January 2021 Reviews
TENET
On Blu-ray, DVD and Digital copy August 2020
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Armed with only one word – Tenet – and fighting for the survival of the entire world the protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion.
GOODBYE SEVENTIES
On DVD @ Digital – February 16
Ariztical Entertainment
In the 1970’s the golden age of gay pornography in New York City, a promising chorus boy is injured and told he will never dance again. Distraught and unimpressed with the “art” films playing seedy Times Square theaters, he gets his friends and lovers together and they start making their own hardcore movies. Against all odds, the films are wildly successful until drugs, AIDS and cheap video technology bring it all crashing down.
WHITE RIOT
DVD/Digital December 15
Film Movement
Britain, late-1970s. The country is deeply divided over immigration. The National Front, a far-right and fascist political party, is gaining strength. And countering this was Rock Against Racism (RAR), a movement that swept across the U.K. and Europe and culminated in a 100,000+ person march and a legendary concert event – Woodstock meets the March on Washington, punk-style. Capturing this incredible moment in time when music changed the world is the award-winning documentary White Riot from director Rubika Shah.
FRAU STERN
Omnibus Entertainment
DVD/Digital December 15
Frau Stern is 90 years old and still going strong. Her health is excellent, her granddaughter dotes on her, her hairdresser supplies her with recreational drugs and she is surrounded by friends who are less than a third of her age. Despite all this, the Holocaust survivor has had enough! Frau Stern wants to die, but with each failed attempt to leave this world, life brings even more surprises her way.
THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW
Warner Bros. HOME Entertainment
DVD/Blu-ray December 15
A small-town sheriff, struggling with a failed marriage, a rebellious daughter and a lackluster department, is tasked with solving a series of brutal murders that are occurring on the full moon. As he’s consumed by the hunt for the killer, he struggles to remind himself that there’s no such thing as werewolves.
SONG WITHOUT A NAME
Film Movement
DVD/Digital December 8
Based on harrowing true events, Song without a name tells the story of Georgina, and indigenous Andean woman whose newborn baby is stolen moments after giving birth in a downtown Lima clinic. Crushed by a byzantine and indifferent legal system, Georgina approaches journalist Pedro Campos, who uncovers a string of abductions tied to fake clinics – pointing to even deeper corruption inside Peruvian society.
RAINING IN THE MOUNTAIN
Film Movement Classics
DVD/Digital December 8
During the Ming Dynasty, a Buddhist abbot charged with protecting the sacred handwritten scroll of Tripitaka prepares to name his successor, but instead finds himself caught in a web of intrigue. Rival factions infiltrate the peaceful monastery aiming to steal the scroll, setting the stage for a battle of both wits and fists.
DREAM FACTORY
Capelight pictures
DVD December 1
Summer 1961, Germany. Emil arrives at DEFA Studio Babelsberg to begin working as and extra when he falls in love with a French dance-double, Milou. Though it’s love at first sight, they are torn apart when East Germany closes its border and erects the Berlin Wall just days after they first meet. Milou returns to Paris. Emil remains in East Germany, crushed by the fact that the love of his life just slipped through his hands… that is, until he sets in motion a daring and adorably romantic plan.
ROBO
Capelight Pictures
DVD December 15th
Mitya is and imaginative twelve-year old boy, who loves to draw comics of super heroes and dreams of becoming an artist. His parents, who have little understanding for Mitya’s creativity, however, work as robotic engineers. They have built and programmed a Universal Rescue Robot, aka ROBO, to rescue people from dangerous situations. Soon after their final tests, ROBO escaped from the research facility motivated to understand the meaning of “family”. Due to ROBO’s alleged malfunction, the director of the research facility deems the fled robot as a menace to society that should be destroyed at once. In his search for a family, ROBO meets Mitya and the two form a true friendship while on the run from anyone who tries to deactivate and destroy ROBO.
HABERMANN
Corinth Films
DVD/Digital December 8
Based on true events, Habbermann follows the story of August Habermann, a German businessman in northern Czechoslovakia whose innocence doesn’t save him from blind vengeance. After the region is annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, Habermann spends the war trying to protect everyone he loves from the sadistic SS officer in charge of the region. Habermann is ultimately betrayed by the Nazi. When the war ends, the nightmare of betrayal continues.
WHERE I BELONG
Corinth Films
DVD/Digital December 15th
The politics of the Third Reich drove thousands of Austrians into exile. For many, England was the first safe haven. When the war ended, the world as they knew it had changed forever and many would never return to their homeland. Rosemarie Koschitz is a hard-working young woman like many other of her age in late 1950s England, and the only person her father –embittered émigré Friedrich Koschitz – has left. While Friedrich tries in vain to reclaim the estate that was taken from them during the war, Rosemarie’s life is split between evenings in the dance hall with her friends and monotonous routing of her job and life with her father. Both of their lives are forever changed, however, when Friedrich’s old friend from the internment camp appears at their door late one night.
MY GERMAN FRIEND
Corinth Films
DVD/Digital December 15th
In her latest feature film, Jeanine Meerapfel tells the story of a deep love in a time of political upheaval and historical change. Sulamit, the daughter of Jewish emigrants from Germany, is growing up in Buenos Aires in the 1950s. Living cheek by jowl are Jews and Nazis who have fled from Europe and been thrown together again in a foreign country. As a young girl Sulamit meets Friedrich, a young German boy, whose family lives in the house directly opposite. They quickly become close. When Friedrich learns that his father was a high-ranking officer in the SS, he breaks with his family and goes to Germany. He soon joins the German student movement. Sulamit follows him a few years later. But she realizes that he is so politically engaged that there is little room for their love. Sulamit studies, later working as a translator and starts up a relationship with Michael, an assistant at the university, who loves and helps her. But it is with Friedrich that her heart lies. When Friedrich leaves Germany to join an Argentinian guerrilla movement, they lose contact and he disappears without trace. Sulamit embarks on a search that takes her up to Patagonia.
AUDREY MORE THAN AN ICON
Universal Pictures
Audrey provides an intimate look at one of fashion and Hollywood’s biggest stars, this insightful feature documentary goes behind the lens revealing never-before-seen footage of her life and showcasing the woman behind the icon.