agfacolor.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Olaf Möller
Street Date: 3/9/21
Synopsis: Two couples plan a trip into the forest, but they didn’t count on a killer on the loose with a taste for human flesh! The maniac is haunted by the ghosts of his children who come to aid of the campers in this unique entry into the killer-in-the-woods genre. From 70’s exploitation director Don Jones (Lethal Pursuit, Schoolgirls in Chains), featuring cult star Gary Kent (Satan’s Sadists, Thrill Killers), Stafford Morgan (Legend of Bigfoot) and Corky Pigeon (TV’S Silver Spoons). Now see this slasher classic in HD!
Bonus Features: Audio Commentary by Producer/Director Don Jones and Star Gary Kent (Michael Brody) | Audio Commentary by Producer/Director Don Jones and Cinematographer Stuart Asbjornsen | Making-of Featurette | Theatrical Trailer
LITTLE FUGITIVE: THE COLLECTED FILMS OF MORRIS ENGEL AND RUTH ORKIN
Synopsis: Shooting on location in New York City and capturing intimate moments in the lives of the common person, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin have come to be recognized as pioneers of the American independent cinema. François Truffaut remarked, “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production.” Kino Lorber now presents the most comprehensive collection of Engel and Orkin’s work on three Blu-ray discs: all four feature films (including the home video premiere of the 1960s counter-culture film I Need a Ride to California, newly restored by the Museum of Modern Art), short films, commercials, and two documentaries by their daughter Mary Engel.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary for Little Fugitive by director Morris Engel | Morris Engel: The Independent, a documentary by Mary Engel | Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life, a documentary by Mary Engel | Short films by Morris Engel: The Dog Lover (1962, 23 Min.) | The Farm They Won (1951, 10 Min.) One Chase Manhattan Plaza (1961, 9 Min.) Peace Is (1968, 11 Min.) | Three television commercials directed by Morris Engel | Still Life, a live television interview with Ruth Orkin | Little Fugitive theatrical trailer
Street Date: 3/9/21
Synopsis: From horror producer Richard Gordon (Inseminoid, First Man into Space, Fiend Without a Face, Horror Hospital) comes one of the most brutal and mysterious stories ever to be filmed. Tower of Evil is a haunting tale set in and around a deserted lighthouse on fog-shrouded Snape Island. The terror begins when a nude, crazed woman slaughters a sailor who was visiting the island. When she is taken back to civilization, an ancient relic is discovered and an expedition is mounted to solve the mystery of the island, which leads to series of psycho-sexual murders. Starring Jill Haworth (It!), Bryant Haliday (Devil Doll), Dennis Price (Theater of Blood), George Coulouris (Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb) and Candace Glendenning (Satan’s Slave) and directed by cult filmmaker Jim O’Connoly (The Valley of Gwangi). Now witness the horror in HD!
Bonus Features: 2018 HD Master from the Original Inter-Positive | Audio Commentary with Producer Richard Gordon, Moderated by Film Historian Tom Weaver | Interviews with Actress Seretta Wilson, Composer Kenneth V. Jones and Editor Henry Richardson | Watch in Katarina’s Nightmare Theater Mode with our Hostess Katarina Leigh Waters | Theatrical Trailer | Dual-Layered BD50 Disc | Optional English Subtitles
RUTH – JUSTICE GINSBURG IN HER OWN WORDS
Street Date: 3/9/21 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: The film tells the improbable story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who couldn’t get a job despite graduating first in her law school class in a tie and making Law Review at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It also reveals both the public and private sides of a resilient, resourceful woman who has survived the hostility of the profoundly male universe of government and law to become a revered Justice and icon for gender equality and women’s rights. How did Ginsburg’s work as a litigator for the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project; as a professor; and as an appellate judge make a difference? Most importantly how did her trailblazing work in the l970’s arguing landmark gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court become a turning point for her and the everyday lives of men and women? And how does Justice Ginsburg’s pioneering work on behalf of gender equality continue to resonate through her opinions and work in her 27 years on the Supreme Court? With these questions at the heart of RUTH, the film dramatizes a confluence of factors – personal, psychological, social and political that impacted the course of her work and life. The film is designed as an immersive experience through the direct words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a professor, advocate, Judge and Justice from the 1970’s onwards; through the use of evocative animation and intimate illustrations to visualize complex constitutional cases; by the insights of colleagues who have directly worked with or have been impacted by her forty years as a legal icon; and by using a rich original score by a Grammy winning composer.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 3/23/21 (DVD Only)
Bonus Features: Behind-the-Scenes Featurette | Q&A with director Fernanda Valadez and co-writer Astrid Rondero, courtesy of Film at Lincoln Center | Trailer
Street Date: 3/23/21 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: In 1993 the Godfather of all Godfathers, Toto Riina, is arrested in Palermo, Sicily, marking the end of a 25-year manhunt and of the war that killed thousands between the Cosa Nostra and the Italian State. Through interviews of prosecutors, judges, police officers, lawyers and now repentant mobsters, the two-part documentary mini-series Corleone: Mafia and Blood tells the story of the rise and fall of the most feared and violent organized crime leader ever.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: Adapted from the graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, Days of the Bagnold Summer is a tender, funny coming-of-age story about single parenting and heavy metal. Sue works in a library. Daniel eats chips and listens to Metallica. This was the summer Daniel was due to spend with his dad and his dad’s new wife in Florida. But when they cancel his trip at the last minute, Sue and Daniel suddenly face the prospect of six long weeks together. An epic war of wills ensues in the unassuming battleground of their suburban home as they each reckon with private tragedies – and pursue their personal passions. Featuring original songs by Belle and Sebastian.
Bonus Features: Trailers
SCHOOLGIRLS IN CHAINS (SPECIAL EDITION)
Synopsis: In a remote country house, a malevolent form of sleaze and terror is being bred. A crazy mother encourages her two sons – raving lunatic Frank (Gary Kent, The Forest) and his not-all-there brother Johnny (John Parker, The Love Butcher) – to kidnap young women and chain them up in the basement. The girls are treated like animals and then subjected to games that grow increasingly sinister and depraved. When the brothers tire of their playthings, the girls must be replaced. This undiscovered exploitation classic is every bit as morally corrupt as you’ve heard. Directed by Don Jones (The Forest, Sweater Girls) and shot by cinematographer Ronald Victor Garcia (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me), Schoolgirls in Chains is an entertaining slice of early ‘70s sleaze guaranteed to delight and disturb.
Bonus Features: 2K Scan From the Original Negative | Audio Commentary by Actor Gary Kent and Writer/Producer/Director Don Jones | Audio Commentary by Writer/Producer/Director Don Jones and R.A. The Rugged Man | Audio Commentary by Writer/Producer/Director Don Jones and Cinematographer Ronald Victor Garcia | Making-of Featurette | Theatrical Trailer
Synopsis: On the surface, The Kaiser of California appears to be a cinematic anomaly: an epic Western produced under the state-controlled cinema of the Third Reich. But the film’s novelty value is quickly eclipsed by its dazzling visual aristry: striking compositions and stunning location photography worthy of John Ford (who was still three years away from making his signature Western, Stagecoach). In telling the story of German-born pioneer John Sutter, actor/director Luis Trenker returned to the awe-inspiring vistas and daring feats of rock-climbing that had made his “mountain films” such a sensation. The result is a film whose style is deeply Germanic and spectacularly American at the same time, virtually unseen in the United States, prior to this 2K restoration by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Eddy Von Mueller
Synopsis: This documentary portrait of theater operator Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou moves from 1970s Times Square adult film houses through decades of city regulation, chain takeovers, and cultural shifts, charting a charming odyssey through the history of film exhibition and New York City. Abel Ferrara traces the life and work of friend and fellow cinephile Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou, a Cypriot immigrant who began working as a teenager in small neighborhood movie theaters around Manhattan, defying gentrification, changing viewing habits and corporate dominance in the 1980s, only to emerge decades later as one of New York City’s last independent theater owners. A moving tribute to friendship, tenacity and the love of cinema, The Projectionist is also a timely paean to what going to the movies is all about.
Bonus Features: Cinevangelist: A Life in Revival Film (2018, a short documentary by Matt Barry) | Trailers
JOURNEYS THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA
Synopsis: My Journey Through French Cinema (2017), Bertrand Tavernier’s César-nominated three-and-a-half-hour tour through French film history, was too short to introduce audiences to all that he wanted to share. In this new eight-part series, the acclaimed director of such films as Coup de Torchon and ‘Round Midnight guides us through a roster of filmmakers both influential and forgotten, explores how his country’s cinema was shaped by the German occupation and changed again through the New Wave, spotlights little-known female filmmakers, and more. Subjects include: René Clément, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Julien Duvivier, Henri Decoin, Claude Autant-Lara, as well as composers who made movie music an art in and of itself, far from the Hollywood spotlight.
Bonus Features: Trailer
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
