New Releases for June 4 2024

TYPHOON CLUB (1985)

Winner of the Grand Prix at the first Tokyo International Film Festival in 1985, Typhoon Club is widely regarded as the seminal film of director Shinji Somai's career. A work of raw, elemental power, it follows an ensemble of junior high students in a provincial town, beset by a summer-y malaise as a typhoon looms. When the storm makes landfall, the teens find themselves holed up in their school unsupervised, while another classmate (Yuki Kudo) disappears alone on a harrowing trek to the big city. Set adrift in a world suddenly unmoored, the students let loose their pent-up angst and burgeoning passions in a series of propulsive, phantasmic scenes—part apocalypse, part utopia—as the deluge rages on into the night.  (BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998) (Criterion Collection)

It is 1971, and journalist Raoul Duke barrels toward Las Vegas—accompanied by a trunkful of contraband and his slightly unhinged Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo—to cover a motorcycle race. What should be a cut-and-dried journalistic assignment quickly descends into a feverish psychedelic odyssey. Director Terry Gilliam and an all-star cast, headlined by Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, show no mercy in bringing Hunter S. Thompson’s excoriating dissection of the American way of life to the screen, creating a film both hilarious and savage.(BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

THE OLD OAK (2023)

The final film from British master Ken Loach (Sorry We Missed You, Kes), The Old Oak is a deeply moving drama about loss, fear, and the difficulty of finding hope. The Old Oak is the last pub standing in a once thriving mining village in northern England, a gathering space for a community that has fallen on hard times. There is growing anger, resentment, and a lack of hope among the residents, but the pub and its proprietor TJ are a fond presence to their customers. When a group of Syrian refugees move into the floundering village, a decisive rift fueled by prejudices develops between the community and its newest inhabitants. The formation of an unexpected friendship between TJ and a young Syrian woman named Yara opens up new possibilities for the divided village. (BLU-RAY and DVD)