Felini's Il Bidone (1955) To Get Duel Format Masters Of Cinema Release

Genre:
Comedy,Drama, World Cinema, Arthouse
Distributor:
Eureka! Entertainment
Release Date:
30th December 2013 (UK)
Format:
Dual (DVD&Blu-Ray)
Rating:
12
Director:
Federico Felini
Cast:
franco fabrizi, richard basehart, broderick crawford, Giulietta Masina,


Eureka Entertainment have announced that they will be releasing IL BIDONE, one of the most acclaimed films of the 1950s by legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini (8-1/2, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita). The first Blu-ray release anywhere in the world of this classic drama, will be released in the UK in a Dual Format (Blu-ray &DVD) edition as part of the Masters of Cinema Series on 30 December 2013.

Federico Fellini followed up his iconic breakthrough La strada with this brilliant drama - an unsparing look at the dog-eat-dog values of post war Italian society that nonetheless manages to navigate expertly between the lightly comic and the emotionally stark to become one of his richest, most moving works.

Il bidone [The Swindle] follows three small-time conmen - the ageing Augusto (Broderick Crawford), "Picasso" (Richard Basehart), and Roberto (Franco Fabrizi) - as they prey upon the poor and gullible for modest gains. However, once Augusto is unexpectedly reunited with his daughter, now struggling with her studies, the moral and emotional demands of his lifestyle begin to take their toll sooner than he had anticipated.

With its masterful set pieces and host of superb performances (including the director's wife and muse Giuletta Masina), this forms the centrepiece of what has been termed Fellini's "Trilogy of Loneliness" (with bookending films La strada and Le notti di Cabiria), and may be the darkest examination of human nature he ever attempted. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this long-undervalued classic in a new high-definition restoration.



SPECIAL FEATURES

• Beautiful new high-definition master, with the film appearing in 1080p on the Blu-ray
• Optional English subtitles
• Original theatrical trailer
• 36-PAGE BOOKLET featuring the words of Federico Fellini, rare imagery, and more!
• More to be announced!

Pre-order or Buy - Il Bidone [Masters of Cinema] Dual Format [Blu-ray & DVD]

Eureka Video Announce Their Masters Of Cinema 2014 Early Releases

Eureka Entertainment have announced via their twitter feeds (@eurekavideo and @mastersofcinema) their forthcoming releases in The Masters of Cinema series for the months of January, February and March 2014.

With a slate of titles that ranges from the most recent and 1980s American cinema (and, separately, the emergent Australian independent cinema), through to masterworks of the Italian cinema, and on to silent, and 1970s Hollywood, The Masters of Cinema Series runs the cinephile gamut once again with a seven-film January-March line-up that includes works by Federico Fellini, Samuel Fuller, Sidney Lumet, Francesco Rosi, William A. Wellman, Ted Kotcheff, and Andrew Bujalski. As if that weren't enough, Eureka Entertainment are also proud to announce an early summer release for one of Robert Altman's most revered films.

Producer of the Masters of Cinema Series, Craig Keller stated “In January, we welcome Andrew Bujalski into the Series for the first time with his smash indie-success Computer Chess (read review) that is currently enjoying a theatrical run across the UK following its British première at the London Film Festival. Alongside Computer Chess, William A. Wellman's Wings – the winner of the first ever Academy Award for Best Picture (1927-1928) will see its UK home-release premiere. Both titles will be released as Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) editions.


In February, we'll be releasing for the first time in the UK, a special edition Blu-ray and Ltd Edition Blu-ray SteelBook of Sidney Lumet's classic police drama starring Al Pacino — Serpico (Original Theatrical Trailer http://bit.ly/17Tt2mE ) Secondly, we'll be releasing a Blu-ray edition of Federico Fellini's 1972 epic colour spectacle, a love-letter to the past and present of the city he loved best: Roma .

Another Italian classic arrives in March in a Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) release: Francesco Rosi's gripping political procedural, Le mani sulla città [Hands Over the City]. March also finds us two of the most brutally unsparing and controversial independent works of the last forty years. The first is the long-awaited (and uncut) release of Ted Kotcheff's disturbing and subversive Wake in Fright, hailed by Nick Cave as "the best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence," and which Martin Scorsese has stated to have rendered him "speechless" — released in its brilliant 2009 restoration. Prior to its home-video release, Wake in Fright will be released theatrically in selected cinemas in the UK & Eire on 7 March 2014. Here is the brand new 2014 UK theatrical trailer . The second controversial release in March is Samuel Fuller's feverish White Dog, unavailable in the UK for decades, whose premise — a stray white dog turns out to have been conditioned to attack any black person on sight — was woefully misconstrued at the time of its 1982 release; it remains one of Fuller's most passionate anti-racist statements. Both of these works will also be released in Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) editions.”

Managing Director of Eureka Entertainment, Ron Benson added “The finest in world cinema abounds across these seven releases, supplemented as always with a spate of special features and extras, all presented with a meticulous attention to detail and design. The same ethos applies to a film we'll be releasing in May, and for which we're thrilled to be able to provide an early sneak-announcement: Robert Altman's epic 1970s ensemble classic, Nashville, released for the first time on UK home video, in a Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition.”

Wes Anderson's New Castello Cavalcanti Short Honours Fellini

As the world awaits the arrival of Hotel Budapest, Wes Anderson treats us all with a 8 minute short Castello Cavalcanti.Comissioned by Italian fashion house Prada the short film time warps us back to 1955 and stars Jason Schwartzman who plays an American racing car driver. Whilst out with his cars driving through the Italian countryside during that years Molte Miglia when he crashes his car into a water fountain in a small rural town when a turn of events turn his troules into something he never expected.

Castello Cavalcanti is aesthetically what you expect from Wes Anderson film, quirky, vibrant as well as a chance for Anderson to pay homage to his cinematic heroes. Federico Fellini is honoured in this film with the Fellini's Amarcord the biggest source of inspiration, even the film's title is homage to one of Anderson's heroes Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti.

This not fashion film the closest  you'll see Prada in Castello Cavalcanti is probably the labels on the clothes the cast wore when this as shot, but this is one luxury item from the house of Prada everyone can afford to enjoy. This no ordinary film, it's an Wes Anderson short film, need I say more?

Blu-Ray Review - Federico Fellini's 8½

Genre:
Arthouse, World Cinema, Drama, Classic
Release Date:
11th November 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Argent Films
Rating:
15
Director:
Federico Fellini
Cast:
Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo, Barbara Steele
Buy 8 ½: [DVD] or [Blu-ray]

8 ½ is one of those films like Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey that every film critic pretty much agrees is one of the films that changed film forever. It’s a film that influenced a wide range of films from Brazil to All That Jazz and Woody Allen’s unfairly maligned Stardust Memories. The great Italian maestro film director Federico Fellini was at the helm and it’s quite possibly the greatest film ever made about making a film. 8 ½ was later adapted/remade at the musical Nine but the less said about that the better.

The plot concerns Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) who is a director who is having “director’s block” while trying to finish a science fiction film. Guido is quite obviously based on Fellini and Mastroianni was always director’s alter ego on screen. Guido’s marriage is failing apart and has lost interest in finishing the film. The film is a classic mixture of fantasy, memories and reality and at times it’s never clear which is which.

8 ½ like many of the truly great films like Citizen Kane or Brazil it’s all really a great big magic trick. Fellini was first and foremost a dreamer like Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam, who cites Fellini as his biggest influence and 8 ½ as his favourite film. He tried to make cinematic dreams with his great films and he plays around with time and space but also the form of cinema itself. Its both a film that plays with avant-garde film techniques but simultaneously is also extremely watchable and relatively commercial and in turn it’s a pitch-perfect juggling act.

Fellini was also a cartoonist (like Gilliam) and his post-Neo-Realist films certainly have a cartoonish take on life. The characters at times especially the female characters have an also caricature quality to them in the best possible way. It’s all shot in truly beautiful black and white widescreen by Gianni Di Venanzo who was the Italian cinematographer of the early 60s but he died very young sadly.

8 ½ has rightfully earned its reputation at simply one of the greatest film ever made. It’s really THE Fellini film and you really must experience the film if you haven’t already. It’s film like Citizen Kane that was one of the building blocks of modern cinema.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

Eureka Entertainment Announce Their August/September Line Up

Releases from Fellini, Sirk, Antonioni, Pialat and Antonio Campos are set to join the Masters of Cinema Series as Eureka Entertainment announce their release schedule for August and September 2013

Eureka Entertainment have announced via their twitter feeds (@eurekavideo & @mastersofcinema) the forthcoming releases in The Masters of Cinema series for the months of August and September 2013.

From classic Hollywood to the finest in French and Italian art cinema as well as a brand new film by an emerging auteur, The Masters of Cinema Series is as eclectic as ever in its August and September 2013 line-up – a 6-film slate that includes directors Douglas Sirk, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Maurice Pialat, and Antonio Campos.

Producer of the Masters of Cinema Series, Andrew Utterson stated “In August, we welcome director Antonio Campos into the series for the first time with his remarkably assured second feature Simon Killer alongside worldwide Blu-ray premières of Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angels and Michelangelo Antonioni's La notte [The Night].More cinematic treats follow in September with Maurice Pialat's study of the great artist Van Gogh, the worldwide Blu-ray première of Federico Fellini's early masterpiece Il bidone, and the worldwide Blu-ray première of Douglas Sirk's penultimate Hollywood feature A Time to Love and a Time to Die. “

Managing Director of Eureka Entertainment Ron Benson added “Across six standout films, world and UK premières abound, with new restorations aplenty, as we continue our quest to release the very finest in world cinema, using the very best available materials, and all with a meticulous attention to detail and design.”

City Of Women Blu-Ray Review (Masters Of Cinema Release)

City of Women was one of the great Federico Fellini’s very last films. It along with most of later work commercially and critically unsuccessful. It premiered at the Cannes film festival in 1980 and was lambasted by the critics and even fellow filmmakers like the great but miserable sod Andrei Tarkovsky who called the film “worthless”. However the film is about as Fellini-esq as you can get and deserves reappraisal.

The film is about the middle age Snàporaz (Marcello Mastroianni) and Snàporaz like all of Mastroianni character’s in Fellini’s films is the director’s alter ego (this is most obvious in 8½ and it’s also his first lead role in a Fellini film since 8½). Snàporaz is on a train going home but he sees a big breasted women and they have brief fling in the bathroom but it’s cut short and the women must get off the train. Snàporaz follows her off the train and eventually finds him at a feminist polyandry conference. The film from that point becomes a bunch of increasing surreal vignettes which include roller skating, druggy lesbian post-punk teenagers who try to kill Snàporaz, attempted rape by a fat women, a court to test his masculinity among others.

The film came out after a difficult time for Fellini after some not entirety successful films he made in the wake of his classic Amarcord. What Fellini does with City of Women is to do a gloriously over the top sex farce with surrealistic touches throughout, there is hilarious sex scene which a women with an enormous ass which is obviously fake. However like Fellini’s work it’s really a film about his love/fear of women. Fellini was interested in feminism but he certainly wasn’t a feminist despite the fact the women in the film he certain sympathies with because they being mistreated by the male population. He certain makes the feminists in the film laughably absurd but Snàporaz is as well and the character Dr. Katzone with his mansion full of sexual art and absurd phallic sculptures.

The film’s centrepiece is the well-known scene after he crawls under his bed he enters a dreamlike slide where he revisits all childhood crushes. Which is beautiful filmed by Giuseppe Rotunno (who later worked with Fellini’s disciple Terry Gilliam) and constructed.

Overall the film is a really fun surrealist romp though the loves and desires of Federico Fellini, it’s not 8½ but what is? It isn’t without it’s flaws however, it’s a bit too long and has some over dubbing ever on a film, most evident in the conference scene in the beginning. Worth checking out especially with Masters of Cinema’s beautiful hd transfer.

Ian Schultz

★★★★☆

Rating: 18
BD/DVD Release Date: 25th February 2013 (UK)
Director:Federico Fellini
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Prucnal, Bernice Stegers
Buy City Of Women: DVD / Blu-ray

Federico Fellini's City Of Women Gets Masters Of Cinema Blu-Ray Release

CITY OF WOMEN [LA CITTÀ DELLE DONNE / LA CITÉ DES FEMMES] will be released as part of Eureka Entertainment’s MASTERS OF CINEMA Series on Blu-ray & DVD on 25 February 2013

Eureka Entertainment have announced that they will be releasing a gorgeous new HD restoration of the long out-of-circulation epic CITY OF WOMEN [LA CITTÀ DELLE DONNE / LA CITÉ DES FEMMES] by the legendary Italian director Federico Fellini (La strada, Nights of Cabiria, La dolce vita, 8-1/2, Amarcord) on Blu-ray & DVD on 25 February 2013.  The film is an unprecedented cinematic spectacle, produced in part by France's Gaumont Studio, and stars the most famous Italian actor of the 20th Century, Marcello Mastroianni, reprising his 8-1/2 role.

Federico Fellini's epic 1980 fantasia introduced the start of the Maestro's delirious late period. A surrealist tour-de-force filmed on soundstages and locations alike, and overflowing with the same sensory (and sensual) invention heretofore found only in the classic movie-musicals (and Fellini's own oeuvre), La città delle donne [City of Women] taps into the era's restless youth-culture, coalescing into nothing less than Fellini's post-punk opus.

Marcello Mastroianni appears as Fellini's alter ego in a semi-reprise of his character from 8-1/2, Snàporaz. As though passing into a dream, the charismatic avatar finds himself initiated into a phantasmagoric world where women — or an idea of women — have taken power, and which is structured like an array of psychosexual set-pieces — culminating in a bravura hot-air balloon that decisively sticks the "anti" up into "climax".

A great adventure "through the looking-glass," as it were, of Fellini's own phallic lens and life-long libidinal ruminations, La città delle donne sharply divided critics at the 1980 Festival de Cannes, some of whom had merely anticipated a nostalgic retread of the earlier Mastroianni works. What they were greeted with, and what remains today, is, in the words of Serge Daney, "a victory of cinema". The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present La città delle donne on Blu-ray and DVD in Gaumont's glorious new HD restoration.

SPECIAL BLU-RAY AND DVD EDITIONS:

• Glorious new HD restoration of the film, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray.

• Newly translated optional subtitles.

• Substantial booklet containing writing on the film, vintage excerpts, and rare archival imagery.

• More features to be announced closer to the release date!

Pre-order:CITY OF WOMEN [LA CITTÀ DELLE DONNE / LA CITÉ DES FEMMES] (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray) [1980]