Taxidermia (Gyorgy Palfi, 2006)

A BAD TRIP(TYCH) THROUGH HUNGARIAN HISTORY.

Three stories. Three eras. Three men. One is an orderly in a remote outpost during World War II consumed by lust but who passes the boredom by spying on the women around him and discovering his ability to ejaculate fire. The next is his son, a corpulent speed-eater competing for the glory of the Communist state and the attention of a hefty female colleague. The last is their son, a master taxidermist in the post-socialist era who turns his trade onto himself with gruesome effect. This is Taxidermia, a grotesquely surreal offering from director György Pálfi that inscribes the history of his native Hungary into the unusual bodies of three generations of men who are all damned from birth. Based in part on the stories of Lajos Parti Nagy, Pálfi creates a queasy masterpiece of historical body horror not recommended for the squeamish.

Special Edition Contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio
• Optional newly translated English subtitles
• Feature-length audio commentary with director György Pálfi
• Making of Taxidermia behind-the-scenes featurette
• Horrific Histories and Bachelor Machines, a brand new featurette with Steven Shaviro on the film’s political and philosophical underpinnings
• Deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary
• Visual design and concept gallery
• Storyboards
• Interactive game
• Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen, Pálfi’s feature-length extravaganza of movie love and adventure pieced together from found-footage taken from Hollywood and abroad
• Taltosember vs Ikarus, a short film by Pálfi with optional director commentary
• Theatrical trailers
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by scholar László Strausz

Bloody Hell (Alister Grierson, 2020)

ONE HELL OF A FAIRY TALE

When a bank heist goes awry, Rex Coen (Ben O’Toole) spends eight years in prison and is hounded by the media on his release. The unwanted attention forces Rex to flee his hometown of Boise, Idaho, in search of anonymity in Finland, but his arrival in Helsinki lands him in a new, fresh hell. Gassed during his taxi ride from the airport, Rex wakes up drugged, beaten, and bound in the basement of a twisted family hiding a dark secret. With only his personified conscience to help him, Rex is in a race against time to save himself and a beautiful young woman (Meg Fraser) from his terrifying captors and a fate worse than death.

An action-horror-comedy that merges Fight Club with Fargo, Alister Grierson’s Bloody Hell is a raucous midnight crowd pleaser ready for fans of Sam Raimi, John Wick, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

Special Edition Contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Uncompressed Stereo PCM
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Boi To Hel, new interviews with cast and crew
• Rex in an Ass-Kicking Contest, an interview with director Alister Grierson and lead actor Ben O’Toole on the film’s special effects
• Behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes
• Trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork choices

Fly Me to the Saitama (Hideki Takeuchi, 2019) – Fantasia International Film Festival

SAITAMA IS WACK!

Municipal rivalries, bedroom community resentments, and capital city snobbery are made fantastically farcical in Hideki Takeuchi’s adaptation of Mineo Maya’s cult manga. In this alternate Japan, Tokyo is a luxurious metropolis surrounded by impoverished prefectures living in near feudal-era conditions. Momomi Dannoura (Fumi Nikaido), son of Tokyo’s governor and possessor of striking feminine beauty, rules a baroquely decorated academy and disdains the presence of any non-Tokyoites, particularly those from the Saitama prefecture. The arrival of the mysterious transfer student Rei Asami (GACKT) sparks an undeniable attraction in Momomi and starts a war of liberation between the disrespected prefectures and the opulent megacity. Can love and regional pride overcome big city corruption?

Fly Me to the Saitama is Japanese lunatic satire at its finest, balancing a storm of local inside jokes with universal tensions between slick urbanites and commuter belt wastelands. In between, the film stuffs wacky battles, gender-bending characters, outlandish wigs and costumes, and plenty of historical anachronisms all delivered with disarmingly earnest performances from a stellar cast. Book your ticket to this award-winning, box office smash and accept your Saitamafication!

Special Edition Contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Uncompressed Stereo PCM
• Newly translated English subtitles
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary with director Hideki Takeuchi, creator Mineo Maya, and crew
• Audio commentary by Japanese film scholar Mark Shilling
• Interviews with cast and crew
• Reverse Country Boasting Japan’s No. 1 Final Battle, a special promotional program for the film
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Deleted scenes
• Trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork choices

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by manga and cosplay scholar Emerald L. King and a new printing of Mineo Maya’s original 188-page manga

You Cannot Kill David Arquette (David Darg and Price James, 2020) – Fantasia International Film Festival

FROM STUMBLING TO RUMBLING!

Branded as the most hated man in professional wrestling after winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in 2000, actor David Arquette attempts a rocky return to the sport that stalled his promising Hollywood career. Despite having two stents in his heart, being under treatment for depression and anxiety, and exhibiting functioning alcoholism, the 47 year-old actor dangerously commits himself reclaiming his self-respect in the squared circle. Arquette’s journey takes him to the backyards of amateur wrestling in Virginia, the fast-paced style of Tijuana’s lucha libre shows, and near-fatal hardcore deathmatches. Along the way, he puts his health, his credibility, and his marriage on the line, but Arquette’s determination to earn a respected place in the world of pro-wrestling cannot be denied.

Part car-wreck, part inspirational Rocky-docky, You Cannot Kill David Arquette is a fascinating look into the closed world of pro-wrestling and a portrait of the physical toll and unbridled passion required to perform in its peculiar brand of theatre. Appearing alongside David Arquette are his wife/producer Christina McLarty Arquette, his siblings Patricia, Rosanna, and Richmond, his ex-wife Courtney Cox, and wrestling legends including Ric Flair and Diamond Dallas Page.

Special Edition Contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Uncompressed Stereo PCM
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Two feature-length audio commentaries, one with directors David Darg and Price James and one with David Arquette and Christina McLarty Arquette
• Full matches between David Arquette and Nick Gage, RJ City, Mr. Anderson, Jungle Boy, and others, with introductions and alternate commentaries by Arquette and City
• Outtakes and extended interviews
• This is the End, a new interview with wrestling historian Dave Meltzer on David Arquette’s reign as WCW Heavyweight Champion
• New video tribute to the song “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” by The Black Math Experiment
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork choices

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by wrestling critic Andy Murray

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018)

HE’S A LUMBERJACK AND HE’S NOT OKAY

Pacific Northwest, 1983 A.D. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence in near isolation. When their pine-scented splendour is savagely destroyed by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand and his cult “The Children of the New Dawn,” Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire. Armed with a hand-forged battle axe and an insane thirst for revenge, Red won’t stop until he has destroyed Jeremiah and his disciples.

From the visionary mind of Canadian filmmaker Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow), Mandy is an ultra-hard, stylishly told hell-trip with heavy metal symbolism, demonic motorcycle mutants, buzzing chainsaws, and a phenomenal performance by Nicolas Cage as an unstoppable, single-minded avenger. Arrow Video proudly presents this modern grindhouse classic for the first time on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) approved by director Panos Cosmatos
• High definition Blu-ray (1080p)
• Original DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New audio commentary with Panos Cosmatos and filmmaker and critic Sam Ashurst
• Behind-the-scenes featurette
• Interview at the Sundance Film Festival with producers Lisa Whalen, Josh Waller, Daniel Noah, and Elijah Wood and special guests Nicolas Cage, Vince Neil from the band Mötley Crüe, and Panos Cosmatos
• Acid Wash, new interview with cinematographer Benjamin Loeb
• It’s Gobblin’ Good!, new interview with director Chris Casper Kelly and special effects artist Shane Morton on the Cheddar Goblin commercial
• And Red All Over, new interview with designer Richard Kenworthy of Shynola on the film’s title cards
• Standing on the Edge of Time, new interview with animation director David Garcia
• The Blade and the Beast, new interview with weapon maker Tim Wagendorp
• Deleted and extended scenes
• Teasers and trailers
• Concept art and stills gallery
• Rewind This!, a feature-length documentary with audio commentary by director Josh Johnson, producer Carolee Mitchell and cameraman and editor Christopher Palmer
• Soundtrack CD with music composer Jóhann Jóhannsson
• 10″ vinyl single of “Amulet of the Weeping Maze” by Jeremiah Sand
• Fold-out double-sided poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
• Four retro-poster photos double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproductions, alternative posters and promotional images
• 44-page collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Travis Woods and an introduction by Panos Cosmatos

The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents The Limey.

Terence Stamp is Wilson, a English ex-con who arrives in Los Angeles to hunt down the man responsible for his daughter’s “accidental” death, a record producer named Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda). Propelled along an increasingly brutal search for the truth, Wilson’s singleminded desire for revenge splinters into a meditation on cultural dislocation, an elegy on fatherhood, and a radical, fragmentary investigation of memory. Conceiving of the film as “Alain Resnais making Get Carter” and featuring throwback casting with Stamp, Fonda, Barry Newman, and Joe Dallesandro, Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey is a modern tough guy classic and a seminal work of American independent cinema.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Steven Soderbergh and cinematographer Edward Lachman, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary with Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs
• Audio commentary with Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro, Soderbergh, and Dobbs
• New introduction by Soderbergh
• New conversation with Soderbergh, editor Sarah Flack, cinematographer Edward Lachman, and actors Luis Guzmán and Lesley Ann Warren
• Deleted scene featuring Ann-Margret
• Isolated music score
• Trailers and TV Spots
• PLUS: A new essay by critic Ashley Clark