New on Blu-ray: COUP DE TORCHON / CLEAN SLATE (1981) Starring Philippe Noiret & Isabelle Huppert - Criterion Collection

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Product Description: With this existential crime thriller, legend of French cinema Bertrand Tavernier transforms Jim Thompson’s hard-boiled novel Pop. 1280 into a darkly comic, philosophically provocative exploration of the brutality and absurdity of colonialism. Moving the story’s setting from the American South to 1930s French West Africa, Coup de torchon features a frighteningly enigmatic performance from Philippe Noiret as a police chief whose seeming ineptitude masks a cold-blooded pursuit of revenge and control that draws his opportunistic mistress (a fiery Isabelle Huppert) into an escalating spiral of violence. With each chilling revelation, Tavernier plunges us ever deeper into an abyss of madness and corruption, laying bare the decaying soul of empire.

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New on Blu-ray: MURPHY'S WAR (1971) Starring Peter O'Toole - Arrow Limited Edition

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Product Description: WORLD WAR TWO IS ENDING, WORLD WAR MURPHY HAS JUST BEGUN…

Iconic actor Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Stunt Man) joins forces with director Peter Yates (Bullit, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) in this blisteringly acerbic, wildly entertaining film about the absurdity of war.

During the last days of WWII, the merchant ship ‘Mount Kyle’ is sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Venezuela and the sailors machine-gunned in the water. Only Murphy (O’Toole) survives, making his way to shore where he is nursed to health by Dr. Hayden (Sian Phillips), a pacifist Quaker who runs a missionary settlement near the mouth of the Orinoco River. When Murphy discovers that the U-boat is now hiding further up the river using the jungle for cover, he becomes obsessed with retribution and begins a one man war to sink the German U-boat, no matter the cost.

With a script by Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, The Poseidon Adventure), cinematography by the legendary Douglas Slocombe (The Italian Job, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and a supporting cast that includes Philippe Noiret (La Grande Bouffe, Cinema Paradiso) and Horst Janson (Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Shout at the Devil), Murphy’s War is an underseen gem.

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New on Blu-ray: THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU (1969) Starring Oliver Reed & Diana Rigg

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Product Description: Anarchy reigns as Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed go head to head in a blackly comic caper that plays out against the colorful backdrop of Europe on the cusp of World War One.

London, 1908. When feisty journalist and women’s rights campaigner Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) uncovers the headquarters of the Assassination Bureau Limited, a clandestine enterprise that has existed for decades by bumping off the rich and powerful – but only if there’s a good moral reason for it – she sets on a path of putting an end to its activities. Bankrolled by her press baron boss, Lord Bostwick (Telly Savalas), she commissions the organisation to undertake the assassination of its very own chairman, Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed). Being the gentleman that he is, Dragomiloff responds to the assignment with glee, challenging his fellow board members to complete the contract. Only they’ll have to catch him first...

The Assassination Bureau is based on an unfinished novel by Jack London published posthumously in 1963. Shot in glorious Technicolor by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A Space Odyssey), this penultimate work from the esteemed directing-producing team of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph (Sapphire, Victim) is a rip-roaring slice of Edwardian-set action-adventure fashioned with the same Swinging-Sixties blend of irony, stylishness and humor as The Avengers and the James Bond films.

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New on Blu-ray: PLAYING WITH FIRE (1975) Starring Philippe Noiret, Anicee Alvina, Jean-Louis Trintignant & Sylvia Kristel

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Product Description: Grossly affluent banker Georges de Saxe (Philippe Noiret) keeps his daughter, Carolina (Anicée Alvina), hidden in a mysterious house of perversion after a kidnapping attempt snags a young woman who resembles her. Carolina soon finds herself trapped in a deliberately confused existence in the house of sexual exploitation and imprisonment. At the heart of it all seems to be an enigmatic man named Franz (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who will either be Carolina's killer or savior. Alain Robbe-Grillet's surreal, absurdist sado-masochistic drama Playing with Fire (Le jeu ave le feu) was a commercial success due to to the appearance of Emmanuelle star Sylvia Kristel - in one of her most challenging roles.

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DVD & Blu-ray: THE CLOCKMAKER OF ST. PAUL (1974) Starring Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort

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Product Description: The Clockmaker of St. Paul is the debut feature of legendary director Bertrand Tavernier (A Sunday in the Country, Journeys Through French Cinema). Adapted from Georges Simenon’s novel The Watchmaker of Everton (1954), it stars Philippe Noiret (Cinema Paradiso) as the unassuming title character, a man who begins to reexamine his life when his son is wanted for murder. Asked for help by the police inspector (Jean Rochefort, Man on the Train), he realizes how little he knew about his son, and begins to seek out the truth hidden behind his family’s walls. It’s “a work of assurance and ease” (New York Times) that was cowritten by the famed duo of Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost (Forbidden Games).

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DVD, Blu-ray & 4K: CINEMA PARADISO (1988) - Special Edition

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Product Description: A winner of awards across the world including Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 5 BAFTA Awards including Best Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and many more. Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier.

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