Eureka To Give Billy Wilder’s engrossing Witness For The Prosecution Masters Of Cinema Release

Jackie Chan's Drunken Master To Get Masters Of Cinema Release

Criterion Collection Announce December UK Releases Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach

Stanley Kubrick's The Killing To Get Arrow Academy February Blu-ray Release

Fully Restored Army Of Shadows To Make Blu-Ray Premier This April

StudioCanal have announced that Jean Pierre Melville's critically acclaimed classic, ARMY OF SHADOWS will make its digitally restored blu-ray debut on, 8th April 2013.

The controversial French resistance epic originally released in 1969, was heavily criticised upon its release in France for its particular form of glorification of the Resistance. At the time, it appeared to be running against the tide of history, as attitudes to the war were about to take a U-turn, with a nation split between collaborationists and resisters.

American film-programmers took their cue from the French critics and on this basis, decided not to give it a US release. It was not until over 35 years later in 2006, that it was finally released in the US and was granted its due acclaim, including winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Starring Jean-Pierre Cassell, Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse and Simone Signoret, the blu-ray premiere also includes a brand new one hour documentary extra 'Army of Shadows – The Hidden Side of the Story.'

Pre-order/Buy: Army of Shadows [Blu-ray] [1969]

Classic Anime Ninja Scroll Coming to Blu-Ray First Time

Anime classic Ninja Scroll comes to Blu-ray for the first time ever! Available in a limited edition Double Play Blu-ray/DVD Steelbook as well as separately on Blu-ray and DVD, Yoshiaki Kawajiri's wonderfully animated 1993 masterpiece sets the bar for ninja action, as wandering swordsman Jubei and female ninja Kagero carve their way through a host of super-powered bad guys. Gory, visceral and still shocking after nearly two decades, Ninja Scroll demands a place on any anime fan's shelf.

Set during Japan's Tokugawa period, Ninja Scroll opens with female ninja Kagero - the sole survivor of a squad sent to investigate a plagued village - at the mercy of Tessai, a monster of a man who can turn his skin to stone. Rescued by wandering ronin Jubei Kibagami, the pair discover from shady shogunate spy Dakuan that Tessai is one of the Eight Devils of Kimon - a band of super ninja apparently led by Jubei's old nemesis Himuro Genma, whom he insists that he killed years ago.

Tricked into helping Kagero and Dakuan take down the Eight Devils, expert swordsman Jubei must push his finely-honed fighting skills to the limit if he is to defeat his deadly adversaries, who include shadow assassin Shijima, blind warrior Utsutsu, explosives specialist Zakuro and, of course, the evil Himuro Genma himself. Pitted against such merciless foes, only one thing is certain; Jubei Kibagami must kill or be killed.

Along with Akira and Ghost In The Shell, Ninja Scroll was one of the key titles that opened the West's eyes to what anime could achieve. Stunningly animated and shockingly violent, Ninja Scroll combines sex, death, action, intrigue and copious fountains of blood to create an all-time anime classic.

Written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Wicked City, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust), Ninja Scroll is made by veteran animation studio Madhouse, whose long list of credits include acclaimed movies such as Summer Wars, Paprika, The Girl Who Lept Through Time and Perfect Blue as well as series like Death Note and Black Lagoon. November 26th 2012 is the day all anime fans in UK have to include in their diaries, when Ninja Scroll is released on Blu Ray, DVD (re-release) and Special Steelbook edition.

Whilst creating this post our friends over at Twitch have found out Madhouse after 20 years are working on a new 3 part Ninja Scroll animation called Ninja Scroll Burst and below is the first teaser!

Studio Canal Announces This Year's Titles For It's 'Studio Canal Collection'

StudioCanal have announced the films that will make up this year's 'StudioCanal Collection' the series that aims to revisit some of the most iconic films from Studiocanal's  back catalogue of over 5,000 titles.

For those of you who don't know, the StudioCanal Collection is a series of acclaimed and influential films on Blu-ray with unique special features and accompanying booklets, available in HD so as to present the best possible picture and sound quality. This year's classic films will be Orson Welles The Trial,Luis Buneul's  That Obscure Object of Desire and Marcel Carne's  Le Quai Des Brumes (Port Of Shadows).

THE TRIAL

Based on the influential Franz Kafka novel, THE TRIAL is a paranoid masterpiece directed by Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil). Josef K (Anthony Perkins – Psycho) is arrested, but has no idea what crime he is accused of. In order to find out what offence he is meant to have committed, and to protest his innocence, Josef K must go through the machinations of the judicial system, but he soon finds himself trapped in a dehumanised nightmare.
  
Extras: 
Welles, Kafka and The Trial documentary
Welles, Architect of Light documentary
Tempo Profile: Orson Welles
Interview with Steven Berkoff (actor, playwright) - adaptations of Kakfa's The Trial andMetamorphosis
Deleted Scene
Trailer
Booklet on the movie written by Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic and author of Discovering Orson Welles (2007), the editor of This Is Orson Welles  (1998) and consultant on the 1998 re-edit ofTouch Of Evil. 

THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE

Adapted from Pierre Louÿs' 1898 novel 'La Femme et le Pantin', THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE marked Buñuel's final film. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Buñuel favourite Fernando Rey), a wealthy middle-aged French sophisticate who falls desperately in love with his 19-year-old former chambermaid Conchita (Carole Bouquet). Thus begins a surreal game of sexual cat-and-mouse, with Mathieu obsessively attempting to win the girl's affections as she manipulates his carnal desires, each vying to gain absolute control of the other.

Extras: 
Arbitrary Desire (Interview with Jean-Claude Carrière)
Interview with Carlos Saura
Double Dames (Interview with Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina)
A portrait if Luis Buñuel (Interview with Pierre Lary and Edmond Richard)

QUAI DES BRUMES

Le QUAI DES BRUMES is Marcel Carné's controversial adaptation of the Pierre Mac Orlan novel of the same name, today regarded as one of the greatest French classical movies. Jean (Jean Gabin), a deserter, arrives in Le Havre and looks for a shelter before leaving the French territory. Housed in a shed on the harbour, at the end of the docks, he meets an eccentric painter (Michel Simon) and a mysterious and beautiful girls called Nelly (Michele Morgan)… From then on he will be trapped in a tragic destiny, in spite of his passion for Nelly and his will to live…

Extras: 
On The Port Of Shadows
Introduction to Quai Des Brumes by Ginette Vincendeau, Professor and Film Critic
Restoring Quai Des Brumes
Booklet on the movie written by Ginette Vincendeau, Professor and Film Critic.

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Oedipus Rex To Get UK Masters Of Cinema September Release

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s OEDIPUS REX [EDIPO RE] is to be released in the UK in a Dual Format (DVD & Blu-ray) edition as part of Eureka Entertainment’s MASTERS OF CINEMA Series on 24 September 2012. DVD edition also available! The release on Blu-Ray will mark the film's debut on the format anywhere is the world and the long successful relationship Eureka Entertainment has with the director's popular filmography with the Golden Lion nominated film (1967 Venice Film Festival) joining Accatone, Hawks And Sparrows, Pigsty, Gospel According To Matthew, RoGoPag.

Three years after The Gospel According to Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini resumed his series of classical adaptations with a savage, highly personal take on Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex [Edipo Re]. As his first colour feature, Oedipus Rex makes brilliant use of wildly alternating Moroccan landscapes to transpose collective myth into a particular vision that is at once tender, sensual, and wholly unsparing.

The film is divided into three sections set in different eras. The opening takes place in 1920s Italy, and recounts a birth that echoes that of the director himself, the product of a beautiful bourgeoise's affair with a military officer. The mid section depicts a time "outside of history" – it is here that the myth of Oedipus (portrayed by Franco Citti of Accattone and Coppola's The Godfather), one of patricide and incest, plays out opposite the young man's mother/lover (Silvana Mangano). An epilogue shot on the streets of present-day Bologna finds Oedipus playing his flute for a bustling citizenry.

With its kinetic handheld camerawork and strikingly primeval costumes, Pasolini's film rattles its art-genre framework in the enduring quest to exorcise repressive emotional forces. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex for the very first time on Blu-ray, in a Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition, released on 24 September 2012. DVD edition also available!

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• Gorgeous new HD restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, in 1080p on the Blu-ray

• Newly translated optional English subtitles

• Original Italian theatrical trailer

• 28-page booklet featuring vintage writing by Pasolini, excerpts from an interview with the director by Oswald Stack about the film, and rare archival imagery

Available to pre-order from:

Amazon (Dual Format Edition) http://amzn.to/IOW9OL (DVD Edition) http://amzn.to/N6xZhA

HMV (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/488c9e4b

Play (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/ab22de13

The Hut (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/7975983a