Arrow Video is thrilled to announce the UK Blu-ray and DVD release of Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs, which arrives in the UK on 27th October. This new deluxe release will include both Rabid Dogs, Bava’s original version posthumously completed from his notes and Kidnapped, the re-edited, re-dubbed and re-scored version, supervised by Bava’s son and assistant director Lamberto Bava, and producer Alfredo Leone

Mario Bava’s reputation as a filmmaker rests chiefly on his contribution to horror, particularly his baroque and beautiful Gothic chillers of the 1960s. All the more surprising that in the mid-1970s he should turn to the crime genre and create Cani arrabbiati (aka Rabid Dogs), an abrasive kidnap psychodrama that ranks alongside anything done by the better-known ‘tough guy’ directors of the day.

Rabid Dogs ought to have been a fresh start for Mario Bava. The confidence, the inescapable tension, the cynical buzz of the action and dialogue, all reveal a director who was ready to face new challenges. Sadly, as others have described elsewhere in more detail, the film was abandoned after shooting was almost complete: producer Roberto Loyola went bankrupt, owing to poor business practices on his other projects, and the existing footage was impounded. Bava, who died in 1980, went to the grave with the notion that Rabid Dogs was a failed project, a road to nowhere, a film no one would ever see. Fortunately, we now have this fresh, powerful and nerve-shredding film to admire on Blu-ray, which should help ensure that its good reputation will continue to grow as new generations are exposed to this most vivid and contemporary of Bava’s great works.

Together with both versions of the film, this new disc will also feature a newly translated English subtitled track, alongside an audio commentary with Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas. The disc will also feature the featurette End of the Road: Making Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped which features Lamberto Bava, Alfredo Leone and star Lea Lander discussing the movie, alongside an interview with Umberto Lenzi, the alternate ‘Semaforo Rosso’ opening title sequence and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Stephen Thrower, Peter Blumenstock on the history of the film’s first distribution and more.

Synopsis

Following difficulties in his career Mario Bava happened across an idea that would enable him to compete with the younger directors lighting up the Italian box office such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino.

Rabid Dogs begins as $70,000 of wages are being transferred when the Ajaccio gang hit. With a hail of bullets in a quick raid they speed off in their waiting getaway car. Tough, violent and realistic, Bava’s film ramps up the tension and doesn’t stop as hostages are added and the film builds to its dizzying finale.

Unfolding in real time, a rare device seen only in earlier films such as High Noon and 12 Angry Men yet totally unheard of in Italian cinema at the time, Rabid Dogs is a singular film in Bava’s filmography and one of the greatest crime films of the period.

Special Features

· High Definition (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of two versions of the film; ‘Rabid Dogs’ – Bava’s original version posthumously completed from his notes & ‘Kidnapped’ – the re-edited, re-dubbed and re-scored version, supervised by Bava’s son and assistant director Lamberto Bava, and producer Alfredo Leone

· Original Italian mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)

· Newly translated English subtitles

· Audio commentary with Bava biographer Tim Lucas

· End of the Road: Making Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped – Featuring Lamberto Bava, Alfredo Leone and star Lea Lander

· Bava and Eurocrime – An interview with Umberto Lenzi

· Alternate ‘Semaforo Rosso’ opening title sequence

· Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Stephen Thrower, Peter Blumenstock on the history of the film’s first distribution and more!

Download the song from underneath link..

The clip is directed by Steven Lake // From the EP 'Something Missing' mixed by Hunck & Jonathan Boulet

soundcloud.com/hunck/something-missing

Scarlett Johansson has been offered the lead role in the live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow's classic sci-fi manga series Ghost in the Shell. The project has been long in the making but now seems to have gathered steam with the arrival of director Rupert Sanders and, if the casting of Johansson is confirmed, production could begin as early as next year.

The iconic manga series, published between 1989 and 1991, follows the adventures of Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg and member of the counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, who is on the trail of a cyber-criminal known as The Puppeteer. Set in 2029, the manga series features humans whose brains have been enhanced by the addition of cybernetic parts. Motoko herself is sporting a full-body prosthesis and a 'cyberbrain'. But, just as our computers nowadays, they became vulnerable to hackers, who can alter their memory or take over their senses. The Puppeteer is considered responsible for implanting false memories into the cyberbrains of unsuspecting individuals.

The manga series has been successfully adapted by filmmaker Mamoru Oshii, who released Ghost in the Shell in 1995 and Ghost in the Shell 2 in 2004. Similarly, the manga novels have inspired video games and at least one animated series. This live-action adaptation, however, will mark a return to Shirow's popular manga novels.

Playing out-of-this-world characters seems to have become somewhat of a specialty for Scarlett Johansson. Her most recent films have seen the actress portray a sentient OS in Spike Jonze's Her (2013), a man-eating alien in Jonathan Glazer's thought-provoking, visually impressive experiment Under the Skin (2013) and a superhuman in Luc Besson's Lucy (2014). So, those familiar with Scarlett Johansson's latest projects will surely find that the role of a cyborg fits her like a glove.

This would-be sci-fi blockbuster is due to be a thriller filmed in 3D under the direction of British filmmaker Rupert Sanders, man behind Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). This is the first time Shirow's seminal manga will be given a Made in Hollywood remake.

As often happens in Tinseltown, the makers of Ghost in the Shell initially had someone else in mind for the role of Motoko Kusanagi. Margot Robbie, who recently signed up for a role in DC's superhero feature Suicide Squad had been attached to the project since September but pulled out, leaving the role up for grabs. It was reported that DreamWorks offered Johansson $10m for the role and the chance to become a common fixture on the Comic-Con circuit.

Source: TV Muse

On 19th November Universal will release the first season by Ray Donovan on both DVD and Blu-ray.

Creator: Ann Biderman

Stars: Liev Schreiber, Paula Malcomson, Eddie Marsan

Ray Donovan, a professional "fixer" for the rich and famous in LA, can make anyone's problems disappear except those created by his own family

Official "Blood-Diamond"-Video, taken from the 2014 album "BLOOD".

Filmed by The Silent View.

Cut and editing by Peter Spilles.