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Kino Lorber Announces its February Home Video Releases
Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Restored Editions of Fritz Lang's Spies and Woman in the Moon, Eric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach, New Documentaries including Songs from the North and Disaster Playground, and New Independent Films including A Better You and Dirty Old Town
Coming to home video from Kino Lorber in February 2016
Coming to home video from Kino Lorber in February 2016
The Southerner (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Street Date: February 9, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 738329203016
BD SRP $29.95
BD UPC 738329203023
Drama/1945/NR/92 minutes/English
Director Jean Renoir
Synopsis: After achieving worldwide acclaim for such films as La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game, French filmmaker Jean Renoir briefly worked in the United States, where he wrote and directed this adaptation of George Sessions Perry's novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand. The story follows the struggles of an idealistic farmer (Zachary Scott) trying to raise a family and a crop of cotton in the face of extraordinary challenges, both natural and societal.
Visually influenced by the documentary work of Pare Lorentz and Robert Flaherty, and assisted in the dialogue-writing by William Faulkner, Paris-born Renoir crafted a portrait of rural life that is honest, unsentimental, and filled with the emotional subtleties for which the director is best remembered. The Southerner earned three Academy Award nominations (Best Director, Original Music Score, and Sound). This Kino Classics edition was mastered in HD from a 35mm restoration performed by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Special Features: "A Salute to France" (1944, 35 min., dir: Jean Renoir and Garson Kanin), "The River" (1938, 31 min., dir: Pare Lorentz)
A Better You (Kino Lorber, DVD)
Street Date: February 9, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 738329203375
Comedy/2014/NR/89 min/English
Director Matt Walsh
Synopsis: A Better You is an uproarious improvised comedy in the tradition of Best in Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Directed by and co-starring Matt Walsh (co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, co-star of Veep), the film delves into the strange life of hypnotherapist Dr. Ron Knight (Brian Huskey, Neighbors).
Dr. Ron Knight is a Los Angeles hypnotherapist whose "411 to Your Dreams" program is a great success; his personal life on the other hand is a disaster. The marriage counseling with his wife Margo (Morgan Walsh) has gone south, after he butts heads with a real doctor, Dr. Milner (Joe Lo Truglio, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Dr. Ron simply won't admit he's in the throes of a midlife crisis.
Instead he distracts himself as he ministers to the needs of his growing queue of oddball patients (Nick Kroll, Kroll Show, Natasha Leggero, Another Period, Ron Huebel, Transparent), wrestles with his unwanted attraction to his client Lindsay (Erinn Hayes, Children's Hospital), and his snarky neighbor Joel (Andrew Daly, Review) is leading a campaign to ban his patients from the block. Dr. Ron looks for salvation from a reluctant day laborer (Horatio Sanz, SNL), but discovers that he will need much more to become "A Better You."
A Better You is a hilarious satire of the middle class, middle aged, and lower than middle intellect.
Special Features: Life Hacks, Trailer
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $29.95
DVD UPC 738329202521
Documentary/2014/NR/72 min/Korean & English
Director Soon-Mi Yoo
Synopsis: SONGS FROM THE NORTH is an essay film which offers an unique look at the enigma of North Korea, a country typically seen through the distorted lens of jingoistic propaganda and derisive satire. Interweaving footage from director Soon-Mi Yoo's three visits to North Korea together with songs, spectacle, popular cinema and archival footage, SONGS FROM THE NORTH tries to understand the psychology and popular imagery of the North Korean people. To look closely and objectively at North Korea, a country that challenges our most fundamental assumptions about the human condition, is ultimately to question the meaning of freedom, love and patriotism. - Haden Guest
Special Features: Two Short Films by Soon-Mi Yoo: Dangerous Supplement (14 mins., 2006, English) and Ssitkim: Talking to the Dead (35 mins., 2004, English, Korean and Vietnamese with English subtitles).
Dirty Old Town (DVD)
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 850604004009
Drama/2012/NR/77 min/English
Director Jenner Furst, Daniel Levin
Synopsis: The Bowery becomes a nexus of shattered dreams when a merchant has 72 hours to pay his rent. Facing extinction, his ramshackle tent of antiques lures a troop of misfits who form a tableaux full of carnival pageantry, white lies and victimless crime in a fleeting glimpse of Downtown New York.
Disaster Playground (Kino Lorber, DVD)
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 738329203382
Documentary/2014/NR/89 min/English
Director Nelly Ben Hayoun
Synopsis: Who are the people safeguarding the planet from asteroid destruction? What will happen when the Earth is finally threatened and how long will we have to save the human race? Disaster Playground in- vestigates future outer space catastrophes and the procedures to manage and assess the risks. The film follows the scientists planning and monitoring the deflection of hazardous Near Earth Objects and the real-life procedures in place in the event of an asteroid collision with the earth. Follow the chain of command that runs from the SETI Institute and NASA to the White House and United Nations and meet the people who are responsible for protecting us from a potentially devastating asteroid impact.
Special Features: Deleted Scenes, Trailer
Pauline at the Beach (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $19.95
DVD UPC 738329193522
BD SRP $29.95
BD UPC 738329193621
Comedy, Drama, Romance/1984/NR/94 min/French
Director Eric Rohmer
Synopsis: Come take a leisurely, relaxing trip to the sun-soaked, sandy beaches of Brittany in this "bewitchingly funny yet profoundly wise comedy" (Vogue) from the brilliant French writer/director Eric Rohmer (My Night at Maud's). Winner for Best Direction at the Berlin Film Festival in 1983, Pauline at the Beach is "delightful...a film of summer sunlight, bare skin and escalating amorous misunderstandings" (Newsweek).
Young and beautiful Pauline (Amanda Langlet) is spending the end of the summer with her older and sexually alluring cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle) on the stunning Atlantic coast of France. And it isn't long before three eligible men attempt to entice them both into romance. But head games, deceit and lies soon interfere with the amorous mood, threatening to spoil this idyllic playground...and Pauline's innocent views of love.
Special Features: Booklet essay by Michelle Orange, Trailer, Interview with Eric Rohmer
Spies (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 738329203320
BD SRP $29.95
BD UPC 738329203337
Thriller/1929/NR/150 min/German
Director Fritz Lang
Synopsis: Having defined the espionage genre with Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Fritz Lang returned to the genre with this surprisingly fast-paced and remarkably grim thriller. Rudolf Kleine-Rogge stars as Haghi, the head of an elaborate criminal empire, and Willy Fritsch is the undercover agent assigned to topple the diabolical king from his throne. Filled with the sexual intrigue and high-tech gadgetry that continue to define the genre, Spies remains remarkably contemporary, more than 85 years after its original release.
Special Features: 2K Digital Restoration by the F.W. Murnau Stiftung, Piano score by Neil Brand (2.0 Stereo), "Spies: A Small Film With Lots of Action" (68 Min.), Original theatrical trailer (5 min.)
Woman in the Moon (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)
Street Date: February 23, 2016
DVD SRP $24.95
DVD UPC 738329203351
BD SRP $29.95
BD UPC 738329203368
Science Fiction/1929/NR/169 min/German
Director Fritz Lang
Synopsis: Two years after revolutionizing the science fiction film with his epicMetropolis, director Fritz Lang revisited the genre with an ambitious spectacle that dramatizes the first lunar expedition. Rather than a flight of pure fantasy, Lang, screenwriter Thea von Harbou and a group of technical consultants conceived a modernized "Trip to the Moon" grounded in state-of-the-art astrophysics. Spiced with romance and espionage (including a network of diabolical super-spies straight out of Lang's Mabuse films), Woman in the Moon was one of the most influential science fiction films of its era.
Special Features: 2K Digital Restoration by the F.W. Murnau Stiftung, Piano score by Javier Pérez de Azpeitia (2.0 Stereo), "Woman in the Moon: The First Scientific Science Fiction Film" (14 Min.)
