New Releases for December 10 2024

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) (Criterion Collection)

A deadly game of chance and destiny plays out against the stark backdrop of early-1980s West Texas in Joel and Ethan Coen’s powerful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. When he happens upon more than two million dollars from a drug deal turned desert massacre, a retired welder and Vietnam veteran (Josh Brolin) sets into motion a wave of senseless, inexorable violence as he’s stalked across the plains by a soul-weary sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) and a psychopathic hit man (Javier Bardem). Winner of four Academy Awards—including Best Picture, and Best Supporting Actor for the indelibly disturbing Bardem—this darkly deadpan borderlands noir keeps both the tension and the existential unease mounting through each cruelly ironic twist of fate. (BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

AIM FOR THE ACE! (1979) 

15-year-old Hiromi Oka has just started her first year at Nishi High School, also known as "The Kingdom of Tennis." Hiromi's never held a racket before, but she joins the famous Tennis Club regardless for one reason: Reika Ryuzaki. With the nickname "Madame Butterfly," Reika is a top-level player for her age and is adored by her peers.

However, Hiromi's idyllic and carefree high school life is turned upside with the arrival of the new tennis coach: Jin Munakata. Hiromi never intended to take tennis seriously, but for some reason, Jin sees potential and adds her to the regulars that will play in the next tournament. Thus, Hiromi is thrust head-first into the highly-competitive world of high-school tennis alongside her idol, Reika.

Follow Hiromi's harrowing journey to become a player worthy of the Kingdom and her idol's respect in this film, a condensed form of the original anime TV series, also by Osamu Dezaki. (BLU-RAY)

BEAST, THE (2023) 

By the year 2044, artificial intelligence reigns, and human emotions are a liability that must be surgically removed to produce a more pliant workforce. But this procedure triggers Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) to experience haunting memories of her past lives, as she encounters different incarnations of her paramour, Louis (George MacKay), first in belle epoque Paris and then in 2014 Los Angeles. As she once more undergoes the pains and pleasures of romance—and rediscovers what it means to be truly alive—Gabrielle awaits the erasure of her humanity with growing fascination and dread. In his most ambitious film yet, visionary director Bertrand Bonello freely adapts Henry James’s novella The Beast in the Jungle into a visually stunning science-fiction labyrinth that is as metaphysically mysterious as it is emotionally powerful. Powered by Seydoux’s heartrending performance, The Beast poignantly imagines the consequences of humankind becoming too afraid to risk the inherent vulnerability of love. (DVD and BLU-RAY)

LAST VIDEO STORE (2023) 

When her estranged father passes, twenty-something Nyla is tasked with the thing she hates the most – cleaning up his mess. Left behind are a collection of VHS tapes, and with them, the burden of returning them to "Blaster Video" a time capsule to an era in which cover art and a catchy movie title were king, run by Kevin, a human encyclopaedia of VHS history and a friend of her father. Amongst the returns is an unknown tape, a movie not even Kevin has heard of. Was this the last movie Nyla's father watched before he died? The mystery is too much to resist. But when Kevin and Nyla press play, they unwittingly activate a long-dormant curse and a series of classic cinematic villains are plucked from B-movie heaven and hell to be unleashed into the store itself! (BLU-RAY)

MORGIANA (1972) 

With delirious visuals conjured by cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera (Daisies, Diamonds of the Night) and often described as 'the last film of the Czechoslovak New Wave', Juraj Herz's delirious tale of terror is a surreal phantasmagoria of dark desires and splintered minds – a twisted Czech take on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Poe's 'The Black Cat'.

Based on a short story by Aleksandr Grin, (the 'Russian Poe'), Morgiana is the story of twin sisters, Klára and Viktoria who live a life of decadent opulence, somewhere in the late 19th century. Klára is charming, trusting and beautiful, whilst Viktoria is wicked, sadistic, bursting with hate and jealousy - and who hatches a terrible revenge by slowly poisoning her more popular sister. As the toxin takes hold, Klára begins to lose grip on her sanity... (BLU-RAY)