New Releases for October 15 2024

WITHNAIL AND I (1987)

Camden Town, the arse-end of the sixties. Two struggling, unemployed actors decide some respite is in order and so depart their miserable flat for a week in the Lake District – one that will involve rain, booze, minimal supplies, a randy bull and an even randier Uncle Monty.

Based on the real-life experiences of former actor turned writer/director Bruce Robinson, Withnail & I has become one of British cinema's most fondly remembered comedies. A cult film in the truest sense that has also become a classic.

Perfectly cast - with career-defining roles for Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths and Ralph Brown - and crammed with irresistibly quotable dialogue, Withnail & I is a sheer delight, even on the umpteenth viewing (4K ULTRA HD)

DEMON POND (1979) (Criterion Collection)

Japanese New Wave renegade Masahiro Shinoda transforms a classic Kabuki tale with his own extravagant visual style in this dimension-shattering folk-horror fantasia. When a lone traveler (Tsutomu Yamazaki) stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town’s inhabitants—including lovers Akira (Go Kato) and Yuri (Kabuki legend Tamasaburo Bando, who also plays the ethereal princess reigning over the water)—in their hands. Set to the swirling strains of electronic-music pioneer Isao Tomita’s synth score, Demon Pond blends theatrical artifice with cinematic surrealism for an aquatic-apocalyptic fable of human love and folly caught in the current of nature’s wrath. (DVD, BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

BORSALINO AND CO. (1974) 

François Capella, a member of the Marseille Mafia of the 1930s, is buried. Roch Siffredi (Alain Delon) swears to avenge his friend. At the first opportunity, he eliminates the killer, Volpone's henchman. Volpone's revenge is immediate and in a single night, he destroys Siffredi's empire. But Siffredi persists in wanting to avenge his friend's death. (BLU-RAY)

LAST EMBRACE (1979) 

Harry Hannan (Roy Scheider, The French Connection) is a United States government agent newly released from a long stay at an asylum following the murder of his wife during a botched mission in Mexico. Upon returning to government work, Hannan becomes increasingly paranoid, constantly questioning his sanity and who he can trust in the wake of receiving mysterious threats written in Hebrew. Hannan, along with Princeton doctoral student Ellie Fabian (Janet Margolin, David and Lisa), must unravel an arcane mystery that follows them from the streets of New York City to the rushing waters of Niagara Falls, before time runs out. (BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

TRENQUE LAUQUEN (2022/2023)

The search for a missing woman unspools in two unexpectedly interconnected parts in Laura Citarella's playful new feature. The missing woman is Laura (Laura Paredes), a biologist cataloging plant species in and around the Argentinean city of Trenque Lauquen. The men searching for her: Rafael, her boyfriend, and Ezequiel, a coworker who has come to mean more to her in recent days. But in order to uncover the truth of Laura's disappearance, a profusion of mysteries must be explored. There's the question of love letters hidden in books in the local library, the discovery of a new species of flower, and then there's the mysterious being, rumored to be haunting the lake at the center of town. (BLU-RAY)