Arrow Academy November Titles
Arrow Academy, the “art house” label of Arrow films, posted their November Blu-ray announcements today, including a region-free release of Robert Altman’s great, late career triumph Gosford Park (2001) and a U.K.-only release of my favorite motion picture of 2006.
Please note: Not all of the titles below will be released in the U.S., and those that are “U.K. only” are not likely to be playable in American Blu-ray players, due to distribution rights.
Listed below are the disc descriptions directly from the Arrow Academy Facebook page. The releases are clearly marked as either “UK/US” or “UK Only”:
NEW UK TITLE: Children of Men (Blu-ray)
Offers a powerful and frightening glimpse at a future that, more than a decade later, feels even more chillingly prescient than at the time of its original release.
Release date: 5 November
NO CHILDREN. NO FUTURE. NO HOPE.
Academy Award®-winner Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Y Tu Mamá También) is renowned for his bold and ambitious camerawork, pushing technology to its limits in his pursuit of cinematic truth. With 2006’s Children of Men, he delivers one of the most chilling and visceral works of cinematic speculative fiction in recent memory.
In 2027, following eighteen years of global human infertility, the world is a bleak and hostile place. Former activist Theo (Clive Owen, Gosford Park, Shadow Dancer) drifts through the violence-riven streets of London without hope or purpose. However, when he reluctantly agrees to help former lover Julian (Julianne Moore, The Fugitive) smuggle a miraculously pregnant woman out of the country, he is unwittingly thrust into the role of all that stands between the human race and its extinction. As the country descends into anarchy and the authorities close in, Theo must race against time to secure safe passage for the humanity’s only hope of salvation.
Based on the dystopian novel by P.D. James and co-starring Michael Caine (Pulp) and Clare-Hope Ashitey (Seven Seconds), Children of Men offers a powerful and frightening glimpse at a future that, more than a decade later, feels even more chillingly prescient than at the time of its original release.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Original 5.1 DTS-HD master audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- New audio commentary by author and critic Bryan Reesman
- There is No Future, a new video appreciation by film historian Philip Kemp
- Fertility & Progeny, a new video essay by author and critic Kat Ellinger
- The Possibility of Hope, an archival documentary featuring interviews with activist Naomi Klein, philosopher Slavoj Žižek and others, exploring the film’s resonance with contemporary current affairs
- Comments by Slavoj Žižek, an archival featurette on the film’s themes
- Creating the Baby, an archival featurette on the film’s visual effects
- Futuristic Design, an archival featurette on the film’s sets
- Theo & Julian, an archival featurette on Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and their characters
- Under Attack, an archival featurette on the film’s ground-breaking camerawork
- Deleted scenes
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Corey Brickley
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mark Cunliffe and Amy Simmons
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: Gas Food Lodging (Blu-ray)
This director-approved restoration finally affords this 90s modern classic the home video treatment it rightly deserves.
Release dates: 12 November
THEY’RE SISTERS. BUT IT WILL TAKE A MIRACLE TO MAKE THEM A FAMILY.
Adapted from the novel Don’t Look and It Won’t Hurt by Richard Peck, Allison Anders (Grace of My Heart) whipped up a storm at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival with her masterfully crafted tale of a young woman trying to find love while struggling to bring up her two daughters.
Abandoned by her husband, Nora (Brooke Adams, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Stuff) waitresses to keep her head above water while raising two teenagers in a small New Mexico town trailer park. Beautiful and rebellious, Trudi (Ione Skye, Wayne’s World, Zodiac) quits school to work alongside her mother, while her sister Shade (Fairuza Balk, The Craft, American History X) whittles away her time watching old movie matinees. Their life is turned on its head when Trudi finds that she has fallen pregnant after a string of promiscuous relationships and the girls’ absent father returns with hopes of mending the relationships he broke when he left.
A wonderfully engaging story of the woes of teenagers reaching adulthood, Gas Food Lodging is a distinctly American portrayal of a mother trying to raise two wayward teens with growing pains, who are learning about love, life and each other. This director-approved restoration finally affords this 90s modern classic the home video treatment it rightly deserves.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation, approved by director Allison Anders
- Original uncompressed 2.0 audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- The Road to Laramie: A Look Back at Gas Food Lodging, a brand new interview with Allison Anders and Josh Olson
- Cinefile: Reel Women (Chris Rodley, 1995), a documentary looking at the challenges women face in the film industry from independent to studio filmmaking, featuring interviews with Allison Anders, Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, Penny Marshall, Gale Anne Hurd and others
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: Gosford Park (Blu-ray)
When Sir William is found murdered in the library, everyone – and their servants – becomes a suspect.
Release dates: 26 November
TEA AT FOUR. DINNER AT EIGHT. MURDER AT MIDNIGHT.
In 2001, Robert Altman (MASH, The Long Goodbye) took the unexpected step into Agatha Christie territory with Gosford Park, a murder-mystery whodunit set in an English country house starring a host of British acting greats and with an Oscar-winning screenplay by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. It would become a huge success with audiences and critics alike.
Set in 1932, the action unfolds during a weekend shooting party hosted by Sir William McArdle (Alan Bates), and his wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) at his estate, Gosford Park. Among the guests are friends, relatives, the actor and composer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), and an American film producer (Bob Balaban). When Sir William is found murdered in the library, everyone – and their servants – becomes a suspect.
Also starring Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Maggie Smith, Emily Watson and many more, Altman produced another masterpiece deserving to be ranked alongside Nashville and Short Cuts as one his finest forays into ensemble drama.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- Brand new 2K restoration from a 4K scan, carried out by Arrow films exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director of photography Andrew Dunn
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by director Robert Altman, production designer Stephen Altman and producer David Levy
- Audio commentary by writer-producer Julian Fellowes
- Brand-new audio commentary by critics Geoff Andrew and David Thompson (author of Altman on Altman)
- Introduction by critic Geoff Andrew
- Brand new cast and crew interviews recorded exclusively for this release
- The Making of Gosford Park archive featurette
- Keeping Gosford Park Authentic archive featurette
- Q&A Session with Altman and the cast
- Fifteen deleted scenes with optional Altman commentary
- Trailer
- Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Sheila O’Malley and an archive interview with Robert Altman
