IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

A new boutique video label, Arbelos, has announced that they will launch their company with a theatrical re-release and Blu-ray debut of a 4K restoration of Dennis Hopper’s notorious follow-up to Easy Rider, The Last Movie (1971).  The announcement was made Thursday at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.  The company’s initial slate, including The Last Movie, is due to bow in 2018.

Scott Roxborough broke the news in The Hollywood Reporter:

Arbelos looks to blending both new independent features with 4K restorations of classic and cult films, cutting across all genres and eras, the group said. Arbelos plans to release 6-8 titles per year, around half new titles, and will be scouting films while in Toronto.

The team behind Arbelos — co-founders David Marriott, Dennis Bartok, Craig Rogers and Ei Toshinari — previously collaborated together on Cineliscious Pics, the distribution arm of L.A. digital restoration studio Cinelicious and the new company’s initial slate will include Cinelicious Pics film library of 14 feature films, including the recent 4K restoration of Toshio Matsumoto’s transgender classic Funeral Parade of Roses, Tim Sutton’s Dark Night and the 4K restoration of Eiichi Yamamoto’s underground anime Belladonna of Sadness.

“We all share a very left-of-center passion for hidden and underappreciated movies,” said Bartok. “The success of Belladonna of Sadness, which had been forgotten for over 40 years and went on to be one of the biggest arthouse re-releases of last year, showed that we’ve barely scratched the surface of great, overlooked movies. We love the fact that we’re starting our company with literally The Last Movie, Dennis Hopper’s brilliant and long-unavailable masterpiece.”

The launch of a new boutique label is a cause for celebration, and the mission of Arbelos is perfectly in line with this site.  I never thought I’d see a Blu-ray release of The Last Movie, so I can’t wait to see what else Arbelos has in store.