Kino Lorber is coming for our wallets once again with a great lineup of June Blu-ray releases. Earlier this week saw the first of those releases with Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise and The Man in the Glass Booth. I think now with the release of 1492 only two theatrical features from Scott are awaiting Blu-ray releases — A Good Year and Someone to Watch Over Me — which is exciting. Give me all the Scott Blus!
Outside of these two releases, Kino Lorber has a lot more in store later this month including three of the later Pink Panther movies and Hal Ashby’s underappreciated 8 Million Ways to Die. June is going to be a very good month.
The Man in the Glass Booth
Dir. Arthur Hiller
Release Date: Out Now!
Synopsis:
Millionaire Jewish entrepreneur Arthur Goldman (Maximilian Schell) benevolently rules his financial empire from a penthouse apartment overlooking Manhattan. Seemingly at the edge of sanity, Goldman holds forth on everything from Papal edicts to ex-wives, from baseball to his family’s massacre in a Nazi concentration camp. When Goldman remarks on a blue Mercedes continuously parked outside his building, Goldman’s captive audience of assistant (Lawrence Pressman) and chauffeur (Henry Brown) dismiss their boss’ anxiety as encroaching paranoia. But each of Goldman’s passionate, seemingly capricious ravings are transformed into a shocking, inadvertent deposition when Israeli agents capture Goldman and put him on trial as Adolph Dorf, the commandant of the concentration camp where Goldman’s family was supposedly exterminated. In a trial scene of unrelenting intensity, Schell crafts what The Detroit Free Press called “a white-hot lead performance,” mutating from eccentric Goldman to sociopathic Dorf and beyond.
1492: Conquest of Paradise
Dir. Ridley Scott
Release Date: Out Now!
Synopsis:
In the late fifteenth century, Christopher Columbus persuades the Queen of Spain to fund his latest expedition to the East by searching out new trade routes on the way. Inadvertently arriving in the Americas, Columbus attempts to civilize the natives and live in harmony with them, but his efforts are sabotaged by a crew intent on plundering all the New World has to offer.
Kill, Baby, Kill!
Dir. Mario Bava
Release Date: 6/13/2017
Synopsis:
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Dr. Eswai is called by Inspector Kruger to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died under suspicious circumstances. Despite help from Ruth, the village witch, Kruger is killed and it is revealed that the dead woman, as well as other villagers, have been killed by the ghost of Melissa, a young girl who, fed by the hatred of her grieving mother, Baroness Graps, exacts her revenge on them. Dr. Eswai, along with Monica, a local nurse, are lured into a fateful confrontation at the Villa Graps…
Thunderbirds Are Go/Thunderbird 6
Dir. David Lane
Release Date: 6/20/2017
Synopsis:
Thunderbirds Are Go: Zero-X, a manned exploration mission crashes during lift-off on its maiden flight. Two years later an investigative committee finally concludes sabotage, and decides to call on the services of International Rescue to oversee security at the impending second launch. The second Zero-X successfully reaches its destination, but encounters unexpected hazards, ultimately leading to another call for assistance on its return to Earth. International Rescue respond, and once again Thunderbirds are GO! Thunderbird 6: The International Rescue team is faced with one of its toughest challenges yet, as the revolutionary lighter-than-air craft Skyship One is hijacked while on her maiden voyage around the world. Against backdrops including the Statue of Liberty and the Sphinx, Lady Penelope, Parker, Alan and Tin-Tin fight the hijackers from on-board, while the rest of the team tries to stop the airship crashing into a missile silo.
8 Million Ways to Die
Dir. Hal Ashby
Release Date: 6/20/2017
Synopsis:
Scudder is a detective with the Sheriff’s Department who is forced to shoot a violent suspect during a narcotics raid. The ensuing psychological aftermath of this shooting worsens his drinking problem and this alcoholism causes him to lose his job, as well as his marriage. During his recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous, he meets a mysterious stranger who draws him back into a world of vice. In trying to help this beautiful woman, he must enter a crime-world of prostitution and drugs to solve a murder, while resisting the temptation to return to his alcohol abuse.
Hell in the Pacific
Dir. John Boorman
Release Date: 6/27/2017
Synopsis:
During World War II, a shot-down American pilot and a marooned Japanese navy captain find themselves stranded on the same small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. Following war logic, each time the crafty Japanese devises something useful, he guards it to deny its use to the Yank, who then steals it, its proceeds or the idea and/or ruins it. Yet each gets his chance to kill and/or capture the other, but neither pushes this to the end. After a while of this pointless pestering, they end up joining forces to build and man a raft…
Inspector Clouseau
Dir. Bud Yorkin
Release Date: 6/27/2017
Synopsis:
Detective Inspector is borrowed from the Surete on special assignment for Scotland Yard in hopes that a fresh outlook will help the government recover the loot from the Great Train Robbery, which is being used to underwrite a new crime wave. What they don’t count on, however, is having more than one Closeeau on the job.Curse of the Pink Panther
Dir. Blake Edwards
Release Date: 6/27/2017
Synopsis:
With Clouseau still missing, the French president orders Clouseau’s archrival – the dangerously deranged Dreyfus – to find him. Having no such intentions, Dreyfus ingeniously hires the world’s worst detective, New York Police Department’s not-so-finest Clifton Sleigh, to ensure that Clouseau is never located. But it’s beginning to look like his foolproof plan could end up making him look like the fool!
Son of the Pink Panther
Dir. Blake Edwards
Release Date: 6/27/2017
Synopsis:
An Arabian princess is kidnapped, and it’s up to Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) to save her. Fortunately, there’s no Clouseau around to plague him this time! But when a klutzy local cop with the unfortunate name of Jacques (Roberto Benigni) is assigned to help him, he manages to run Dreyfus over and blow him up – all on his first day on the job. Soon Dreyfus begins to fear that if Clouseau has a long-lost son, he would be a lot like this.
