Arrow Video June Titles
The Criterion of cult, Arrow Video, posted their June Blu-ray announcements this morning, and fans of Spaghetti Westerns will be especially pleased. I know I am!
Being that Arrow is a British company, keep in mind that not all of their titles will be released both in the U.K. and the U.S., due to distribution rights. However, Arrow always makes it perfectly clear which Blu-rays will be offered in both the U.K. and U.S. versus which ones are U.K. only.
Listed below are the disc descriptions directly from the Arrow Video Facebook page. Be sure and scroll all the way down the post, because they saved the best for last:
NEW UK TITLE: Jake Speed (Blu-ray)
A ripe slice of ’80s action cheese in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone
Release date: 4 June
When her sister is taken by a gang of white slavers, Margaret (Karen Kopins, Troop Beverly Hills) knows she needs a hero with a difference to bring her home. Enter Jake Speed (Wayne Crawford, Barracuda), leaping from the pages of pulp thriller novels and into the real world. With Margaret in tow and his trusty sidekick Desmond Floyd (Dennis Christopher, Chariots of Fire) in tow, Jake arrives hot on the heels of the kidnappers in a southern African country gripped by civil war. But it soon turns out Jake got more than he bargained for when he discovers that the ringleader of the slavers is none other than his own arch-nemesis: the wicked, criminally insane Sid (John Hurt, Alien, The Osterman Weekend)…
A ripe slice of ’80s action cheese in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone, Jake Speed has it all: romance, death-defying stunts, spellbinding scenery shot on location in Zimbabwe… and best of all, a wickedly off-the-wall performance by the late John Hurt, proving the old adage that a hero is nothing without a worthy foe.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Original lossless 2.0 stereo audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Paperback Wishes, Cinematic Dreams, a new interview with co-writer/producer/director Andrew Lane
- The Hard Way Reads Better, a new interview with producer William Fay
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Mark Cunliffe
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: Vigil (Blu-ray)
Vincent Ward – once described as “the Antipodean Werner Herzog” – made his feature debut with Vigil
Release date: 11/12 June
Vincent Ward – once described as “the Antipodean Werner Herzog” – made his feature debut with Vigil, heralding his status as one of New Zealand’s most distinctive filmmaking talents and paving the way for such equally remarkable and unclassifiable efforts as The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey and Map of the Human Heart.
A stranger appears in a remote New Zealand farmland at the exact time a farmer accidentally falls to his death. The mysterious outsider grows close to some of the dead man’s family, to the point where he and the widow become lovers. But her eleven-year-old daughter, Toss, struggling to come to terms with the death of her father as well as her impending womanhood, believes the intruder to be the devil and sets about protecting her family and their homestead.
Propelled by Fiona Kay’s outstanding performance by as Toss, she would earn a standing ovation when Vigil screened at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival – the first time ever that a New Zealand feature played in the main competition.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition (Blu-ray) presentation
- Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Brand-new appreciation by film critic Nick Roddick, recorded exclusively for this release
- On-set report from the long-running New Zealand television programme Country Calendar
- Extract from a 1987 Kaleidoscope television documentary on New Zealand cinema, focusing on Vigil and Vincent Ward
- Theatrical trailer
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Carmen Gray
NEW UK TITLE: The Quiet Earth (Blu-ray)
Attained cult status as one of the most distinctive post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies of the 1980s.
Release date: 18 June
Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence, As Time Goes By), a scientist working on a pioneering energy project, wakes up one morning to find that the technology has malfunctioned, leaving him as seemingly the only man left on earth. As Zac wanders the deserted city of Hamilton, New Zealand, hoping to find some remnant of life besides himself, his mind begins to disintegrate until fantasy and reality blur together in a heady, terrifying cocktail.
Directed by Geoff Murphy (Under Siege 2, Freejack) and adapted from the 1982 novel of the same name, The Quiet Earth has attained cult status as one of the most distinctive post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies of the 1980s. By turns haunting, surreal and inscrutable, the film asks questions about humankind’s insatiable appetite for destruction that are arguably as prescient today as they were at the time of its release thirty years ago.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Lossless 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio options
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- New audio commentary by critic Travis Crawford
- New video essay on the film by critic Bryan Reesman
- New interview with critic Kim Newman on the post-apocalyptic movies of the 1980s
- Original theatrical trailer
- Stills gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Laz Marquez
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Amy Simmons
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: The Addiction (Blu-ray)
Amid the fangs and crucifixes, Abel Ferrara reunited with his King of New York star Christopher Walken for The Addiction, a distinctly personal take on creatures of the night.
Release date: 25/26 June
The mid-nineties were a fertile period for the vampire movie. Big-name stars such as Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy flocked to genre, as did high-calibre filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, veterans Wes Craven and John Landis, independents Michael Almereyda and Jeffrey Arsenault, and up-and-comers Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo del Toro. Amid the fangs and crucifixes, Abel Ferrara reunited with his King of New York star Christopher Walken for The Addiction, a distinctly personal take on creatures of the night.
Philosophy student Kathleen (Lili Taylor, The Conjuring) is dragged into an alleyway on her way home from class by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) and bitten on the neck. She quickly falls ill but realises this isn’t any ordinary disease when she develops an aversion to daylight and a thirst for human blood…
Having made a big-budget foray into science fiction two years earlier with Body Snatchers, Ferrara’s approach to the vampire movie is in a lower key. Shot on the streets of New York, like so many of his major works – including The Driller Killer, Ms. 45 and Bad Lieutenant – and beautifully filmed in black and white, The Addiction sees the filmmaker on his own terms and at his very best: raw, shocking, intense, intelligent, masterful.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- New restoration from a 4K scan of the original camera negative by Arrow Films, approved by director Abel Ferrara and director of photography Ken Kelsch
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
- Restored 5.1 audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by Abel Ferrara, moderated by critic and biographer Brad Stevens
- Talking with the Vampires (2018) A new documentary about the film made by Ferrara especially for this release, featuring actors Christopher Walken and Lili Taylor, composer Joe Delia, Ken Kelsch, and Ferrara himself
- New interview with Abel Ferrara
- New interview with Brad Stevens
- Abel Ferrara Edits The Addiction, an archival piece from the time of production
- Original trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing on the film by critic Michael Ewins
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: The Complete Sartana Limited Edition (Blu-ray)
The Complete Sartana collects all five films, presented here in brand-new restorations
Release date: 25/26 June
Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name spawned imitations, variations and shameless rip-offs keen to emulate his success at the box office. Within months of A Fistful of Dollars’ release, Giuliano Gemma was playing Ringo, who was then followed by Franco Nero’s Django, Tony Anthony’s The Stranger and Gianni Garko’s Sartana – each providing their own twist on the Eastwood antihero, and each of them then subject to their own spate of unofficial sequels, spoofs and cash-ins.
Sartana tapped into more than just his Spaghetti Western predecessors – a mysterious figure, he has a spectral quality, aided by his Count Dracula-alike cloak which also nods towards comic strip figure Mandrake the Magician, with whom he shares he shares a penchant for card tricks. He takes pride in his appearance unlike the Eastwood’s dusty wanderer or Nero’s mud-caked drifter. And there’s a dose of James Bond too in his fondness for gadgetry and the droll sense of humour.
Unsurprisingly, this unique figure in the genre was treated to four official follow-ups. The Complete Sartana collects all five films, presented here in brand-new restorations: If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death, I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death, Have a Good Funeral My Friend… Sartana Will Pay, Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming, and Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin, in which George Hilton replaced Garko in the lead role.
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- Limited Edition Blu-ray collection of all five official Sartana films (2500 copies)
- Brand-new 2K restoration of If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death from original film materials, carried out by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
- Brand-new 2K restorations of I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death, Have a Good Funeral My Friend… Sartana Will Pay, Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming, and Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin from original camera negatives, carried out by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
- Original Italian and English soundtracks on all five films
- Uncompressed mono 1.0 PCM audio
- Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
- Audio commentary on If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death by filmmaker Mike Siegel
- Audio commentaries on I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death and Have a Good Funeral My Friend… Sartana Will Pay by Spaghetti Western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke
- Gianfranco Parolini on If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death, a brand-new interview with the writer-director
- Fabbio Piccioni on If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death, a brand-new interview with the writer
- Sal Borgese on I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death and Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming, two brand-new interviews with the actor
- Ernesto Gastaldi on I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death and Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming, two brand-new interviews with the writer
- Roberto Dell’Acqua on Have a Good Funeral My Friend… Sartana Will Pay, a brand-new interview with the actor
- Sartana Lives, an archive featurette on Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming featuring interviews with actor Gianni Garko and director Giuliano Carnimeo • Sartana Shoots First, a brand-new interview with George Hilton on Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin
- Erika Blanc on Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin, a brand-new interview with the actor
- Tony Askin on Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin, a brand-new interview with the actor
- Brand-new video essay on the major actors and supporting players in the official Sartana films
- Galleries of original promotional images from the Mike Siegal Archive for all five films
- Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
- Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Roberto Curti and an extensive Spaghetti Western timeline by Howard Hughes
