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If it’s your cup of fine Earl Grey, Rodgers and Hammerstein are on sale today only at Amazon.ca for the bargain rate price of $56 CAD. Even if you’re only interested in two of the included 6 films, at this cost its cheaper than buying them individually. And from what I’ve read and seen the transfers are terrific.
Bond 50: The Complete 23-film Collection is available on Amazon.ca at 70% off:
Bond 50: The Complete 23-Film Collection with Skyfall [Blu-ray] (Bilingual)
This is currently cheaper even than the Amazon.com listing for the same collection:
Bond 50: The Complete 23 Film Collection with Skyfall [Blu-ray]
Imposing cover art for the limited edition set
Werner Herzog, the director I respect and admire more than any other, has been collected in a massive 16 film box set by Shout Factory that includes many of his most renowned films, and just today Amazon.ca has dropped the price on this blu-ray set by a third. Limited to only 5,000 copies, if you have even the slightest interest in this director there may never be a better time to indulge. Certain to cause ontological shock and epidemiological dilemmas of the most absurd degree, and at only $7 a film, this set is the greatest bargain on Amazon presently.
Note, however, that there is also a Region B set with 18 of the director’s films being offered by BFI. Having compared the titles (though not the transfers) between the two, I assure you that the main titles in Herzog’s oeuvre are found in both sets. Whichever set you purchase you’ll be getting an astounding overview of Herzog’s work. Though it’s unfortunate that the BFI has 8 exclusive titles and Shout has 6, and that the only real way to settle the difference is to buy both sets, there is some comfort in knowing that both sets offer a terrific sample.
When the set finally arrives I may just have to go about writing a career length retrospective of this unique and impossibly brilliant man.
I’ll close with a quote I believe succinctly embodies Herzog in all his mystery and startling contradictions, offered in Les Blank’s painful Burden of Dreams (sadly offered only on the BFI set, though available also in a fantastic deluxe DVD edition from Criterion):
“Kinski says [the jungle] is full of erotic elements. It’s not so much erotic, but full of obscenity. Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotic here. I see fornication and asphyxiation and choking, fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course there’s a lot of misery, but it’s the same misery that’s all around us. The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing; they just screech in pain. Taking a close look at what’s around us, there is some sort of harmony. It’s the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It’s not that I hate it. I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.”
Here’s the link to that Shout deal:
Herzog: The Collection [Blu-ray]
NOTE: This link is for the Canadian version of the Amazon site. I can’t be certain what the final price might be after import duties, but consider in your calculations that the price for the set on Amazon.com is $40 USD more.
Today only, Amazon.com is offering The Godfather Collection (The Coppola Restoration) on Blu-ray for $16.99. If you haven’t bought it before, you have no excuse now. Note also that the individual releases do not include the hours of special features available exclusively in this collection.
Just spotted this on Amazon. Fifteen of Hitchcock’s most notorious films (although without Notorious), at a rate of about $8.50 a movie. Pretend it’s like pre-purchasing fifteen movie nights in advance.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Limited Edition)
Hey kids, do you love candy? Yes? Well look kids, here’s FAKE CANDY!
Roald Dahl may have famously hated the film, and it may have died a quick death at the box office when it was first released in 1971, but thanks in no small part to frequent TV airings throughout the 80s and 90s many have grown to savour and admire the unique and often surreal charms of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
As a personal anecdote, I recall seeing the film on cable when I was 8, wondering why four grown-ups were all sleeping in the same bed and craving chocolate all the while.
This week Amazon has the 40th Anniversary edition of the film on sale at $24.99 (the lowest this box set has ever gone). Aside from scented pencils (“what will they think up next?”), the set includes, more interestingly, a 144 page film book apparently written by the director himself and 14 pages of production correspondence (it’s always fascinating to read studio executives drop in words like gobstopper and slughorn without a whiff of diffidence).
Check the set out on Amazon:
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
You can read an interesting overview of Dahl’s frustrations with this movie over at BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4660873.stm
For that one person who hasn’t already purchased every single Harry Potter title at least twice, this deal might be for you:
The Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection is on sale for $155 today as part of Amazon’s Gold Box sale (Canadian residents take note of the dollar exchange…). Because I do enjoy a good savings, I hasten to remind readers the rather dispensable detail that today’s deal trims 70% off the regular price (consider it inordinate overselling of a gratuitous price). The box itself is a marvel, crafted I suspect by a prop master from the films, and is crammed full of goodies, like a cloth bound map of Hogwarts and a 48-page catalogue of the film props. At that price, I could imagine people purchasing it for the included Horcrux locket alone. As for the films, they’re all there, even the 3D copies of the last two films (book 7). and the set contains every bonus feature yet produced for the Harry Potter universe and then some (though one heartily suspects Warner Brothers to keep trotting out Harry as its Trojan pony boy for some time).
Still not swayed? Might I add the dreary prospect of a certain festive holiday looming on the horizon?
Powell and Pressburger‘s “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”, just one of the titles offered
Over 50% off select Criterion titles today only!
I’ve been eyeing Kazan’s On the Waterfront and Powell and Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (I have the old DVD but have seen nothing but positives about the new transfer), and there’s never been a better time to pick up Terrence Malick‘s first feature, 1973’s Badlands, or the sublime antiphony to Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan: The Thin Red Line.
Unfortunately Amazon.ca is not duplicating the sale (per usual), but at these prices importing is still a deal.
Included below is a fascinating video with Martin Scorsese giving a brief glimpse of the three years of work he and the Academy Film Archive put into restoring The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, just one of the terrific supplements on the Criterion disc:
What will you get?
Alien (Photo credit: ezhikoff)
Great deal today at Amazon.com: Alien Anthology on Blu-ray for only $20. Two of the greatest films of all time (no matter which genre), in stunning, remastered picture quality, with about 10 hours of video features per film (including the long awaited Burke’s demise scene!), two more loaded bonus discs containing everything from the previous DVDs and Laserdiscs, this is one for any film collection. It even comes with two other Alien films as an added bonus.
For that one person who doesn’t already own this thing: “Come on, that’s a second chance kiddo!”
Here’s the link:
digital didascalia 