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Studiocanal is delighted to announce the release of a brand-new 4K restoration of the British comedy classic, Three Men in a Boat, that will be available to own on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from August 19. To celebrate we have a 2 4K Blu-Rays to give away!

Directed by Ken Annakin (Monte Carlo or Bust, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines), Three Men In A Boat stars Laurence Harvey (Women of Twilight, Room at The Top), David Tomlinson (Mary Poppins, The Love Bug) and Jimmy Edwards (The Bed Sitting Room, Innocents in Paris) as three Edwardian men-about-town want to get away from it all and decide to take a boating holiday on the Thames.

Harris (Jimmy Edwards), J (David Tomlinson), and George (Laurence Harvey) decide to take a holiday boating up the Thames to Oxford. George is happy to spend time away from his desk at the bank, Harris is glad to get away from Mrs.

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***There are some films where, lacking access to one's own personal cinematheque, one has to speculate. For example, some of Fox's fifties films, shot in CinemaScope as all movies at that studio had to be, have never been made available in widescreen formats. Richard Fleischer was one the directors who adapted zestfully to that format, so it's a crying shame that Crack in the Mirror (1960) seems to exist only in blurry, 4:3 TV recordings. His other Orson Welles film, Compulsion (1959), is a cracker.Anatole Litvak's...

Ring Twice for Miranda

Stage II at New York City Center Through April 16, 2017

During Ring Twice for Miranda, while witnessing the frequent long and drawn-out arguments scenes that pepper this play’s landscape, I was reminded of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls. What kept your attention during that film’s interminable arguments among Warhol’s characters was hope of some kind of satisfying resolution. Playwright Alan Hruska is by trade a litigation lawyer, so he knows how to argue. Unfortunately his characters do not share his real life expertise. I kept saying to myself “come on, get on with it!” My impatience had me physically squirming much as I did when, eons ago, I first viewed Chelsea Girls! In addition, specters of the post-apocalyptic Spike Milligan/Richard Lester film collaboration The Bed Sitting Room floated about me. Absent from Miranda’s world was the clear social satire and whimsy which sustained Mr.

Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

Spend “A Weekend with Amy Heckerling” when Johnny Dangerously and Fast Times at Ridgemont High screen this Saturday, while Look Who’s Talking and Clueless show on Sunday. All are on 35mm.

For “Welcome to Metrograph: A-z,” see a print of Philippe Garrel‘s The Inner Scar on Friday and Sunday; André de Toth‘s...

In 1969, Legendary British director Richard Lester (How I Won the War, A Hard Day's Night) joined with former members of The Goon Show to create The Bed Sitting Room, a loosely-linked series of comedy sketches about a post-nuke London.

For whatever reason, the absurdist film - despite a stellar cast of comedy greats - has become lost to the ages while the cultural relevance of of Monty Python continues to loom large. Hopefully that may change as people discover the flick on Blu-ray.

The cast includes Dudley Moore (Arthur), Peter Cook (Bedazzled), Ralph Richardson (The Fallen Idol [Continued ...]...

Meet Rita Tushingham, the cutest comic (and dramatic) actress of swinging London. This '60s masterpiece applies director Richard Lester's talent for comedy to a new kind of quirky, youthful sex farce. Shy boy Michael Crawford takes lessons on how to dominate women from Ray Brooks, when all he has to do to win cute Rita Tushingham is be himself. With a glorious music score by John Barry. The style is everything; the movie was extremely influential. The Knack... and how to get it Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1965 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date January 12, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rita Tushingham, Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, Donal Donnelly, Jane Birkin, Jacqueline Bisset, Charlotte Rampling. Cinematography David Watkin Production Designer Assheton Gorton Film Editor Antony Gibbs Original Music John Barry Written by Charles Wood from the play by Ann Jellicoe Produced by Oscar Lewenstein Directed by Richard Lester

Reviewed...

Read More: 'A Hard Day's Night' Hits Hulu Plus: Here's Why You Need to Watch It American-born Richard Lester became a director in England and went on to make some of the most iconic British films of the sixties. He worked with — and immortalized on film — many of Britain's pop cultural luminaries, from the Beatles to Peter Sellers, Julie Christie and Anthony Hopkins, proving to be a versatile filmmaker able to work in a variety of genres. He was equally comfortable with solid action flicks ("Jaggernaut") and experimental, surreal comedies ("The Bed Sitting Room"). The quirky nature of his films also applies to his career, which was full of unexpected turns, impossible to pigeonhole and all the more interesting to discover for that. With Lester receiving a thorough retrospective at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, this week, here's a rundown of reasons why this distinctive filmmaker is worth a second look.

Richard Lester’s directing career has had a rather tortured epilogue. His last completed film was the dreadful, unloved Return of The Musketeers (1989), during the making of which his long-time friend and troupe-member Roy Kinnear died after a freak accident. To add insult to injury, the Comic-Con crowd has been burning Lester in effigy ever since Richard Donner’s cut of Superman II was released in 2006. Donner had been fired as director of the 1980 sequel half way through filming and Lester was hired to finish the job. Since the release of the Donner cut, expressing a preference for the original, jokier version is rather like suggesting that Cesar Romero was a better Joker than Heath Ledger.

I do wonder sometimes whether the fanboys realise what an important, highly influential and iconoclastic director they’re dismissing when they’re kicking sand into Lester’s face. Martin Scorsese would certainly correct them (sternly,...

Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?

The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.

Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...

My DVD of Just Like a Woman (1967), pre-ordered months earlier and delayed because it was in the same order as The Devils (1971), arrived two days after its director, Robert Fuest, died. Come to think of it, I think Ken Russell was still alive when I ordered The Devils. An obituary double feature.

Above: Career best performance. Career worst hair.

I was very keen to see Just Like a Woman, Fuest’s first feature, even though I wasn’t expecting it to be particularly good. I had an idea it was a swinging London sex comedy, not the kind of material he was associated with. For that, you’d have to look at his art-deco grand guignol comedies The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and its sequel from the following year, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and also at his pop-art masterpiece, The Final Programme (1973). Michael Moorcock, original author of the novel that one derived from,...

Directed by Richard Lester

Written by John Antrobus, Adapted by Charles Wood, based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus

Featuring (in order of height) Rita Tushingham, Dudley Moore, Harry Secombe, Arthur Lowe, Roy Kinnear, Spick Milligan, Ronald Fraser, Jimmy Edwards, Michael Hordern, Peter Cook, Ralph Richardson

If listing cast members by order of height seems rather absurd, welcome to The Bed Sitting Room. That’s how the film opens and it just gets stranger from there. It’s possibly the oddest post apocalyptic tale ever filmed, short of Six String Samurai, though not as much fun.

After the credits roll, the film opens on a BBC anchorman (Thornton), dressed in a suit from mid-chest up, (Thornton) knocking at a makeshift door in the middle of a field of mud. Invited in by the inhabitant, the anchorman squats behind a hollowed out television and announces the third (or...

Directed by Richard Lester

Written by John Antrobus, Adapted by Charles Wood, based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus

Featuring (in order of height) Rita Tushingham, Dudley Moore, Harry Secombe, Arthur Lowe, Roy Kinnear, Spick Milligan, Ronald Fraser, Jimmy Edwards, Michael Hordern, Peter Cook, Ralph Richardson

If listing cast members by order of height seems rather absurd, welcome to The Bed Sitting Room. That’s how the film opens and it just gets stranger from there. It’s possibly the oddest post apocalyptic tale ever filmed, short of Six String Samurai, though not as much fun.

After the credits roll, the film opens on a BBC anchorman (Thornton), dressed in a suit from mid-chest up, (Thornton) knocking at a makeshift door in the middle of a field of mud. Invited in by the inhabitant, the anchorman squats behind a hollowed out television and announces the third (or...

DVD Playhouse—February 2012

By Allen Gardner

To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.

Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...

Brooklyn Close-Up, a monthly series at BAMcinématek, opens tonight with The Warriors (1979) and James Hughes spoke with Walter Hill recently for the Voice. Hill: "[T]his vaguely futuristic, science-fiction movie — why was it so audience-friendly? I don't exactly have the answer. I wish I did." Hughes: "Disturbing to admirers of the film is the specter of a remake, which was at one time attached to director Tony Scott, who planned to move the action to contemporary La. Its future remains unclear. 'I have no idea what the studio plans are,' Hill says. 'They don't call me. The producer tells me they've spent five times as much in developing a sequel as we did to make the movie. I made my version. Somebody else wants to take a shot at it, good luck.'"

On Saturday, Hill will be at MoMA for a screening of another of his landmark works: "His most underappreciated and airtight film,...

Flipside

Not just one film this week, an entire label. Since 2009, the BFI's Flipside offshoot has been digging up some of the lesser known titles of British cinema, some even too obscure to have even the cultiest of cult followings.

Now they are reissuing their first nine releases in dual format editions, containing both DVD and Blu-ray, so now there really is no excuse not to check out this rather wonderful imprint. There's Richard Lester's The Bed Sitting Room, a Spike Milligan-scripted post-apocalyptic comedy that sees Britain populated by a dozen or so oddballs after a nuclear incident. And there's Peter Watkins's stunning Privilege, which, for 1967, was ludicrously ahead of its time in predicting how packaged and cynical pop music was to become. These films were often made outside, or more accurately below, the major studios or even the established indies; director Lindsay Shonteff regularly remortgaged his...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the British Film Institute regarding their popular series of "Flipside" DVD titles:

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'Every time BFI Flipside releases a newly discovered film I always go and get it. It's like finding lost treasure.' Nicolas Winding Refn (Award-winning director of Drive)

'The Flipside is Britain's most far-out DVD label - bold film choices, gorgeous transfers, imaginative extras. Every release a revelation.' Kim Newman

'Flipside provides a window onto a time in British cinema when real film artists stalked our land.' Ben Wheatley (Award-winning director of Kill List)

Launched in May 2009, the BFI’s Flipside label has dedicated itself to unveiling the hidden history of British cinema, drawing upon materials preserved by the BFI National Archive. To date, the series has published over 60 films (features and shorts), and has met with universal acclaim,...

Here are the new MPAA ratings from Bulletin No: 2175.

5 Days Of August Rated R For strong bloody war violence and atrocities, and for pervasive language. Bad Girl Island Rated R For sexual content, language and some violence. The Bed Sitting Room Rated PG-13 For some sexual content and language. Note: Re-rate. Previous "M" Rating, Bulletin No. 47 (9/29/69), Voided. The Best And The Brightest Rated R For pervasive language, sexual content and some nudity. Bless Me Ultima Rated PG-13 For some violence and sexual references. Circumstance Rated R For sexual content, language and some drug use. Cutback Rated PG For some teen drinking, thematic elements and an accident scene. Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame Rated PG-13 For violence, disturbing images and some sexuality. Drive Rated R For strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity. Release Date: September 16, 2011 I Melt With You Rated R For pervasive drug use and language,...

I can get everything Martin Lawrence has done and little Kubrick. The format of the home-cinema revolution seems lost

"Should I see it in the cinema or wait for the DVD?" That fairly loaded question is easily the most popular one people ask me about new films. I used to unequivocally answer that cinema was the best way to see any film, but these days, factoring in the high ticket cost, generally inconsiderate behaviour of audiences and the impressive quality of home cinema setups, I'm more than likely to amend it to "or possibly the Blu-ray".

When Blu-ray Discs (BDs for short) hit the market a few years back, it looked as if the format was intended to replace DVDs. I liked the unknown, frontier-territory aspect of releases, how random the titles were, as if they were at the beginning of the DVD revolution. For instance, you could get almost...

History is littered with European comedies set in the apocalypse. It's kind of early, so I can only really think of the fabulous British films The Bed Sitting Room and The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, but there are a few more.

Now it appears there's a new one coming from Norway called People in the Sun which looks like your typical claustrophbic couples-retreat-gone-wrong mixed with worldwide devestation.

Synopsis:

It's Midsummer Eve, and the sun blazes from a cloudless sky. At the camping ground, vacation season has started. Buses arrive to transport the guests to the great Midsummer party some distance from the camping ground. However, two couples decide to stay behind and enjoy the tranquility and they decide to celebrate Midsummer Eve together.

They have not celebrated long before extraordinary natural phenomena surround them. With Mrs. Sørensen's arrival, the peculiar natural phenomena escalate. But the cabin guests continue partying. As nature steps up its attack,...

This week, dry your eyes, pluck up your courage and let steenbeck take you under her wing to show you the best unlikely guardians in cinema

You're a child, lost or abandoned, and you don't know who to trust to ask for help. Most of us share a memory of that specific moment of panic. And, if not, it's a recurring nightmare for many parents; nobody wants to think about their child lost and alone in the world, forced to rely on the kindness of a stranger to get by. It's a universal anxiety that has long been a rich vein for film-makers the world over.

This week's Clip joint examines the unlikely guardian – the self-proclaimed lone wolf who finds his or herself inexplicably saddled with a helpless dependant. What to do? Abandon the child to the slings and arrows of a cruel and unpredictable world? Or forgo your own...