Kino Lorber Studio Classics is bringing the delightful comedy “Play It Again, Sam” to home video in a fantastic new Blu-ray edition. Released in 1972, “Play It Again, Sam” follows a neurotic and insecure film journalist and recent divorcee (played by Woody Allen) who is inspired by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart to get back into the dating game. Allen wrote the screenplay but it’s directed by Herbert Ross (“Funny Lady”, “The Turning Point”, “Footloose”, “Steel Magnolias”).
This handsomely packaged Blu-ray special edition of “Play It Again, Sam” will be available to purchase on February 11th. See below for a full synopsis of the film as well as release info including a list of special features.
About the Film:
Year: 1972
Runtime: 86 Minutes
Directors: Herbert Ross
Screenwriters: Woody Allen
Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Jerry Lacy, Susan Anspach, Jennifer Salt, Joy Bang,
Rating: PG
Woody Allen’s wonderful comedy was his first film with Diane Keaton, a relationship that would continue to produce great films like “Sleeper”, “Love and Death”, “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”. Allen plays Allan, a fanatical movie buff with an outrageous recurring hallucination: Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) offering tips on how to make it with the ladies. His married friends Dick and Linda (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton) fix him up with several eligible young ladies, but his self-confidence is so weak that he’s a total failure with them all. Eventually Allan discovers that there is one woman he’s himself with: Linda, his best friend’s wife. The final scene is a terrific takeoff on Casablanca’s classical ending, complete with roaring plane propellers, heavy fog and Bogie-style trenchcoats. “Play It Again, Sam” was penned by Woody Allen, based on his own 1969 Broadway play, and directed by Herbert Ross (“The Goodbye Girl”, “California Suite”).
Special Features:
Product Extras :
Brand New HD Master – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative
NEW Audio Commentary by Screenwriter/Producer Alan Spencer and Author/Film Historian Justin Humphreys
Matthew Ninaber directs, writes, produces, and stars in “A Knight’s War”, a gritty and imaginative creation that embraces medieval action, dark fantasy, and horror. It even adds a few dashes of black comedy to lighten up what is a mostly grim and dread-driven story. Ancient prophecies, jealous gods, soulless demons, bloodthirsty witches – they all play into this twisted and forbidding world.
For an 80s kid like me, “A Knight’s War” calls back to a number of fun fantasy adventure films I grew up watching. Throughout its entertaining 104 minutes, it brought to mind such movies as “Krull”, “Conan the Barbarian”, “Beastmaster”, and “Dragonslayer” just to name a few. But what impresses most is the way Ninaber and company do so much with so little. “A Knight’s War” didn’t have the benefits of a big studio budget but it often looks like it does. The production design, costumes, makeup, visual effects – it’s all a striking testament to the vision, vehemence, and virtuosity that drives the filmmaking.
Image Courtesy of Epic Pictures
Co-written by Ninaber and his brother Jeremy, the story is soaked in original mythology that’s relayed through a healthy balance of visual and expository world-building. It begins with two brothers, Bhodie (Jeremy Ninaber) and William (Matthew Ninaber), both knights on a mission to rescue a young woman being sacrificed in a demonic ritual. The woman’s name is Avalon (Kristen Kaster) and the brothers believe her to be the key to a dark mystical prophecy.
But their rescue efforts are thwarted and Avalon is transported to a hellish realm populated by all manner of evil. Desperately clinging to the prophecy, Bhodie follows Avalon through a forbidden gate while William attempts to fend off a horde of demons. Once in the realm, Bhodie is greeted by a mysterious gatekeeper (Shane Nicely) who informs him that three evil lords possess three magical stones. If he wants to return home with Avalon he will need to defeat the lords and retrieve the stones.
To help Bhodie on his journey, the gatekeeper offers him a magical talisman that gives him one hundred lives. All he asks in return is that Bhodie brings him along when he returns to our realm. Bhodie accepts and then sets out to find Avalon. It doesn’t take him long, but convincing her to come back with him proves difficult. That’s because she’s on a mission of her own – one fueled by her own lust for revenge.
Image Courtesy of Epic Pictures
From there, the action picks up as Bhodie and Avalon, each with their own levels of distrust, face-off against forces of evil and sometimes each other. Along the way, Ninaber treats us to a strikingly creative array of sinister enemies and a series of encounters infused with deliciously gory combat. And it all plays out against a fittingly fantastical backdrop. Things can get a little too exposition-heavy in spots and the mythology doesn’t always make sense. But the film steadily moves forward, delivering one skillfully crafted sequence after another.
Admittedly there are occasions where the budget limitations can be hard to miss. You see it in a handful of stagy backgrounds and in moments where the story confusingly lurches forward to get to its next point. But those things can’t minimize what the filmmakers are able to accomplish in this well-made, incredibly efficient, and wildly entertaining fantasy adventure. “A Knight’s War” opens in select theaters on February 7th and is available on VOD February 11th.
Kino Lorber Studio Classics has released a terrific spaghetti western double feature on home video. This special edition includes Enzo G. Castellari’s “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone” and Sergio Corbucci’s “The Hellbenders”, both on 4K Ultra HD for the very first time. Kino Lorber continues to be an industry leader in the preservation of classic cinema on physical media. They prove it again with this handsomely packaged collection.
This 4K Ultra HD two-film special edition is now available to purchase. See below for a full synopsis of both films as well as release info including a list of special features.
About “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone”:
Year: 1968
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Directors: Enzo G. Castellari
Screenwriters: Tito Carpi, Francesco Scardamaglia, Joaquín Romero Marchent, Enzo G. Castellari
Cast: Chuck Conners, Frank Wolff, Franco Citti, Leo Anchóriz, Ken Wood, Alberto Dell’Acqua, Hercules Cortez
Rating: R
From Enzo G. Castellari, the legendary director of “Street Law”, “The Big Racket”, “Keoma” and “The Inglorious Bastards” comes this action-packed spaghetti western starring screen and television great Chuck Connors (“The Big Country”, TV’s “The Rifleman” and “Branded”). In 1864, a mercenary Clyde McKay (Connors) leads a squad of tough-as-nails cutthroats on a mission for the Confederate high command to infiltrate an enemy fortress and steal millions in gold from the Union Army. Frank Wolfe (“Once Upon a Time in the West”) co-stars in this fully restored first-rate tale of betrayal and revenge.
About “The Hellbenders”:
Year: 1967
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Directors: Sergio Corbucci
Screenwriters: Ugo Liberatore, José Gutiérrez Maesso, Albert Brand
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Norma Bengell, Julián Mateos, Gino Pernice, Ángel Aranda, Claudio Gora, María Martín, Aldo Sambrell, Al Mulock
Rating: NR
From Sergio Corbucci, the legendary director of “Django”, “Navajo Joe”, “The Great Silence” and “The Mercenary” comes this classic spaghetti western starring screen icon Joseph Cotten (“The Third Man”, “Duel in the Sun”) as the fanatical patriarch of a family of ex-Confederate killers who massacre an army convoy carrying millions in cash to finance an invasion of the North. But before they can re-ignite the Civil War, they’ll have to smuggle a coffin crammed with the stolen cash across a frontier enflamed by lust, violence and extreme vengeance. Aldo Sambrell (“For a Few Dollars More”) and Al Mulloch (“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) co-star in this fully restored western shocker. “The Hellbenders”—also known as “The Cruel Ones”, Features a rousing score renowned composer Ennio Morricone (“A Fistful of Dollars”).
Special Features:
Product Extras :
2020 UHD SDR Masters by StudioCanal
Includes Both the 99-Minute English and 100-Minute Italian Cuts of KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE
Audio Commentaries (Both Films) by Filmmaker Alex Cox, Author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director’s Take on the Italian Western
For those moviegoers worried that we’re running short of psychopathic masked serial killers, fear not. “Heart Eyes” is here, a wild genre hybrid that mixes ingredients from sappy romantic comedies and blood-saturated slasher movies. It’s a gleefully self-aware date night cocktail that derives much of its enjoyment through its giddy embrace of numerous genre tropes. To put it simply, director Josh Ruben knows and delivers on his assignment.
Ruben, along with screenwriters Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy, fashion a movie so in tune with its own silliness that you can’t help but get onboard. You’ll laugh at the goofy gags and abject absurdity as much as you’ll recoil at the jolting violence and gruesome gore. But most surprising is how a movie that is both a romcom parody and a shameless splatterfest can be this shrewdly scripted and devilishly charming.
Olivia Holt is sturdy and committed playing Ally, a twenty-something former med student who now works as a Seattle marketing executive. Things aren’t going well at work following a bad ad pitch and now her tyrannical boss (Michaela Watkins) is threatening to fire her. Meanwhile her love life isn’t much better. Ally recently broke up with her boyfriend, but she can’t quite stalking his social media accounts.
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing
Elsewhere, news reports tell of a bloodthirsting maniac on the loose in Seattle. The media has dubbed him the “Heart Eyes Killer” and for obvious reasons – he wears a crude leather mask with two hearts for eyeholes. He targets random cities for his annual Valentine’s Day killing sprees, hunting and slaughtering romantic couples for reasons that (of course) will eventually come to light in the final act. First it was Boston, then Philly, and now it’s Seattle.
Ally’s boss demands she redo her ad campaign and pairs her with a hunky hotshot named Jay (Mason Gooding). Following a rather unpleasant working dinner, Ally spots her former beau outside of the restaurant with his new girlfriend. In an impulsive move, she plants a kiss on Jay in hopes of making her ex jealous. But she inadvertently gets the attention of Heart Eyes who’s watching from the bushes.
The killer mistakes Ally and Jay for a couple and makes them the focus of his Valentine’s evening festivities, chasing the two around the city and butchering anyone who happens to get in his way. One of my favorite running gags involve the two repeatedly trying to convince Heart Eyes that they are not together. Yet in classic romcom fashion, that changes over the course of the night as Ally and Jay get a little closer with every near-death encounter.
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing
As you watch “Heart Eyes”, romcom and slasher tropes are scattered like Easter eggs and spotting them is a big part of the fun. The swell of sappy love songs, the aggressively awkward meet-cute, the jabbering best friend (Gigi Zumbado). On the other side you get the slow walking but always present killer, an array of hapless victims, bumbling police officers (played by Jordana Brewster and Devon Sawa) who are no help at all. This just scratches the surface of what you’ll find.
“Heart Eyes” is a mashup in its truest form. It artfully combines the well established frameworks of romantic comedies and slasher movies into one wildly entertaining confection. To no surprise its story is a little shallow, and the end reveal isn’t all that satisfying. But Holt and Gooding make for a likable and root-worthy duo while Heart Eyes is an especially brutal killer, using a variety of weaponry to deliver some truly creative carnage.
Again, the filmmakers know what kind of movie they’re making. Ruben and company have clearly watched a number of romcoms and they possess an obvious love the slasher genre. Now sprinkle in an assortment of well-timed and genuinely funny jokes and you have “Heart Eyes”, a movie that knows its target audience and is happy to feed them exactly what they’re hungry for. “Heart Eyes” opens in theaters today.
Phoebe Dynevor turned a lot of heads (including my own) in 2023’s “Fair Play”. She follows that gripping psychological thriller with the espionage thriller, “Inheritance”. Her latest is directed and co-written by Neil Burger who takes Dynevor on a globetrotting adventure, making stops at such signature world cities as New York City, Cairo, Delhi, and Seoul. But it’s the creativity at the heart of the filmmaking that sets the movie apart.
The story of “Inheritance” (co-written by Burger and novelist Olen Steinhauer) doesn’t break any new ground. But while its plot might feel a bit familiar, it turns out to have a little more substance than you might think. The somewhat conventional espionage movie beats share space with a heartfelt story about a young woman vulnerable from grief, letting her guard down in hopes of reconnecting with her estranged father.
But what stands out most is Burger’s guerrilla filmmaking and more specifically his experimental approach to shooting. “Inheritance” was shot entirely on a handheld iPhone with no gimbal and no external lenses. There were no boom operators, just wired lavalier microphones, and there was no special lighting. It all gives the movie an impressive vérité style as Burger puts aside traditional film vocabulary and goes with what he has called a “stolen aesthetic”. By that he means he had astonishing access to shoot unnoticed, whether on commercial airplanes, going through customs, or down crowded city streets.
Image Courtesy of IFC Films
This isn’t the first movie to be shot on an iPhone. But while others have been noticeably contained, “Inheritance” is the first to make a sprawling international feature. Dodging restrictions and permits, there’s almost an anxiety in the filmmaking which feeds the tension in its story. Then there’s the sheer visual craftsmanship which impresses on many levels. It’s more than a gimmick. It’s a storytelling tool that’s crucial to the immersion. At the same time you’ll find yourself struck by what Burger, DP Jackson Hunt, and editor Nick Carew are able to accomplish.
Dynevor plays Maya, a morose young woman processing the recent death of her mother. At the funeral, she and her sister Jess (Kersti Bryan) are shocked by the appearance of their estranged father, Sam (Rhys Ifans) who they haven’t seen in years. He immediately tries reconnecting with Maya, desperately hoping to make up for running out on them. Her instincts tell her not to trust him. But the pain of spending nine months watching her mother die leaves her open to giving her one remaining parent a second chance.
Sam works as a high-end international real estate broker and he offers Maya a job as his assistant. Despite her sister urging otherwise, Maya agrees to go to work for her father and the two fly off the Egypt. Burger does a good job arousing our suspicions but he leaves things vague enough to keep us guessing. What is Sam up to? What are his intentions? Are we overthinking his actions or is something more devious at work? It doesn’t take Maya long to wonder herself starting with the discovery that Sam is travelling under an alias.
But things really escalate when Maya and her father meet for dinner in Cairo. After he steps away to take a call, her phone rings. On the other end is Sam who her tells her to grab his iPad and quickly leave the restaurant. As she hurries out several police cars speed up and officers pour into the building. Her phone rings again and it’s Sam who informs her that he has been kidnapped.
Image Courtesy of IFC Films
Through a series of events Maya learns that her father has been kidnapped. And he needs her to retrieve something in India or his captor will kill him. So our protagonist is left with a decision – does she put herself in danger and help her father or does she take her sister’s advice and catch the first flight back to New York? Well, as you can probably guess, Maya chooses to help her dad in hopes of saving their newfound father-daughter reunion.
Dynevor is a terrific anchor. It’s clear from the very start that Maya is no superspy. She has no “particular set of skills” and she quickly finds herself in way over her head. Through Dynevor’s performance Maya’s fear, nervousness, and paranoia remains convincing to the point of being palpable. But the actress also conveys grit and fortitude which gives her character the drive to face what’s in front of her.
Once again, parts of “Inheritance” stick pretty close to the usual spy movie formula. Yet it offers no shortage of surprises both in its storytelling and its craft. Dynevor once again serves as a strong lead while a cryptic Ifans shows remarkable restraint. And then there’s the impromptu style and kinetic aesthetic which vividly captures exotic cultures one minute and thrills us with a wild motorcycle chase the next. Together it all helps make “Inheritance” a nice early year surprise.
Studios are ramping up promotion for their big summer blockbusters. Yesterday it was Disney and Marvel Studios teasing TheFantastic Four. Today it’s Universal Studios releasing the first full trailer for “Jurassic World Rebirth”, the seventh feature film in the Jurassic Park franchise. While the previous two films made a lot of money, they left a lot to be desired. Thankfully “Rebirth” gives us reasons to be optimistic starting with the first trailer.
“Rebirth” is a standalone sequel to 2022’s “Jurassic World Dominion”. It’s story takes place five years after “Dominion” and follows a top-secret mission back to the island of Jurassic Park. Team leader Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), Covert Operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), and paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) are among the group searching for DNA that can be used in a number of medical cures. Of course they find much more than they bargained for mostly in the form a dangerous mutated dinosaurs.
The cast is a good one and helps make the film intriguing. But what excites me most is Gareth Edwards directing. He has delivered big with each of his last three films, “Godzilla” (2014), “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016), and “The Creator” (2023). After seeing the new trailer, there’s no reason to believe he won’t deliver once again.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” tromps into theaters on July 2nd. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Keith & the Movies 